UK vows to smash gangs as courts jail people traffickers

Anas Al-Mustafa, 43, originally from Syria, was found guilty in August of assisting unlawful migration by trafficking the seven people in a specially adapted van. (UK Home Office release)
Anas Al-Mustafa, 43, originally from Syria, was found guilty in August of assisting unlawful migration by trafficking the seven people in a specially adapted van. (UK Home Office release)
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Updated 06 September 2024
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UK vows to smash gangs as courts jail people traffickers

UK vows to smash gangs as courts jail people traffickers
  • Anas Al-Mustafa, originally from Syria, found guilty in August of assisting unlawful migration by trafficking seven people

LONDON: UK interior minister Yvette Cooper vowed Friday that her government “will not rest” until people-smuggling gangs are dismantled, following a series of shocking migrant incidents including a deadly boat wreck in the Channel.
Her comments came shortly after a van driver received a 10-year prison term for smuggling migrants in a secret compartment where they were found screaming for help and starved of oxygen.
Anas Al-Mustafa, 43, originally from Syria, was found guilty in August of assisting unlawful migration by trafficking the seven people in a specially adapted van.
Cooper spoke at a gathering of senior crime-fighting and intelligence officials that she chaired on Friday.
It came after at least 12 people perished trying to cross the Channel on Tuesday, when their small boat was ripped apart off the northern French coast.
Ahead of the summit, Cooper said that “exploiting vulnerable people is at the heart of the business model of these despicable criminal smuggling gangs.
“At least 12 people were killed as part of this evil trade. We will not rest until these networks have been dismantled and brought to justice.”
While much of the focus has been on crossings of the Channel by small boat, smugglers also use more traditional routes to move people from mainland Europe to the UK.
Al-Mustafa was caught when crew members on a car ferry between Dieppe in northern France and Newhaven on England’s south coast heard pleas from inside the van.
The six men and one woman were found crammed into an overheated concealed space described as no more than “the width of a human chest.”
Crew members used an axe to free the migrants by breaking down the fake partition.
By the time they were rescued two had lost consciousness. None of the migrants had been supplied with water, the court was told.
Prosecutors said that the younger migrants recovered from their dehydration but that one man had a possible heart attack, the woman suffered an acute kidney injury and another man went to hospital in a comatose state and suffered a stroke.
“Desperate people are prepared to risk their lives to come into the UK, often with tragic consequences,” judge Christine Laing said. “They are exploited by those who profit from this trade and pay little attention to their safety.”
Border Security and Asylum Minister Angela Eagle said the case underlined the need to dismantle the smuggling gangs.
“This evil criminal put seven people’s lives at risk for cash, it is a miracle they are still alive after the conditions they were put in,” she said in a statement.
In a separate case, a UK national who attempted to smuggle five migrants, including a five-year-old child, was jailed for three years after being found guilty of assisting unlawful immigration at trial.
Border Force officers caught Joshua Bynoe, 29, in Coquelles, France, as he drove his motorhome, in which five Afghan nationals were hiding, toward the UK.
Immigration was a major issue at the general election in July that brought Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour party to power.
One of his first acts as prime minister was to abolish the last Conservative government’s plan to deport migrants to Rwanda as a deterrent to small boats crossings, calling it an expensive “gimmick.”
The Tories had spent £700 million ($900 million) on the scheme but only four migrants had relocated to Rwanda — and they went voluntarily, Cooper told parliament in July.
According to the latest UK government figures, 22,240 migrants have been detected and brought ashore so far this year.
There are also concerns about an increase in the size of boats being used to try to cross the busy shipping lane.


A 23-year-old man stabbed 5 people in Austria, killing 1 in what police described as a random attack

A 23-year-old man stabbed 5 people in Austria, killing 1 in what police described as a random attack
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A 23-year-old man stabbed 5 people in Austria, killing 1 in what police described as a random attack

A 23-year-old man stabbed 5 people in Austria, killing 1 in what police described as a random attack
The suspect was detained in the city of Villach
The victims were all men

VIENNA: A 23-year-old man stabbed five passersby in southern Austria on Saturday in what police said was a random attack that left a 14-year-old dead and four others injured.
The suspect was detained in the city of Villach, where the attack took place, police said. He is a Syrian national with legal residence in Austria, they said.
The victims were all men. Two were seriously injured and two sustained minor injuries, police said.
Police spokesperson Rainer Dionisio said a motive was not immediately known. He added that police were investigating the attacker’s personal background. “We have to wait until we get secure information,” he said.
A 42-year-old man who works for a food delivery company witnessed the incident from his car, police said. He drove toward the suspect and helped to prevent things from getting worse, Dionisio told Austria’s public broadcaster ORF.
Peter Kaiser, the governor of the Austrian province of Carinthia, expressed his condolences to the family of the 14-year-old victim.
“This outrageous atrocity must be met with harsh consequences. I have always said with clarity and unambiguously: Those who live in Carinthia, in Austria, have to respect the law and adjust to our rules and values.”
Erwin Angerer, a lawmaker for the far-right Freedom Party, said his party had been warning about the situation in Austria as a result of the country’s “disastrous asylum policy.”
Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner was expected in Villach on Sunday morning.
Police said it wasn’t clear whether the suspect acted on his own and continued to search for potential additional suspects.

Stampede kills unspecified number of people at New Delhi train station, Indian official says

Stampede kills unspecified number of people at New Delhi train station, Indian official says
Updated 6 min 20 sec ago
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Stampede kills unspecified number of people at New Delhi train station, Indian official says

Stampede kills unspecified number of people at New Delhi train station, Indian official says
  • Singh didn’t specify how many people were killed and injured in the stampede
  • Press Trust of India said that at least 15 people were injured

NEW DELHI: A stampede has killed an unspecified number of people at a major railway station in India’s capital, the country’s defense minister said Sunday.
Rajnath Singh said in a X post that he was “extremely pained by the loss of lives due to stampede” at the New Delhi Railway Station.
Singh didn’t specify how many people were killed and injured in the stampede on Saturday evening, but news agency Press Trust of India said that at least 15 people were injured.
The stampede happened while thousands of people were gathered at the railway station and waiting to board a train to the site of the Maha Kumbh Hindu festival in northern India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that he was “distressed by the stampede.”
“My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones. I pray that the injured have a speedy recovery. The authorities are assisting all those who have been affected by this stampede,” he said on X.
At least 30 people were killed in a stampede at the six-week festival last month after tens of millions of Hindus gathered to take a dip in sacred river waters.


Togo holds first-ever senate vote despite opposition outcry

President of Togo Faure Gnassingbe. (AFP file photo)
President of Togo Faure Gnassingbe. (AFP file photo)
Updated 56 min 23 sec ago
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Togo holds first-ever senate vote despite opposition outcry

President of Togo Faure Gnassingbe. (AFP file photo)
  • A leading opposition group, the Alliance of Democrats for Integral Development, or ADDI, has confirmed that it would participate in Saturday’s elections

LOME: Municipal and regional councilors began voting on Saturday in Togo’s first-ever senatorial elections amid fears that President Faure Gnassingbe is looking to use the new constitution to hold on to power indefinitely.
Several opposition parties have said they will boycott the vote, and civil society groups have denounced the parliamentary reform for the West African nation of 9 million people as rigged.
The new constitution replaces the direct election of the head of state with a parliamentary system, making the presidential position merely honorific.
Power will be transferred to the president of the Council of Ministers, a position currently held by Gnassingbe, who has led the country since 2005 when he took over from his father, who had been in power for 38 years.
Under the previous constitution, Gnassingbe was limited to one last presidential run in an election set for this year.
More than 1,500 municipal councilors and 179 regional councilors will elect 41 out of 61 new senate members from the 89 candidates standing.
The president of the Council of Ministers, or Gnassingbe, will appoint the rest of the senators.
“It’s a new constitution that we have never tested. We had to test it to see the sides that are not good and to appreciate the rest,” said municipal councilor Vimenyo Koffi, who voted on Saturday morning in the capital, Lome.
A leading opposition group, the Alliance of Democrats for Integral Development, or ADDI, has confirmed that it would participate in Saturday’s elections.
But several other opposition parties, including the National Alliance for Change, or ANC, and the Democratic Forces for the Republic, or FDR, have said they would boycott it, calling the overhaul and Senate vote a “constitutional coup d’etat.”
The ANC on Wednesday expressed its “firm rejection of this anti-democratic process that aims to install an illegal and illegitimate republic.”
Earlier in the week, FDR slammed a “parody” vote and said the Senate would be a costly institution “while our municipalities and regions painfully lack the financial means to address the population’s vital needs.”
The president’s supporters say the constitutional change ensures more representation.
Gnassingbe’s governing party, the Union for the Republic, won legislative elections last April in a landslide.
Opponents had called the ballot an “electoral hold-up” marred by “massive fraud.”

 


Daesh group claim bombing of Taliban ministry

Daesh group claim bombing of Taliban ministry
Updated 15 February 2025
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Daesh group claim bombing of Taliban ministry

Daesh group claim bombing of Taliban ministry
  • The suicide attacker attempted to enter the Afghan ministry of urban development and housing in Kabul
  • He was shot by guards and detonated himself, Taliban government interior ministry said

KABUL: Daesh group on Saturday claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing of a Taliban government ministry in Afghanistan which killed one person and wounded at least three more this week.
Violence has waned in Afghanistan since the Taliban surged back to power and ended their insurgency in 2021, but the Daesh group frequently stages gun and bomb attacks challenging their rule.
The suicide attacker attempted to enter the Afghan ministry of urban development and housing in Kabul on Thursday but was shot by guards and detonated himself, Taliban government interior ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani told AFP.
He said one person had been killed and three wounded but Kabul’s Emergency Hospital put the toll at one dead and five wounded — four of them critically — after the attack at around 9:30 am (0500 GMT).
A Daesh communique translated by the SITE Intelligence Group said the attacker “detonated his explosive vest on multiple officials and guards inside” a headquarters of “the apostate Taliban militia.”
On Wednesday, the group also claimed an attack on a north Afghanistan bank that killed eight people, saying it had targeted Taliban government employees collecting their salaries.
The Taliban government has declared security its highest priority since returning to power and analysts say they have had some success quashing Daesh with a sweeping crackdown.
However, the group remains active, targeting Taliban officials, visitors from abroad and foreign diplomats.
Daesh claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed the Taliban government’s minister for refugees, Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani, inside his Kabul office in December.
Six civilians were also killed in an IS-claimed attack in 2023 that took place near the Taliban government’s heavily fortified foreign ministry.
A UN Security Council report released last week said the Daesh group were “the most serious threat to the de facto authorities, ethnic and religious minorities, the United Nations, foreign nationals and international representatives” in Afghanistan.


US-Europe differences come to the fore at Munich conference

US-Europe differences come to the fore at Munich conference
Updated 15 February 2025
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US-Europe differences come to the fore at Munich conference

US-Europe differences come to the fore at Munich conference
  • J.D. Vance’s blunt speech rattles European leaders
  • He just put the Europeans on notice: There is a new sheriff in town

MUNICH: The Munich Security Conference brought the fault lines between Europe and the US over Ukraine, the international order and the transatlantic relationship to the view of world leaders and political and security experts from the opening session of the conference on Friday. I was in the room to listen to the anticipated speech by US Vice President J.D. Vance and I saw the disbelief on people’s faces when he started speaking. The room was packed, with dozens of people standing on staircases and balconies to hear Vance in person for lack of seating availability. He did not disappoint in shocking them. When he was received with applause, he joked: “I hope this is not the only applause I get.” He predicted correctly, and received polite applause only a couple of times.
What shocked people most was not his lecturing them on democracy, especially free speech, and attacking them on immigration, but the fact that the American vice president’s speech in the foremost international security conference did not mention Ukraine even once, and did not talk about any security and foreign policy issue. He just put the Europeans on notice: There is a new sheriff in town. The Europeans were there for the message, and actually got it during their meetings with Vance before the opening of the conference. Their concern was evident in their speeches to the crowded halls of the conference venue.
All the speeches were indirect or direct comments on the state of America and how Europe and the world should confront the phenomena called Donald Trump. From the opening statement of the conference’s chairman, Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, which highlighted “the rule of law and not the law of the strongest,” to the strong messages in the speech of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, it was obvious that Europe is readying itself to push back.
What rattled Europe most was the American president’s quick moves toward Russian President Vladimir Putin and their fears that they will be cut out of negotiations over ending the Ukraine war. You hear it everywhere: Europe and Ukraine should be at the table, and nothing about the war should be decided without Ukraine’s involvement.
Some criticized the new US administration’s negotiating style, with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius taking issue with giving everything at the start of talks. “If I were (negotiating), I would know that I don’t take any essential point of negotiations off the table before the negotiations begin,” he said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that “authoritarians are watching whether you have impunity if you invade your neighbor,” in a reference to Europe’s fear that the US administration’s peace overtures to Putin may embolden others to invade their neighbors and get away with it.
Steinmeier highlighted how important it is not only to end the war, but to settle the conflict in a way that benefits Ukraine, Europe and the US. “That outcome — an end to this war — is what we all hope for. How this war concludes will have a lasting impact on our security order and on the influence of both Europe and the US in the world,” he said, adding: “I firmly believe that simply ‘making a deal and leaving’ would weaken us all: Ukraine and Europe but also the US. For this reason, every scenario — be it before or after the end of fighting — requires our combined power of deterrence and strength. That is why, in every scenario, support for Ukraine must continue — namely from Europe and the US.”
This sentiment was also echoed by Von der Leyen, who said that Ukraine “needs peace through strength.”
But despite their warnings and aversion to the new US administration’s approach, they highlighted the importance of stepping up defense spending, a key ask by Trump.
Steinmeier said: “Expenditure on security must continue to rise. Our Bundeswehr must become stronger. Not to wage war — but to prevent war.” He seemed to respond to Trump’s request when he said: “The 2 percent (defense spending) target, which we formally agreed in Wales in 2014, belongs to another era that was confronted with different threats. A decade on, we will need to spend considerably more than what was agreed back then.”
Von der Leyen also called for stepping up military spending, and warned that Europe had outsourced its defense.
The calls for Europe to stand up for itself were everywhere, as were the calls for unity but with the acknowledgment that Europe does not have the deterrent capability needed to confront the Putins of the world. But they seemed willing to resist. The words of the German president created the outlines of the push back by calling on Europe not to be intimidated by what is coming out of Washington.
He said: “We are subjects, not objects, in the international order. We must not allow ourselves to be paralyzed by the flood of announcements. We must not freeze in fear, or as the English saying goes: We cannot be like a deer in the headlights! It is clear that the new American administration holds a worldview that is very different from our own — one that shows no regard for established rules, for partnerships or for the trust that has been built over time.”
This was only the first day of the conference but it set the tone for what is awaiting the transatlantic relationship in the era of an even stronger and more “populist” US administration. This fear is real for Europe, and especially Germany, which faces crucial elections next week and where Vance met the far-right AfD leader and criticized efforts by German officials to avoid working with the party. It is a new era of what Europeans consider American election interference and America calls defense of democracy, which rests “on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters.”
It is the dawn of a new uncharted transatlantic fist fight.