Mediaboss Marketing

NIJMEGEN, the Netherlands The email came at 3 a.m., giving Nematullah Khosh Ahmadi and his wife, Masouma Ebrahimi, three hours to decide whether to get on an evacuation flight to the Netherlands and leave Afghanistan, their homeland, perhaps never to return.

Living under Taliban rule was not an option for the couple, who are filmmakers who had long documented the violence that the extremist group had inflicted on Afghanistan. But that did not make the decision any less heart-wrenching, they said. They packed up their important documents, a video camera and a pair of gloves for their infant daughter and they fled.

Mr. Ahmadi and Ms. Ebrahimi, who were among roughly 2,000 Afghans evacuated to the Netherlands this summer, in the frantic weeks before the United States left Afghanistan, are now living in a temporary camp deep in a forest near the eastern town of Nijmegen. The camp houses about 1,000 evacuees, who live in shared tents that allow little privacy and, although heated, cannot keep out the winter cold.

The evacuees recently heard that they would be moving in coming weeks, but for many, their hopes for more solid housing appeared to be dimming given a shortage of more permanent social housing for poor Dutch and refugees alike.

The Dutch government said that all residents of the Nijmegen camp would be moved to different refugee centers by the end of January, but an official from the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers said those could include structures like containers, tents and even boats.

All of the Afghans evacuated in August have already received permits to stay, sparing them the bureaucratic headaches they endure in some other countries. But the uncertainty about housing has been extremely destabilizing for the Afghans in the camp, who, while grateful to the Netherlands for having taken them in, have been struggling to reconcile themselves with their new lives.

If you take a tree and plant it somewhere else, it will stay alive, but it will not give fruit, Mr. Ahmadi said. My generation had great dreams about changing our country for the better. I never wanted to leave.

Mr. Ahmadi and Ms. Ebrahimi arrived in the Netherlands at a time when it was embroiled in an increasingly heated debate about immigration. The nations toughened stance on the issue contributed to the chaotic evacuation of people from Afghanistan when the Taliban took over in mid-August, critics said, and has made bringing in additional Afghans more difficult.

In the Netherlands, as elsewhere in Europe, politicians fear a repeat of the 2015 migrant crisis, when more than a million people, mainly from war-torn countries like Syria and Afghanistan, sought asylum in the European Union, setting off a populist backlash.

Afghanistan Under Taliban Rule

With the departure of the U.S. military on Aug. 30, Afghanistan quickly fell back under control of the Taliban. Across the country, there is widespread anxiety about the future.

The Dutch government has been accused of failing to move quickly enough to evacuate many Afghans eligible for asylum, and at first was focusing only on interpreters who had worked with the Dutch military as part of the NATO presence in Afghanistan.

Both the foreign and defense ministers resigned after coming under pressure over the issue in Parliament, and the Dutch government eventually moved in the last days before the U.S. withdrawal to evacuate some Afghans who worked in sensitive fields, including journalists.

But in October, in a sign of a hardening stance on asylum seekers as voters increasingly turn toward far-right parties opposed to more immigration, the Dutch government tightened the criteria for those still in Afghanistan, leaving hundreds in limbo.

Since September, only a few hundred of the 2,100 eligible Afghans have been evacuated, according to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

For many people in the Netherlands, the situation brought back the trauma of the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia in 1995, when Dutch peacekeepers failed to protect Muslim men from Bosnian Serb militias. About 8,000 people were killed.

Many people said, We are doing it again, said Lenie van Goor of the Nijmegen chapter of the Dutch Refugee Council, a charity. Those Afghans are our responsibility.

Ahmad Khalid Nawabi, who worked as a technology specialist with the European Unions police mission in Afghanistan, said one of his former colleagues from the mission was killed by the Taliban in October. An interpreter, who was on the Dutch evacuation list, was also killed in October, according to news media reports.

Although not officially confirmed, it is plausible that the interpreter in question has been killed, three government ministers wrote in a recent letter to lawmakers, saying it was impossible to determine those responsible.

Kati Piri, an opposition lawmaker who has called for more Afghans to be evacuated to the Netherlands, called the Dutch response shameful, saying that the lists of people approved to get on flights were drafted chaotically and late.

The Dutch government was extremely careful not to open the doors to too many Afghans, she said.

Sigrid Kaag, who was the Dutch foreign minister at the time of evacuation but resigned in September, defended the governments actions to Parliament. But she acknowledged that the Netherlands and other nations had had a blind spot in underestimating how quickly Afghanistan would collapse.

According to the European Commission, European Union nations have so far evacuated 28,000 Afghans and have committed to taking in 40,000 more. The Netherlands pledged to admit 3,159 Afghans, but according to a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, this includes about 2,000 already evacuated.

Amnesty International warned in a recent report that Afghans faced formidable obstacles to seeking safety outside the country, and that if they managed to flee, they would be subject to illegal pushbacks, detention and deportation in Europe and Central Asia.

While all Afghan evacuees received their permits to stay, other Afghan asylum seekers, who arrived in the Netherlands earlier or without authorization, are left in a legal limbo, said Wil Eikelboom, an asylum lawyer.

Their asylum requests have effectively been on hold since this summer. Usual waiting time for a decision is 18 to 24 months, Mr. Eikelboom said. I have clients who are very frustrated about this. Those awaiting decisions are housed in reception centers run by a government agency.

For Afghans evacuated to the Netherlands, the wait for housing has been difficult.

Migrants are usually provided with accommodation within 14 weeks of being approved as refugees, said Sonja Kloppenburg, the spokeswoman of the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers. But because of a housing shortage, it is unlikely that the Afghan evacuees will be able to find permanent homes anytime soon.

The Interior Ministry says it does not know how long the Afghan evacuees will have to wait because 12,000 refugees from various countries are currently in line for homes.

The authorities in Nijmegen have, however, managed to get Afghan children from the Nijmegen camp into local schools. About 300 Afghans ages 5 to 11 started school in the last week of October. With the help of retired teachers, they are learning Dutch.

It is going to be a long road for me to rebuild my life, said Fardin, 40, a photographer from Kabul who asked to be identified only by his first name, and whose son Subhanallah was attending the local school. But I am hoping this will be an opportunity for my son.

Subhanallah, 8, seems ready to embrace the future in the Netherlands.

When asked about his dream job, he said he wanted to one day be the countrys leader.

Mr. Nawabi, who worked with the E.U. police mission, said this month that he would be taking an important step in his new life in the Netherlands and would be moving to a house in Nijmegen in late December.

I just got lucky, and my faith might have helped, he said. But not everyone has a house.

Link:
After Chaotic Evacuation, Afghans in the Netherlands Struggle to Find Stability - The New York Times

News & Politics

(PAP) mb/mrb/mf December 28, 2021

The Polish foreign minister and the US Secretary of State have stressed the need for coordinated steps in support of the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

In a telephone conversation on Tuesday, Zbigniew Rau and Antony Blinken said Ukraine needed concerted backing in efforts to preserve its independence.

"It is crucial for the international community to uphold its unity, integrity and solidarity in the face of the Kremlin's aggressive policy," the Polish foreign ministry quoted Rau as saying.

The ministers also stated that any Russian aggression on Ukraine would have "serious consequences" for Russia.

Concern over Ukraine's safety have arisen in connection with Russia's recent deployment of a large military presence on its border with the country.

The ministers also discussed Russia's long-term policy towards Ukraine and the migrant crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border.

During the conversation, Blinken repeated US President Joe Biden's earlier pledge of a strong US and allied response to any Russian attack on Ukraine.

Continue reading here:
Polish, US FMs agree on coordinated backing for Ukraine - The First News

In terms of raw page views and reader engagement, that is, keeping site visitors on our pages longer and coming back for more (and perhaps converting them into donors and subscriberswhats holding you back?), few people do more for America than our favorite Jesuit.

Pope Francis has figured in more than 400 articles, columns and reports that America published in 2021, stories that have drawn almost 5.3 million page views.

The pope also scores well with long-time site visitors and flighty page hoppers alike and regularly draws both digital and print subscribers. Folks love reading about Pope Francis and hearing most of the things he has to say, but do they read the stories Pope Francis might wish they would read?

Hundreds of thousands of visitors storm the America website when the pope figures in political entanglements like the quadrennial Communion wars, issues unexpected decrees on important ecclesial matters or after an off-the-cuff remark (or three) create global headlines.

But the topics Pope Francis personally returned to a lot in 2021 dont always get as much attention.But dont fret. A new year is coming when we can all try to follow the Pope Francis newsfeed a little more faithfully. To catch you up until then, heres a rundown of some of the issues the pope tried to keep at the forefront of the news in 2021 and articles about them you may have missed.

Human migration: The world continues to experience unprecedented levels of migration as refugees from conflict, poverty and hopelessness head north from the Caribbean and Latin America to the United States or across the Mediterranean into Europe from the Middle East and Africa. The United Nations reports a global tally of more than 281 million international migrants. Most170 millionare international laborers, but about 90 million are refugees, asylum seekers and displaced people. Spiking populations escaping conflict and political chaos this year came from Afghanistan, Central America and troubled African and Middle Eastern states.

The fate of the worlds refugees and migrants has been a special focus for Pope Francis since the beginning of his papacy. His first trip outside of Rome in 2013 was to Lampedusa, an island then at the heart of the ongoing Mediterranean migrant crisis, where he said Mass for the refugees and migrants lost at sea in their attempts to reach Europe.

Throughout 2021, Pope Francis continued to urge attention to this humanitarian crisis that concerns everyone, culminating in his last official visit of the year to Greece and Cyprus. On Dec. 5 he visited a migrant reception facility in Mytilene, on the Greek island of Lesbos.

The pandemic, he said, preached the interconnectedness of the world. We have come to understand that the great issues must be faced together since in todays world piecemeal solutions are inadequate, he said.

We live in an age of walls and barbed wire, the pope said. Yet problems are not resolved and coexistence improved by building walls higher, but by joining forces to care for others according to the concrete possibilities of each and in respect for the law, always giving primacy to the inalienable value of the life of every human being.

Migration stories you may have missed:

Climate change and care of creation: In May, Pope Francis raised alarms about the urgency of combating climate change, asking Catholics around the world to join the Laudato Si Action Platform, a seven-year journey that will see our communities committed in different ways to becoming totally sustainable, in the spirit of integral ecology.

We need a new ecological approach that can transform our way of dwelling in the world, our lifestyles, our relationship with the resources of the Earth and, in general, our way of looking at humanity and of living life, he said.

He urged the coordinated response of the global community. Only in this way will we be able to create the future we want: a more inclusive, fraternal, peaceful and sustainable world.

In his address to the U.N. conference on climate change, COP26, in Glasgow in November, he asked the worlds advanced economies, and not coincidentally the ones most responsible for carbon burning, to accept their obligation to confront climate change engendered by global warming. We find ourselves facing an epochal change, a cultural challenge that calls for commitment on the part of all, particularly those countries possessed of greater means, Pope Francis said. These countries need to take a leading role in the areas of climate finance, decarbonization in the economic system and in peoples lives, the promotion of a circular economy, providing support to more vulnerable countries working to adapt to the impact of climate change and to respond to the loss and damage it has caused.

Care of creation stories you may have missed:

Economic and social inequities, especially in distribution of Covid vaccines: Pope Francis has implored the worlds wealthy states to pursue a comprehensive and equitable distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine, in a service to themselves as much as everyone else. Unfortunately, hoarding by wealthy states has, as predicted, allowed Covid-19 variants to emerge that have undermined the efficacy of the worlds existing vaccines. Vaccine hoarding has been only one aspect of his ongoing critique of the maldistribution of the worlds wealth and resources or the rampant waste of them through arms races and what he has memorably called the throwaway society.

Let us remember what the pandemic has shown us, namely that we cannot remain healthy in a world that is sick, he said in an address to world political and religious leaders attending a meeting on peacemaking organized by the lay Community of SantEgidio. In recent times, many people have contracted the sickness of forgetfulness, forgetfulness of God and of our brothers and sisters, Pope Francis said. This has led to unbridled individualism and the desire for self-sufficiency, which has overflowed in insatiable greed. The earth we inhabit bears the scars of this, while the air we breathe is rich in toxins but poor in solidarity. We have thus poured the pollution of our hearts upon creation.

In a letter in April to the participants in the spring 2021 virtual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Pope Francis called for a model of recovery from Covid-19 capable of generating new, more inclusive and sustainable solutions to support the real economy... and the universal common good, not a return to an unequal and unsustainable model of economic and social life, where a tiny minority of the worlds population owns half of its wealth.

Economic and social inequities stories you may have missed:

Follow this link:
Stories from 2021 that Pope Francis wished you would have read - America Magazine

A crisis has been escalating along the border that divides Belarus and the European Union. For several weeks, thousands of migrants looking to reach the EU were trapped between Poland and Belarus, living in freezing camps with no humanitarian aid. Today, the migrants have been moved to warehouses for shelter, but this crisis isnt over.

Since 2015, Europe has experienced several migration waves, but this one was different: This one was manufactured. Belarus lured migrants to the border to pressure the EU to lift sanctions. And while this particular crisis has started to die down, the problem isnt going away. Its the result of a complex EU migration policy that has opened the door to the exploitation of migrants, and until that policy is fixed, Belarus or other bordering nations could create a crisis all over again.

To understand how Belarus manufactured this crisis and the geopolitical context that allowed it to happen, watch the video above.

You can find this video and all of Voxs videos on YouTube.

Follow this link:
There is a migrant crisis at the Poland-Belarus border - Vox.com

The Czech Republic on Wednesday announcedits government hadapproved a mandate to send150 troops to the Belarus-Poland border as the migrant crisis there continues.

The measure must also be approved by both chambers of the nation's parliament, which is expected,according toRadio Free Europe. This action by theCzech Republic comes just weeks after both Estonia and Britain deployed troops to the Belarus-Poland border.

"The government has just approved a mandate to send troops to protect the Polish-Belarusian border. Up to 150 soldiers are ready for a period of up to 180 days. The mandate has yet to be approved by both chambers of Parliament!"Czech Minister of DefenseLubomr Metnar tweeted.

Vlda prv schvlila mandt na vysln vojk na ochranu polsko-blorusk hranice. Pipraveno je a 150 vojk na dobu psoben a do 180 dn. Mandt jet mus schvlit ob komory Parlamentu!

Politico Europe reportedaround 100 Estonian and 100 British were being sent to Poland to help secure its border with Belarus.

Thousandsof migrants, mostly from the Middle East, have gathered at Belarus' borders with its European Union-member neighbors. Travel agents and migrants have reportedthat the Belarusian government encouraged easy migration to the country. Upon arriving, migrants were reportedly driven to the border of the EU, given wire cutters and encouraged to illegally cross into countries like Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

The EU has accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of manufacturing the crisis and using the migrants for his own political purposes, namely to unsettle the EU as retribution for sanctions that were issued against his government.

The sanctions were issued following crackdowns on the pro-democracy movement in Belarus, a country which has been controlled by Lukashenko often referred to as "Europe's last dictator" for over two decades.

See the rest here:
Czechs move closer to sending troops to Poland-Belarus border amid migrant crisis | TheHill - The Hill