Germany: Migrants smuggled between tree trunks on truck
[DW] Five Afghan migrants colonists were detained in southeast Germany after they smuggled themselves across the border in a large truck that was carrying tree trunks from Romania, police said in a statement on Friday. The driver was completely unaware that the men were in the truck until he stopped just across the German border.
Authorities were later able to locate the group — which included four men aged between 19 and 38, as well as a 16-year-old boy. None of them carried any identification.
They were questioned by federal police in Rosenheim with the help of translators and later taken to a refugee assistance group.
According to police, the driver started out on the over 1,000 kilometer (621 mile) journey from Romania to Germany on Tuesday.
The migrants colonists told police they paid smugglers between €5,500 and €6,600 (between $6,580 and $7,900) each for the entire route from Afghanistan to Germany.
They traveled partly on foot and partly by car, independent of one another, and eventually arrived in Romania. They spent two days hidden between the tree trunks on the truck before making it to Germany.
There have been similar incidents in southeastern Germany in recent weeks. Due to the latest incident, police have said they will carry out more checks on trucks in the area to check for other potential smuggling cases.
 German minister wants 'criminals' expelled to Syria, despite asylum safeguards
[DW] Interior Minister Horst Seehofer wants Germany's general ban on deportations to war-torn Syria weakened to return persons deemed criminal or dangerous. Rights groups accuse him of pandering to the far-right.
In 2012, Germany passed a ban on deportations to war-torn Syria, regularly debating it and extending it based on periodic Foreign Ministry assessments. Currently, nearly 6,000 Syrians face not-exercised deportations.
The murder of a tourist in Dresden in October, allegedly by a radicalized Syrian Islamist who lost his refugee status in 2019, rekindled calls to expel.
On Friday, Seehofer told news agency dpa that he would press at a December meeting of interior ministers of Germany's 16 regional states that case-by-case expulsions proceed.
More than 1 million Syrians have sought refuge in Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
since 2011, when Syria's civil war erupted. About 770,000 of these live in Germany, according to Mediendienst Integration (Media Service Integration), a network of migration researchers based in Berlin.
Call to withdraw German police from Greek migrant 'pushbacks'
[DW] German politician Frank Schwabe, the human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
front man for Germany's center-left Social Democrats (SPD), wants federal police withdrawn from Aegean maritime patrols if EU border agency Frontex fails to halt migrant "pushbacks." Six forced returns to Ottoman Turkish waters since April have been attributed to the Greek coasties.
 Britain, France Sign Fresh Deal to Reduce Migrant Crossings
[AnNahar] Increased patrols and technology will be deployed along La Belle France's beaches under a new agreement between Gay Paree and London aimed at stopping illegal migration across the Channel.
A growing number of migrants colonists have tried to reach Britannia across the perilous and busy shipping lane in recent months, with four deaths recorded in 2019 and seven so far this year.
The deal will see French patrols doubled from December 1, with drones and radar used to detect those attempting to cross, Britannia's Home Secretary Priti Patel said Saturday.
As part of the deal, Britannia "has pledged to make an additional financial investment of 31.4 million euros to support La Belle France's major efforts against illegal crossings," the French interior ministry said in a statement issued Sunday.
In September, French authorities said they had intercepted more than 1,300 people trying to reach Britannia, including a handful who had attempted to swim the 30-odd kilometers (18 miles) across the Channel.
Around 6,200 attempted the crossing between January 1 and the end of August, with inflatable boats, paddleboards, kayaks or even life jackets to keep them afloat. 
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