International
Afghan stuck in Belarus border camp risks dying: charity
AFP
A 52-year-old Afghan woman stuck in a makeshift migrant camp on the border between Belarus and Poland risks dying without urgent help, a charity helping the migrants told AFP on Wednesday.
The group of some 30 migrants has been stuck on the EU’s eastern frontier for more than two weeks, with Polish border guards and soldiers preventing them from entering to make asylum claims.
While Poland has flown in hundreds of evacuees from Afghanistan in recent days, the government has ruled out allowing in migrants who it says are being forced across the border by the Belarusian regime in a “hybrid attack” on the European Union.
“We are concerned for the life of a 52-year-old woman,” said Kalina Czarnog from the Ocalenie (Salvation) foundation.
The foundation said the woman has respiratory and renal problems and a total of 12 migrants are now seriously ill.
“They do not have drinking water. They have had nothing to eat since yesterday,” the foundation, whose representatives have been communicating with the migrants through megaphones since Polish soldiers are preventing them access, said on Twitter.
Thousands of migrants — mostly from the Middle East — have crossed the border from Belarus into the eastern EU states of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in recent months.
Brussels believes the regime in Minsk is deliberately engineering the influx in retaliation against EU sanctions — an accusation Belarus denies.
The Polish government says the migrant camp is just outside its border and that Belarus should therefore be helping but Warsaw’s position has been criticised by the liberal opposition, human rights organisations and some Catholic leaders.
The Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner Dunja Mijatovic on Wednesday joined calls for Poland to take in the migrants, a day after the UN refugee agency made a similar plea.
Mijatovic said in a statement that the situation was “alarming”.
“Pushing people back, denying them access to fair asylum procedures, or simply leaving them stuck in a humanitarian emergency cannot be the answer of a Council of Europe member state” bound by international human rights rules, she said.
Poland this week said it would build a 2.5-metre (8.2 foot) high barbed wire fence along the border to keep the migrants out and plans to double troop numbers assisting border guards to 2,000.
International
Erin brings strong winds and storm surge despite weakening offshore
Hurricane Erin weakened to a Category 2 storm on Tuesday but continues to pose a threat to parts of the U.S. East Coast with potentially dangerous flooding, according to meteorologists.
Although the hurricane’s eye is expected to remain offshore, experts are concerned about Erin’s size, as strong winds extend hundreds of kilometers beyond the storm’s center.
In its 18:00 GMT bulletin, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) lifted tropical storm warnings for the Bahamasand Turks and Caicos Islands, but kept them in effect for parts of North Carolina.
Erin was located several hundred kilometers southeast of North Carolina and was moving northwestward.
“This means there is a risk of potentially life-threatening flooding of 60 to 120 centimeters above ground level,” said NHC Director Michael Brennan.
He also warned of the possibility of destructive waves, combined with storm surge, that could cause severe damage to beaches and coastal areas, making roads impassable.
International
Three U.S. Warships deploy near Venezuela to combat drug trafficking
Three U.S. naval vessels are moving toward the coasts of Venezuela, according to international media reports on Tuesday, after White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt confirmed that President Donald Trump is ready to combat and curb international drug trafficking.
Reports indicate that the ships will reach Venezuelan waters within the next 36 hours as part of a recent U.S. deployment aimed at countering international narcotics operations.
The announcement coincides with Leavitt’s statement that Trump is prepared to “use the full extent of his power” to halt drug flows into the United States. The naval deployment involves approximately 4,000 military personnel.
“The President has been clear and consistent. He is ready to use every element of U.S. power to prevent drugs from flooding our country and to bring those responsible to justice. The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela—it is a narco-terror cartel,” the spokesperson said during a press conference.
International
Cuban authorities free salvadoran convicted in 1997 hotel bombing
Salvadoran national Otto René Rodríguez Llerena was released after serving a 30-year prison sentence for his involvement in a terrorist attack at a hotel in Cuba in 1997, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported.
During his trial, Rodríguez Llerena admitted to placing an explosive device at the Meliá Cohiba Hotel under the orders of anti-Castro exile leaders. He was arrested the following year when he returned to Havana with another load of explosives that failed to detonate.
“The Cuban government reiterates its commitment to combating terrorism, respecting human rights, and the need for the international community to hold accountable those who promote such acts,” the statement read.
He was released on August 15 and is the second Salvadoran to complete his sentence. In December of last year, another Salvadoran, Ernesto Cruz León, was released after planting bombs at tourist centers, one of which killed an Italian tourist identified as Fabio Di Celmo.
A third Salvadoran, Francisco Chávez Abarca, also received a 30-year sentence from Cuban courts in 2010 after being extradited from Venezuela through Interpol for actions against Cuba.
Rodríguez Llerena had requested conditional release in 2016, arguing that his actions had not caused any direct fatalities, but no further information was released about his situation until now.
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