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Europe
 Greece to Give Migrants IDs, Cash[AnNahar] Greece wants to give electronic ID cards and cash to thousands of refugees and migrants trapped on its soil, the migration minister said Wednesday. "(By April) we intend to register all refugees and migrants in Greece... in camps, hotels and flats, and give them electronic identity cards," Yiannis Mouzalas told a news conference. "This will show their legal status, and where they are" in the country, he said. Mouzalas added that, by March, the government plans to give cash handouts of up to 400 euros ($418) a month to enable migrant families to fend for themselves. Mouzalas did not clarify how austerity-wracked Greece intended to fund the handout scheme, but Athens has generally relied on the EU for such financing. Greece says it has over 60,000 mainly Syrian refugees and migrants trapped on its soil, after Balkan and EU countries further north shut their borders last year. Most are lodged in 34 camps around the country, run with the help of EU funds and support from the UN refugee agency, the Red Cross and other organizations. 54,000 Migrants in Germany Get Grant to Return Home in 2016
Interior Ministry spokesman Harald Neymanns said Wednesday that the total funding approved for returnees this year was 21.5 million euros ($22.5 million). He said about 35,500 people obliged to leave Germany did so voluntarily in 2015, but noted that the two figures can't immediately be compared because the number of people who actually departed in 2016 isn't yet clear. Neymanns stressed that Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere "has always said voluntary returns are always preferable to deportation." Spain arrests two men suspected of Islamist militant propaganda
[Ynet] Two men were arrested in Madrid on Wednesday on suspicion of spreading Islamist militant propaganda, the Interior Ministry said. Police released video footage in connection with the arrests that showed officers uncovering gun magazines and bullets from under rocks in a disused, graffiti-sprayed building. El Pais newspaper quoted the Interior Ministry as saying the search, in the outskirts of Madrid, uncovered four Kalashnikov AK-47 magazines and over 30 bullets. The paper said the men were second generation Spaniards of Moroccan and Gambian origin. Posted by: trailing wife 2016-12-29 |
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