Migrant in Greece says they begged for food, water, blankets

August 20, 2015

PIRAEUS, Greece (AP) — Thousands of migrants reached Greece's main port near Athens on Thursday, with one telling of a perilous journey from Syria dodging armed Turkish border guards and begging for water, food and blankets during her family's quest to reach the safety of Europe.

Greece has been overwhelmed this year by record numbers of migrants reaching its eastern Aegean islands clandestinely from the nearby Turkish coast, with more than 160,000 arriving since January. In a bid to ease the overcrowding on the islands, the government chartered a ferry that transported about 2,500 migrants to the port of Piraeus.

Vian Baker, a 21-year-old Syrian student from Aleppo, said she was heading to Europe along with her father and sister to continue her studies, which were interrupted due to the war in her homeland. "We couldn't live there. Bombs and war," Baker said after disembarking from the ferry.

She described a dangerous 15-day journey from Aleppo to Greece that included hiding for six hours in the woods on the Turkish-Syrian border to find an opportunity to cross at night, and then dodging Turkish border guards who she said fired into the air. From Turkey, she and her family crossed over to the small Greek island of Leros in a three-hour sea journey.

"We faced death," Baker said, adding that once on the island, there were no facilities for the new arrivals. "We slept on the street. We didn't have blankets. We didn't have anything. Even water. I don't know what to tell you. We begged for water, we begged for food," she said.

The ferry had served as a registration center on the eastern Aegean island of Kos earlier this week. It left Kos Wednesday with about 1,300 migrants and picked up hundreds more from the islands of Leros, Kalymnos and Lesbos.

The vast majority of migrants do not want to stay in Greece, a financially troubled country with unemployment at more than 26 percent. They head north to Greece's border with Macedonia and then through the Balkans toward the more prosperous European nations such as Germany, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries.

Hamsa Al Halabiah, a 44-year-old Syrian who fled her home country about four years ago to Lebanon and then Turkey, said she was among those heading to Germany, where her brother-in-law lives. "We hope to find a better future for our kids, for our children. (The situation in Syria) is too bad, very bad. It's terrible, it's miserable, no words can express the reality in Syria now," she said.

Germany says it could face as many as 800,000 migrants this year — four times the number from last year. It now handles 43 percent of all asylum applications in the 28-nation European Union and says Europe has to come up with a better way to share the burden.

The Greek government has appeared unprepared for the massive influx, with island authorities complaining they have been left understaffed and underfunded to deal with hundreds of new migrants arriving each day.

The Greek coast guard, meanwhile, said it had picked up 519 people in 16 search-and-rescue operations in the last 24 hours off the islands of Samos, Agathonissi, Kos and Farmakonissi. The figure does not include the hundreds of migrants who made it to the islands themselves in inflatable dinghies.

Delays in registering new arrivals and a shortage of available ferry tickets to the Greek mainland has led to thousands of migrants being stranded on the islands, with tensions running high. Among those from the ferry in Piraeus aiming to head north right away was 17-year-old Ahmad Mohammad, who said it took him 10 days to get to Greece.

"The trip was so tiring and we had a lot of problems," he said. "Now we will go to Thessaloniki and then to Europe. Maybe Germany, maybe Switzerland, I don't know."

Becatoros reported from Athens

Greece gives German firm rights to run 14 airports

August 18, 2015

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece has agreed to sell to a German company the rights to operate 14 regional airports. The deal is the first in a wave of privatizations the government had until recently opposed but needs to make to qualify for bailout loans.

The decision, which was published in the government gazette overnight Monday to Tuesday, would hand over the airports, including several on popular tourist island destinations, to Fraport AG, which runs Frankfurt Airport, among others across the world.

The concession, worth 1.23 billion euros ($1.37 billion), is the first privatization decision taken by the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who was elected in January on promises to repeal the conditions of Greece's previous two bailouts.

The government had initially vowed to cancel the country's privatization program, but Tsipras has been forced to renege on his pre-election promises in order to win a deal on a third international bailout for Greece, worth 86 billion euros. Without the rescue loans, the country would default on its debts and risk being forced out of Europe's joint currency.

Citing the rescue loan agreement, Fitch international agency late Tuesday raised Greece's credit rating by one notch, from CC to CCC — but still near the bottom of the rating scale and deep in junk bond territory.

Fitch said the bailout agreement has reduced the risk of Greece defaulting to its private sector creditors. But the agency warned that the risks to the bailout's success remain high. "It will take some time for trust to be restored between Greece and its creditors, which increases the risk of delayed (bailout) program reviews," it said. "Meanwhile, the political situation in Greece remains unpredictable."

The bailout deal is getting its final approvals in parliaments in several European states. Lawmakers in Spain and Estonia approved it Tuesday, while those of Germany and the Netherlands are expected to do so Wednesday.

Separately, the government slightly relaxed its restrictions on banking transactions, allowing small amounts to be sent abroad for the first time in about two months. The finance ministry's amendments, also published in the government gazette, include allowing Greeks to send up to 500 euros ($555) abroad per person per month, and allowing up to 8,000 euros per quarter to be sent to students studying abroad to cover accommodation costs.

Greeks can now also open new bank accounts that will have no withdrawal rights, in order to repay loans, social security contributions or tax debts. The government restricted banking transactions in late June to prevent a bank run after Tsipras announced a referendum on creditors' terms for a new bailout.

The government's U-turn on pre-election promises to secure its new bailout has sparked a rebellion within Tsipras' governing left-wing Syriza party, increasing the possibility of early elections being called as early as next month.

The prime minister is widely expected to call a confidence vote in his government this week, after dozens of Syriza lawmakers voted against him during the ratification of the new bailout deal in Parliament last Friday.

Tsipras was meeting with members of his financial team Tuesday, but the government has said any announcements on political developments will be made after Thursday, when Greece must repay a debt for which it needs new loans.

Government spokeswoman Olga Gerovassili told the Athens 9.84 radio station that one idea was for Tsipras to ask for a confidence vote, in which the coalition government would be aiming for the support of all 162 lawmakers belonging to the two governing parties.

Decisions would be made in coming days, she said.

Greek coast guard rescues hundreds off Aegean islands

August 19, 2015

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's coast guard rescued hundreds of migrants in more than a dozen search and rescue operations, including one in which a toddler was found unconscious in one of the overcrowded dinghies, authorities said Wednesday.

The coast guard said picked up 534 migrants in 14 incidents off the coasts of the eastern Aegean islands of Lesbos, Chios, Agathonissi, Samos, Farmakonissi and Kos from Tuesday morning to Wednesday morning. Those numbers do not include the hundreds more who managed to reach the islands in overcrowded dinghies.

Separately, it said a child of about 2 or 3 years old was found unconscious in a dinghy spotted by a patrol helicopter and carrying 54 migrants off Samos. A coast guard vessel picked up the group and the child was taken to a hospital.

Greece seen record numbers of migrant arrivals this year, most fleeing conflict in Syria and Afghanistan. About 160,000 migrants have reached Greece so far since January, compared to 43,500 in all of 2014, according to figures from the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR. More than four-fifths are from Syria, and 14 percent from Afghanistan.

Few — if any — want to stay in Greece, which is reeling from a financial crisis of its own and has an unemployment rate of more than 26 percent. Instead, they head to Greece's northern border with Macedonia and from there cross the Balkans, heading to the more prosperous European countries of the north, particularly Germany and the Scandinavian countries.

Short-staffed and cash-strapped authorities on islands have been overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of daily arrivals and have struggled to cope with registering the new arrivals. With the tourist season at its peak, another problem has arisen — regular ferries are fully booked with holidaymakers heading to and from the islands, meaning thousands of migrants have been unable to find tickets to get to the Greek mainland and continue their journeys.

Hundreds of migrants have been camping out for days at the port of the island of Lesbos, which for months saw the largest numbers of arrivals in Greece. Similar scenes have appeared in other islands. Authorities chartered a ferry they sent to Kos earlier this week, one of the most severely affected islands, where it acted as an accommodation and registration center for migrants.

The ferry set sail from Kos Wednesday morning with 1,308 migrants on board, the coast guard said, and headed to the nearby small islands of Kalymnos and Leros to pick up hundreds more before heading to the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki. The ship was expected to arrive there early Thursday.

Greek government seen calling confidence vote

August 17, 2015

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is likely to call a confidence vote in his government after the country's third bailout deal with international creditors sparked a rebellion within his party, one of his ministers indicated Monday.

Expectations of a confidence vote, which could lead to early elections, heightened after last Friday's parliamentary vote in favor of the 86 billion euro three-year ($93 billion) bailout passed thanks to opposition support and saw dozens of lawmakers in Tsipras' Syriza party dissent.

Without the bailout, Greece faces defaulting on its debts and eventually being forced out of Europe's joint currency, the euro. "I consider it self-evident, after the deep wounding of the parliamentary majority and in particular of the parliamentary group of Syriza, for there to be a move that at least approaches the issue," Energy and Environment Minister Panos Skourletis told Skai television when asked about the possibility of the government calling a confidence vote.

Skourletis added that early elections may also be necessary in light of the political instability. The government has said its priority is currently securing the bailout funding, which it needs by Thursday to meet a large debt repayment to the European Central Bank, and that any further decisions on the political situation will be taken from then on.

In order to secure the bailout deal, Tsipras reneged on the promises that saw his radical left Syriza party win January elections. Syriza's coalition government with the small nationalist Independent Greeks was premised on a pledge to repeal austerity measures tied to Greece's two previous international bailouts.

Instead, after months of floundering negotiations with international creditors, the government accepted demands for steep tax hikes and deep spending cuts. The about-face has angered an increasing number of Syriza lawmakers, including prominent members such as former ministers of finance Yanis Varoufakis, and energy Panagiotis Lafazanis. Both voted against the government.

Last week Lafazanis — who was replaced as minister in a reshuffle last month after opposing the government in a previous bailout-related vote — and another 12 left-wing politicians announced they were creating a new anti-austerity movement, although Lafazanis stopped short of quitting the party.

If a confidence vote is called, a parliamentary debate would start two days later, with a vote held after a maximum three-day discussion. Tsipras will need the support of a majority of lawmakers present in the 300-member parliament — and not less than 120 — for his government to survive.

Opposition parties have indicated they will not back Tsipras in a confidence vote, so the outcome will depend on Syriza dissenters. If many vote against, they will bring down the government. However, if they chose not to be present, Tsipras would need fewer votes and could survive.

The turmoil has raised the possibility of general elections being called as soon as next month. Asked about the possibility, Skourletis said he believed such a move was necessary in order to tackle the political instability. He noted that the bailout meant the situation had now changed compared to when Syriza initially won its popular mandate.

"I would say the elections are necessary," Skourletis said. "Because given the problems in the governing majority, today's situation can be described as anything but stable." "If we don't see it in the foreseeable future, then instability will be what determines developments," he added.

Elections would be held three to four weeks after being declared. Despite his U-turn, Tsipras has remained popular and is believed to be well-placed to win a forthcoming election. Although no opinion polls have been published since the end of last week when Greece's third bailout was finalized, previous polls showed his party enjoying a wide lead over opposition parties.

French far-right party excludes founder Jean-Marie Le Pen

August 20, 2015

PARIS (AP) — Jean-Marie Le Pen, who co-founded France's far-right National Front, was excluded from his party on Thursday following a disciplinary hearing for belittling the Holocaust and insulting party leaders. He quickly said he would contest the move in court.

The decision regarding a figure who has for decades been one of the mainstays of French politics came in a statement hours after the end of a three-hour hearing by the party's executive bureau. In the tribunal-like session, the 87-year-old Le Pen defended himself against a list of 15 complaints, all consisting of public statements considered a liability to the new image of the anti-immigration party.

Party president Marine Le Pen, his daughter, has been trying for months to oust her father, who held the title of honorary president for life. A statement said the executive bureau "deliberated and decided ... the exclusion of Mr. Jean-Marie Le Pen as member of the National Front."

Le Pen said the decision by six members of the eight-member executive bureau was carried out by an "execution squad" on orders of his daughter and the party's No. 2, Florian Philippot, whom father Le Pen openly distrusts. Speaking to iTele TV station, Le Pen said he would "obviously" contest it. He also contended that his title of honorary president for life, conferred at a 2010 party congress, cannot be removed.

Le Pen has won three recent court decisions in what began as a family feud and mushroomed into a debilitating party crisis as the National Front prepares for regional elections in December. While Marine Le Pen signed off on the complaints — and personally summoned him to appear at the hearing — neither she nor Philippot was present. Philippot had said they preferred not to be both judges and accusers in what amounted to a trial.

Le Pen's lawyer, Frederic Joachim, called the decision a "political assassination." Visibly stunned, he was being interviewed on BFM-TV when the announcement was issued. The party statement said that Le Pen would be notified "shortly" of the reasons behind the decision.

The charismatic Le Pen, who has been convicted in French courts of racism and anti-Semitism, was long a thorn in the side of French politicians on both left and right before becoming what his daughter viewed as a handicap for the party as she scrubbed up its image to make the National Front a respectable political alternative. He made it to the final round of the 2002 presidential race, shocking France and the world.

Le Pen named his daughter as his successor in 2010, and she has since chalked up electoral victories for the National Front, with polls suggesting she could become a leading contender in the French presidential race in 2017 — her ultimate goal.

A new chapter of the father-daughter feud opened with Marine summoning her father before the bureau. The 15 complaints listed in her letter targeted recent public statements by Le Pen, including those in which he downplayed Nazi gas chambers as a "detail in the history" of World War II.

Le Pen contends his remarks fall within the domain of freedom of expression, and says insults targeting Marine Le Pen and Philippot were reactions to their injurious remarks toward him. Philippot at one point compared Le Pen to an aging diva who refuses to leave the stage.

Le Pen contested the executive bureau's right to judge him, noting in a statement issued during the hearing that it was passing judgment for a second time in months even though a court annulled an initial decision.

However, the normally feisty Le Pen left the meeting with a conciliatory tone, offering an outstretched hand in search of a "signal of pacification." "I'm almost a man alone," Le Pen said. Bruno Gollnisch, a member of the party's old guard also present at the hearing, said in a telephone interview that the political consequences of the decision to exclude Le Pen from the party "will be absolutely disastrous."

Apprised of the decision, Le Pen reverted to his feisty nature. He said he will attend a September gathering of the party, and "I'll be there, obviously in my place as honorary president."

Pentagon plans to increase drone flights by 50 percent

August 18, 2015

JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. (AP) — Faced with escalating aggression from Russia and China, the Pentagon is planning to increase its use of drones by about 50 percent over the next several years, using the Army and civilian contractors to put more of the unmanned aircraft in the air.

The decision to add Army and civilian-operated missions to the mix was triggered because the Air Force — which had been running about 65 combat air patrol missions a day — asked to decrease that number to 60 because of stress on the force. But 60 patrols don't come close to meeting the demands of top military commanders facing growing security threats around the world.

Senior U.S. officials said that while drones have been used largely to target terrorists and collect intelligence over combat zones, those needs may shift in the coming years. Top military leaders, including the incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, have named Russia as the nation's most serious security threat. And China's rising military power and island-building program in the South China Sea have increased tensions and prompted a greater demand for U.S. surveillance and intelligence across the Pacific.

One senior defense official said Pentagon leaders are taking those security challenges into account as they decide how armed and unarmed drones will be used across Europe and the Pacific. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

Pentagon leaders have been wrestling with the problem for some time, as the need for more airstrikes and surveillance by drones over Iraq and Syria to battle the Islamic State group offsets a decline in unmanned flights over Afghanistan as the war there winds down. Under the plans laid out by senior defense officials, the Air Force would continue to provide 60 daily drone missions, while the Army would conduct about 16, and U.S. Special Operations Command and civilian contractors would do up to 10 each.

"It's the combatant commanders, they need more. They're tasked to do our nation's business overseas so they feel that stress on them, and it's not getting better," said Air Force Maj. Gen. J.D. Harris, Jr., vice commander of Air Combat Command at Joint Base Langley-Eustis. "There's just not enough of the Air Force to go around."

The civilian contractors would fly surveillance drones, not the armed aircraft. But senior defense officials said they need at least a small contractor contribution in order to reach the total of 90 combat air patrols per day.

The key unanswered questions, however, are how the Pentagon will pay for the additional patrols and how the military will sort out and analyze the growing torrent of data pouring in. Officials said some of the costs could be borne by war funding — the overseas contingency operations in a separate account approved by Congress. The account funded some of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as some counterterrorism operations in the Middle East and Africa.

The use of the Army and contractor flights will give the Air Force time to recover and rebuild its drone staffing. Over the past decade, the Air Force had to very quickly expand the number of unmanned flights over Iraq and Afghanistan. To do that, it made fighter pilots switch to unmanned Predator and Reaper drones, and moved trainers into operations missions.

"Five, six years ago, we overmatched our system and we said we could provide more than what we were capable of providing on a sustained basis," Harris told The Associated Press in an interview at his Langley office. "We actually decimated our training units. We pulled crews that were instructors that should be training the next round of students, and we put them on the operational lines flying missions overseas just to provide everything we could to the combatant commanders."

As a result, the Air Force has trained about 180 air crew members per year, far short of the goal of 300. Harris and other military leaders thought that the demand for drones would dip as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan waned. But the renewed conflict in Iraq, the fighting in Syria, the terror threat in North Africa, the Russian invasion of Ukraine's Crimea region and the simmering tensions in the Pacific have only increased commanders' appetite for drones.

To relieve the burden on the Air Force, the military has already begun using Army Gray Eagle drones in Afghanistan and could expand to other regions as required. But, as the missions increase, the amount of video and other data being funneled to analysts will also spike.

Officials said they are working on ways to filter the data more efficiently so that key intelligence is identified and gets to the right people. "The intelligence analysts who process the information coming from these flights are a critical part of this," said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. "So, as we talk about expanding the number of UAV (drone) flights, we also have to look at the workload of the analysts who process that. We have to have the supporting backbone to be able to process that information and turn it into actionable intelligence."

Brazil house leader, ex-president hit with corruption charge

August 21, 2015

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil's attorney general filed corruption charges Thursday against the speaker of the lower house of congress and against a current senator who was impeached while serving as president in the early 1990s.

The Attorney General's Office said Chamber of Deputies speaker Eduardo Cunha and Sen. Fernando Collor took part in the sprawling corruption scheme at state-run oil company Petrobras, which ran for over a decade and in which billions in bribes were allegedly paid.

Both Cunha and Collor told the local press that they have done nothing wrong. Prosecutors said in a statement that Cunha is accused of accepting $5 million in bribes between 2006 and 2012 in connection with the construction of two Petrobras drilling ships. He's charged with corruption and with money laundering.

No details in the case against Collor were made public. The prosecutor's office said that was because it is based on accusations from an active informant and revealing details would jeopardize the continuing investigation.

In the early 1990s, Collor became Brazil's first freely elected president in nearly three decades after a long military dictatorship, but he resigned in 1992 after being impeached by the Senate over allegations he received millions from a slush fund run by his former campaign treasurer.

Under Brazilian law, charges against federal congressmen and other top government officials can only be filed and judged by the Supreme Court, which is expected to take years to rule on the cases. The charges against both men have long been expected in the Petrobras scheme, which prosecutors say involved huge bribes to politically appointed executives at the oil company in return for inflated contracts.

Prosecutors allege some of the money made its way into campaign coffers of the governing Workers' Party and its allies as well as into the hands of dozens of lawmakers who are under investigation. President Dilma Rousseff, whose approval ratings are in the single digits amid the scandal and economic problems, has not been accused of any wrongdoing, although she served as chairwoman of the Petrobras board during several years as the scheme played out.

Rousseff, who denies any wrongdoing, has repeatedly said that the investigation will not stop and "will hurt whomever it must hurt," even as several members of her own party and those in her ruling coalition become ensnared.

Thousands of Brazilians turned out for rallies across the country Thursday to voice support for the president, but their numbers were smaller than demonstrations on Sunday that drew protesters calling for Rousseff to lose her job.

Analysts were split on what Thursday's charges might mean for Rousseff. Cunha, a member of the powerful Democratic Movement Party, has for many months played an obstructionist role to Rousseff's initiatives in congress as she tries to push through austerity measures and other bills meant to help propel Brazil's economy out of the doldrums. The nation's economy is expected to contract 2 percent this year and again be in recession in 2016.

"For Dilma, this is a positive outcome since Cunha has positioned himself as one of the major threats to Dilma's political stability," said Thiago Aragao, a political analyst at Brasilia-based Arko Advice.

But he added that a weakened Cunha, who has vowed he will not resign, doesn't mean he will lose all his influence. It is possible that his "level of retaliation against Dilma and her government could increase," Aragao said. "I think there will be two to three weeks of a very tense environment."

David Fleischer, a political science professor at the University of Brasilia, said he thinks Cunha's "nastiness as president of the Chamber of Deputies will increase and he may go after Dilma with more passion and hatred than before."

"The consequences of this may be dire and produce a worse situation for Dilma ... he will vent his anger toward Dilma and spare no effort to get her impeached," Fleischer said.

Associated Press writer Brad Brooks in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.