Taiwan leader visits contested island
TAIPEI, Taiwan – Seeking to assert Taiwan’s sovereignty and build his legacy, President Ma Ying-jeou paid a visit Thursday to an even smaller island also claimed by China.
Defying rare criticism from the U.S., Ma flew to the island of Taiping in the South China Sea and sought to cast Taiwan as a peaceful, humanitarian player in a region where China’s robust assertions of its territorial claims are sharpening disputes with its neighbors.
Ma cited infrastructure developments, including a 10-bed hospital and a lighthouse, saying they reinforced Taiwan’s claim of sovereignty and granted it rights over the surrounding waters.
Sweden says migrants may face deportation
STOCKHOLM – Dazzled by an unprecedented wave of migration, Sweden on Thursday put into words an uncomfortable reality for Europe: If the continent isn’t going to welcome more than 1 million people a year, it will have to deport large numbers of them to countries plagued by social unrest and abject poverty.
Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said Sweden could send back 60,000 to 80,000 asylum seekers in the coming years. Even in a country with a long history of immigration, that would be a scale of expulsions unseen before.
“The first step is to ensure voluntary returns,” Ygeman told Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri. “But if we don’t succeed, we need to have returns by coercion.”
Associated Press
