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BERLIN -- The latest news as countries across Europe cope
with the arrival of thousands of migrants and refugees. All times local
(CET):
---
10:40 p.m.
Austria will roll back the measures that allowed migrants to cross the border in their thousands from Hungary over the weekend.
Chancellor
Werner Faymann says the emergency measures will be lifted "step by
step" in order to "ensure the common security of the (European Union's)
external borders, safeguard fair asylum procedures and achieve a fair
distribution of asylum seekers by means of a European quota."
Faymann
spoke after discussing the migrant situation Sunday with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
---
10 p.m.
Authorities in Bavaria say they expect the number of migrants arriving in Munich to reach 11,000 by the end of the day.
A
spokeswoman for the government of Upper Bavaria says some 8,600 people
have arrived at the city's main train station since the morning.
Simone Hilgers told The Associated Press that further trains are expected in the coming hours.
She
says Munich is well prepared for the new arrivals but that Bavaria
needs help from other German states to meet the challenge of so many
people arriving in a short space of time.
Hilgers
declined to say how many more people Munich could manage, but said that
"if the arrivals keep up as they have for the past days you can imagine
we're eventually going to reach our limit."
---
7 p.m.
Britain's
treasury chief has said the country's international aid budget will be
put to use to help the government settle thousands more Syrian refugees.
The number has not yet been set.
George
Osborne said Sunday that the money will be earmarked for local
authorities to help pay for housing people coming from refugee camps
that border Syria.
It follows an earlier
announcement from Prime Minister David Cameron that Britain would
substantially expand its refugee program.
Osborne
said the government is involved in a "fundament re-think" of its aid
policy. He said the crisis is now on Britain's doorstep and that part of
the 12 billion pound ($23 billion) international aid budget should be
put to use to help refugees get started in Britain.
---
6:10 p.m.
Hungary
has permitted migrants to use normal train services to move closer to
Western Europe through its porous western border, abandoning visa checks
that it previously used to prevent them from easily reaching Austria
and Germany on public transportation.
The
unexpected move came just a day after Hungary, buckling from the
pressure of a buildup of thousands of asylum seekers at Budapest's main
railway station and on its major highway, shuttled several thousand
people to its border with Austria using a fleet of buses.
Austria
and Germany, the migrants' predominant destination, agreed to take the
busloads as an exceptional measure but emphasized that Hungary must
handle the cases of other asylum seekers on its own soil. Hungary
likewise billed the bus convoy as a once-only opportunity for migrants
to avoid its own asylum system.
---
5:40 p.m.
Lech
Walesa, Poland's legendary Solidarity leader and former president, says
he believes refugees fleeing war and persecution must be helped, and
that he would even be willing to welcome some into his own home.
Walesa,
who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his activism against communism in the
1980s, said "we have to share our last slice of bread with those in
need. We are humans. They are in a tragic situation."
He spoke on Sunday to the private TVN24 broadcaster.
Asked
by a television journalist if he would be willing to take refugees into
his own home, he said he was but that he would first need to get his
wife's agreement.
Poland's government has so far agreed to take 2,000 refugees in a European Union plan.
---
5:15 p.m.
Germany has warned other European Union members that they must abide by the bloc's rules on processing asylum seekers.
The
country's interior ministry says the so-called Dublin rules, which
require asylum requests to be processed in the first EU country they
arrive in, are still valid.
It says Germany's
decision to allow thousands of migrants in Hungary to travel onward to
Germany was an exception and "this does not render the Dublin rules
inactive."
The ministry cautioned in a
statement Sunday that "big willingness to help, which Germany has shown
in the last weeks and months, should not be overstretched."
It
added that "Only if this is ensured can Germany continue to do its part
to tackle the large number of asylum seekers" coming to Europe.
---
4:55 p.m.
Popular
French far right leader Marine Le Pen, pressing her anti-immigration
platform, says the widely shared photo of a dead Syrian refugee is being
used to make Europeans "feel guilty."
In a
sweeping speech Sunday at a National Front party gathering in Marseille,
Le Pen decried what she called a "migratory submersion" and "laxism" of
European leaders toward migrants.
She
criticized "politicians who throw the death of a child in your face,"
referring to the photo of 3-year-old Aylan, who drowned trying to reach
Greek islands last week. The image has drawn greater attention to the
plight of Syrians refugees.
The weekend
gathering laid out policies before regional elections in December, after
Le Pen kicked her father Jean-Marie Le Pen out of the party he founded.
---
3 p.m.
Authorities
in Bavaria, Germany's biggest state, say they want other parts of the
country to take up responsibility for new migrants after some 7,000
people arrived Saturday.
A spokeswoman for the
authorities in Upper Bavaria says some 1,360 people arrived in Munich
by Sunday morning and a further 4,000 people are expected during the
course of the day.
Simone Hilgers told The
Associated Press that "Munich and Bavaria can't manage it alone" and
that Bavaria "needs the support pledged by other (German) states."
Hilgers says some 3,300 migrants have already been taken other parts of Germany since Saturday morning.
---
1:15 p.m.
Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani has praised European Union countries helping
the refugees streaming into the 28-nation bloc and urged others to step
up their efforts.
The remarks, published on
Rouhani's website Sunday, came during a meeting with the new Hungarian
ambassador in Tehran and were seen as indirect criticism of Budapest's
handling of the situation.
He said: "We are
happy that some European countries made positive efforts to help
refugees and we hope other European countries that do not have this
position compensate on shortcomings."
After
days of chaos, Hungary opened its borders with Austria over the weekend,
allowing thousands of refugees and migrants to travel westward.
Iran
is a major patron of Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose forces have
been responsible for much of the violence that has driven more than 4
million Syrians to flee the country.
---
12:30 p.m.
Pope Francis is asking faithful throughout Europe to shelter refugees fleeing `'death from war and hunger."
Francis
said Sunday that the Vatican's two parishes are taking in two families
of refugees. He gave no details as he addressed tens of thousands of
people in St. Peter's Square.
Francis said
it's not enough to say, `'Have courage, hang in there," to the hundreds
of thousands of refugees who are on the march toward what he called
`'life's hope."
He called on every Catholic
parish, convent, monastery and sanctuary in Europe to shelter a family,
and asked bishops throughout Europe to urge their dioceses to do the
same.
---
11:30 p.m.
Israel's
prime minister says his country is not indifferent to the plight of
migrants and refugees flooding Europe, but that Israel is too vulnerable
to absorb them.
Benjamin Netanyahu bemoaned
the "human tragedy" of the victims of Syria's civil war and said Israel
has aided them in various ways. But he added that Israel is too small a
country, both geographically and demographically, to provide a haven for
a large influx of migrants.
Israel runs a
field hospital on its border with Syria and has taken in wounded
Syrians, but has stopped short of opening the borders to its longtime
enemy.
Israel's opposition leader Isaac Herzog
says the country should take in a limited number of Syrian asylum
seekers amid the current refugee crisis in Europe.
---
10:45 p.m.
Authorities
in Cyprus say they have rescued 114 people believed to be refugees
fleeing war-torn Syria after their fishing boat issued a distress call
some 46 miles (74 kilometers) off the east Mediterranean island nation's
southern coast.
Cyprus police said Sunday
that all 114 people, including Palestinians from Syria, are in good
health. They include 19 women, 30 children, 5 infants and 60 men.
A
merchant vessel notified Cyprus' Search and Rescue Center late Saturday
that the refugees' 60-foot (18-meter) fishing boat was in trouble.
The refugees were transferred to the southern port of Larnaca for health and identity checks.
Police said three men, including a 28-year-old believed to be the boat's captain, have been arrested and are being questioned.
---
10 a.m.
French
mayors are offering to house refugees amid increasing concern for
Syrians and others fleeing war and seeking haven in Europe.
French
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a statement Sunday that
several dozen mayors have offered to help in recent days, and convened a
national meeting to organize refugee housing on Sept. 12.
France
is trying to speed up the process for seeking asylum and to better
welcome refugees, as the numbers coming to Europe this year have soared.
Many asylum seekers in France have no place to live and sleep in
make-shift camps, from Paris to Calais.
A
grassroots French group arranging private housing for refugees has also
seen a spike in offers in recent days, after the widely viewed photo of a
drowned Syrian boy helped raise public awareness.
---
9:30 a.m.
On
the Greek island of Lesbos, police have used batons to beat back a
demonstration by some 300 migrants chanting "Athena, Athena" as they
tried to come out of the port area. Several of the protesters were
injured in the clash, with one taken away unconscious by an ambulance.
The
migrants, mostly Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans, say that local
authorities on the Aegean island are not processing them quickly enough
so they can continue their journey to western Europe. They also complain
that authorities on Lesbos are not offering them any help and that they
are fast running out of money.
The clashes
early Sunday were the third in as many days between migrants and police.
The demonstration on Sunday was led by Afghans.
---
9:15 a.m.
Thousands of migrants and refugees have arrived by train and bus in cities across Germany overnight.
Police
say a special train with 570 people on board arrived in the Thuringian
town of Saalfeld late Saturday. More than half of them were taken onward
to Dresden, where a school for German army officers has been cleared to
provide temporary shelter for 350 newcomers.
Trains
also took migrants to Hamburg in the north and Dortmund in the west of
the country, while buses brought more than 300 people to the capital
Berlin.
Thousands more people, mainly Syrians,
Iraqis and Afghans fleeing war and persecution, are expected to arrive
in Germany and Austria from Hungary on Sunday.
The refugees were allowed to leave Hungary Saturday after the country opened its borders with Austria.
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