Europe looking to buttress borders
AMSTERDAM – European Union nations anxious to stem the flow of asylum-seekers coming through the Balkans are increasingly considering sending more help to nonmember Macedonia as a better way to protect European borders instead of relying on EU member Greece.
With Athens unable to halt the tens of thousands of people making the sea crossing from Turkey, EU nations fear that Europe’s Schengen border-free travel zone could collapse, taking with it one of the cornerstones on which the 28-nation bloc is built.
“If Greece is not ready or able to protect the Schengen zone and doesn’t accept any assistance from the EU, then we need another defense line, which is obviously Macedonia and Bulgaria,” Hungarian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Szijjarto said at Saturday’s meeting of EU foreign ministers in Amsterdam.
An estimated 850,000 migrants arrived in Greece in 2015, overwhelming its coast guard and reception facilities. Aid groups say cash-strapped Greece has shelter for only about 10,000 people, just over 1 percent of those who have entered. Most of the asylum-seekers then travel on across the Balkans and into the EU’s heartland of Germany and beyond.
Haitians reach deal to form a government
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Top Haitian leaders have reached an agreement to install a provisional government less than a day before President Michel Martelly is scheduled to step down, an official with the Organization of American States said on Saturday.
Special mission leader Ronald Sanders said the interim president will be elected by Parliament for a term of 120 days. He said Prime Minister Evans Paul will remain in his position until lawmakers confirm a prime minister in upcoming days.
The interim government will continue an electoral process that began last year. It will hold a second round of presidential and legislative elections on April 24. A new president is scheduled to be installed on May 14 and will rule Haiti for the next five years.
Troops retake Somali town from militants
MOGADISHU, Somalia – A Somali military official says allied African Union and Somali troops have retaken the town Marka one day after Islamic extremist fighters took control of the center after the withdrawal of African Union forces.
Col. Nur Hassan said Saturday that the troops entered the town after a brief battle with militants, who fled to the outskirts.
Marka lies about 43 miles south of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu.
Al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab has recently been attacking military positions of African Union troops bolstering Somalia’s weak government against the militants’ insurgency. Last month, the extremist group claimed it killed at least 100 Kenyan soldiers in an attack on the African Union peacekeepers.
2 puppeteers praise terrorism, arrested
MADRID – A Spanish court has ordered the detention of two puppeteers for allegedly praising terrorism during a performance in Madrid.
In a statement by Judge Ismael Moreno, the court says puppeteers Alfonso Lazaro de la Fuente and Raul Garcia Perez, who worked for the “Puppets from Below” company, had staged a play featuring the “hanging of an effigy of a judge, the stabbing of a nun with a crucifix and several police beatings.” It also said the puppets held up a sign reading “Up with ETA,” a reference to the banned Basque separatist group.
The show had been commissioned as part of Madrid’s Carnival celebrations.
Praising terrorism has been a crime in Spain since 1995. ETA is considered a terrorist organization by Spain, the U.S. and the European Union.
Associated Press
