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ATHENS — Shortly after a rickety fishing boat carrying hundreds of smuggled migrants sank in front of a Greek Coast Guard vessel last week, Greek officials explained that they had not intervened because the smugglers didn’t want them to. Intervening also would have been dangerous, Coast Guard spokesman Nikos Alexiou has said, given that the ship was overcrowded and filled with migrants intent on reaching Italy. Trying to “violently stop its course” without cooperation from the crew or passengers could have provoked a “maritime accident,” Mr. Alexiou said. He added that even though the ship was in Greece’s search and rescue territory, “you can’t intervene in international waters against a boat that is not engaged in smuggling or some other crime.”Mr. Alexiou apparently meant smuggling drugs or guns, not people. But in the aftermath of the deadliest shipwreck in Greece in a decade, and perhaps ever, with possibly more than 700 men, women and children from Syria, Pakistan and Egypt drowned, the decision not to intervene has raised concerns that an alignment of interests between smugglers paid to reach Italy and Greek authorities who would rather the migrants be Italy’s problem led to an avoidable catastrophe.

Persons: Nikos Alexiou, Mr, Alexiou Organizations: Greek Coast Guard, Coast Guard Locations: ATHENS, Italy, Greece, Syria, Pakistan, Egypt

A few weeks ago, footage showing asylum seekers, including young children, being rounded up, taken to sea and abandoned on a raft by the Greek Coast Guard was sent to The New York Times. Matina Stevis-Gridneff, The Times’s bureau chief in Brussels, discusses how she proved the truth of the tip that a major European government was carrying out an illegal scheme risking the lives of civilians.

Persons: Matina Organizations: Greek Coast Guard, The New York Times Locations: Brussels

rules governing how asylum seekers must be treated. We showed the video in person to three senior officials from the European Commission in Brussels, describing how we had verified it. asylum rules and international law, including ensuring access to the asylum procedure,” said Anitta Hipper, the European Commission spokeswoman for migration. Greece and the European Union hardened their attitudes toward migrants after the arrival in 2015 and 2016 of more than one million refugees from Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. Poland, Italy and Lithuania have recently changed their laws to make it easier to repel migrants and to punish those who help them.

☆ E.U. Extends Tariff Waiver for Ukrainian Grain, Despite Some Protests
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Matina Stevis-Gridneff | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

BRUSSELS — European Union ambassadors agreed on Friday to allow Ukraine’s grains into the bloc free of tariffs for another year, while granting more than $100 million in aid for farmers in neighboring E.U. Four of those countries — Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia — had recently enacted unilateral bans on Ukrainian food imports in an effort to contain the problem. “We have a solution which is addressing the concerns both of farmers in neighboring member states and Ukraine,” Valdis Dombrovskis, the E.U. Mr. Dombrovskis said it would include a financial support package of 100 million euros, or about $110 million, for farmers in neighboring member states, from an E.U. “In return, the neighboring member states will be withdrawing their unilateral measures,” he said, referring to the Ukrainian import bans.

Both the tradition and the church still stand. By the end of the 19th century, nearly 2,000 boarders lived among the Geelians, as the locals call themselves. Today the town of 41,000 in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, has 120 boarders in local homes. Those suspicions only grew as Geel’s approach crushed up against the rising medical field of psychiatry. In more recent times, however, the town has come up for reconsideration as an emblem of a humane alternative to the neglect or institutionalization of those with mental illness found in other places.

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