Almost every day 26-year-old Amirul Rashid is on his motorbike delivering food. He must deal with traffic, changing weather conditions and sometimes impatient customers who keep sending messages asking when their food will arrive. Rashid says it’s the same situation for most food delivery riders and unfortunately that prompts some of them to disobey traffic rules, whether it’s the speed limit or a stop light. “Pressure usually comes from the customers because usually the customers want their orders fast,” Rashid says. But he also blames the riders themselves for rushing on the roads so they can make more money. “We often hear about delivery riders getting in accidents,” Amirul added. Although there is not a specific breakdown for delivery riders, 66% of the people killed in road accidents in Malaysia are motorcyclists according to the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research and there are often headlines in the news about accidents involving food delivery riders.A food delivery rider tries to save time by traveling down a lane in the wrong direction. (VOA/Dave Grunebaum)The institute recently conducted a four-day study of 11 intersections. It observed almost 3500 motorbike delivery riders including food and package deliveries. According to the research, about two-thirds of the delivery riders disobeyed traffic rules and about one-third committed a serious safety violation including holding their phones in their hands while riding, running red lights, making illegal U-turns and riding in the wrong direction. “It is like a norm for food delivery riders in Malaysia to behave this way,” says Khairil Anwar the road safety institute’s director-general. Most food deliveries in Malaysia are made with motorbikes. The riders are typically freelancers who own their bikes. The more deliveries they make the more money they earn. Khairil says part of the problem is the system gives the riders incentive to break traffic rules in order to complete each delivery faster so they can pick up their next order sooner.Khairil Anwar, director-general for the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research says the country’s biggest food delivery companies have not been providing adequate safety training to their delivery riders. (VOA/Dave Grunebaum)Due to the pandemic, restaurants in Malaysia have had to reduce their seating capacity to maintain social distancing between tables. This contributes to an increasing number of food delivery orders, according to local restaurant managers. Additionally, the economic downturn has led some people who’ve lost their jobs to turn to food delivery as a new way to earn a living. The two biggest food delivery companies in Malaysia are Grab and Foodpanda. Both companies declined requests for an interview, and neither was willing to give figures on food delivery orders.  But Khairil called their current safety training “inadequate” adding that these companies need to do more to promote a work culture that emphasizes safety.  “We have to imbed these safety things into these motorcyclists’ minds.” says Khairil. “It’s not only about deliveries, the products, it must be safe attitude per se, safe behavior.” The institute says it is developing a road safety training program for delivery riders and talking with Grab and Foodpanda about it. The details are still being worked out, but it could potentially involve both classes and practical road training. Delivery riders VOA spoke with support the plan. “It’s good if it happens, says 20-year-old Mohd Zulfadzli Sham. “We are delivery riders and safety is important for us.”  “I think it’s a good suggestion,” says Amirul Rashid adding that he thinks most delivery riders would also support this training. Several other riders gave similar responses. Khairil, from the road safety institute, says in addition to better safety education for the riders there needs to be more enforcement of road regulations. This could involve monitoring traffic cameras to catch riders running red lights or making illegal U-turns. “We need to change this thinking they have that maybe they can beat the traffic light or ignore the traffic light,” Khairil says. “If a driver breaks the rules, perhaps they should be required to undergo even more extensive safety training.” 
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Yoshihide Suga will officially become Japan’s next prime minister Wednesday.   The country’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party will formally vote to install Suga as the country’s leader during a parliamentary session. Wednesday’s vote comes a day after the LDP overwhelmingly chose Suga as the party’s president.  Under Japan’s parliamentary system, the ruling party elects the person who will become prime minister, usually the party leader.    The 71-year-old Suga will succeed Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, who abruptly resigned last month after eight years in office, citing the recurrence of ulcerative colitis, which has plagued him for much of his life.  Suga served in Abe’s government as chief cabinet secretary, and has been a key ally of Abe since the latter’s first tenure as prime minister, which was cut short in 2007 after just one year due to his chronic illness. Suga inherits a country whose economy is reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the postponement of the highly anticipated Tokyo Olympic Games until 2021.   In a video message posted on his social media account, Abe thanked the people of Japan and vowed to support Suga’s tenure as a member of parliament.   Suga says he will carry on his predecessor’s policies, including his signature “Abenomics” economic program, as well as his diplomatic initiatives, including maintaining strong ties with the United States.  He is expected to retain most of Abe’s cabinet, including Foreign Affairs Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Finance Minister Taro Aso.  The incoming prime minister is also expected to give Abe’s younger brother, Nobuo Kishi, the defense portfolio, while current defense minister Taro Kono will be shifted to administrative reforms minister.  
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Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has confirmed reports of his improved health following a near fatal poisoning in Siberia last month — posting to social media from his hospital room in Germany while his team insisted he plans to return home to Russia once fully recovered. 
“Hi, this is Navalny. I miss you all,” he wrote in a comment accompanying an Instagram photograph of him surrounded by his wife and two children. View this post on InstagramПривет, это Навальный. Скучаю по вам 😍. Я все ещё почти ничего не умею, но вот вчера смог целый день дышать сам. Вообще сам. Никакой посторонней помощи, даже простейший вентиль в горле не использовал. Очень понравилось. Удивительный, недооценённый многими процесс. РекомендуюA post shared by Алексей Навальный (@navalny) on Sep 15, 2020 at 2:38am PDT“I can still hardly do anything, but yesterday I could breathe all day on my own. Actually on my own,” said Navalny — his first words after three weeks in a coma.  
 
“A surprising process underestimated by many,” he quipped.  “I recommend it.”  
 
The post had over a million likes and counting within several hours — and it fueled inquiries about Navalny’s possible return to Russian politics.  Within hours, his press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, dismissed journalists’ suggestions Navalny intended to remain in exile out of his concerns for his safety.    “I’ll confirm again to everyone: no other options were ever considered,” Yarmysh tweeted.Все утро мне пишут журналисты и спрашивают, правда ли, что Алексей планирует вернуться в Россию. Я понимаю причину вопроса, но тем не менее мне странно, что кто-то мог думать иначе. Ещё раз подтверждаю всем: никаких других вариантов никогда не рассматривалось https://t.co/sSq5Bb4ufr— Кира Ярмыш (@Kira_Yarmysh) September 15, 2020When asked for reaction on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov demurred.  
 
“Any citizen of the Russian Federation is free to leave Russia and return to Russia,” said Peskov.  
 
“If a citizen of the Russian Federation recovers his health, then of course everyone will be happy about that.”   A sudden sickness  A leading critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Navalny fell violently ill while flying home during a campaign trip from Siberia to Moscow on August 20.   
 
An emergency landing and subsequent treatment by Russian doctors in the city of Omsk offered few clues as to what had happened.  
 
The Omsk doctors insisted they could find no traces of poison.  
 
They also delayed requests by Navalny’s family to evacuate for him treatment elsewhere — a move supporters interpreted as an attempt to hide any lingering evidence of what had felled the politician.  Upon his subsequent evacuation to a clinic in Berlin, German toxicologists said they discovered Novichok — a Soviet-era military grade toxin suspected in previous Russian-linked attacks in the United Kingdom — in Navalny’s blood and urine.Russia Denies Role in Latest Britain Poisoning

        Russia is denying any role in the poisoning of a British couple who British authorities insist are the latest victims of Novichok — allegedly a Russian-made military-grade nerve agent first implicated in an assassination attempt on a former Russian spy and his daughter on British soil last March.The initial attack left former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, hospitalized in serious condition for several weeks before their ultimate recovery. 

Anti-corruption work Navalny has long been a problematic figure for the Kremlin — detailing government corruption and excess on his popular YouTube channel. 
 
The channel’s mix of investigative journalism and caustic humor has resonated with younger Russians in particular. 
 
It has also landed Navalny with a long list of powerful enemies in government and business circles. 
 
Navalny has also made no secret of his political ambitions. He tried to run a campaign for president in 2018 that ultimately was undone by a lingering criminal conviction. His supporters — and the European Court of Human Rights — agreed that the charges were levied to keep him out of the race. Investigations denied  
 
Navalny’s associates argue the nature of Novichok — a banned military grade substance — means the attack could only have been carried out on Putin’s orders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other Western leaders have demanded answers from the Kremlin and warned of “an appropriate, joint reaction” should answers not be forthcoming.  
 
But the Russian government has dismissed the German demands, arguing Berlin had yet to provide proof or share evidence of its findings.  
 
Indeed, Kremlin officials have openly floated conspiracy theories that Germany may have staged the attack in a false-flag operation to initiate another round of Western sanctions or undermine key Russian-German trade deals.     
 
On Tuesday, Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, insisted Navalny left Russia with no poison in his system — and that the country had long ago destroyed its Novichok reserves under existing international chemical weapons agreements. 
 
“Therefore, we have many questions for the German side,” added Naryshkin. Similarly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Germany to stop “politicizing” the Navalny case during a phone conversation with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Tuesday. The Kremlin has yet to approve an investigation into what felled the opposition leader — arguing it thus far sees no evidence of criminality behind whatever ailed “the Berlin patient.”    
 
Government officials rarely pronounce Navalny’s name in public.   
 
The Russian argument was undercut by separate toxicology reports issued by Sweden and French laboratories on Monday.   
 
Both findings separately supported the German conclusions about the use of Novochik. 
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Europe has called on China to take down trade barriers and rebalance the economic relationship, following a virtual summit held Monday between EU leaders and Chinese President Xi Jinping. EU officials also raised human rights issues including the crackdown on protests in Hong Kong – but Beijing is rejecting any interference in its affairs. Henry Ridgwell has more from London.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell   Produced by: Rod James 
 
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A new issue released Tuesday of the World Tourism Barometer from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) reports the coronavirus pandemic caused an unprecedented 65% decrease in international travel during the first half of the year.According to UNWTO, the plunge in international travel from January through June of this year resulted in the loss of $460 billion in export revenues from tourism.Tourists practice social distancing as they wait to extend their visa at Immigration Bureau in Bangkok, Thailand, March 27, 2020.The drop is five times greater than the loss in international tourism earnings recorded in 2009 amid the global financial crisis.The U.N. body said in a statement it estimates it will take between two to four years for tourist arrivals to return to 2019 levels.The report indicates that Asia and the Pacific were the first regions to feel the impact of COVID-19, and overall, the area faced the steepest decline with a 72% fall in tourists over the course of a six-month period.Europe was the world’s second-hardest hit region, with a 66% decline in tourist arrivals for the first half of 2020. The Americas, Africa, and Middle East showed comparable rates of decline.”This represents an unprecedented decrease, as countries around the globe closed their borders and introduced travel restrictions in response to the pandemic,” the tourism organization said.All world regions and sub-regions recorded declines of more than 50% in international tourism arrivals, placing millions of jobs and businesses at risk.
The report shows that as of early September, 53% of international destinations have eased travel restrictions.Looking ahead, however, UNWTO estimates that based on current trends, there will be an overall decline of 70% in international tourist arrivals in 2020. This number could increase, as some destinations have begun to reinstate international travel restrictions.
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The U.S. city of Louisville, Kentucky, has agreed to pay $12 million to the family of Breonna Taylor, a Black medical technician who was shot to death in her apartment in March during a “no-knock” police raid linked to a bungled drug investigation. The payment in the civil suit against the mid-South city came as national and Kentucky investigators continue to probe the circumstances surrounding the death of the 26-year-old Taylor and whether three police officers involved in the incident should be criminally charged. One of the three officers who fired the shots that killed Taylor has already been dismissed from the city police department, although he is appealing his ouster. The Taylor case has drawn national attention in the U.S., part of the country’s reckoning over race relations and police treatment of minorities. Street demonstrations, some of them violent, have erupted from coast to coast since the late May death of a Black man, George Floyd, while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Taylor’s death quickly became part of the national conversation, her name often printed on face masks people wear to fight against transmission of the coronavirus. FILE – Signs are held up showing Breonna Taylor during a rally in her honor on the steps of the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort, Ky., June 25, 2020.As part of the Louisville settlement, city officials agreed to various police reforms in an effort to prevent a repeat of the circumstances that led to Taylor’s death, including more thorough reviews by high-level police commanders of raids before they are carried out. The city had already passed a law named for Taylor banning use of no-knock warrants, which police often use in drug cases for fear that evidence could be destroyed if they announce their arrival. Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer fired former police chief Steve Conrad in June and last week named Yvette Gentry, a former deputy chief, as the new interim police chief. Gentry is the first Black woman to lead the force of about 1,200 officers. Lonita Baker, a lawyer for the Taylor family, said they would continue to press state and federal officials to investigate the case and present evidence to a grand jury in the hope that the officers involved will be criminally charged. FILE – This undated photo provided by Taylor family attorney Sam Aguiar shows Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky.The lawsuit against the city was filed by Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, who alleged that police used erroneous information when they obtained a no-knock warrant to enter Taylor’s apartment.  Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were roused from bed by police, who said they announced their presence outside the apartment before busting their way into the housing unit. Walker says he never heard police. Walker, with a licensed gun, has said he fired once at the officers thinking intruders were breaking into the apartment. Investigators say police were returning fire when they shot Taylor several times. No drugs were found at her home. The warrant leading to Taylor’s death was one of five issued in a drug trafficking investigation of a former boyfriend of Taylor’s, Jamarcus Glover, who was arrested at a different location about 16 kilometers away from Taylor’s apartment on the same evening.  
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cautioned Tuesday that ongoing peace negotiations over the future of Afghanistan will be a “difficult” process but will help reduce the cost of war and risk to America. Pompeo spoke in Washington as the Taliban and representatives of the Afghan government continued their meetings in Doha, Qatar, for a fourth day to finalize an agenda for substantive peace negotiations to end decades of Afghan conflict.The U.S.-brokered talks or intra-Afghan negotiations kicked off Saturday in the Qatari capital, where the two negotiating teams have been tasked to agree on a permanent cease-fire and a power-sharing deal to govern Afghanistan after the withdrawal of all U.S. and allied troops.   “We are now delivering a set of outcomes that will reduce the costs in blood from our American servicemen and women, in treasure from the American taxpayer and risk to the USA,” Pompeo told a virtual event hosted by the Atlantic Council.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, and Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani sign a memorandum of understanding during the U.S.-Qatar Strategic Dialogue at the State Department, Sept. 14, 2020, in Washington.“For the first time now in 20 years, Afghans sat down together to begin to pound out what a reconciled peaceful Afghanistan might look like. Under no illusion about who we are negotiating with, who these parties are, how difficult that process will be,” Pompeo said.  The chief American diplomat noted that fewer than 200 al-Qaida militants remain in Afghanistan.  U.S. officials maintain that nearly 19 years of military action, which began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities, has degraded al-Qaida and other terrorists in the South Asian nation.  The intra-Afghan talks stemmed from a landmark February deal between the U.S. and the Taliban, also signed in Doha, where the insurgents run their political office.  The pact requires the Taliban to disallow al-Qaida-led terrorists to plot international attacks and begin direct peace talks with Afghan rivals to seek a negotiated end to the war. In return, Washington has begun pulling out U.S. forces from Afghanistan, bringing their number down to about 8,600 from roughly 13,000 at the time of signing the deal.  All U.S. and allied troops are required to completely withdraw from the country by the end of April 2021. In an interview published Sunday, Pompeo said the withdrawal process was on track, which will close what has become America’s longest war. 
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The massive El Dorado wildfire in the U.S. state of California was reportedly started by a reveal party, a growing trend in the United States in which couples come up with increasingly elaborate ways to announce the gender of their expected child. For some couples, the revelation of the baby’s gender has become an important milestone, like a baby shower. But some are saying reveal parties have gotten out of control, as couples vie for the most dramatic reveal and the accompanying social media attention. FILE – A helicopter prepares to drop water at a wildfire in Yucaipa, Calif., Sept. 5, 2020. The blaze is being blamed on a gender reveal party, when a pyrotechnical device sparked a wildfire that has burned thousands of acres.Jenna Karvunidis, whom the media call the inventor of the reveal party, says social media influencer clout and the money that can generate is pushing couples to extremes. “The problem is that it’s monetary,” she told the Daily Beast. “The platforms are rewarding this more extravagant content because that’s how you get the sponsorship opportunities. … And so, they have to up the ante with more and more spectacles.” It’s not clear if Karvunidis is, in fact, the inventor of the gender reveal party, but her 2008 post to social media helped cause the trend to go viral. Her idea was simple by today’s standards: Invite a few friends and family members over, bake a modest cake with pink icing in the center to indicate the unborn baby is a girl and post some photos on a blog. Karvunidis told the Daily Beast that her reveal party wasn’t to get attention from strangers but rather to celebrate a healthy pregnancy and get her estranged mother excited. Cakes no longer seem to cut it. One expecting couple hollowed out a watermelon, filled it with blue jello and then had an alligator chomp on it to reveal the gender. Another couple hired a small plane to dump small colored balls on attendees.Another aviation-themed reveal caused a plane crash when a small aircraft that was supposed to dump 1,300 liters of pink water flew too low and crashed. Luckily, no one was injured. Some are jumping out of planes to add to the drama. In one case, a man parachuted from a plane toward event guests with a smoke canister emitting colored smoke to reveal the gender. Yet another couple built a complex Rube Goldberg machine to reveal the gender of their coming baby. Some of the events have produced painful viral video, including a recent video of a Massachusetts man accidentally firing an explosive canister of blue smoke directly into his crotch. Flare hits dad-to-be in the crotch at a gender reveal party pic.twitter.com/tpkpNN9qOd— The Sun (@TheSun) September 13, 2020But now, the parties may be causing massive damage like the El Dorado fire, which started east of Los Angeles and has burned around 5,600 hectares so far. A massive 2018 fire in Arizona is also blamed on a gender reveal event gone wrong. It’s unclear if the fires will cause a pause to the gender reveal trend, but a quick online search reveals numerous resources for parents wanting to plan their event, and it’s likely most parties don’t involve gators, planes or explosive devices. There are also signs the trend is going global with a couple recently lighting up the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, in blue to announce they were expecting a boy. Karvunidis, however, says she has had enough. “Stop it. Stop having these stupid parties,” she wrote on Facebook. 
 
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The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) and Ugandan authorities are working to restore peace after clashes between locals and refugees in northern Uganda last week left about at least 10 refugees dead. The violence followed an argument between South Sudanese refugees and the host community at a shared water point. Rights activists say the fighting underscores scarce resources in Uganda, which hosts Africa’s largest population of refugees.The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Uganda is calling for calm and an investigation into the violence that left the refugees dead.The incident last Friday also left 19 refugees injured and 10 others missing.Officials say it happened when a dispute near a shared water tap at the Tika village in the Rhino refugee settlement turned violent.Joel Boutroue, the UNHCR representative in Uganda, says the violence was alarming.“The disproportionate violent reaction by the host community, to what was a communal dispute, signals a threat to the delicate balance of peaceful coexistence in the rural villages where refugees live alongside their Ugandan hosts,” said Boutroue. “In an environment of scarcity of resources, tragic incidents such as that of last Friday are alarming.”Uganda Refugee Aid Groups Cry Foul Over Government SuspensionsSome activists worry the suspensions could impact 1.4 million refugees who reside in UgandaThe UNHCR also points out that 15 refugee houses were burned to the ground and another 26 looted and vandalized. Musa Ecweru, Uganda’s state minister for refugees, told VOA the incident was regrettable and said investigations are under way.According to Ecweru, refugees beat and killed a child from the host community, for reasons unknown. This triggered what he called the disproportionate reaction from local residents. He said the incident shows weaknesses in the refugee support system that need to be addressed.“The first one is psychosocial support to the refugees first, to really let the Dinkas and all these communities know that violence must not be all the time employed when there’s a kind of a misunderstanding,” said Ecweru. “They could have been annoyed by this child but beating the child to death was not something that was necessary.”The UNHCR has deployed teams on the ground to support refugees traumatized by the attack.  Achieng Akena, executive director for the International Refugee Rights Initiative, notes that community resources are being stretched thin, especially now that Uganda is facing an economic crunch due to coronavirus restrictions which have made life very difficult for many people, especially refugees.Akena says both the government and the UNHCR need to not only effectively implement peaceful community mechanisms, but stop being reactional.“There need to be appropriate punishments done and appropriate prosecutions of the people who have been accused of having committed these offences,” said Akena. “The biggest challenge is if this goes unresponded to, or if the community feels that justice was not served, the next conflict will be even worse.”Refugee rights activists note that as the world continues to focus on COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, it could mean increased tension between refugees and their host communities, if one side perceives the other to be competing for scarce resources.
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Five years after a wave of asylum seekers flooded into Europe, the region is facing another reckoning on migration, with familiar bickering and lack of consensus on the way forward.The numbers of arrivals are far smaller today than they were in 2015. The iconic images now driving migration back into the headlines are no longer of drowned toddlers, but rather of the thousands of migrants left homeless by fires at a squalid Greek island camp.Whether the European Union can finally come together on migration will be tested when its executive arm next Wednesday unveils a long-awaited migration and asylum pact that will need member state approval to become reality.”It’s going to be a very tough negotiation,” predicted former EU official Stefan Lehne, now an analyst at the Brussels-based Carnegie Europe policy institute.“Everybody agrees the current situation is a mess,” Lehne said of the patchwork of migration initiatives, but, he added, there remains little agreement on how to fix it.Migrants flee from the Moria refugee camp during a second fire, on the northeastern Aegean island of Lesbos, Greece, Sept. 9, 2020.Cannot afford to fail?The European Commission pact is expected to emphasize initiatives toward countries of origin and transit to keep asylum seekers from leaving, beef up border patrols and push for more burden sharing of migrants already within EU borders.The fire that devastated Europe’s largest migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos last week has lent urgency in coming up with solutions.Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotaki, who has called for more EU support in building a new structure — and in handling the migrant influx in general — called the blaze and its aftermath a “warning bell” for the 27-member bloc.“Europe cannot afford a second failure on the migration issue,” he said.European Council President Charles Michel, left, makes statements after his meeting with Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at Maximos Mansion in Athens, Sept. 15, 2020.So far, however, less than half of EU member states, along with Switzerland, have offered to take in a few hundred accompanied minors from the now-devastated Moria camp. Several hundred more have been voluntarily moved to tent camps on the island, leaving most of Moria’s more than 12,000 initial inhabitants still sleeping outside.These and other recent migrant numbers dwarf those of 2015, when roughly one million asylum seekers reached European shores. While Germany opened its doors, welcoming the majority of them, others, particularly eastern European countries, slammed them shut.By contrast, about 48,000 migrants have reached Europe so far this year, according to the International Organization for Migration, most via the Mediterranean — with another 268 dead or missing en route.Dozens of African migrants wait to be assisted by a team of aid workers of the Spanish NGO Open Arms, after spending more than 20 hours at sea, in the Central Mediterranean sea, Sept. 8, 2020.“We no longer have the arrival numbers we had in 2015-2016—which means in principle we should be able to talk about migration management and the challenges in a more rational, pragmatic way,” said Marie De Somer, head of migration and diversity at the European Policy Center, a Brussels research institution.But she added, “The divisions remain strong.”Toughening stancesFive years after the migrant crisis, states like Greece, on the frontlines of the influx, are still demanding greater burden-sharing from other bloc members, with some reluctant to do more.“If we give in to the pressure, we risk making the same mistakes we made in 2015. We risk giving people false hopes,” said Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who has declined to take in minors from the Moria camp.Still, Carnegie’s Lehne believes member states are more in harmony today on one aspect.“In 2015, you really had big divisions between one group of countries that was very much for opening the borders and allowing refugees to come—and another group very much opposed,” he said.Lehne believes that has changed.“Everybody in Europe now agrees it has to be a managed process. It cannot simply be opening borders and letting everybody in,” he said.Turkish special forces team patrol on a speed boat along the Maritsa river at the Turkish-Greek border near Karpuzlu village, in Edirne region, Turkey, March 11, 2020.In recent years, the EU has beefed up its border patrols and paid transit countries like Turkey, Libya and Morocco to keep migrants on their shores. In Niger, France opened a migrant processing center to screen asylum-seeking claims thousands of kilometers from European shores.Far-right parties have also surged in recent years, partly riding on their anti-immigration platforms, helping to shape Europe’s tougher migration stance.For their part, rights groups have accused front line countries of foot-dragging or failing to allow vessels carrying migrants to land—and Greece of escorting migrant boats back to Turkish waters.The coronavirus pandemic, activists say, has also offered new pretexts to turn back ships carrying migrants over health concerns.Michael Newman, a migration policy advisor for humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres, said he was “appalled” at the EU’s bureaucratic discussions on migration “when disasters are unfolding in front of our eyes.”“I think we come short of words to describe both the situation lived by migrants, and authorities’ response,” he added.By contrast, EU lawmaker Nicolas Bay, of France’s far-right National Rally party, said that Brussels bureaucrats risked rolling out an overly soft migration policy, offering incentives for more migration.“By piling laxity on top of laxity, they’re adding to the (migration) drama,” he told French radio.Some of these arguments are playing out among EU member states. Analyst De Somer, of the European Policy Center, noted a broader skepticism of reaching member state agreement on a migrant deal.De Somer, however, suggested the Lesbos fire might help act as a catalyst.“One thing it did do,” De Somer said, “is to showcase to the wider public the urgency and importance of coming up with a European solution.” 
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