The UN refugee agency yesterday welcomed an EU decision on the region’s migrant crisis, but said much more needs to be done, including “concrete commitments” by member states.
European leaders argued into the early hours yesterday over how to handle the crisis in the Mediterranean, agreeing to a plan to distribute the care of desperate people fleeing war and poverty in north Africa and the Middle East.
They eventually agreed to a voluntary scheme aimed at taking in 60,000 people and granted an exclusion for Hungary, which had earlier described the plan as absurd, and Bulgaria, one of the EU’s poorest countries.
Photo: AFP
“This clearly is an important step along the way to finding answers to this crisis, but clearly, much more will have to be done, including addressing the root causes,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Adrian Edwards told a news briefing.
The agreement is to relocate 40,000 asylum seekers now in Italy and Greece who are in need of international protection and “the participation of all member states will be key to success,” Edwards said.
“With regard to the proposal for EU-wide resettlement of 20,000 refugees, UNHCR urges member states to make concrete commitments towards this goal,” Edwards said.
“There does need to be a joined up response by Europe focused on the asylum priorities,” he added.
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CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
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Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique