UK: Record Number of Migrants Crossing English Channel

by Soeren Kern • September 16, 2021 at 5:00 am

More than 14,500 migrants have crossed the Channel in around 600 small boats so far in 2021, surpassing the 8,713 arrivals (in 650 boats) during all of 2020, according to Migration Watch, which notes that the actual number of arrivals is probably far higher than what has been recorded in official statistics. Since the beginning of 2021, not a single migrant has been deported to the safe European countries they traveled through.
"The incentives are skewed so that they encourage, rather than discourage, illegal (and dangerous) trips that often lead to asylum abuse." — Migration Watch UK.
"They want to go to England because they can expect better conditions on arrival there than anywhere else in Europe or even internationally. There are no ID cards. They can easily find work outside the formal economy, which is not really controlled." — Mayor of Calais Natacha Bouchart.
"Both traffickers and migrants know that 'no civilized country can allow people to drown at sea'; this is why people get on overcrowded vessels. 'And this is why Britain is about to be plunged into a similar crisis to the one Italy faced three years ago, albeit on a reduced scale.'" — British news magazine, The Week, quoting James Forsyth in The Times.
"Instead of the United Kingdom being able to choose the children and families most in need, illegal immigration instead allows those who pay people smugglers, or who are strong, to push their way to the front of the queue.... Our legal system needs reform. It is open to abuse." — Immigration Control Minister Chris Philip.
"First it was a few, then hundreds, and now 1,000 in a day, the French just waving them through with a cheery 'Bon Voyage.' If the French won't stop the small boats then we need to by turning them back, making returns and taking firm control of our borders." — Natalie Elphicke, Conservative MP for Dover.

The British government is struggling to stop illegal migrants attempting to cross the English Channel on small boats — partly because of its need for cooperation from France. British authorities have repeatedly accused their French counterparts of not doing enough to stop small boats from leaving French territorial waters. Pictured: Illegal migrants walk ashore on the beach at Dungeness, England on September 7, 2021. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Nearly a thousand migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East have attempted to cross the English Channel on small boats in just one day to illegally get into the United Kingdom. The record-breaking surge in illegal crossings is being facilitated by warm weather and calm seas.

The British government is struggling to stop the crossings — partly because of its need for cooperation from France. British authorities have repeatedly accused their French counterparts of not doing enough to stop small boats from leaving French territorial waters.

Although the UK has pledged to pay France tens of millions of pounds to stop migrants crossing the Channel, French naval vessels are accused of escorting small boats into British waters.

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China's Belt and Road Initiative: Bad News for Human Rights

by Judith Bergman • September 16, 2021 at 4:00 am

Findings about BRI's negative impact on human rights in Cambodia and Guinea raise the much wider issue of how China's Belt and Road Initiative affects human rights worldwide. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, around 139 countries -- more than half the countries in the world -- have now joined BRI.
China has also invested in multiple large-scale BRI projects in Iran, which has reportedly been leasing out its territorial waters in the Persian Gulf to Chinese industrial ships for more than a decade. This arrangement has led to a situation... where Chinese fishing vessels are "illegally cleaning out fish resources in the Persian Gulf" while "Iranian fishermen are forced to pay ten thousand dollars in bribes to Somalian pirates to let them fish on the African shores".
Such a compromise of locals' food-and-income security is a measure of China's influence in the country -- and a practice coupled with the Iranian government's disregard for the living conditions of its own citizens. Scant regard for human rights is presumably also one of the reasons why China prefers to deal with autocratic regimes.

A new report has found that one of China's Belt and Road Initiative projects in Cambodia -- a hydroelectric dam known as the Lower Sesan 2, completed in 2018 -- resulted in severe human rights violations. The project displaced nearly 5,000 mainly indigenous people and ethnic minorities. Pictured: The Lower Sesan 2 dam. (Photo by Ly Lay/AFP via Getty Images)

A new report, "Underwater: Human Rights Impacts of a China Belt and Road Project in Cambodia," has found that one of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Cambodia -- a hydroelectric dam known as the Lower Sesan 2, completed in 2018 -- resulted in severe human rights violations. The project displaced nearly 5,000 mainly indigenous people and ethnic minorities, who had lived in villages along the Sesan and Srepok Rivers for generations, earning a living from fishing and agriculture. The project, the report estimates, negatively affected the lives of tens of thousands of other locals, who depend on fishing in the rivers for food and income. The project compromised locals' food security, and their losses were either inadequately compensated or not compensated at all. The Lower Sesan 2 is just one out of seven BRI hydroelectric projects in Cambodia.

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