An Italian NGO is calling for authorities to issue a mass amnesty for the approximately 700,000 illegal migrants who live in Italy in order to ensure they have access to healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a statement the 3 Febbraio NGO published earlier this week, it claims that all migrants should be issued residence permits, as “it is an injustice that those who do not have papers are literally trapped. They do not have the right to healthcare, nor can they freely help those close to them”.

Therefore, the NGO calls for “a general amnesty for all the refugees and immigrants currently in Italy”.

The move could be inspired by a similar statement by European Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic, who is demanding the release for as many migrants as possible from detention centers across Europe amid coronavirus pandemic.

According to 3 Febbraio, migrants’ standard of living has deteriorated due to the coronavirus crisis.

“Living conditions have grown worse: asylum seekers are stuck and crowded together in centers, many others are exploited in the fields or factories, and others are losing their jobs with no safety net,” the NGO says, calling for dealing with the COVID-19 emergency “together in a humane manner”.

Italy is one of the countries that has been hit the hardest by the coronavirus pandemic.

According to Bloomberg, as of April 3, over 115,000 cases of coronavirus infection have been confirmed in the country, while almost 14,000 patients have succumbed to the disease so far.

No plan for how economically ravaged Italy can pay for migrants’ healthcare needs

Italy has one of the largest migrant populations within Europe, given its geographic location at the southern border of the EU. In 2008, The Boston Globe estimated 670,000 illegal migrants lived in the country while Pew Research estimated up to 700,000 in 2019.

Despite coronavirus sending the Italian economy in free fall, the 3 Febbraio NGO offers no plan for how Italy will pay for the healthcare needs of migrants after granting them amnesty.

Italy already has a drastic shortage in hospital beds and will face, along with the rest of Europe, a long road to economic recovery after the crisis is over.

At the same time, 3 Febbraio NGO’s plan is similar to other NGO plans being pushed in other European countries.

In Great Britain, Migrants’ Rights Network and 50 other so-called charities wrote an open letter calling for the release of illegal migrants in detention and using taxpayers’ money for their housing accommodations during the coronavirus crisis.

An estimated 800,000 to 1.2 million illegal migrants live in Britain but the open letter stated that funds should be directed to migrants to “ensure that everyone, regardless of immigration status, can access self-contained accommodation and self-isolate safely”.

Under the plan, the UK government would book hotels, use empty houses, and turn university dorms into domiciles for illegal migrants.

rmx.news/article/article/coronavirus-italian-ngo-uses-outbreak-to-push-for-mass-amnesty-for-migrants

German NGO Sea-Eye, which is committed to rescuing migrants journeying to Europe on the Mediterranean Sea, is now continuing with its controversial mission despite the global coronavirus pandemic, according to Czech news portal echo24.cz.

The ‘Alan Kurdi’ ship was docked for eight weeks but is now ready to embark on the sea again. Reportedly, the vessel is now equipped for direct contact with people infected with the coronavirus, and the crew is well-trained for such situations. It is currently the only “rescue ship” in the area, the NGO wrote on its website.

On Monday, the Alan Kurdi crew led by German Captain Bärbel Beus received permission from Spanish authorities to leave the local port.

At the end of the week, the ship is expected to reach an area near the Libyan shores, where the NGO ship will begin looking for migrants fleeing Africa. This year, 60 volunteers will participate in the so-called rescue operations.

Most ‘boat migrants’ not genuine refugees

Such missions have actually been accused of leading to more migrant drownings by encouraging more migrants to make the journey based on the belief that they have a good chance of being rescued at sea if something goes wrong.

A 2017 report from Frontex, the EU’s border agency, indicated that smugglers sometimes instruct migrants to call the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Rome in order to initiate rescues missions on the Mediterranean.

In a documentary called “Libya’s Migrant Hell”, journalist Rose Kemp interviewed a smuggler who said the vessels they transport migrants in are simply not seaworthy, and he rarely expects them to make it across the sea to reach Europe.

Still, that does not stop him because “the Italian security are only 13 miles [ca. 21 km] off shore,” he explained.

In an article printed in the Die Welt daily in February, political editor Marcel Leubecher admitted that most of the migrants headed to Europe in boats across the Mediterranean are not genuine refugees, which means they have little chance of having their asylum applications approved.

“Contrary to popular belief, the majority of those arriving in Italy are not refugees. The main countries of origin for boat migrants in January were Algeria, the Ivory Coast, and Bangladesh,” Leubecher wrote.

Consequently, about 95 percent of the asylum applications of migrants from these countries are rejected. Furthermore, the number of Libyans, whose country is going through a long-standing civil war, is only a negligible part of the migrant wave.

Most ships cannot operate due to coronavirus travel restrictions

Chairman of the Sea-Eye NGO Gorden Isler said that the organization, which ships sail under the German flag, aims to save migrants from drowning.

“Even in the ongoing crisis, we rely on the responsibility and courage of Germany. We are in close contact with the authorities,” said Isler.

According to available information, due to the coronavirus crisis, none of the rescue ships were able to operate in the Mediterranean for several weeks, mainly due to restrictions on the movement of people in Europe.

International Organization for Migration (IOM) earlier reported that members of the Libyan Coast Guard prevented several groups of migrants from leaving the continent in recent weeks. However, many more migrants might have managed to leave unnoticed on their journey from Africa to Europe.

rmx.news/article/article/despite-coronavirus-outbreak-german-ngo-ship-begins-searching-for-migrants-off-libyan-coast

If these were ” ethnic Germans”, the police would certainly not be so timid! Shithole!

The Muslim Festi Ramazan will also take place in Dortmund in 2020. But no longer in the open air, but in the Westfalen Halls 7 and 8 (photo above), as the municipal authorities announced on the 03rd of March 2020.In recent years there have been repeated clashes because the festival was held in the open air and residents felt harassed. This time the festival is to be shortened from four to three weeks and will last from May 1 to 24.

It starts every day at 6 p.m. – and at Borussia Dortmund home games only when the crowds of visitors have passed through. According to the organizers, it is the largest Ramadan event in Europe. However, with 50,000 visitors, only half as many as in previous years are expected this year, said Sabine Loos, Managing Director of the Westfalen-Halls. In previous years, the festival had been held on parking lots near the Westfalen Halls.

www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/ruhrgebiet/festi-ramazan-in-westfalenhallen-100.html

As the coronavirus rages across Europe, a growing number of countries are reporting that millions of pieces of medical equipment donated by, or purchased from, China to defeat the pandemic are defective and unusable.

The revelations are fueling distrust of a public relations effort by Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Communist Party to portray China as the world’s new humanitarian superpower.

On March 28, the Netherlands was forced to recall 1.3 million face masks produced in China because they did not meet the minimum safety standards for medical personnel. The so-called KN95 masks are a less expensive Chinese alternative to the American-standard N95 mask, which currently is in short supply around the world. The KN95 does not fit on the face as tightly as the N95, thus potentially exposing medical personnel to the coronavirus.

More than 500,000 of the KN95 masks had already been distributed to Dutch hospitals before the recall was enacted. “When the masks were delivered to our hospital, I immediately rejected them,” a hospital worker told the Dutch public broadcaster NOS. “If those masks do not seal properly, the virus particles can simply pass through. We cannot use them. They are unsafe for our people.”

In a written statement, the Dutch Ministry of Health explained:

“A first shipment from a Chinese manufacturer was partly delivered last Saturday. These are masks with a KN95 quality certificate. During an inspection this shipment was found not to meet our quality standard. Part of this shipment had already been delivered to healthcare providers; the rest of the cargo was immediately withheld and not further distributed.

“A second test also showed that the masks did not meet our quality standard. It has now been decided that this entire shipment will not be used. New shipments will undergo additional tests.”

The Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported on March 17 that the Netherlands had only a few days’ supply of masks: “All hope is now for that one cargo plane from China on Wednesday.” The substandard quality of the masks delivered by China has left the Netherlands shattered. A spokesperson for a hospital in Dutch city of Eindhoven said that Chinese suppliers were selling “a lot of junk…at high prices.”

In Spain, meanwhile, the Ministry of Health on March 26 revealed that 640,000 coronavirus tests that it had purchased from a Chinese vendor were defective. The tests, manufactured by Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology Company in Guangdong province, had an accurate detection rate of less than 30%.

On April 2, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported that it had been presented with leaked documents which showed that Bioeasy had lied to the Spanish government about the accuracy of the tests. Bioeasy had claimed, in writing, that its tests had an accurate detection rate of 92%.

Also on April 2, the Spanish government revealed that a further million coronavirus tests delivered to Spain on March 30 by another Chinese manufacturer were also defective. The tests apparently required between five and six days to detect whether a patient is infected with coronavirus and were therefore useless to diagnose the disease in a timely manner.

On March 25, the Spanish government announced that it had purchased medical supplies from China in the amount of €432 million ($470 million), and that Chinese vendors demanded that they be paid up front before the deliveries were made. Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa explained:

“We have bought and paid for 550 million masks, which will start arriving now and will continue to arrive for the next eight weeks. 11 million gloves will arrive in the next five weeks. As for rapid tests, we have acquired 5.5 million for the months of March and April. In addition, we will receive 950 respirators during the months of April to June. We are managing the purchase of more equipment.”

It is not at all clear how the Spanish government will be able to guarantee the quality of these new mass purchases, or how it would obtain compensation if the products from China were again substandard.

On March 28, the French government, which apparently has only a few weeks’ worth of supplies, announced that it had ordered more than one billion face masks from China. It is unclear whether the quality control problems experienced by other European countries would affect France’s purchasing plans.

Other countries — in Europe and beyond — have also criticized the quality of Chinese medical supplies:

• Slovakia. On April 1, Prime Minister Igor Matovič said that more than a million coronavirus tests supplied by China for a cash payment of €15 million ($16 million) were inaccurate and unable to detect COVID-19. “We have a ton of tests and no use for them,” he said. “They should just be thrown straight into the Danube.” China accused Slovakian medical personnel of using the tests incorrectly.
• Malaysia. On March 28, Malaysia received a consignment of medical equipment donated by China, consisting of test kits, medical face masks, surgical masks and other personal protective equipment. A senior official in the Ministry of Health, Noor Hisham Abdullah, said that the test kits would be evaluated for accuracy after previous test kits from China were found to be defective: “This is a different brand from the one we tested earlier. We will assess the new test kit which is FDA-approved. I was assured by the Chinese ambassador that this is more accurate than the other one we tested.” Abdullah previously stated that the accuracy of the Chinese tests was “not very good.”
• Turkey. On March 27, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said that Turkey had tried some Chinese-made coronavirus tests but authorities “weren’t happy about them.” Professor Ateş Kara, a member of the Turkish Health Ministry’s coronavirus task force, added that the batch of testing kits were only 30 to 35% accurate: “We have tried them. They don’t work. Spain has made a huge mistake by using them.”
• Czech Republic. On March 23, the Czech news site iRozhlas reported that 300,000 coronavirus test kits delivered by China had an error rate of 80%. The Czech Ministry of Interior had paid $2.1 million for the kits. On March 15, Czech media revealed that Chinese suppliers had swindled the Czech government after it paid upfront for the supply of five million face masks, which were supposed to have been delivered on March 16.

On March 30, China urged European countries not to “politicize” concerns about the quality of medical supplies from China. “Problems should be properly solved based on facts, not political interpretations,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

On April 1, the Chinese government reversed course and announced that it was increasing its oversight of exports of coronavirus test kits made in China. Chinese exporters of coronavirus tests must now obtain a certificate from the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) in order to be cleared by China’s customs agency.

Meanwhile, the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei announced that it would stop donating masks to European countries as a result of allegedly derogatory comments by the EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell.

On March 24, Borrell had written in a blog post that China was engaging in a “politics of generosity” as well as a “global battle of narratives.”

On March 26, a Huawei official told the Brussels-based news service Euractiv that due to Borrell’s comments, the company would be ending its donation program because it did not want to become involved in a geopolitical power play between the U.S. and China.

On March 28, Huawei paid for sponsored content in the publication Politico Europe. Huawei’s Chief Representative to the EU, Abraham Liu, wrote:

“Let me be clear — we have never sought to gain any publicity or favor in any country by what we are doing. We made a conscious decision not to publicize things. Our help is not conditional and not a part of any business or geopolitical strategy as some have suggested. We are a private company. We are trying to help people to the best of our abilities. That’s all. There is no hidden agenda. We don’t want anything in return.”

On March 30, the BBC reported that Huawei was acting as if nothing had really changed since the coronavirus crisis began:

“That may be naive on the company’s part. While nothing has really changed when it comes to the technical and security issues around Huawei’s equipment, the political climate for the company has certainly worsened.

“A story in the Mail on Sunday at the weekend had Downing Street warning China ‘faced a reckoning’ over its handling of the coronavirus.

“And that is likely to embolden those MPs who have been telling the government no Chinese company should be allowed a role in the UK’s vital infrastructure.”

On March 29, the British newspaper Daily Mail reported that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his allies in parliament had “turned” on China because of the coronavirus crisis:

“Ministers and senior Downing Street officials said the Communist state now faces a ‘reckoning’ over its handling of the outbreak and risks becoming a ‘pariah state.’

“They are furious over China’s campaign of misinformation, attempts to exploit the pandemic for economic gain and atrocious animal rights abuses blamed by experts for the outbreak.”

On January 28, Johnson had granted Huawei a role in Britain’s 5G mobile network, frustrating efforts by the United States to exclude the company from the West’s next-generation communications, which, it seems, can also be used for spying. The London-based Financial Times reported that U.S President Donald J. Trump vented “apoplectic fury” at Johnson in a tense phone call. Johnson is now facing pressure from his Cabinet as well as from Members of Parliament to reverse his decision.

After Chinese officials blamed the United States and Italy for starting the coronavirus pandemic, the Daily Mail quoted a British government source as saying:

“There is a disgusting disinformation campaign going on and it is unacceptable. They [the Chinese government] know they have got this badly wrong and rather than owning it they are spreading lies.”

The newspaper continued:

“Mr. Johnson has been warned by scientific advisers that China’s officially declared statistics on the number of cases of coronavirus could be ‘downplayed by a factor of 15 to 40 times.’ And No. 10 believes China is seeking to build its economic power during the pandemic with ‘predatory offers of help’ to countries around the world.

“A major review of British foreign policy has been shelved due to the Covid-19 outbreak and will not report until the impact of the virus can be assessed. A government source close to the review said: ‘It is going to be back to the diplomatic drawing board after this. Rethink is an understatement.’

“Another source said: ‘There has to be a reckoning when this is over.’ Yet another added: ‘The anger goes right to the top.’

“A senior Cabinet Minister said: ‘We can’t stand by and allow the Chinese state’s desire for secrecy to ruin the world’s economy and then come back like nothing has happened. We’re allowing companies like Huawei not just into our economy, but to be a crucial part of our infrastructure.”

In an article published by The Mail on Sunday on March 29, former Tory Party leader Iain Duncan Smith wrote:

“All issues can and will be discussed, except for one, it seems — our future relationship with China.

“The moment anyone mentions China, people shift uncomfortably in their seats and shake their heads. Yet I believe it is vital that we start to discuss how dependent we have become on this totalitarian state.

“For this is a country which ignores human rights in the pursuit of its ruthless internal and external strategic objectives. However, such facts seem to have been swept aside in our rush to do business with China.

“Remember how George Osborne [Chancellor of the Exchequer under Prime Minister David Cameron from 2010 to 2016] made our relationship with China a major plank of UK Government policy? So determined were Ministers to increase trade that they were prepared to do whatever was necessary.

“Indeed, I am told that privately this was referred to as Project Kow-Tow — a word defined by the Collins dictionary as ‘to be servile or obsequious.’

“We were not alone. Countless national leaders over recent years have brushed aside China’s appalling human rights behavior in the blind pursuit of trade deals with Beijing….

“Thanks to Project Kow-Tow, the UK’s annual trade deficit with China is £22.1 billion ($27.4 billion). But we are not alone in being in hock to Beijing.

“For China has racked up a global trade surplus of £339 billion ($420 billion). Distressingly, the West has watched as many key areas of production have moved to China….

“The brutal truth is that China seems to flout the normal rules of behavior in every area of life — from healthcare to trade and from currency manipulation to internal repression.

“For too long, nations have lamely kowtowed to China in the desperate hope of winning trade deals.

“But once we get clear of this terrible pandemic, it is imperative that we all rethink that relationship and put it on a much more balanced and honest basis.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15840/china-defective-medical-equipment

Leader of Hamas in Gaza Yahya Sinwar threatened Thursday that if the Gaza Strip faced a shortage of ventilators with which to treat its corona patients, Hamas would “cut off the air” to Israelis

“Let me tell [Defense Minister] Bennett, if we find that corona patients in Gaza can’t breathe, we will cut off the air to six million Zionists and take what we want from you,” Sinwar said in an interview to Al-Aqsa TV, which is affiliated with Hamas.

Sinwar suggested that Bennett review Chapter 17 of the Book of Ezekiel to see “what awaits you and your filthy entity.” Ezekiel 17 prophesies doom.

Sinwar said Hamas would be willing to make some concessions on the matter of the remains of Israel’s missing soldiers and captive civilians who are being held captive, if Israel agreed to release elderly and sick prisoners as “a humanitarian move, given the corona crisis.” However, he stressed that “we [Hamas] have told all the mediators that it is impossible to start talks about a new deal before all the prisoners who were freed in the Schalit deal [in 2011] and re-arrested are released.”

On Thursday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said that it was in need of 100 ventilators and 140 hospital beds, as well as other medical equipment. It also announced that it was tracking 1,816 Gazans who had been quarantined in 27 different treatment centers. In March, the ministry conducted 830 coronavirus tests in Gaza, most of which were negative. As of Thursday, there were 12 confirmed cases of coronavirus among the population of Gaza, all of whom were reportedly discovered by border authorities and quarantined prior to entering.

In the interview, Sinwar laid out the steps the Hamas regime was taking to contain coronavirus within its borders, including a commitment to send anyone returning to Gaza from abroad into immediate isolation.

He claimed that the Gaza Strip was in a better position to enforce that type of policy than the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria, because Gaza had only four border crossings.

“We need to unite humanitarian efforts until we overcome the corona crisis. I am voicing solidarity with all the Arab and Islamic nations and people and all the people of the world who have been struck by this massive epidemic. I would like to express my thanks to the prisoners who have been released from the occupation’s prisons and have not seen their families,” he said.

“We gave this interview in order to calm our people and let them know about the steps that are being taken. We will go step by step and find our way out of this crisis, with the help of Allah,” the Hamas leader said.

Sinwar also admitted that Hamas was in dire financial straits but had nevertheless allocated $1 million to “tens of thousands of families.” He said that the Gaza crossings could not be shut down. 

https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/04/03/if-gaza-faces-ventilator-shortage-we-will-take-them-from-zionists/

In an attic apartment in the street Sybelstraße in the Leipzig district of Stünz, a knife and a firearm are said to have been used around 06.45 pm.

An unknown number of people escaped from the scene of the crime in the quiet residential area with at least two vehicles, according to police reports on Friday morning.

“A vehicle could be identified in the course of the initial investigations and the driver was temporarily detained as part of the initiated search measures,” said spokeswoman Mandy Heimann. According to information from the portal TAG24, this was in the street Stötteritzer Strasse. No precise information is currently available on the second car. Furthermore, weapons were found in the area of Hermann-Liebmann-Straße/Bogislawstraße during the night.

The two seriously injured are undergoing inpatient treatment, but their lives are out of danger. They and the temporarily detained have a migration background. All identities are still being checked.

They are being investigated on suspicion of attempted homicide.

The 35-year-old driver of the halted car is charged with attempted manslaughter in a criminal case with grievous bodily harm in two criminal cases. This was made public by the public prosecutor’s office in Leipzig.

In the course of the day, it will apply to the investigating judge of the Leipzig District Court for an arrest warrant against the Iraqi. Then a decision will also be made on detention pending trial.

https://www.tag24.de/leipzig/crime/leipzig-sybelstrasse-schiesserei-messer-zwei-schwerverletzte-grosseinsatz-1477237

A Venezuelan navy ship fired shots at a German-owned cruise ship on March 30 and rammed into the passenger vessel, leading to the sinking of the warship in the Caribbean.The Iranian regime-allied Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused the captain of the RCGS RESOLUTE cruise ship of “terrorism and piracy” and sought to force the ship into a new direction on the high seas. The cruise ship, which had no passengers on board and was sailing under a Portuguese flag, has a reinforced hull that enables it to sail through ice water.

Columbia Cruise Services, the Hamburg-based company that owns the RCGS RESOLUTE, issued a statement on Wednesday: “In the early morning hours of the 30th of March 2020 (local time), the cruise vessel RCGS RESOLUTE has been subject to an act of aggression by the Venezuelan Navy in international waters, around 13.3 nautical miles from Isla de Tortuga with 32 crew member and no passengers on board.”The company added that “When the event occurred, the cruise vessel RCGS RESOLUTE has already been drifting for one day off the coast of the island to conduct some routine engine maintenance on its idle voyage to its destination, Willemstad/ Curaçao. As maintenance was being performed on the starboard main engine, the port main engine was kept on standby to maintain a safe distance from the island at any time.”Columbia Cruise Services continued, stating that “Shortly after mid-night, the cruise vessel was approached by an armed Venezuelan navy vessel, which via radio questioning the intentions of the RCGS RESOLUTE’s presence and gave the order to follow to Puerto Moreno on Isla De Margarita. As the RCGS RESOLUTE was sailing in international waters at that time, the Master wanted to reconfirm this particular request resulting into a serious deviation from the scheduled vessel’s route with the company DPA.”According to the statement, “While the Master was in contact with the head office, gun shots were fired and, shortly thereafter, the navy vessel approached the starboard side at speed with an angle of 135° and purposely collided with the RCGS RESOLUTE. The navy vessel continued to ram the starboard bow in an apparent attempt to turn the ship’s head towards Venezuelan territorial waters.”

The cruise company said the RCGS RESOLUTE sustained minor damages, not affecting vessel’s seaworthiness, it occurs that the navy vessel suffered severe damages while making contact with the ice-strengthened bulbous bow of the ice-class expedition cruise vessel RCGS RESOLUTE and started to take water.”There were no deaths among the Venezuelan marines aboard the war ship. The Venezuelan authorities returned the navy personnel to safety.
The US Justice Department indicted the socialist President Maduro last month for running a criminal narcotics operation comprised of drug traffickers and terrorist groups.The US State Department announced $15 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Maduro.

https://www.jpost.com/International/Venezuelan-warship-shoots-rams-into-German-cruise-vessel-before-sinking-623422

Rival gangs in the French city of Montpellier engaged in a street fight armed with machetes, despite the lockdown measures enacted by the government to stop the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus.

The violence took place in the Gambetta district at around 3:30 pm on Wednesday. Despite the presence of machetes and other weapons, many of which were left at the scene, no injuries were reported.

Police arrested three individuals in connection to the brawl and police say they are hunting for other suspects who fled the area using the city’s public transport system, Midi Librereports.

Investigators say the violence erupted out of a gang rivalry revolving around the local sale of contraband cigarettes and hashish and that fights between members of both groups have occurred during the last three evenings in a row.

France’s nation-wide lockdown measures, which President Emmanuel Macron announced in mid-March, have greatly hindered the ability for criminal gangs to sell drugs and other items on the street.

According to a report from news agency Reuters, the lockdown has led to a spike in prices for street cannabis across France.

Yann Bastiere, a senior police union official, said that prices of some drugs have nearly doubled in some areas, saying: “The price of a 100-gram bar of resin went from 280 euros to 500 euros in a week in Marseille.”

Thierry Colombie, an expert in organised crime, blamed the increase in prices on the lack of fresh supplies of drugs coming from countries like Morocco due to the Wuhan coronavirus lockdown measures.

The European Union police agency Europol has warned that some organised criminals may be adapting to the new lockdown measures and shifting focus to other areas such as fraud and selling counterfeit medical items to take advantage of the outbreak.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/04/03/french-gangs-engage-machete-street-brawl-despite-lockdown/