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ATHENS, Greece -- The latest developments as European
governments rush to cope with the huge number of people moving across
Europe. All times local (CET):
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11:00 p.m.
A rally and march in solidarity with migrants in Athens, Greece has only drawn about 500 people.
Attendees at Saturday night's rally carried banners declaring "Refugees Welcome" and "Deportation for Racists.
The protesters peacefully marched a block to the European Union offices before dispersing.
Over
300,000 migrants have crossed into Greece so far this year straining
the country's inadequate resources and causing resentment among
inhabitants of Greek islands close to Turkey, where the migrants come
ashore.
Polls show the far-right, anti-migrant
Golden Dawn party is third place, a week ahead of a snap national
election. There are fears the migrant issue could boost its support past
the 10-percent mark.
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9:40 p.m.
A
demonstration and concert at Budapest's Keleti train station meant to
express solidarity with migrants drew mostly people angry about Prime
Minister Viktor Orban's treatment of migrants.
Activists
gathered signatures for a referendum aimed at repealing government
policies, while people held signs like "Not in my name" or "Refugee
lives are a matter of solidarity, not a political campaign."
Musicians
performed everything from jazz to songs from the Csango culture, a
Hungarian-speaking minority living in Romania, for a few hundred people.
Most of the migrants remained in a sunken plaza at the train station instead of going to the concert upstairs.
Abdulhakim
Issa, a 15-year-old from Syria, welcomed the concert but explained that
he was preparing to get on the next train out of Budapest to reach his
brother in Germany.
--
8 p.m.
Hungary
has lashed back at the Austrian chancellor's comparison of Hungary's
treatment of migrants with the fate of Jews during the Holocaust.
Foreign
Minister Peter Szijjarto said Chancellor Werner Faymann's comments
published Saturday were "totally unworthy of any leading 21st-century
European politician."
Szijjarto said Hungary
was complying with international standards for treating migrants and
that Faymann's "slanderous" statements were meant to "cover his own
inadequacy or for domestic political gains."
Hungary also summoned the Austrian ambassador in Budapest to object to the comments.
Szijjarto repeated that Hungary considers the vast majority arriving not as refugees but as economic migrants.
Over 180,000 people have entered Hungary this year, over four times more than last year.
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6:15 p.m.
Each
goal scored in Switzerland's top soccer league matches this weekend
will earn 500 Swiss francs ($513) for a charity working with refugees.
The
Swiss Football League says it pledged the money to Swiss Solidarity
from 10 matches in the top two divisions. It hopes the money will help
create "a more peaceful life to all people confronted by war."
League
CEO Claudius Schaefer says players from 50 countries represented its
teams last season. He says "our clubs know every day the true meaning
of integration and solidarity."
Swiss
Solidarity, a foundation of state broadcasters, says it has raised 23
million Swiss francs ($23.6 million) for its Syria campaign.
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5:50 p.m.
Premier
League clubs in England are helping Save the Children raise funds for
refugees this weekend, with Arsenal donating one pound ($1.50) from each
ticket sold.
The appeal is being promoted at
six games on Saturday, with matches featuring banners of support and
messages on big screens encouraging fans to donate.
Justin
Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children, says that soccer "has an
incredible ability to bring people together." He added he was "proud
that Arsenal is leading the way in showing that Britain cares."
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5:30 p.m.
France
has suspended its honorary consul in the Turkish seaside town of Bodrum
after it was revealed that her maritime shop sells rubber rafts to
migrants.
The move was prompted by a TV report from Bodrum, a jumping-off point for migrants heading by sea to Greece.
France
2 TV used hidden camera to talk with Francoise Olcay in her store -
which has a French flag outside and a plaque naming it as a "consular
agency of France."
Olcay said she was aware
that migrants are among the customers for such rafts, which are
ill-equipped for a sea voyage. But she said stopping sales would "change
absolutely nothing."
Honorary consuls aren't paid and often have local businesses.
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5:15 p.m.
Migrant children have been applauded by 75,000 soccer fans as they accompanied Bayern Munich players onto the field in Munich.
The tribute Saturday took place before a Bundesliga game with Augsburg.
The
players held hands with a migrant child on one side and a German child
on the other for what the club says was "a symbol for the integration of
refugees."
Some of the kids waved shyly to
the crowd while others simply soaked it all in - the culmination of long
treks across Europe that were fraught with danger, hunger and fear.
Bayern,
like many German clubs, has offered support to people fleeing war and
poverty. The club is donating 1 million euros ($1.1 million) to refugee
projects and arranging a training camp to give youths German lessons,
meals and soccer equipment.
---
5 p.m.
Up
to 30,000 people have gathered outside the Danish Parliament in
Copenhagen and are chanting in English "Say it loud and say it clear:
Refugees are welcome here!"
The rally Saturday
was part of a European-wide movement to welcome the tens of thousands
fleeing violence in their home countries.
Moroccan-born
Mohammed Harra told Denmark's Politiken newspaper "I am here to support
refugees who have been driven out of their houses because of what has
happened in Syria, with the bombings and the killings."
Europe this summer is facing an enormous wave of people, many from Syria, who are fleeing violence in their home nations.
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4:45 p.m.
The
Hungarian camerawoman caught on video kicking and tripping migrants
running from police has issued a new apology after her initial one was
criticized for not being remorseful enough.
Petra
Laszlo said Saturday in a message on the website of the Magyar Nemzet
newspaper that she found it hard to express her exact feelings because
her life was now "crumbling into ruins."
Using all capital letters, Laszlo, 40, then said "I SINCERELY APOLOGIZE FOR WHAT HAPPENED TO THOSE AFFECTED."
Hungarian
media say she and her family have now gone into hiding. Laszlo was
dismissed Tuesday by N1TV, an Internet-based channel closely associated
with Hungary's far-right Jobbik party, hours after her actions.
The
channel's website has been down since Thursday after being disabled by
"Fallaga Team," an Islamist hacker group from Tunisia.
---
4 p.m.
Some 600 French mayors and many humanitarian groups have gathered in Paris to address the question of migrant housing.
The
session Saturday with Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve aims to lay
the groundwork for France to take in 24,000 refugees over the next two
years.
Even before the refugee crisis, France
had a housing crisis for asylum seekers, with some left to fend for
themselves on the streets.
Mayors attended of
their own volition. Some have already said they want only Christian
refugees - a notion officially frowned on. The only major French party
not at the session was the far-right National Front, which is
fundamentally opposed to France taking in more refugees.
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3:50 p.m.
It appears that few asylum seekers want to stay in Denmark.
Danish
police say 225 people crossed the border from Germany into Denmark
between Friday and Saturday, and only three applied for asylum in
Denmark. The rest headed north, likely to Sweden, Norway or Finland.
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3:30 p.m.
The
head of Sweden's immigration agency says the photograph of the young
Syrian boy who drown on a beach in Turkey while trying to get to Europe
"has had an impact and changed the image" of migrants.
The
agency, Migrationsverket, expects 90,000 people will seek shelter in
Sweden this year, a country of 10 million that took in more than 80,000
asylum seekers last year.
Agency chief Anders
Danielsson told Sweden's Aftonbladet newspaper that "there is a crisis,
but not for us. It is a crisis for those fleeing."
The
Scandinavian country ranks among the top five European Union countries
where refugees go, and is second after Germany for asylum applications
this year.
On Friday night, hundreds of migrants were in Malmo's central train station.
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3 p.m.
German
Chancellor Angela Merkel says allowing in the tens of thousands of
migrants who had piled up in Hungary was the right decision, fending off
criticism from a conservative ally.
Horst
Seehofer, the leader of the Christian Social Union - the Bavarian sister
party to Merkel's own conservative Christian Democrats - was quoted as
telling the weekly Der Spiegel that the decision was "a mistake which
will occupy us for a long time." Seehofer says he sees "no possibility
of getting the cap back on the bottle."
Merkel
said Saturday "we made a decision last week in an emergency situation."
She added: "I am convinced that it was right," the dpa news agency
reported.
Merkel didn't mention Seehofer
directly. She said Germany would do justice to its responsibility to
help those who need protection.
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2:45 p.m.
A
German official says 3,600 migrants arrived in Munich on Saturday
morning and a total of 10,000 or more are expected in the course of the
day.
Simone Hilgers, a spokeswoman for the
Upper Bavaria region's government, said that compares with the 5,800 who
came Friday. At least two special trains were expected to take some of
the migrants on to other parts of Germany.
Munich
is running short of room to accommodate the arrivals. The northern
state of Lower Saxony said it now plans to have trains from Austria run
to the town of Bad Fallingbostel, and then distribute the migrants
across northern Germany.
Germany takes in more asylum seekers than any other country in Europe - and expects to handle at least 800,000 this year.
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1:40 p.m.
Greece's
coast guard says it is searching the eastern Aegean Sea for five people
- four children and a 20-year-old - who are missing when two smugglers'
boats capsized en route from Turkey to the islands of Samos and Lesbos.
The coast guard said 56 others aboard the two craft were rescued Saturday.
Greek
authorities continue to expedite the flow of people from the eastern
island of Lesbos, where most asylum seekers reach by sea from nearby
Turkey. A ferry carrying 2,493 migrants docked Saturday at the port of
Piraeus, southwest of Athens, with more ferries expected later.
Those
arriving at Piraeus quickly make their way by bus or train to Greece's
northern border with non-EU member Macedonia. Police say about 3,500
crossed that border by foot from Friday afternoon to Saturday morning.
Greek
police also found the body of a Syrian man who disappeared earlier this
week near the border. He was found, apparently drowned, in the Vardar
River.
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12:30 p.m.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is encouraging refugee women arriving in Germany to learn the language and make new contacts.
Merkel
noted in her weekly video message Saturday that women arriving in
Europe "have often experienced terrible things and are also
traumatized."
She said that beyond attempts to
deal with that, "I can only advise women to learn the language." She
said they should consider learning with their children, who may speak
better German as a result of going to school - "(but) they shouldn't be
scared off by that."
Merkel said she also
advises women "simply to seek contacts - not to curl up and just live
and work in the community they know, but try to get out too."
---
11:40 a.m.
Germany's vice chancellor is renewing calls for a European solution to the migrant crisis.
Sigmar
Gabriel said in the central city of Hildesheim Saturday that "Germany
sees itself in a situation where we are reaching limits," the news
agency dpa reported. He added that "the speed is almost more problematic
than the number."
Some 450,000 migrants have
arrived in Germany this year, the pace picked up in the past week. The
country is expecting at least 800,000 this year, the most in Europe.
Gabriel
said it's important to help the region around Syria and to talk to
Turkey, where migrants set off in boats for EU member Greece, about how
to slow down the flow.
---
10:50 a.m.
Austria's
leader is attacking his Hungarian counterpart's hard-line policies in
the migrant crisis, arguing that it's irresponsible to say all are
coming for economic reasons.
Austria and
Germany are at odds with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who
rejects proposed Europe-wide quotas for migrants and has drawn criticism
for his management of those streaming through Hungary.
Austrian
Chancellor Werner Faymann told German weekly Der Spiegel that Austria,
Germany and Sweden recognize the migrants include war refugees and stand
by the right to asylum.
He said "Orban is acting irresponsibly when he says everyone is an economic refugee."
Faymann
was quoted as saying: "Putting refugees on trains in the belief that
they are going somewhere totally different awakens memories of our
continent's darkest time" - an allusion to the Nazi Holocaust.
---
10:30 a.m.
Saudi
Arabia says it has taken in about 2.5 million Syrians since fighting
began in the country, its first official response to suggestions that
oil-rich Gulf states should do more to address the plight of Syrian
refugees.
The official Saudi Press Agency
quoted an unidentified official source at the Ministry of Foreign
Ministry late Friday saying the kingdom does not consider those taken in
as refugees and does not house them in camps "order to ensure their
dignity and safety."
It says they are free to
move around the country and that several hundreds of thousands who have
chosen to say have been granted residency status, giving them rights to
jobs, schools and free medical care.
The
report says the kingdom did not previously discuss the matter because it
"did not wish to boast about its efforts or attempt to gain media
coverage."
---
10:30 a.m.
A
senior German official says people are leaving the region around Syria
at a "breathtaking" rate, but is indicating that it isn't clear whether
the influx to Germany will reach 40,000 this weekend.
Germany's
foreign minister said Friday that 40,000 migrants were expected in
Germany over the weekend. However Aydan Ozoguz, a government official
responsible for immigrant issues, told rbb-Inforadio Saturday: "We'll
have to see whether this figure really comes true."
Ozoguz
said a lot of people are on the move, and "the pace at which people are
fleeing from the region is breathtaking." She said it was "extremely
cynical" of Hungary's prime minister to say people are safe in
neighboring countries.
Federal police in Munich, the main point of arrival in Germany, said 1,650 people arrived there Saturday morning.
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9:40 a.m.
Hungary's
prime minister is proposing that European Union countries give 3
billion euros ($3.4 billion) in aid to Syria's neighbors to help stem
the flow of refugees from camps there.
Viktor
Orban, who has drawn criticism for his hard line on migrants reaching
Europe, argued that people coming to Europe from Lebanon, Jordan and
Turkey in future should return because "they were safe there."
Saturday's
edition of the German daily Bild quoted him as saying: "There is no
fundamental right to a better life, only a right to safety and human
dignity."
Orban suggested every EU country pay
1 percent extra into the EU budget while reducing other spending. He
said that would generate 3 billion euros for aid, which could be
increased "until the stream of refugees dries up."
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