THE BORDER: United States
On Oct. 12, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas announced that, following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health experts, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will amend Title 19 regulations to allow non-essential travelers who have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19 and have appropriate documentation to enter the United States via land and ferry ports of entry (POEs) across the U.S. border.
“In alignment with the new international air travel system that will be implemented in November, we will begin allowing travelers from Mexico and Canada who are fully vaccinated for COVID-19 to enter the United States for non-essential purposes, including to visit friends and family or for tourism, via land and ferry border crossings,” said Secretary Mayorkas. “Cross-border travel creates significant economic activity in our border communities and benefits our broader economy. We are pleased to be taking steps to resume regular travel in a safe and sustainable manner.”
The modifications to the Title 19 regulations will occur in two phases over the next few months. First, in November, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will begin allowing fully vaccinated travelers from Mexico or Canada to enter the United States at land and ferry POEs for non-essential reasons. Travelers will be required to have appropriate paperwork that provides proof of vaccination. Individuals who have not been fully vaccinated for COVID-19 will not be allowed to travel for non-essential purposes from Canada and Mexico into the United States via land and ferry POEs.
Second, beginning in early January 2022, DHS will require that all inbound foreign national travelers crossing U.S. land or ferry POEs – whether for essential or non-essential reasons – be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 and provide related proof of vaccination. This approach will provide ample time for essential travelers such as truckers, students, and healthcare workers to get vaccinated.
This new travel system will create consistent, stringent protocols for all foreign nationals traveling to the United States – whether by air, land, or ferry – and accounts for the wide availability of COVID-19 vaccinations.
W.H.O. RECOMMENDS BOOSTER SHOTS: WORLD
People with weaker immune systems should receive an additional shot of approved COVID-19 vaccines, an advisory group to the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Oct. 11.
The recommendation follows a four-day meeting of the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization. A final report will be issued in December.
SAGE said moderately and severely immunocompromised persons should be offered an additional dose of all WHO approved vaccines “since these individuals are less likely to respond adequately to vaccination following a standard primary vaccine series and are at high risk of severe COVID-19 disease.”
People aged 60 and older who received the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines should get a third dose too, the experts added, though use of other vaccines may also be considered depending on supply and access.
“When implementing this recommendation, countries should initially aim at maximizing 2-dose coverage in that population, and thereafter administer the third dose, starting in the oldest age groups”, they said.
SAGE has also reviewed a vaccine developed by Indian company Bharat Biotech and will issue a policy recommendation after WHO greenlights it for emergency use.
WHO last week announced a plan to end the COVID-19 pandemic by ensuring all people, everywhere, have access to vaccines.
The Global COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy calls for inoculating 40 percent of people in all countries by the end of the year, and 70 per cent by the middle of 2022.
The strategy takes a three-step approach to vaccination. Priority is given to older people, health workers and high-risk groups of all ages, followed by adults and then adolescents.
RANSOMWARE GANG BUSTED: EUROPE
Two prolific ransomware operators suspected of carrying out a string of attacks, demanding ransoms of up to EUR 70 million, have been arrested in Ukraine.
The arrests were made on Sept. 28 as a result of global law enforcement cooperation involving the French National Gendarmerie, the Ukrainian National Police and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), INTERPOL and Europol.
A coordinated strike also resulted in: 7 property searches, Seizure of US $375,000 in cash, Seizure of two luxury vehicles worth EUR 217,000, Asset freezing of US $1.3 million in cryptocurrencies.
The organized crime group is suspected of having committed a string of targeted attacks against very large industrial groups in Europe and North America from April 2020 onwards. The criminals would deploy malware and steal sensitive data from these companies, before encrypting their files.
They would then proceed to offer a decryption key in return for a ransom payment of several millions of euros, threatening to leak the stolen data on the Darknet if their demands were not met.
Close cooperation between the participating law enforcement authorities led to the identification in Ukraine of these two individuals.
The INTERPOL High-Level Forum on Ransomware in July underlined that to effectively prevent and disrupt ransomware meant adopting the same international collaboration used to fight terrorism, human trafficking or mafia groups such as the ‘Ndrangheta.
MIGRANTS BEING HARASSED: AFRICA
Migrants and asylum seekers in Libya have been facing increasingly heavy-handed treatment from targeted security operations, that have resulted in at least one death and a steep increase in detentions.
In an alert on Oct. 12, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said that vulnerable people on the move in the north African nation experience “a myriad daily violations and abuses at the hands of both State and non-state actors.”
These include expulsions of individuals to countries in sub-Saharan Africa without due process, in violation of the principle of non-refoulement.
“On the one hand, as some parts of the Government have been saying, they are doing these raids and operations just to tackle crime,” Marta Hurtado, spokesperson for OHCHR explained. “In this case, what we are saying is if you are trying to tackle crime, try to go against the traffickers, don’t go and detain the migrants who are quite often the victims of the traffickers.”
Ms. Hurtado expressed concern at a number of major incidents in which migrants and asylum seekers had been targeted since the beginning of October.
These included the first of October raid by Ministry of Interior personnel on an informal settlement in Gergaresh, which is about 12 kilometers west of Tripoli.
Women, children and men were arrested and handcuffed, including some individuals who were reportedly registered with the UN Refugee Agency. Security forces used unnecessary and disproportionate force to detain them, including shooting and beating those who resisted or tried to escape, Ms. Hurtado said.
She noted that at least one person died, five were injured, and more than 4,000 were detained, before adding that the authorities had since acknowledged that the operation could have been handled differently.
According to OHCHR, all those arrested were taken to the al-Mabani Government-run detention center in Tripoli and kept in extremely overcrowded cells with little access to food or water.
On Oct. 6, 500 migrants managed to escape from the Gheriyan center and were chased by guards who opened fire using live ammunition. According to preliminary information, at least four individuals were shot dead, and many others injured.
Two days later, another mass escape took place from the al-Mabani center, with migrants being chased by security officers who shot at them, injuring and killing an unknown number.
For Ms. Hurtado, “this series of horrific events over a period of eight days is just the latest example of the precarious, sometimes lethal, situation facing migrants and asylum seekers in Libya.”
“They are criminalized solely for their migration status, are routinely detained in abhorrent conditions, are frequently subjected to extortion and abuse, and in some cases killed,” she said.
According to a recent report by the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya, these widespread and systematic violations could amount to crimes against humanity.
The rights office is calling on the authorities to establish prompt, thorough, impartial and independent investigations into these claims.
OHCHR is also asking the Libyan authorities to release all arbitrarily detained migrants and asylum seekers, cease the raids on their settlements, halt evictions and stop criminalizing them.
