While the COVID-19 pandemic completely overshadowed the issue of migration to Europe in the media, that does not necessarily mean migration slowed down much. Although the number of migrants decreased year-on-year, the report published by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Eurostat, and Frontex shows that the number of asylum applications in some EU countries increased.

The key information of the pertinent statistics would probably be that the number of migrants who illegally crossed the EU’s external borders fell by about 13 percent year-on-year in 2020. Instead of migrating from the outside, however, the migration within the continent has become a major problem for some EU countries.

For example, Austria reported even more asylum applications last year than before the pandemic broke out.

The spread of the virus and the subsequent measures have slowed down migration to Europe, but it did not cease. Last year, 124,000 migrants crossed the EU’s external border, and around half a million people applied for asylum. For comparison, in the record year of 2015, there were 1,395,000 applicants and 762,685 the year before. The statistics include the EU countries as well as the United Kingdom, Norway, and Switzerland.

In addition to a year-on-year decline in asylum applications, a different trend has begun to emerge. Most countries are unable to deport rejected asylum seekers, with many of them moving within the EU. A consequence of that has been a decrease in asylum applications in some states and an increase in the number of asylum seekers in other countries.

That is the case in Austria where 13,700 people applied for some form of asylum last year, more than before the pandemic when there were 12,558 applications. Even the otherwise very liberal Austrian Die Presse daily attributed this to the fact that migrants in the country are entitled to more social support than elsewhere in the EU.

“People follow the money,” the newspaper wrote. The evidence of this is also the migration within Austria. When the state of Lower Austria reduced the amount of social support for refugees, more of them relocated to “more generous” Vienna.

In Germany, which was the main destination for migrants at the beginning of the migration crisis, the number of asylum applications decreased, unlike in Austria, but still remains disproportionately high, according to many German politicians. Although Germany carries out more border controls during the pandemic and mobility has generally decreased, 102,000 refugees have applied for “asylum protection” last year. According to current statistics from the German Ministry of the Interior, a quarter of the cases involved applications for children under one year of age already born in Germany.

For comparison, in the whole of 2019, 142,000 applicants sought asylum in Germany. So anyone who expecting the number of asylum applications to fall to a minimum during the pandemic turned out to be wrong.

At the same time, German politicians talk about the so-called secondary migration, which concerns not only the movement between EU countries. It also describes a phenomenon of rejected migrants applying for asylum in other countries or reapplying in the same country, even though the laws do not allow it.

The problem is that only about 40 percent of rejected applicants get deported back to their home countries. The rest travel across borders and try to succeed again with a new identity or even a new “story”.

“We have cases of people who have initiated 18 asylum procedures in 18 countries,” Michael Spindelegger, head of the International Center for Migration (ICMPD), told Kurier.

German asylum organizations estimate that only a third of refugees who have already been denied asylum in Germany have returned to their country.

That is why many EU politicians call for a reform of the EU’s asylum policy so it would prevent both repeated asylum applications and migrants from traveling across the continent when they have already submitted their application.

“Secondary migration is our main problem today,” Mathias Middelberg, a spokesman for the German governing coalition CDU/CSU, told ZDF television.

In Germany, people from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan are still the most common asylum seekers. Besides, in the past year, a migration route through the Canary Islands gained traction. According to some analysts, migrants, especially Moroccans and other Africans, do not apply for asylum with the Spanish authorities but immediately head deeper into Europe.

Overall, the development of migration in the pandemic year showed that although the coronavirus might have temporarily slowed down the migration wave, it certainly did not stop it. Once the danger disappears or eases, the number of refugees is likely to increase again. Such a conclusion was reached by the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which conducted a survey among young people from Tunisia and Lebanon, asking them about their willingness to emigrate. About a third of respondents expressed a desire to leave their home country, most of them giving economic reasons. As their destination, they mostly named “West”, especially Europe.

https://rmx.news/article/article/migration-to-europe-didn-t-cease-due-to-pandemic

Left-wing extremist groups in Germany are subsidized by the state. Every now and then, the real extent of this phenomenon is expressed in numbers: For example, in 2018 an AfD inquiry to the federal government revealed some hard facts.

The Amadeu Antonio Foundation, headed by the former Stasi informant Anetta Kahane, has received more than 3,5 million euros in state funding since 2010 .

These financial blessings are extended to other associations and institutions, with federal programs paying for clubs such as Demokratie leben! [Democracy lives!] Sometimes left-wing clubs do not receive the tax money directly. This is the case with the Peng! Collective, which sees itself as “an explosive mixture of activism, hacking and art in the fight against the barbarism of our time”.

With the term “barbarism”, the “artists” include, for example, the politics of the AfD, asylum measures or allegedly “historically burdened” streets and monuments. And their “subversive art of action” is sometimes as crude as the message of their political demands.

In 2015, the group called on Germans to become “escape helpers” and smuggle illegal immigrants into the country. Not that this issue is a contentious one in the least: Last year, half of the asylum seekers were unable to provide documents to prove their personal information when they entered Germany. “In 2020, the proportion of first-time asylum applicants aged 18 and over without identity papers was 51,8 percent,” the dpa news agency reported. The information was contained in a response from the Federal Ministry of the Interior to a request from the FDP parliamentary group’s migration policy spokeswoman, Linda Teuteberg. Compared to 2019, that represents an increase.

When the presentation of identity documents was statistically recorded for the first time in 2017, 61 percent could only give verbal information about their identity. Teuteberg admitted that many asylum seekers destroyed their ID cards because they figured that this would give them a better chance of being recognized in Germany.

The high number of migrants without ID presents the authorities with major challenges, because asylum should only be given to people “who need protection from political persecution”. But in January 2019 it became known that false oral identity information from asylum seekers had no consequences for their proceedings anyway. Only the submission of false or foreign documents is punishable by law.

In 2016, a Peng! member pelted the two AfD politicians Beatrix von Storch and Albrecht Glaser with cream cake. Two years later, the Berlin public prosecutor was still busy with the self-proclaimed “antagonists of advertising agencies”.

Before the federal election in 20217, Peng! advertised the satirical campaign “VoteBuddy” to bring foreigners who are not eligible to vote together with Germans who are not willing to vote. The latter would then leave their postal votes to those not entitled to vote. The authorities could not find any attempted or actual election fraud however since this was difficult to prove.

In addition to these high-profile campaigns, the collective members are also content with less provocative, but probably financially more lucrative appearances and campaigns. A current request from AfD MP Joana Cotar to the federal government, which the Junge Freiheit has received, revealed that Peng!had received tax funds in the six-digit euro range since 2015.

According to the Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters (CDU), these did not flow directly to the club, but through federally funded institutions. For example, between 2015 and 2017 the German Federal Cultural Foundation supported a cooperation between Schauspiel Dortmund and Peng! with 150 000 euros under the title “The Populists – A PR Agency for Civil Society”. The Chemnitz exhibition “Gegenwarten”, in which around twenty local artists and Peng! also participated, received more than 450 000 euros. In addition, other sums between 500 and 7 500 euros flowed into the pockets of the group.

The Federal Government argues that the selection of the funded projects is based “on the advice and recommendations of independent specialist juries”. Their “independence” will also be guaranteed for future funding, they claimed. But shortly before the exhibition “Antifa – Myth & Reality” started in Chemnitz last August, the group announced that they had given 10 000 euros to left-wing extremists. In fact, Peng! used part of the tax money subsidy for “Gegenwarten” to “buy” ten items worth 1 000 euros each from left-wing extremist groups. The aim was to draw attention to the chronic financial shortage of the “civil society” initiatives in the eastern federal states.

AfD politician Cotar criticized the government for attempting to “disguise its support for the radical left with the help of ‘independent specialist juries’”. This is absurd, she said. “It is simply unacceptable that a government should financially support groups that openly call for violations of the law and attack those who think differently.”

Left-wing clubs do not need to worry about a lack of financial support in the future either because the Democracy Promotion Act will be launched in the coming months. In addition, there are dozens of other measures in the fight against alleged right-wing extremism and racism, with one billion euros from 2021 to 2024.

https://freewestmedia.com/2021/02/24/german-taxpayers-fund-left-wing-extremist-clubs/

Former Obama administration officials, including former Secretary of State John Kerry, went behind President Donald Trump’s back in backchannels with Iran, sources told The Washington Times. Some of the architects of the Iran nuclear deal met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif after Trump withdrew from the deal.

A slew of former Obama officials, including Kerry, Obama’s Middle East advisor Robert Malley, and Obama-era Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, met with Zarif during the Trump years. Kerry, Malley, and Moniz led negotiations in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in which the U.S. provided sanctions relief and access to tens of billions of dollars in frozen bank accounts in exchange for Iran’s promises to limit nuclear enrichment.

Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal in 2018, citing the need for a tougher agreement that also addressed Iran’s support for terrorist groups and its destabilizing behavior in the Middle East. Yet a former senior U.S. official told The Washington Times that Zarif met with Democrats like Kerry multiple times in 2017, 2018, and 2019, before the Trump administration halted his visa in 2020.

The former official told the Times that Zarif’s meetings aimed “to devise a political strategy to undermine the Trump administration” and to build support for a new version of the Iran deal in case a Democrat returned to the White House in 2021.

Kerry acknowledged meeting with Zarif at least twice in the early years of the Trump administration. He told radio host Hugh Hewitt that there was nothing secret about his meetings with the Iranian minister. Kerry said he intended to find out “what Iran might be willing to do in order to change the dynamic in the Middle East for the better.”

The Associated Press reported that Moniz met with Zarif in 2018 and that Iran deal negotiator Wendy Sherman met with the Iranian foreign minister on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, also in 2018. President Joe Biden nominated Sherman to serve as deputy secretary of state.

Most of the Zarif meetings took place before Trump withdrew from the Iran deal, but Malley met with Zarif in 2019. Sources told the Times “it’s likely that Mr. Malley urged Iranian officials to wait out the Trump presidency with the expectation that a Democratic administration in 2021 would restore Obama-era policy.”

At the time, Malley led the International Crisis Group. In July 2019, a spokesman for the group said Malley’s meeting with Zarif was simply part of Malley’s “regular contacts with all parties, whether it be Iran, the U.S., Gulf states, or European countries.” Malley did not respond to the Times‘ request for comment.

A State Department spokesperson refused to address specific questions about Malley’s meetings with Zarif.

“We categorically reject baseless smears against dedicated public servants,” the spokesperson said.

Help us STOP Joe Biden’s radical agenda by becoming a PJ Media VIP member. Use promo code AMERICAFIRST to receive 25% off your VIP membership.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has tapped Malley for his Iran outreach. While Biden has offered to reinstate the Iran deal if Iran again pledges to decrease its uranium enrichment, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has refused to limit uranium enrichment to 20 percent, declaring that enrichment may go as high as 60 percent. Nuclear weapons require an enrichment level of 90 percent.

“Former administration officials can play a very helpful role in close coordination with a sitting administration to open and support sensitive diplomatic channels,” Mark Dubowitz, chief executive at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Times. “But it is not good practice for senior officials who served at the highest levels of a former administration, Democratic or Republican, to be trying to undermine the policy of a sitting administration by engaging actively with a known enemy of the United States.”

Indeed, Malley was reportedly engaging in this “shadow diplomacy” while Iran-backed militias targeted U.S. troops in Iraq, leading up to the assassination of Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani in January 2020.

Sources also told The Washington Times that Zarif wields tremendous influence over the Iran lobby in the U.S. They described a “web” of activity linked to think tanks across the U.S. as well as lobbying efforts that reached into the Obama White House.

Many members of Congress, including Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), have hired current or former staffers with the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), an organization with links to Iran’s regime and which Iran state media has described as “Iran’s lobby” in the U.S.

Did the Obama administration architects of the Iran deal carry out a “shadow diplomacy” with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism in order to undermine President Trump, hoping that a Democrat would win in 2020 and return them to power? Did they work with the Iran lobby behind the scenes? This explosive report suggests the answers to those questions are “yes,” but the details are yet to be forthcoming.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/02/23/report-former-obama-staff-colluded-with-iran-to-undermine-trump-n1427758

Austrians are increasingly dissatisfied with the way the government is handling the epidemic, according to a survey commissioned by the Paul Lazarsfeld Society.

While at the time of the first wave of the coronavirus, last spring, 78 percent of those surveyed believed that Austria was better at managing the crisis than other countries, that proportion has now fallen to 7 percent. When asked whether Austria is worse off than other states, 30 percent of respondents said yes, up from 3 percent last year.

Dissatisfaction is also reflected in the support of the ruling parties. In April last year, the popularity of the right-wing Austrian People’s Party, led by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, reached 48 percent, and in the same survey, 16 percent had the support of its governing partner, the Greens. This ratio has shrunk to 37 and eight, respectively, according to the latest poll.

Since the introduction of curfew restrictions in December, the Vienna government has managed to significantly reduce the number of new infections per day, which approached tens of thousands in mid-November, but which has not risen to over 2,000 in the past month.

The figures are, however, rising again. On Sunday 1,838 new cases of coronavirus were registered in the country. The six-week full closure ended two weeks ago with the reopening of shops selling non-essential necessities and hairdressers and beauticians, but stricter epidemiological measures came into force. It is now mandatory to wear the more effective FFP2 masks, to maintain a two-meter social distancing, to provide 20-square meters of space for each customer compared to the previous 10-square meters, and to show mandatory negative test results for services requiring physical contact. Restrictions related to entering the country have also been tightened.

“Further easing of restrictions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus is likely to take place only around Easter,” Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said last week, pointing out that the long-awaited March opening of restaurants and hotels should be postponed to keep the epidemic under control. Health Minister Rudolf Anschober also drew attention over the weekend when he said that even though the vaccine seems to be effective and the number of infected people is declining, care must be taken because of new mutations in the coronavirus.

With its strict closure last spring, Austria was the example to follow, but since then, the opening and closing of the country have swung back and forth. Now, the government promises to ease the restrictions, return life to normal, and is promising light at the end of the tunnel. However, the tunnel looks longer than the government had originally hoped, virologist Gerald Gartlehner said, referring to Kurz’s August statement who told Kurier newspper that he saw “the light at the end of the tunnel” in regards to the crisis.

https://rmx.news/article/article/austrians-increasingly-dissatisfied-with-cabinet-s-coronavirus-measures-poll

It sounds like a joke, but according to research by FOCUS Online it is true: 24-year-old Iraqi Farhad A., who was involved in the fatal knife attack in Chemnitz in August 2018 and has been wanted worldwide ever since, will soon be the subject of a court case in Germany – as the alleged victim!

As FOCUS Online has learned from judicial circles, a trial will start on March the 3rd at Leipzig District Court concerning alleged bodily harm against Farhad A. (Ref.: 216 Cs Js 48913/18). The accused is the employee of a dance club in Leipzig who singles out guests in the entrance area.

The crime allegedly took place on June the 17th 2018, about two months before the fatal knife attack in Chemnitz, in which the 35-year-old German Daniel H. had died on August the 25th. Farhad A. is said to have been one of the two stabbers. Shortly after the attack, he had fled Germany. Until today, the international search for him remained unsuccessful. The second perpetrator, a Syrian, has already been sentenced to nine and a half years in prison.

According to FOCUS Online, the current trial at Leipzig District Court is about an incident in front of the Leipzig nightclub “L1”. The location in the city centre is considered a party hotspot with a large dance floor and elegant lounge bar. The 1.5-litre bottle of champagne costs 3300 euros here, the half-litre of gin 140 euros. So the similarity in name to Munich’s posh club “P1” is no coincidence.

On June the 17th, 2018, the rejected asylum seeker and notorious criminal Farhad A. wanted to visit the club. According to the public prosecutor’s office, a physical altercation with an employee of the “L1” took place in front of the club. The person in question is 38-year-old Michael T., who is now considered the accused. His defence lawyer Frank Hannig from Dresden did not want to comment on the case when asked.

According to FOCUS Online research, Michael T. works as a so-called ” chooser” in front of the entrance to the club. His job is to check the dress code of the guests – “stylish, chic, modern” clothes are desired. He decides who gets in and who doesn’t.

There were obviously problems with Farhad A., which quickly escalated. According to the public prosecutor’s office, club employee Michael T. allegedly hit the Iraqi several times in the face with his hand or fist at around 1.10 a.m.. At least once, the investigators claim, the accused kicked Farhad A., who was lying on the ground. The allegedly injured man was bleeding slightly from the lip and had pain in his right temple, according to the public prosecutor’s office.

In January 2019, the Leipzig District Court issued a penalty order for bodily harm against Michael T. The fine was 2500 euros (50 daily sentences of 50 euros). In addition, there are the costs of the court proceedings. Because the defendant appealed, the main hearing will take place at the beginning of March.

The trial is supposed to clarify what really happened in front of the “L1” on the evening of the crime. In an interview with FOCUS Online, Michael T. vehemently denies the prosecution’s accusations. The 38-year-old says he was insulted, threatened and spat at by Farhad A..

“The man was wearing shorts, had a backpack and a beer bottle in his hand,” Michael T. says. He made this clear to the visibly drunk man using a mixture of German, English and sign language. The man then became aggressive and insulted him – calling him a “shitty German” and a “son of a bitch”. Finally, the guy with the beer bottle in his hand gestured wildly and challenged him to a fight.

“He came very close to me and spat in my face from about 20 centimetres away,” the “L1” employee reports. “I then stretched out my arm and pushed him away. Then he spat at me again, a total of three times”. Again and again the alcoholic provoked him: “Are you a man or what?

Michael T. describes the critical moment: “I grabbed him and pushed him to the ground”. During the scuffle, his opponent “tore his jacket and ripped off the buttons”. In a headlock, he dragged the unruly visitor out of the entrance area of the club.

In an interview with FOCUS Online, the accused Michael T. assures that at no time did he punch the guest in the face or kick him when he was already lying on the floor, as the public prosecutor’s office accuses him of doing. It never even occurred to him at the time that there might be legal repercussions, the accused says.As a ” watchman” it was not his job to get the troublemaker out of the entrance area of the club, but the job of the security guards, says Michael T. But despite repeated requests, they did not support him, which was apparently due to the tense relationship between him and the bouncers. “One of them later claimed to the police that I had hit him,” says Michael T. “But that’s not true.Several witnesses have been summoned for the trial at Leipzig District Court to describe the events of June the 17th 2018 from their point of view. It will be interesting to see what they still know – or think they know – after more than two and a half years. The alleged victim Farhad A. is on the run and logically will not testify in court.A video recording of the fight between Farhad A. and Michael T. could be helpful for the investigation. According to FOCUS Online, a surveillance camera in the entrance area of the club had recorded the scenes. But the recordings, which were not seized by the police at the time, no longer do exist now.The current state of affairs is such that it cannot be ruled out that the German judiciary will rule Michael T. guilty – and thus give the hiding felon Farhad A. a late triumph. The idea that the Iraqi, in some hiding place, will learn of his legal victory and enjoy his victory is more than strange.Farhad A. had arrived in Germany at the beginning of January 2016 via Turkey, Greece, Macedonia and Serbia and had unsuccessfully applied for asylum. During his two and a half years in Germany, the Iraqi, who had 14 alias identities, committed several offences: dangerous bodily harm, drug trafficking, theft, trespassing, damage to property, insults, threats, resistance against law enforcement officers. Most recently, he stabbed Daniel H., a carpenter, to death in Chemnitz, according to investigators.Acquaintances describe Farhad A. as highly aggressive, erratic, ruthless, emotionless. A police report on the young man available to FOCUS Online says: “He is generally feared because of his appearance”.

https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/blutiger-streit-vor-einem-nachtclub-prozess-um-mutmasslichen-messerstecher-von-chemnitz-jetzt-soll-er-das-opfer-sein_id_13006663.html

Using a knife, a 30-year-old man caused a real bloodbath in a refugee home in Augsburg in April last year. The public prosecutor’s office wants the highest possible sentence, the defence lawyer has a different opinion.The prosecution called for the 30-year-old to be sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. In addition, the public prosecutor demanded a judgement of particularly serious guilt in the trial before the Augsburg Regional Court on Monday, so that the prison sentence could probably not be suspended after only 15 years.

The accused, an Afghan national, had made a partial confession in the trial and admitted to having cut the neck of his 15-year-old brother-in-law.

The man had also injured four other relatives of his wife, who had separated before the crime, with the knife.

However, the accused testified that he had been attacked by the youth.

In his plea, the defence lawyer therefore considered the killing of the 15-year-old as self-defence.

The other offences were to be considered as dangerous bodily harm, there was no intent to kill. The defendant’s lawyer did not demand a particular sentence. The court will give its ruling on March the 2nd.

According to prosecutor Michael Nißl, the accused abused his wife for a decade and treated her like a serf. When the wife separated, he took revenge on his ex-partner’s family.

According to the prosecutor, the man, who had lived in Iran for a long time, in fact came to Germany solely because here only a prison sentence of 10 to 15 years might face him instead of a death sentence. Nißl attested to the man’s “inhuman callousness”.Initially, the 30-year-old was charged with murder and four counts of attempted murder. After the main hearing, however, the prosecutor assessed the knife attacks on the wife’s family members only as murder, attempted murder, attempted manslaughter and in two cases as dangerous bodily harm.

https://www.tag24.de/justiz/gerichtsprozesse-bayern/augsburg-blutbad-in-fluechtlingsheim-kam-angeklagter-nur-nach-deutschland-um-todesstrafe-zu-umgehen-1850233

In the first high phase of the pandemic, the office of Germany’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, influenced researchers. They thereupon provided results for a dramatic “secret paper” issued by the ministry.

The Federal Ministry of the Interior engaged scientists from several research institutes and universities for political purposes in the first wave of the Corona pandemic in March 2020, extensive correspondence, which German weekly Welt am Sonntag had obtained, showed. It commissioned the researchers from the Robert Koch Institute and other institutions to create a calculation model on the basis of which the Ministry of the Interior, Horst Seehofer (CSU), wanted to justify tough Corona measures.

This emerges from more than 200 pages of internal correspondence between the management level of the Ministry of the Interior and the researchers, which Welt am Sonntag has in their possession. A group of lawyers fought to obtain the e-mails in a legal dispute with the Robert Koch Institute that lasted several months.

In an exchange of e-mails, the State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior, Markus Kerber, asked the researchers who had been contacted to develop a model on the basis of which “preventive and repressive measures” could be planned.

According to the correspondence, the scientists worked in close coordination with the ministry over the space of just four days to develop content for a paper which had been declared secret, and was then distributed via various media over the following days.

A “worst-case scenario” was calculated according to which more than a million people in Germany could die of the Coronavirus if social life were to continue as it had been before the pandemic.

https://freewestmedia.com/2021/02/23/german-ministry-of-the-interior-hired-scientists-to-justify-corona-measures/

Thanks to our reliance on social media, Big Tech’s robotic moonbat overlords determine what we can say to each other. This is bad news for people who are into chess.

Croatian chess player Antonio Radic (aka Agadmator) had his popular chess videos blocked by Google’s YouTube due to unspecified “harmful and dangerous” content.

Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon suspect Radic’s discussion of ‘black vs. white’ with a grandmaster accidentally triggered YouTube’s AI filters.

Running simulations with software trained to detect hate speech, they found more than 80 percent of chess videos flagged for hate speech lacked any—but did include terms like ‘black,’ ‘white,’ ‘attack’ and ‘threat.’

They must have a liberal definition of hate speech. My guess would be that closer to 100% of chess videos lack any hate speech. But as the definition of hate speech expands, it incorporates ever more harmless conversation.

As has been previously determined, chess itself is racist because white goes first.

https://moonbattery.com/big-tech-robotic-moonbat-overlords-censor-chess-videos/