LONDON: The UK Border Force is urgently seeking a criminal record-sharing deal with Albania amid a surge in migrant Channel crossings, with 60 percent of arrivals believed to originate from the Balkan country.
The agreement, which would see two Albanian police officials present in Dover to oversee criminal checks, is now under discussion by Albania’s parliamentary commission, with expected approval to come next week, the Daily Telegraph reported.
The UK and Albania are set to share criminal and biometric data under the new agreement.
Albanian Deputy Interior Minister Andi Mahila said: “We have to fight together with the UK on this. This memorandum is one instrument of this fight.”
It comes as security officials from the UK warn that Albanian criminal gangs are using the high-profile Channel route to transport new members to Britain.
Officials believe that the proposed deal would allow the rapid deportation of criminals, with Albanian police officers able to provide crucial background checks using fingerprint data.
On Sept. 12 alone, more than 600 successfully made the journey from France to Britain.
The overall crossing figures for 2022 have already exceeded the entirety of 2020, with 28,561 people making the journey.
In 2020, 8,466 migrants were recorded as having reached UK shores.
Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke said: “The numbers of arrivals are deeply concerning. It’s vital to see the small boats crisis brought to an end as the seas will become colder and rougher as we head into autumn and winter.
“Action is needed now to avoid further tragic loss of life on the English Channel.”
Refugee Council CEO Enver Solomon said: “With record numbers of people crossing the Channel this year, we are seeing how the government’s policies enshrined in the recent Nationality and Borders Act and the Rwanda deal are doing absolutely nothing to deter desperate people jumping on boats because they do nothing to address the reasons people come.
“We need to immediately start having a grown-up conversation with France and the EU about sharing responsibility.
“We need a fair and humane asylum system, which means well thought-out, long-term solutions that address why people are forced from their homes and [provide] them with safe routes to the UK.”
UK, Albania to share criminal data in bid to curb Channel crossings
https://arab.news/7ja6f
UK, Albania to share criminal data in bid to curb Channel crossings
- Balkan country will station 2 police officers in Dover under new deal
UK approval of arms exports to Israel plunged at start of Gaza war
The figures, which have not previously been reported, are based on information provided by government officials to Reuters and data from the Department for Business and Trade’s Export Control unit.
The United States and Germany increased arms sales to Israel after the start of the war with Hamas.
However, the value of British-approved licenses between Oct. 7 and Dec. 31 last year dropped to 859,381 pounds ($1.09 million), government officials told Reuters. That is the lowest figure for the period between Oct. 7 and Dec. 31 since 2010.
This compares with the government approving 20 million pounds of arms sales to Israel for the same period in 2022, including small arms ammunition and components for combat aircraft, according to government data.
In the same period in 2017, the government approved 185 million pounds in arms sales to Israel, including components for tanks and surface-to-air missiles, the data shows, the highest figure for the period in publicly available data going back to 2008.
Unlike the US, Britain’s government does not give arms directly to Israel but rather issues licenses for companies to sell weapons, with input from lawyers on whether they comply with international law.
Many of the licenses approved in the period after the start of the war in Gaza were for items listed for “commercial use” or non-lethal items such as body armor, military helmets or all-wheel drive vehicles with ballistic protection.
Reuters could not establish if the fall in the value of approved licenses for Israel was because of a decision by Britain to restrict the sale of certain items, or because there was a drop in demand from Israel.
The Department for Business and Trade, which is responsible for approving the export licenses, and the Foreign Office declined to comment. Israel’s embassy in London did not respond to a request for comment.
RESTRICTIONS
Israel’s conflict in Gaza was triggered when Hamas fighters charged into Israel on Oct. 7 and killed some 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s subsequent bombardment and invasion of Gaza has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave.
Members of Britain’s parliament and human rights groups have criticized the government for the lack of public information about arms sales to Israel since the start of the conflict.
Some countries such as Italy, Canada and the Netherlands have imposed restrictions on arms exports to Israel because of concerns about how the weapons could be used.
While Germany approved arms exports to Israel worth 326 million euros last year, 10 times more than in 2022, the volume of approvals fell to around 10 million euros in the first quarter of this year.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been one of Europe’s strongest advocates of Israel’s right to respond with overwhelming force against Hamas.
He has resisted calls to halt arms transfers to Israel but has said the government adheres to a “very careful licensing regime.”
Britain is expected to provide information about arms sales to Israel in the first half of this year in the coming months.
The government has in the past blocked arms sales to Israel, such as in 2009 when it revoked some licenses, and in 1982 when there was a formal restriction after the invasion of Lebanon.
Kremlin calls NATO chief’s nuclear weapons remark an ‘escalation of tension’
Stoltenberg told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that NATO members were consulting about deploying more nuclear weapons, taking them out of storage and placing them on standby in the face of a growing threat from Russia and China.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Stoltenberg’s comments appeared to contradict a communique issued at a weekend conference in Switzerland that said any threat or use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine context was inadmissible.
The talks, held at the behest of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, were billed as a “peace summit” although Moscow was not invited.
“This is nothing but another escalation of tension,” Peskov said of the NATO secretary general’s remarks.
Stoltenberg later said Russia was trying to create confusion and that his comments referred to the modernization of NATO’s nuclear deterrent, including the replacement of F-16 jets with F-35s and the modernization of weapons deployed in Europe, which he said has been known for a long time.
“Russia is trying a way to always also create a situation where they can blame NATO, and the reality is that NATO is transparent,” Stoltenberg told reporters on a visit to Washington.
NATO had earlier sought to clarify Stoltenberg’s remarks, saying there were no significant changes to its nuclear posture.
“NATO is committed to ensuring a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent,” NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah said.
“For that purpose, we have an ongoing modernization program to replace legacy weapons and aircraft,” she said. “Beyond that, there are no significant changes to our nuclear deterrent.”
Russia, which sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, says the United States and its European allies are pushing the world to the brink of nuclear confrontation by giving Ukraine billions of dollars worth of weapons, some of which are being used against Russian territory. President Vladimir Putin has said Russia is technically ready for nuclear war, and that Moscow could use nuclear weapons to defend itself in extreme circumstances.
Russia and the United States are by far the world’s biggest nuclear powers, holding about 88 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
The US has about 100 non-strategic B61 nuclear weapons deployed in five European countries — Italy, Germany, Turkiye, Belgium and the Netherlands, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The US has another 100 such weapons within its borders.
Russia has about 1,558 non-strategic nuclear warheads, though arms control experts say it is very difficult to say just how many there are due to secrecy.
India and US to address barriers to trade and cooperation
The commitment was made at a meeting between the national security advisers of the two countries, Ajit Doval and Jake Sullivan, during Sullivan’s two-day visit to New Delhi.
The US and India are forging deeper strategic ties, with mutual concerns about an ascendant China in the Indo-Pacific region, even though India has maintained its close relationship with Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Sullivan and his Indian counterpart chaired the second meeting of the India-US initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, which they launched in January 2023.
Without naming any country, a joint fact sheet of the meeting shared by the Indian government said Sullivan and Doval “resolved to prevent the leakage of sensitive and dual-use technologies to countries of concern.”
They also launched a new strategic semiconductor partnership between US and Indian companies for precision-guided ammunition and other national security-focused electronics platforms, it said.
They also agreed to co-invest in a lithium resource project in South America and a rare earths deposit in Africa “to diversify critical mineral supply chain” and committed to soon conclude a bilateral critical minerals pact for graphite, gallium and germanium.
Last year, during Modi’s state visit to Washington, India had announced buying 31 MQ-9B drones from General Atomic, and the two countries had started discussions to jointly produce General Electric’s fighter jet engines by Hindustan Aeronautics in India, which is yet to be finalized.
Sullivan and Doval also discussed possible co-production of land warfare systems.
The visit is the first by a high-ranking US official since Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned to office with the help of allies as his party failed to win a majority.
Modi met US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Italy last week. Sullivan met Modi and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar earlier in the day.
The relationship between Washington and New Delhi has been tested after the US accused Indian government agents of plotting to murder a Sikh separatist leader on US soil last year, after Canada made similar allegations. India dismissed the Canadian accusations, but initiated an investigation into the US allegations.
The US has extradited an Indian national from the Czech Republic, whom it has indicted for the foiled assassination plot.
There have also been some concerns raised about the treatment of minorities in India.
German rescue team finds 10 bodies of suspected migrants off Italy's Lampedusa island
- The other search and rescue operation off the Calabrian coast started following a Mayday call by a French boat
ROME: Rescue workers found 10 bodies of suspected migrants below the deck of a wooden boat off Italy’s tiny Lampedusa island on Monday, the German aid group Resqship said, as the Italian coast guard searched for missing people from another vessel shipwrecked off the country's southern coast.
The crew aboard Resqship’s boat, the Nadir, “is currently caring for 51 people. The rescue came too late for 10 people,” the group said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“A total of 61 people were on the wooden boat, which was full of water. Our crew was able to evacuate 51 people, two of whom were unconscious – they had to be cut free with an axe,” it added. “The 10 dead are in the flooded lower deck of the boat.”
The other search and rescue operation off the Calabrian coast started following a Mayday call by a French boat, sailing about 120 miles (193.12 kilometers) from Italian shores, at the limit of the SAR areas under the jurisdiction of Greece and Italy, the Italian Coast Guard said in a statement.
After reporting the presence of the half-sunken boat, rescuers recovered 12 migrants from the vessel. The survivors were brought to the Calabrian port of Roccella Jonica, where they were disembarked and entrusted to the care of medical personnel.
One of the migrants died soon after, the coast guard said. It was not immediately clear the number of missing people from that boat.
The Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (IMRCC) of the coast guard in Rome immediately diverted two merchant vessels sailing nearby to the scene of the rescue. Assets from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex also helped.
Putin extends defense ministry purge, hands job to a relative
- More than two years into the war in Ukraine, Putin has used the changes to signal that he wants to clear out wastage and corruption
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin sacked four deputy defense ministers on Monday and appointed a relative to fill one of the resulting vacancies.
The reshuffle marked the latest stage in a radical shakeout which Putin launched in May when he unexpectedly removed his longstanding defense minister Sergei Shoigu.
More than two years into the war in Ukraine, Putin has used the changes to signal that he wants to clear out wastage and corruption in the ministry and harness Russia’s war economy more effectively to serve the needs of soldiers at the front.
In the latest changes, Putin sacked deputy defense ministers Nikolai Pankov, Ruslan Tsalikov, Tatiana Shevtsova and Pavel Popov, according to Kremlin decrees.
He appointed Anna Tsivileva, the daughter of his late cousin, as a deputy defense minister whose responsibilities will include improving social and housing support for military personnel. Her husband Sergei Tsivilev is Russia’s energy minister.
Putin had previously appointed Tsivileva as head of a state fund to support participants of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
Leonid Gornin, previously first deputy finance minister, will now serve as first deputy defense minister under Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, an economist with no military experience who was named last month to replace Shoigu.
Gornin’s main tasks are “to increase the transparency of financial flows and ensure efficient spending of budget funds,” the defense ministry said.
Also named as deputy defense ministers were Oleg Savelyev and Pavel Fradkov, the son of former Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. Fradkov will oversee the management of property, land and construction relating to the military.
Another former deputy defense minister, Timur Ivanov, was arrested on April 23 and accused of bribe-taking. Since then, four other top officials at the ministry and general staff have been arrested on the same charges in the biggest corruption scandal to hit the Russian government in years.
