SAMOS, Greece: Greece on Monday began moving asylum seekers to the first of several new EU-funded “closed” camps on its islands, despite activists complaining that controls on access are too harsh.
A double barbed-wire fence surrounds the camp on Samos island, a facility for 3,000 people that also has surveillance cameras, X-ray scanners and magnetic doors.
During the migrant crisis in 2015 and 2016, the previous camp on Samos sheltered nearly 7,000 asylum seekers despite being built to take just 680, and campaigners had long denounced conditions as deplorable.
“Today is a historic day... a day of joy for us,” Manos Logothetis of the Greek migration ministry told state TV ERT on Samos.
Logothetis told AFP that out of some 400 people at the current Vathy camp at Samos, 270 have said they want to move to the new Zervou facility.
At the entrance of the new camp, police lined up the residents, checking them for weapons or dangerous objects, an AFP reporter said. Asylum personnel handed out clean bedsheets and showed the migrants how to use the gate’s magnetic entry cards.
Some of the asylum seekers carried boxes containing stray cats from the old camp, where rats were an ever-present menace.
“People are just angry for what will happen in the new camp, they think that it’s prison, but I don’t think it,” said Didier Tcakonmer, a 28-year-old Cameroonian who has spent more than two years in Samos.
“It will be better than here, no mosquitos, no rats.”
The ministry is prepared to register up to 200 people today and the remainder on Tuesday, Logothetis said.
The Samos camp, which will serve as a pilot for the other so-called closed and controlled access facilities, can only be entered via fingerprint scans and electronic badges.
Gates will remain closed at night and disciplinary measures await those who return after 8:00 pm.
Late on Sunday, a fire broke out in an abandoned part of the Vathy camp — though the ministry said nobody was hurt.
Logothetis told ERT it was common for asylum seekers to sort through their belongings ahead of a camp move and burn anything they did not intend to bring with them.
According to the ministry, all the asylum seekers had been evacuated on Sunday to an empty space near the entrance of the camp as firefighters tackled the blaze.
The new Samos facility is the first of several such camps on five Greek islands created with EU funds.
The EU has committed 276 million euros ($326 million) for the new camps on Greece’s five Aegean islands — Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Leros and Kos — that receive most of the migrant arrivals by sea from neighboring Turkey.
The Leros and Kos camps will open in November, the government said Monday.
Logothetis said the new restricted-access Samos camp offers “safety and humanitarian values,” but rights groups say the measures are too restrictive.
The Samos community, which had for years demanded the relocation of all the migrants to mainland Greece and Europe, has also opposed the construction of the new Zervou camp.
On the nearby island of Lesbos, the similarly overcrowded camp of Moria was destroyed in two fires that left 13,000 without shelter for several days.
Greece begins moving migrants to new ‘closed’ camp
https://arab.news/v5dsr
Greece begins moving migrants to new ‘closed’ camp
- The Samos camp, which will serve as a pilot for the other so-called closed and controlled access facilities, can only be entered via fingerprint scans and electronic badges
- The EU has committed €276 million for the new camps on Greece’s five Aegean islands — Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Leros and Kos — that receive most of the migrant arrivals
Indian private university opens first international campus in Dubai
- Indian FM inaugurated the Dubai campus of Symbiosis International University on Thursday
- Under national education policy, New Delhi wants to internationalize Indian education system
New Delhi: A private Indian university has opened its first international campus in Dubai this week, marking a growing education cooperation between New Delhi and Abu Dhabi.
Symbiosis International University is a private higher education institution based in the western Indian city of Pune with at least five other campuses operating across the country, offering undergraduate, postgraduate and doctorate-level programs.
It is considered one of the top private business schools in the South Asian country, ranking 13th in management in the Indian Ministry of Education’s National Institutional Ranking Framework.
SIU’s Dubai campus, which will offer management, technology and media and communications courses, was officially inaugurated on Thursday by Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar and Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak, the UAE minister of tolerance and coexistence.
“I am sure that this campus will foster greater collaboration and research linkages between scholars of India and UAE, for mutual prosperity and global good,” Jaishankar said during the ceremony.
“(The) ceremony is not just an inauguration of a new campus; it is a celebration of the growing educational cooperation between our two countries. Right now, Indian curriculum and learning is being imparted through more than 100 International Indian Schools in UAE, benefitting more than 300,000 students.”
Under India’s National Education Policy 2020, New Delhi aims to internationalize the Indian education system, including by establishing campuses abroad.
Another top Indian school, the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi, began its first undergraduate courses in September, after starting its teaching program in January with a master’s course in energy transition and sustainability.
Initially launched in September with more than 100 students, the SIU Dubai Campus is the first Indian university in Dubai to start operations with full accreditation and licensing from the UAE’s top education authorities, including the Ministry of Education.
“A university setting up a campus abroad is not just a bold step, but a concrete commitment to the goal of globalizing India. They certainly render an educational service, but even more, connect us to the world by strengthening our living bridges,” Jaishankar added as he addressed the students.
Dr. Vidya Yeravdekar, pro-chancellor of Symbiosis International University, said that the school’s establishment in Dubai was in line with the UAE’s education goals.
“Internationalization is central to the UAE’s educational vision,” Yeravdekar said on Friday.
“By opening our campus in Dubai, we are creating a gateway for students from around the world to engage in a truly global academic experience, where they can benefit from international faculty, real-world industry collaborations, and a curriculum that meets the needs of a changing world.”
Russia captures two villages in eastern Ukraine, defense ministry says, according to agencies
MOSCOW: Russian forces have captured the villages of Makarivka and Leninskoye in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Russian news agencies reported on Saturday, citing the Russian Defense Ministry.
UN climate chief asks G20 leaders for boost as finance talks lag
- Negotiators at the COP29 conference in Baku struggle in their negotiations for a deal intended to scale up money to address the worsening impacts of global warming
BAKU: The UN’s climate chief called on leaders of the world’s biggest economies on Saturday to send a signal of support for global climate finance efforts when they meet in Rio de Janeiro next week. The plea, made in a letter to G20 leaders from UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, comes as negotiators at the COP29 conference in Baku struggle in their negotiations for a deal intended to scale up money to address the worsening impacts of global warming.
“Next week’s summit must send crystal clear global signals,” Stiell said in the letter.
He said the signal should support an increase in grants and loans, along with debt relief, so vulnerable countries “are not hamstrung by debt servicing costs that make bolder climate actions all but impossible.”
Business leaders echoed Stiell’s plea, saying they were concerned about the “lack of progress and focus in Baku.”
“We call on governments, led by the G20, to meet the moment and deliver the policies for an accelerated shift from fossil fuels to a clean energy future, to unlock the essential private sector investment needed,” said a coalition of business groups, including the We Mean Business Coalition, United Nations Global Compact and the Brazilian Council for Sustainable Development, in a separate letter.
Success at this year’s UN climate summit hinges on whether countries can agree on a new finance target for richer countries, development lenders and the private sector to deliver each year. Developing countries need at least $1 trillion annually by the end of the decade to cope with climate change, economists told the UN talks.
But negotiators have made slow progress midway through the two-week conference. A draft text of the deal, which earlier this week was 33-pages long and comprised of dozens of wide-ranging options, had been pared down to 25 pages as of Saturday.
Sweden’s climate envoy, Mattias Frumerie, said the finance negotiations had not yet cracked the toughest issues: how big the target should be, or which countries should pay.
“The divisions we saw coming into the meeting are still there, which leaves quite a lot of work for ministers next week,” he said.
European negotiators have said large oil-producing nations including Saudi Arabia are also blocking discussions on how to take forward last year’s COP28 summit deal to transition the world away from fossil fuels.
Saudi Arabia’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Progress on this issue has been dire so far, one European negotiator said.
Uganda’s energy minister, Ruth Nankabirwa, said her country’s priority was to leave COP29 with a deal on affordable financing for clean energy projects.
“When you look around and you don’t have the money, then we keep wondering whether we will ever walk the journey of a real energy transition,” she said.
Protesters’ biggest day expected at UN climate talks, where progress is slow
- Several experts have said $1 trillion a year or more is needed both to compensate for such damages and to pay for a clean-energy transition that most countries can’t afford on their own
BAKU: The United Nations climate talks neared the end of their first week on Saturday with negotiators still at work on how much wealthier nations will pay for developing countries to adapt to planetary warming. Meanwhile, activists planned actions on what is traditionally their biggest protest day during the two-week talks.
The demonstration in Baku, Azerbaijan is expected to be echoed at sites around the world in a global “day of action” for climate justice that’s become an annual event.
Negotiators at COP29, as the talks are known, will return to a hoped-for deal that might be worth hundreds of billions of dollars to poorer nations. Many are in the Global South and already suffering the costly impacts of weather disasters fueled by climate change. Several experts have said $1 trillion a year or more is needed both to compensate for such damages and to pay for a clean-energy transition that most countries can’t afford on their own.
Panama environment minister Juan Carlos Navarro told The Associated Press he is “not encouraged” by what he’s seeing at COP29 so far.
“What I see is a lot of talk and very little action,” he said, noting that Panama is among the group of countries least responsible for warming emissions but most vulnerable to the damage caused by climate change-fueled disasters. He added that financing was not a point of consensus at the COP16 biodiversity talks this year, which suggests to him that may be a sticking point at these talks as well.
“We must face these challenges with a true sense of urgency and sincerity,” he said. “We are dragging our feet as a planet.”
The talks came in for criticism on several fronts Friday. Two former top UN officials signed a letter that suggested the process needs to shift from negotiation to implementation. And others, including former US Vice President Al Gore, criticized the looming presence of the fossil fuel industry and fossil-fuel-reliant nations in the talks. One analysis found at least 1,770 people with fossil fuel ties on the attendees list for the Baku talks.
Progress may get a boost as many nations’ ministers, whose approval is necessary for whatever negotiators do, arrive in the second week.
US plane hit by gunfire on Dallas runway: aviation agency
WASHINGTON: A Southwest Airlines plane was hit by gunfire while taking off from an airport in the US city of Dallas on Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
“While taxiing for takeoff at Dallas Love Field Airport, Southwest Airlines Flight 2494 was reportedly struck by gunfire near the cockpit,” a statement on the FAA’s website said.
“The Boeing 737-800 returned to the gate, where passengers deplaned.”
The incident happened at around 8:30 p.m. Friday (0230 GMT Saturday), with the flight headed from Dallas, Texas, to Indianapolis, Indiana.
There were no reported injuries, according to a statement from Dallas Love Field Airport on social media platform X.
