Brussels Rocked by Deadly Attacks With Blasts at Airport, Subway

Bloomberg
By James G Neuger and  Jonathan Stearns

Explosions ripped through the Brussels airport departure hall and a downtown subway station on Tuesday morning, causing deaths and injuries and spurring fears of imminent follow-up attacks in the capital of the European Union.
Belgium’s military sent reinforcements to Brussels after two bombs went off in rapid succession at the airport around 8 a.m., the peak check-in hour for morning flights within Europe. RTL news reported as many as 13 dead and 25 injured. An hour later, an explosion hit a subway station a short walk from EU headquarters, with conflicting reports of casualties.

Deal Appears to Curb Migrant Flow, but Greece Still Faces ‘Uphill Effort’

By JIM YARDLEY and LIZ ALDERMANMARCH 21, 2016

The New York Times

MYTILENE, Greece — Standing on the southern coastline of the island of Lesbos, Molhim Zreiki peered through binoculars across the narrow strait of the Aegean Sea dividing Greece from Turkey. During the past nine months, hundreds of thousands of refugees had crossed these waters on smuggler rafts to reach Europe.

But how many rafts reached Lesbos on Monday morning?

“None,” said Mr. Zreiki, one of the volunteers who have patrolled the beaches for months to help refugees as they came ashore.

The Greek Coast Guard did pick up two rafts near Lesbos early Monday and brought the 56 people aboard to the island, according to the local police. By comparison, in October an average of 4,400 refugees landed on the island every day.

European Union Grapples With Plan to Return Migrants From Greece to Turkey

By JAMES KANTERMARCH 17, 2016
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The New York Times

BRUSSELS — European leaders edged closer early on Friday to a deal to return asylum seekers from Greece to Turkey despite a host of legal, political and moral issues raised by their latest effort to quell the migrant crisis.

The common stance agreed by the European Union’s 28 national leaders still needs the approval of Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. He flew here late Thursday for face-to-face talks on Friday.

Those negotiations will revolve around what incentives to grant Turkey, which is not a European Union member, in return for Turkey’s taking on the job of housing more of the migrants while they wait for word on whether they qualify for resettlement in Western Europe.

“We need to put all our efforts into achieving an agreement with Turkey,” Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, told an early morning news conference. “These will be negotiations that will certainly be anything but easy,” she warned.

Life Inside The Horrid Camp On Greece’s Border

Many of the 14,000 people living in the Idomeni transit camp want to enter Macedonia and continue onto other European countries. But the borders are shut.
 03/17/2016 05:20 pm ET

The Huffington Post

Images taken inside a transit camp near the Greece-Macedonia border show the impact of Europe’s inaction in addressing the spiraling migrant and refugee crisis.

Up to 14,000 people live in the makeshift tent city located near the town of Idomeni, on the Greek side of the border, equipped to house about 2,000 people.

Many of the migrants and refugees in the camp arrived there after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to the Greek islands, and hope to enter Macedonia and continue across Balkan countries — like Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia — toward more prosperous European countries like Germany. But that has recently become impossible as the Balkan countries recently shut their borders or tightened frontier policies to people without valid travel documents.

On Monday, hundreds of people stormed out of the Idomeni camp toward Macedonia, hiking for hours and wading through a rain-swollen river, only for many of them to be detained by Macedonian authorities who made them return to Greece.

What Donald Trump Gets Pretty Much Right, and Completely Wrong, About China

Neil Irwin  @Neil_Irwin MARCH 17, 201

The New York Times

If there is one thing Donald Trump seems sure about, it is that the United States is getting a raw deal from China.

To people who spend time studying the United States’ economic relationship with China, Mr. Trump’s accounting of its dysfunctions contains both legitimate, accurate complaints and elements that completely misstate how things work between the world’s largest and second-largest economies.

“They’re killing us,” Mr. Trump has said in many debates, rallies and television appearances. He has threatened to put a 45 percent tax on Chinese imports “if they don’t behave.”

If you take Mr. Trump’s comments at face value, as president he would try to renegotiate a complex set of ties that has pulled hundreds of millions of Chinese out of dire poverty, made a wide range of goods available to American consumers at more affordable prices and contributed to the decline of American manufacturing.

Refugee crisis: Migrants arriving on Greek islands to be sent back to Turkey within days if deal goes through.

Angela Merkel says deal 'gives the EU a chance to get a sustainable, pan-European solution to the refugee issue'

Caroline Mortimer

The Independent

Refugees landing on Greek islands will be deported within days under a "decisive" draft deal with Turkey.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, said the deal “gives [the EU] a chance to get a sustainable, pan-European solution to the refugee issue".

She was speaking on the eve of a summit to sign the deal which will fast rack Turkey’s application to join the EU in exchange for readmitting refugees who have already crossed the Aegean Sea to Greece.

The Latest: Greece demands no ‘fortress states’ on migrants

The Washington Post

By Associated Press March 17 at 5:51 AM
BRUSSELS — The Latest on European efforts to respond to massive migration (all times local):

10:45 a.m.

Greece is insisting that European Union leaders meeting in Brussels must provide for sanctions against member states that unilaterally decide to shut out refugees.

Deputy Defense Minister Dimitris Vitsas, who heads a task force on migration, said Thursday that Europe should not contain “fortress-states.”

Athens has repeatedly criticized fellow EU member Austria for capping the number of migrants it lets in, which had a domino effect through the Balkans and left nearly 46,000 migrants stuck in Greece.

That figure includes 14,000 living in a waterlogged tent city set up round the closed Idomeni border crossing with non EU member Macedonia.

Greek authorities are trying to persuade people in Idomeni to move to organized shelters elsewhere, but have ruled out using violence to evacuate the camp.

A Journey Across Greece, a Bankrupt Land at Risk of Becoming a Refugee Prison More than 44,000 people are already trapped in the country, a number ticking upward each day, as aid groups warn of a potential humanitarian crisis by summer.

By JIM YARDLEYMARCH 17, 2016

The New York Times

IDOMENI, Greece — Taha al-Ahmad’s family is sleeping in mud. His youngest daughter, age 1, lies beneath wet blankets, coughing inside their soggy tent. It has rained for days. Portable toilets are overflowing. Men burn firewood to stay warm. A drone circles overhead. Television trucks beam images of misery to the world.

It is primeval, and surreal, this squalid, improvised border camp of 12,000 refugees, a padlocked waiting room for entering the rest of Europe. Mr. Ahmad, barely two weeks out of Syria, does not understand why his family cannot cross the Macedonian border — roughly a football field away — and continue toward Germany. Hundreds of thousands of migrants passed through last year, but now Macedonia is closed. Europe’s door is slamming shut.

“I am in a very high degree of miserable,” Mr. Ahmad told me, speaking in a singsong English he learned in Syria, as our shoes sank into the muck.

“I ask my friends in Germany and Turkey: ‘What is happening? Tell us,’” he said. “We don’t know what is happening outside.”

Mission accomplished? Russia to withdraw troops from Syria on Tuesday

Holly Yan-Profile-Image
By Holly Yan, CNN
Updated 0647 GMT (1447 HKT) March 15, 2016

(CNN)Russia's bombing blitz in Syria will end today, leaving behind both significant destruction and a Syrian regime to largely fend for itself.

The surprise announcement by Russia on Monday came as suddenly as the airstrike campaign started last September.

"The task that was assigned to the Ministry of Defense and the armed forces as a whole has achieved its goal," Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

But Russia's stated goal -- fighting terrorists like ISIS in Syria -- didn't match the reality on the ground, critics say. They point to the bombings of civilian areas as reason to believe Russia is actually helping its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, eliminate his opposition.

Close allies
Russia has both economic and ideological reasons to support the Syrian regime, even as many other countries blame Assad for the deaths of thousands of dissidents.

U.S. confirms death of ISIS operative Omar al-Shishani

Barbara Starr-Profile-Image
By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent
Updated 2224 GMT (0624 HKT) March 14, 2016

CNN International

Washington (CNN)Two U.S. officials told CNN that the Obama administration has confirmed that ISIS senior operative Omar al-Shishani is dead.

The officials said he was injured in a U.S. airstrike last week and then died subsequently, though they wouldn't say how they know he is dead.

The initial U.S. assessment was that he was "likely killed" in the strike, but further assessments led them to understand he had been injured and only later died.

He was killed along with 12 additional ISIS fighters in a wave of strikes by drones and manned aircraft.

Since then, CNN has learned that Shishani was at a "shura," or meeting with other officials, at the time of the strike. U.S. officials had emphasized at the time it was publicly announced that they were not certain of his death and were assessing whether the strike killed him.

This Is The Anti-Refugee Party That Won A Big Victory In Germany

The Alternative for Germany party has surged in popularity amid Europe's refugee crisis.
 03/14/2016 06:57 pm ET

The Huffington Post


Nick Robins-Early
World News Reporter, The Huffington Post


An anti-refugee, ultra-conservative populist party made huge gains in Germany's regional elections on Sunday and further cemented its recent surge to the forefront of the nation's politics.

The controversial Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, secured seats in all three regions that voted and was the second-most-popular party in one of them.

The vote is a big victory for the once-fringe party, reflecting national divisions over how Chancellor Angela Merkel has handled the refugee crisis in the first major elections since she implemented Germany's open-border policy last year. Alternative for Germany has been steadily rising in polls since then, amid a current of anti-immigration sentiment.

MACEDONIAN POLICE 'RETURNING' HUNDREDS OF MIGRANTS TO GREECE

BY REUTERS ON 3/14/16 AT 5:47 PM

Newsweek

SKOPJE (Reuters) - The Macedonian police are taking steps to return to Greece a group of migrants who evaded a border fence and crossed in to Macedonian territory on Monday, a police spokeswoman said.

"We are taking measures to return the group to Greece," the Macedonian police spokeswoman said. "Police and army have heightened security on the border at critical points."

The spokeswoman said she believed "several hundred" migrants had crossed, lower than an estimate of 2,000 made by a Reuters photographer.

Hundreds of migrants marched out of a Greek transit camp, hiked for hours along muddy paths and crossed a rain-swollen river to get around a border fence and cross into Macedonia, where they were detained on Monday, authorities said.

Greece steps up efforts to move migrants to sheltered camps

Sun Mar 13, 2016 12:55pm EDT Related: WORLD, GREECE
ATHENS/IDOMENI | BY LEFTERIS KARAGIANNOPOULOS AND PHOEBE FRONISTA

Reuters

Greece increased efforts on Saturday to move thousands of migrants near the border with Macedonia to sheltered camps, as the spread of infection became a concern with one person in a sprawling tent city diagnosed with Hepatitis A.

Stranded in filthy conditions near the northern border town of Idomeni, at least 12,000 people, among them thousands of children, were waiting to cross the frontier although Macedonia and other nations along the so-called Western Balkan route have closed their borders.

Scuffles broke out at the camp in recent days as destitute people scrambled for food and firewood, while many have been sleeping in the open, often in the rain amid low temperatures.

Greek authorities handed out leaflets in Idomeni on Saturday informing people that the main route to northern Europe was shut. The pamphlets urged them to move to buildings and hospitality centers across Greece that have been set aside for the purpose, according to a government official from the country's refugee crisis management coordination body.

Greece: Stranded Migrants Head for Dangerous Route North

By COSTAS KANTOURIS AND KONSTANTIN TESTORIDES ASSOCIATED HAMILO, Greece — Mar 14, 2016, 9:32 AM ET

ABC News

Hundreds of migrants and refugees walked out of an overcrowded camp on the Greek-Macedonian border Monday, determined to use a dangerous crossing to head north.

More than 300 people, including dozens of children, were heading west toward a river that crosses the border, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) outside the village of Idomeni, where some 14,000 people are stranded at a sprawling camp.

They refused to turn back at a Greek police cordon outside the camp.

More than 40,000 people have been stranded in Greece after Macedonia and other ex-Yugoslav countries closed their borders to migrants and refugees — prompting them to seek more dangerous crossings.

Underscoring the risks, police in Macedonia said the bodies of two men and one woman, believed to be migrants, were found Monday in the Suva Reka river near the border with Greece. Twenty migrants crossed safely and another three were hospitalized, authorities said.

China Weighs Letting Banks Sell Bad Debt to Investors

By CHRIS BUCKLEYMARCH 12, 2016

The New York Times


BEIJING — China is exploring a new way to grapple with its mounting pile of bad corporate debt, though its top central banker sought on Saturday to dispel worries that the plan would simply shift the burden to other parts of the country’s vast economy.

Under the tentative proposal, Chinese officials would allow banks saddled with growing quantities of bad loans to sell that debt to investors, said Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People’s Bank of China. The goal is to help alleviate one of the major drags on China’s economy, the world’s second largest after the United States’ and a major driver of global growth.

But Mr. Zhou and a deputy central bank governor, Pan Gongsheng, said they would take steps to make sure the effort did not create the kind of risk-laden financial products that played a major role in the 2008 global financial crisis. The effort would be modest, regulators would monitor it closely, and mom-and-pop investors would be kept out, they said.

“There’s no need to exaggerate,” Mr. Zhou said at a news conference held as part of China’s annual legislative session in Beijing. “There’s not certainty that this would be a very big market.”

Refugee crisis: Macedonia tells Germany they've 'completely failed'

Macedonia is 'paying for the mistakes of the EU' says President Ivanov, as his country seals its border with Greece
Charlotte Beale

The Independent

Macedonia’s President has told Germany "your country has completely failed" in its security response to the refugee crisis.

While praising the "humanity" of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door immigration policy, President Gjorge Ivanov said "the security situation has been entirely ignored" in an interview with German newspaper Bild.

Authorities in Macedonia, which is not a European Union member state, have seized 9,000 forged or stolen passports from refugees.

But Macedonian offers to share intelligence and data on alleged jihadists have been rejected by Europe, Mr Ivanov said.

"We were told: we cannot cooperate with you; you are a third party country."

Greece steps up efforts to move migrants to sheltered camps

Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:37pm EST Related: WORLD, GREECE

ATHENS/IDOMENI | BY LEFTERIS KARAGIANNOPOULOS AND PHOEBE FRONISTA

Reuters

Greece increased efforts on Saturday to move thousands of migrants near the border with Macedonia to sheltered camps, as the spread of infection became a concern with two people in a sprawling tent city diagnosed with Hepatitis A.

Stranded in filthy conditions at a muddy tent city near the northern border town of Idomeni, at least 12,000 people, among them thousands of children, were waiting to cross the frontier although Macedonia and other nations along the so-called Western Balkan route have closed their borders.

Scuffles broke out at the camp in recent days as destitute people scrambled for food and firewood, while many have been sleeping in the open, often in the rain amid low temperatures.

Exclusive: Greece Won’t Use Force to Move Thousands of Migrants Stuck in Squalid Camp

Simon Shuster / Athens @shustry  March 10, 2016
ΤΙΜΕ

Their influx has spiked again this week despite Turkey's pledge to stop their boats, a senior official in Athens tells TIME

Although the sprawling refugee camp on the Greek border with Macedonia is quickly turning into a humanitarian nightmare—with around 12,000 migrants refusing to leave until the border, on Wednesday, reopens—the Greek authorities have ruled out the use of force in trying to deport them or move them to organized shelters, the government official coordinating Greece’s response to the refugee crisis says in an exclusive interview with TIME.

“The only plan is to persuade them,” says Dimitris Vitsas, the Alternate Minister of Defense, speaking in his office in Athens. “There is no plan of violence. We will not use force.”

China’s Outflows of Money Slowed in February

By KEITH BRADSHERMARCH 7, 2016

The New York Times

HONG KONG — Few economic statistics have gone as quickly from obscurity to the center of attention from international financial markets lately as China’s foreign currency reserves, widely seen as the best barometer of how long China can avoid a possible devaluation someday of its own currency.

Monthly changes in the reserves these days mainly reflect how much money is being sent out of the country by Chinese companies and families nervous about the country’s economic slowdown and sweeping anticorruption investigations. Over the last five weeks, the Chinese government has waged an aggressive campaign to stem the outflow, through almost daily pledges by officials not to devalue and through much tighter enforcement of the rules on sending money overseas.

Forget fracking. Choking and lifting are latest efforts to stem U.S. shale bust

Thu Mar 10, 2016 2:32am EST Related: GLOBAL ENERGY NEWS
BY SWETHA GOPINATH AND AMRUTHA GAYATHRI

Reuters

Something is awry in the beleaguered U.S. shale patch: older wells, which normally gush oil or natural gas in their first few months before rapidly depleting, are not petering out as quickly as they should.

When oil prices began falling a year and a half ago in the deepest rout in a generation, many analysts expected U.S. crude production, especially from fracking in the new shale plays that contributed to a global supply glut, to follow quickly.