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Wednesday, September 30, 2015

The Latest: Slovaks OK challenge to EU refugee-sharing plan

Slovakia's prime minister says his government has formally approved challenging a European Union decision to redistribute 120,000 asylum-seekers among the bloc's 28 nations. Relief agencies have set up a tent city at Greece's border with Macedonia to cope with the growing number of migrants and refugees trying to reach central Europe. The uneven arrival of refugees — most fleeing Syria's civil war — has forced many to spend the night at the border. A Danish court has jailed a 25-year-old stateless Palestinian for three weeks who is suspected of attempted murder for stabbing a policeman in Denmark's largest asylum center. Police spokesman Henrik Suhr says in a statement that police found some evidence the suspect may have sympathies for Islamic extremists in Syria, but added the man also "may be mentally unstable." Italian news reports said the bishop of Ventimiglia had arrived to speak with the asylum-seekers and the volunteers helping them in an attempt to diffuse the situation. The International Organization for migration says over 522,000 people — a record number — have crossed the Mediterranean this year seeking refuge in Europe, 388,000 coming through Greece. French authorities say an Eritrean migrant has been found dead in the tunnel beneath the English Channel, the latest of several killed this year as thousands of people fleeing poverty and war try to cross illegally from France into Britain. The administration for the Pas-de-Calais region says the migrant was apparently hit by a freight train near the entrance to the tunnel in Calais.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.sfgate.com