World

PARIS — Belgium's approach to immigration and security has again come under fire after the Brussels bombings, but some say the country is being unfairly singled out and the timing of the criticism is crass.

Among the more bizarre statements was that of Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz.

"If in Belgium they continue to eat chocolate, enjoy life and parade as great liberals and democrats while not taking account of the fact that some of the Muslims who are there are organising acts of terror, they will not be able to fight against them," Katz told Israeli radio. 

But it was criticism closer to home that triggered particular outrage, after French Finance Minister Michel Sapin accused Brussels of "naivety" over the spread of extremism in their country. 

"I think there was... a lack of will, on the part of some [Belgian] authorities... perhaps also a kind of naivety," Sapin said on Tuesday, suggesting they "thought that to encourage good integration, communities should be left to develop on their own".

Speaking to French TV station LCI, he added: "We know... that this is not the right answer. When a neighbourhood is in danger of becoming sectarian, we should [implement] a policy of integration."

Belgium has faced much criticism over its security failings, particularly in the wake of November's Paris attacks that were largely planned in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek, considered a hotbed of radicalism.

Some criticisms have been hard to refute, such as revelations from Turkey on Wednesday that Brussels attacker Ibrahim El Bakraoui was detained and deported back to Europe last year. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Belgian authorities had failed to confirm the suspect's militant links "despite our warnings".

'Solidarity not lectures' 

But the timing of Sapin's comments, just hours after the bombings at the Brussels airport and metro station, was considered highly inappropriate.

"It is indecent when people are suffering, are in shock. We need solidarity, not lectures," said Belgian socialist politician Laurette Onkelinx.

A member of Sapin's own French Socialist Party, Francois Lamy, described the finance minister's statement as "just shameful".

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls also sought to distance himself from his colleague's words, saying he did not want "to lecture our Belgian friends". 

"We closed our eyes, everywhere in Europe and including France, to the rise of extremist Salafist ideas in neighbourhoods where a mix of drug trafficking and radical Islam have led astray... some of the youth," Valls told Europe 1 radio. 

Nonetheless, Belgium has spawned more militants per capita than any other EU country, with some 500 leaving for Syria and Iraq from a population of only 11 million, officials say.

Its political divisions have prevented effective coordination between security services, and have also been blamed for allowing radicalisation to fester. 

A brief moment of elation followed the arrest of Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam last week in Brussels, but that was quickly snuffed out by Tuesday's carnage.

'Could happen anywhere' 

Despite all this, experts have warned against singling out Belgium for criticism. 

"I'd caution against focusing too much on Belgium and blaming them," said Thomas Hegghammer, a terrorism expert at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment.

"This is about networks and where they are strong. Today, it happens to be in Belgium, but a similar situation could be replicated elsewhere," he said.

Hegghammer noted that savvy militants were increasingly skilled at flying under the radar by using encrypted communications — and that this could happen in other countries.

Belgium's ambassador to Britain, Guy Trouveroy, said it was "not entirely right" to suggest some areas of his country had been abandoned by the authorities.

"It is always easy afterwards to say 'We should have, we should have'," Trouveroy told the BBC.

"At the time, the threats were not there and this Syria issue is relatively new. We had to move up to the challenge and we went maybe pace-by-pace, haphazardly. It is not easy.

"These are professionals and they know how to put up commando operations."

Meanwhile, an aide to Sapin told AFP the minister had not wanted to single out Belgium and was talking more generally about the terrorist threat.

The aide said Sapin had sent a message to his Belgian counterpart, Johan Van Overtveldt, apologising for the "controversy".

LESBOS, Greece — More aid agencies helping refugees and migrants arriving in Greece said they were joining a boycott of detention centres on Wednesday, angered at an EU deal they say runs roughshod over human rights.

Human rights organisations reject the pact between the European Union and Turkey to fast-track registration and asylum applications, under which hundreds of new arrivals have been detained since Sunday. Refugees or migrants whose applications fail will be sent back to Turkey.

Aid agencies said cooperating with the Greeks at detention centres would make them complicit with an "unfair and inhumane" practice.

Two aid agencies said on Wednesday they were following the UN refugee agency UNHCR and aid organisation Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF), a major contributor to the relief effort, which both announced on Tuesday they would cut back assistance.

"The IRC alerted the [Greek] coast guard on Monday that we would not transport the world's most vulnerable people to a place where their freedom of movement is impeded upon," said Lucy Carrigan, a regional spokeswoman for the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

The IRC will continue to support those at another makeshift camp, she said.

The Norwegian Refugee Council, a major non-governmental organisation, said it was suspending most of its activities at a detention centre on the Greek island of Chios.

"We are extremely close to be in a position where this site is dangerously overcrowded... We have a large number of refugees including pregnant women and children lying on the concrete floor in the reception hall," said Dan Tyler, a protection adviser for the council.

Tension in the facility was building up and there had already been demonstrations, he told Reuters.

Thousands stranded

Thousands of people have been stranded in Greece since a cascade of border shutdowns in the Balkans started in February.

There are almost 50,000 refugees and migrants stranded in Greece, the vast majority of them not detained in camps since most arrived before the new EU arrangement came into effect on March 20.

Some 12,000 are at Idomeni, a sprawling complex of tents on the Greek border with the Former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia. Since Tuesday, MSF medical personnel have been absent from the camp, citing security reasons after two migrants tried to set themselves on fire.

Migrants living at Idomeni blocked a motorway and a customs checkpoint on Wednesday, demanding that the border be opened.

Greek authorities said they needed help. "We need these international organisations, particularly the UNHCR, which is of great assistance to us. Naturally we want it to stay, under certain rules, of course," Citizen Protection Minister Nikos Toskas told Greek radio.

A government source said migration minister Yannis Mouzalas was trying to coax aid organisations back.

"He is the best placed to mediate with these groups," the source said. Mouzalas, a physician, was extensively involved with aid agencies and participated in relief missions before his Cabinet appointment in Greece's leftist-led government last year.

More than 147,000 people, many fleeing conflict in the Middle East and Asia, have arrived in Greece by sea this year. Almost one million arrived in Europe via Greece in 2015.

BRUSSELS — The Daesh terror group claimed responsibility for suicide bomb attacks on Brussels airport and a rush-hour metro train in the Belgian capital on Tuesday which killed at least 30 people, with police hunting a suspect who fled the air terminal.

Police issued a wanted notice for a young man in a hat who was caught on CCTV pushing a laden luggage trolley at Zaventem Airport alongside two others who, investigators said, had later blown themselves up in the terminal, killing at least 10 people.

Officials said 20 died on the metro train close to European Union institutions. It was unclear what caused the blast but a news agency linked to Daesh said that too was a suicide attack.

The coordinated assault triggered security alerts across Europe and drew global expressions of support, four days after Brussels police had captured the prime surviving suspect in Daesh’s attacks on Paris last November.

Belgian authorities were still checking whether the attacks were linked to the arrest of Salah Abdeslam, according to Federal Prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw, although US officials said the level of organisation involved suggested they had previously been in preparation.

Explosives and a Daesh flag were found after a flat was raided a week ago where a fresh fingerprint of Abdeslam’s had put police on his trail. It was not clear if Abdeslam had been involved at that stage in the airport attack plan. A bomb and a Daesh flag were also found later on Tuesday in a flat in Brussels.

“A photograph of three male suspects was taken at Zaventem. Two of them seem to have committed suicide attacks. The third, wearing a light-coloured jacket and a hat, is actively being sought,” Van Leeuw told a news conference.

A government official said the third suspect had been seen running away from the airport building. Local media said police had found an undetonated suicide vest in the area.

Police issued a wanted notice on Monday, after questioning of Abdeslam, identifying 25-year-old Najim Laachraoui as linked to the Paris attacks. The poor quality of the images left open whether he might be the person caught on the airport cameras.

A witness said he heard shouts in Arabic and shots shortly before two blasts struck in a packed airport departure lounge at the airport.

Belgian media published the security camera picture of three young men pushing laden luggage trolleys. Police later issued the same photograph, showing only one of the three.

“If you recognise this individual or if you have information on this attack, please contact the investigators,” the notice read. “Discretion assured.”

Police operations were under way at several points in the city but a lockdown imposed immediately after the attacks was eased and commuters and students headed home as public transport partially reopened.

Daesh issued a statement claiming responsibility: “We promise the crusader alliance against the Islamic State [Daesh] that they will have black days in return for their aggression against the Islamic State,” the extremist group said.

Belgium, home to the European Union and the headquarters of the NATO military alliance, has sent warplanes to take part in operations against Daesh in the Middle East.

Austrian Horst Pilger, who was awaiting a flight with his family when the attackers struck, said his children had thought fireworks were going off, but he instantly knew an assault was under way.

“My wife and I both thought ‘bomb’. We looked into each other’s eyes,” he told Reuters. “Five or 10 seconds later there was a major, major, major blast in close vicinity. It was massive.”

Pilger, who works at the European Commission, said the whole ceiling collapsed and smoke flooded the building.

Security services found and destroyed a third bomb after two blasts at the airport killed at least 10 people and injured around 100, the provincial governor of Brabant Flanders said. Belgian media gave death tolls as high as 14 at the airport.

The metro station blast killed a further 20 people and injured roughly 130, according to a provisional toll from the national crisis response centre.

‘Black moment’

US President Barack Obama led calls of support to Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel after Brussels had gone into a state of virtual lock-down.

“We must be together regardless of nationality or race or faith in fighting against the scourge of terrorism,” Obama told a news conference in Cuba. “We can and we will defeat those who threaten the safety and security of people all around the world.”

Michel spoke at a Brussels news conference of a “black moment” for his country. “What we had feared has come to pass.”

The blasts occurred after the arrest in Brussels of a suspected participant the Paris attacks that killed 130 people. Belgian police and combat troops on the streets had been on alert for reprisal, but the attacks took place in crowded areas where people and bags are not searched.

All public transport in Brussels was initially shut down, as it was in London during 2005 Islamist militant attacks that killed 52. Authorities appealed to citizens not to use overloaded telephone networks, extra troops were sent into the city and the Belgian Crisis Centre, clearly wary of a further incident, appealed to the population: “Stay where you are”.

Brussels airport will remain closed on Wednesday, its chief executive Arnaud Feist told reporters.

Public broadcaster VRT said police had found a Kalashnikov assault rifle next to the body of an attacker at the airport. Such weapons have become a trademark of Daesh-inspired attacks in Europe, notably in Belgium and France, including on November 13 in Paris.

Alphonse Youla, 40, who works at the airport, told Reuters he heard a man shouting out in Arabic before the first explosion. “Then the glass ceiling of the airport collapsed.”

“I helped carry out five people dead, their legs destroyed,” he said, his hands covered in blood.

Others said they also heard shooting before the blasts.

A witness said the blasts occurred at a check-in desk.

Video showed devastation in the hall with ceiling tiles and glass scattered across the floor. Bloodied bodies lay around.

Some passengers emerged from the terminal with blood spattered over their clothes. Smoke rose from the building through shattered windows and passengers fled down a slipway, some still hauling their bags.

Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands, all wary of spillover from conflict in Syria, were among states announcing extra security measures. Security was tightened at the Dutch border with Belgium.

The blast hit the train as it left Maelbeek station, close to EU institutions, heading to the city centre.

VRT carried a photograph of a metro carriage at a platform with doors and windows completely blown out, its structure deformed and interior mangled and charred.

A local journalist tweeted a photograph of a person lying covered in blood among smoke outside the station. Ambulances were ferrying the wounded away and sirens rang out across the area.

‘We are at war’

“We are at war and we have been subjected to acts of war in Europe for the last few months,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said.

Train services on the cross-channel tunnel from London to Brussels were suspended. Britain advised its citizens to avoid all but essential travel to Brussels.

Security services have been on a high state of alert across western Europe for fear of militant attacks backed by Daesh, which claimed responsibility for the Paris attack.

While most European airports are known for stringent screening procedures of passengers and their baggage, that typically takes place only once passengers have checked in and are heading to the departure gates.

Abdeslam, the prime surviving suspect for the Paris attacks on a stadium, cafes and a concert hall, was captured by Belgian police after a shootout on Friday. Interior Minister, Jan Jambon, said on Monday the country was on high alert for a revenge attack.

AMMAN — A number of Jordan Valley farmers on Tuesday organised a sit-in near Arda vegetable market, protesting against “the deteriorating conditions the agricultural sector is going through”, according to Adnan Khaddam, head of the Jordan Valley Farmers Union.

Sector losses reached around JD3 billion and negatively affected some 3 million citizens who directly depend on agriculture, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, quoted Khaddam as saying.

BRUSSELS — Victims lay in pools of blood, their limbs blown off, as the smoke cleared to reveal a scene of horror after twin explosions ripped through the main terminal at Brussels airport, witnesses told AFP.

The normally bustling departure hall at Zaventem was wrecked by the morning rush-hour blasts, with part of the ceiling collapsing near the check-in desks and many of the huge plate glass windows blown out by the attack.

"A man shouted a few words in Arabic and then I heard a huge blast," airport baggage security officer Alphonse Lyoura, who still had blood on his hands following the explosion, told AFP.

He said there was another explosion about two minutes later.

"I helped at least six or seven wounded people. We took out some bodies that were not moving. It was total panic everywhere," Lyoura said.

"I saw people lying on the ground covered in blood who were not moving.

"At least six or seven people's legs were totally crushed. A lot of people lost limbs. One man had lost both legs and there was a policeman with a totally mangled leg."

Emergency services said at least 11 people were killed in the blast and many others wounded.

The city was already on high alert after the arrest of Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in the Paris terror attacks in November that were claimed by the Daesh group.

'A terrible mess' 

Jean-Pierre Lebeau, a French passenger who had just arrived from Geneva, told AFP: "We heard the explosion and felt the blast."

He said he had seen many wounded and "blood in the elevator".

"First we were kept together by the police, then they gave us the order to evacuate," he said, recounting the shock on people's faces and a smell seemingly of gunpowder at the scene. 

Michel Mpoy, 65, who was at the airport to pick up a friend coming from Kinshasa, said it was "a total mess — it was terrible".

An employee for the Swissport airport management company described how she looked after a child following the blasts.

"I heard the first explosion and I took a child in my arms and hid him under the counter. Then I gave him to a policeman," the employee said without giving her name.

"There were injured people lying everywhere and some weren't moving."

At the airport, on the northwest outskirts of the city and not far from NATO headquarters, Jean-Pierre Herman said he was relieved to have got out safely.

Herman embraced his wife Tankrat Paui Tran, who he had just gone to collect from the airport after her flight from Thailand. 

"My wife just arrived," Herman said. "I said 'hello,' we took the elevator and in the elevator we heard the first bomb. 

"The second exploded just when we got off. We ran away to an emergency exit. I think we are very lucky."

Charlotte McDonald-Gibson, a British journalist living in Brussels, told AFP there had been "total confusion" at the airport, where she was having breakfast before a flight. 

"Suddenly staff rushed in and said we have to leave," she said. "They rushed out and into the main terminal A departures building. Nobody knew what was going on."

"It was total confusion, people were just standing around wondering what was happening."

Another blast about half an hour after those at the airport hit the Brussels metro between the Maalbeek and Schuman stations in the European Union quarter of Brussels, which is also home to major international organisations and companies.

Around 10 people were killed, emergency services said.

Sirens wailing 

AFP journalist Lachlan Carmichael was on the metro and described how his train was halted in the tunnel and then evacuated as it began to fill up with smoke.

A police officer told him: "There are wounded, there are dead, I do not know how many."

The officer was escorting a woman through a police cordon being put up around the Maalbeek station, with all public transport being closed down.

Another AFP journalist, Cedric Simon, said the situation around the Maalbeek Metro Station was totally confused, with a cloud of smoke and dust settling over the road outside.

Simon said there were about 15 people lying on the roadside, many with bloodied faces and being treated by medical staff as all Brussels hospitals were put on standby to deal with casualties.

The streets were filled with police cars and emergency vehicles, sirens wailing and blue lights flashing.

Brussels has been on high alert since the attacks in Paris in January, with heavily armed police and then troops put on the streets.

Troops were clearly very watchful as they patrolled outside EU and other institutions in the Maalbeek-Schuman area.

BERLIN/PARIS — Twin explosions in the departure hall of Brussels Airport prompted several countries worldwide to review or tighten airport security on Tuesday and raised questions about how soon passengers should be screened when entering terminals.

The Daesh terror group claimed responsibility for bomb attacks on Brussels airport and a rush-hour metro train which killed at least 30 people.

Prosecutors said the blasts at Zaventem airport, which serves more than 23 million passengers a year, were believed to be caused by suicide bombers.

Authorities responded by stepping up the number of police on patrol at airports in London, Paris and Frankfurt and at other transport hubs as Brussels rail services were also halted. Airlines scrambled to divert flights as Brussels airport announced it would close through Wednesday.

In the United States, the country's largest cities were placed on high alert and the National Guard was called in to increase security at New York City's two airports.

The Obama administration was expected to announce new measures to tighten US airport security.

A United Nations agency is already due to review airport security following the downing of a Russian airliner in Egypt by a makeshift soda-can bomb in October last year. Daesh has claimed responsibility for smuggling the bomb on board.

Other recent incidents have also raised questions about how planes are protected. Last month, a bomber brought a device onto an airliner in Somalia and blew a hole in the fuselage. A year ago, a disturbed pilot deliberately crashed a Germanwings airliner killing 150 people, exploiting anti-terrorist cockpit defences to lock himself at the controls.

But there has been less attention focussed on how airports themselves are secured, before passengers check in for flights, despite a number of attacks.

"It strikes me as strange that only half of the airport is secure. Surely the whole airport should be secure, from the minute you arrive in the car park," said Matthew Finn, managing director of independent aviation security consultants Augmentiq.

In 2011, a suicide bomber struck the arrival hall at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, killing 37 people. In 2013, a shooter killed a US government Transportation Security Administration officer at Los Angeles International Airport. Another gunman killed two there in 2002.

The last major incident at a Western European airport was in 2007, when two people tried to drive a jeep packed with propane canisters into the terminal at Glasgow Airport in Scotland. One of the attackers died.

Several airports afterwards stepped up security for cars, but entrances have largely remained open for those on foot.

Checkpoints

The relative openness of public airport areas in Western Europe contrasts with some in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, where travellers' documents and belongings are checked before they are allowed to enter the airport building.

In Turkey, passengers and bags are screened on entering the terminal and again after check-in. Moscow also checks people at terminal entrances.

"Two terrorists who enter the terminal area with explosive devices, this is undoubtedly a colossal failure," Pini Schiff, the former security chief at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion Airport and currently the CEO of the Israel Security Association, said in an interview with Israel Radio.

In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, where authorities are on high alert for attacks by Somali-based Al Shabab militants, passengers have to get out of their cars, which are then searched, at a checkpoint a kilometre from the main terminal.

In Nairobi and other airports such as the Philippines capital Manila, passengers also have to present their passports and have bags X-rayed to gain entry to terminal buildings.

"I find that checks in front of buildings, such as those at government buildings in the United States, would be 100 per cent fine," said Ralf Leukers, a passenger at Frankfurt airport.

"If you don't have anything to hide, then you should be happy to have your bags searched."

But such checks could create upheaval at terminals and rely on security staff paying close attention.

"Any movement of the security 'comb' to the public entrance of a terminal building would cause congestion, inconvenience and flight delays, while the inevitable resulting queues would themselves present an attractive target," said Ben Vogel, the editor of IHS Jane's Airport Review.

A group representing Europe's airports said kerbside screening would "be moving the target rather than securing it".

Augmentiq's Finn said governments should make greater use of modern technology that allows for discreet screening of passengers as they pass through gates or revolving doors.

"This is not unique to Brussels; this is a global phenomenon. We have got to effect the right kind of change, otherwise we will be scratching our heads over why the same questions are being posed and not being answered," he said.

But adding pre-terminal screening and other measures at airports would be costly.

"I don't see it happening anytime soon," said Daniel Wagner, CEO of Country Risk Solutions, a security consulting firm in Connecticut in the United States. "There's no sense of urgency and not enough money devoted to the problem."

AMMAN – UN Women on Tuesday launched in New York an innovative partnership with leading media houses to galvanise attention and concrete action towards the 2030 Agenda.

At the United Nations Headquarters, during a packed side event of the 60th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, the campaign was launched under the motto “Step It Up for Gender Equality” Media Compact, according to a statement sent to The Jordan Times.

The UN Women statement said the compact brings together a broad coalition of media outlets from all regions of the world, representing print, broadcast and online news media “to ensure wide reach and robust efforts towards women’s rights and gender equality.”

”Recognising the influential role media can play in driving women’s empowerment and gender equality, the Step it Up for Gender Equality Media Compact facilitated by UN Women will function as an alliance of media organisations who are committed to playing an active role in advancing gender issues within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals,” the statement said.

It added that the outlets will implement the compact by scaling-up the focus on women’s rights and gender equality issues through high-quality coverage, complemented by gender-sensitive corporate practices. 

Leading up to the launch event, more than 35 leading media outlets, including The Jordan Times, signed up as founding members of the Media Compact, said the statement. “From grass-roots to national and international media players, the diverse group of initial members reach millions of readers and viewers in Africa, Arab States, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Latin American regions.” 

“Media have great influence over how we perceive and understand the world around us. That influence has many dimensions. Even when reporting is entirely factually accurate, if it is reported predominantly by men, about men, it is actually misrepresenting the real state of the world. At UN Women, we want to address this through partnership to change the media landscape and make media work for gender equality,” said UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. “This level of support and leadership from media houses and newsrooms alike is what is needed to ensure that we can achieve gender equality and women’s rights by 2030,” she added.  

By signing up to the Media Compact, the outlets are committing to a range of concrete change actions: championing women’s rights and gender equality issues through editorial articles; ensuring inclusion of women as sources in stories produced, aiming for gender parity; adopting a gender-sensitive Code of Conduct on Reporting; ensuring women journalists are provided mentors and guidance for career advancement, and many others. 

Speaking at the New York launch event, which was moderated by the under-secretary-general of the UN’s Department of Public Information, Cristina Gallach, media representatives from South African Broadcasting Corporation, Good Housekeeping and TV Azteca, all founding members, were unanimous in their support of the newly launched partnership, underlining that they will engage continuously through the Media Compact to push for gender equality in their news coverage and their newsrooms.

The Jordan Times is one of the founding members of the initiative.

GENEVA — The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) on Tuesday harshly criticised an EU-Turkey deal on curbing the influx of migrants to Greece, saying reception centres had become “detention facilities”, and suspended some activities in the country.

“Under the new provisions, these sites have now become detention facilities,” the UNHCR said in a statement.

“Accordingly, and in line with our policy on opposing mandatory detention, we have suspended some of our activities at all closed centres on the islands,” it added.

The EU and Ankara struck a deal on Friday aiming to cut off the sea crossing from Turkey to the Greek islands that enabled 850,000 people to pour into Europe last year, many of them fleeing the brutal war in Syria.

The agreement, under which all migrants landing on the Greek islands face being sent back to Turkey, went into effect early on Sunday.

“UNHCR is not a party to the EU-Turkey deal, nor will we be involved in returns or detention,” the agency said Tuesday, adding though that it would “continue to assist the Greek authorities to develop an adequate reception capacity”.

It pointed out that Greece currently “does not have sufficient capacity on the islands for assessing asylum claims, nor the proper conditions to accommodate people decently and safely pending an examination of their cases”.

The UN agency said 934 refugees and migrants had landed on Lesbos alone since the accord took effect.

“They are being held at a closed registration and temporary accommodation site in Moria on the east of the island,” it said, adding that the 880 others who arrived before Sunday were being hosted separately at the Kara Tepe centre, which is run by the local municipality and “remains an open facility”.

And starting already on Saturday, Greek authorities had begun accelerating the transfer to the mainland of some 8,000 refugees and migrants who had arrived on the islands before March 20, to separate them from those subject to return to Turkey.

UNHCR said it had until now been supporting the so-called “hot spots” where refugees and migrants were received, assisted and registered on the Greek islands.

But it said it would not participate in closed centres.

“This includes provision of transport to and from these sites,” the agency said.

It stressed though that it would “maintain a presence to carry out protection monitoring to ensure that refugee and human rights standards are upheld, and to provide information on the rights and procedures to seek asylum”.

HAVANA — US President Barack Obama delivered an impassioned appeal for political liberties in Cuba, including freedom of expression and religion, as he spoke directly to the Cuban people on Tuesday in a historic speech broadcast throughout the communist-ruled island.

Speaking at Havana's Grand Theatre with Cuban President Raul Castro in attendance in what White House officials touted as a crowning moment of Obama's visit, Obama extended a "hand of friendship". He declared that he had come to Havana to "bury the last remnant" of the Cold War in the Americas.

But he also pressed for economic and political reforms, speaking in a one-party state where little dissent is tolerated.

"Voters should be able to chose their governments in free and democratic elections," he said.

"Not everybody agrees with me on this, not everybody agrees with the American people on this but I believe those human rights are universal. I believe they're the rights of the American people, the Cuban people and people around the world," Obama said.

His address marked the final day of his trip, the first by a US president to Cuba in 88 years. His presence in Havana was the culmination of a diplomatic opening that he and Castro announced in December 2014, ending decades of estrangement between Washington and Havana that began soon after Cuba's 1959 revolution.

Obama drew strong applause from the audience when he reiterated his call for an end to the longstanding US economic embargo against Cuba, which only the US Congress can lift.

Obama, who abandoned a longtime US policy of trying to isolate Cuba, wants to make his shift irreversible by the time he leaves office in January, and secure it as a piece of his foreign policy legacy.

But major obstacles remain to full normalisation of ties, most notably the continuing US embargo and differences over human rights.

The Republican-controlled Congress has so far rejected the Democratic president's call for a lifting of the embargo, although Obama has used his executive powers to ease some trade and travel restrictions on the island.

The president's critics at home have called his visit a premature reward to the Castro government. US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, said on Tuesday the trip legitimises what he called Castro's "tyrannical dictatorship".

'It's up to you'

With his words carried live by Cuba's state-run media, Obama sought to persuade ordinary Cubans that his new policy, including easing of trade and travel restrictions, was focused primarily on helping them to improve their lives.

Standing at a lectern flanked by US and Cuban flags, Obama laid out a hopeful vision of future US-Cuban relations and told Cubans "it's up to you" to take steps to change the country.

On Monday he sparred with Castro at a news conference where both leaders aired some of the old grievances between their countries, even as they sought to advance the diplomatic thaw.

Castro, an army general who took over as president from his ailing brother, Fidel Castro, in 2008, was at the theater to greet Obama on arrival and sat in the audience for the speech. At the end of the speech, the Cuban leader lightly applauded from the balcony, then waved to the crowd.

Obama's words at times were as much aimed at the Castro government as at the Cuban people, especially when he urged political freedoms and faster economic reforms to take advantage of the US opening to the island.

"I believe citizens should be free to speak their minds without fear, to organise and to criticise their government and protest peacefully," said Obama.

Obama's administration is seeking to bridge the ideological divide by galvanising the support of the Cuban public to help him pressure their government for reforms that so far have been slow to come.

However, the Cuban government has made plain that it does not see the detente as a path to political changes on the island.

After the speech, Obama met privately with about a dozen Cuban dissidents at the US embassy. He noted that some of them had been detained and commended them for their courage. Among the participants was Berta Soler, leader of Ladies in White, a protest group.

Obama and his aides say the future pace of rapprochement depends heavily on whether the Cuban government is ready to start loosening its grip on its Soviet-style economy and its heavily controlled society.

Obama's much-anticipated address marked the first time a sitting US president's speech was broadcast to the Cuban people while on Cuban soil — though speeches by visiting popes have been carried live by state media.

Jimmy Carter, travelling to Cuba in 2002 as the first former US president to visit since the revolution, called for political freedoms in a speech broadcast on live television.

LESBOS, Greece — Greece appealed to EU partners on Monday for logistical help to implement a deal with Turkey meant to stem an influx of migrants into Europe, as people — many unaware of the tough new rules — continued to come ashore on Greek islands.

Economically battered Greece, for months at the epicentre of Europe's biggest migrant crisis since World War II, is struggling to mount the massive logistics operation needed to process asylum applications from the many hundreds of migrants still arriving daily along its shoreline.

Turkish officials arrived on the Greek island of Lesbos on Monday to help realise the deal, which requires new arrivals from March 20 to be held until their asylum applications are processed and for those deemed ineligible to be sent back to Turkey from April 4 onwards.

"We must move very swiftly and in a coordinated manner over the next few days to get the best possible result," Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said after meeting EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos in Athens.

"Assistance in human resources must come quickly."

Under the EU-Turkey roadmap agreed last Friday, a coordination structure must be created by March 25 and some 4,000 personnel — more than half from other European Union member states — deployed to the islands by next week.

Avramopoulos said France, Germany and the Netherlands had already pledged logistics and personnel. "We are at a crucial turning point... The management of the refugee crisis for Europe as a whole hinges on the progress and success of this agreement," he said.

However, on Monday, the day after the formal start of an agreement intended to close off the main route through which a million refugees and migrants arrived in Europe last year, authorities said 1,662 people had arrived on Greek islands by 7am (0500 GMT), twice the official count of the day before.

Just after 4:30am on Monday, one coastguard vessel rescued 54 refugees and migrants from the open sea and brought them to the port, some of the 698 arrivals counted in Lesbos.

They staggered down the ramp, women and children first, one elderly man bundled up in blankets.

"Where are we going?" asked one Syrian woman who was travelling with her husband and daughter.

The migrants were directed to a coastguard bus that would drive them to the Moria "hot spot", a centre where new arrivals are being registered and their asylum applications processed.

"We are very tired. I want to go to my family in Sweden," said Ahmet Bayraktar, a 32-year-old unemployed accountant from Aleppo, Syria. "We'll try, God willing."

Like others, he was unaware of the new EU-Turkey accord.

"We don't know about this," Bayraktar said. "We're coming directly from Syria. Everybody wants to go to the border. We don't have the news, we don't have electricity, we don't have anything."

Two hours later, just as the sun rose above the Aegean Sea, the same coastguard vessel pulled another 44 people from the water. One woman cradled a baby just a few months old.

They walked silently to the bus for Moria, a sprawling, gated complex of prefabricated containers and hard tents.

‘It's better than Syria’

Before Friday's deal, migrants and refugees had been free to wander out of the camp and head to ferries to the Greek mainland, from where they would mostly head north through the Balkans towards wealthier western Europe, especially Germany.

Now, new arrivals are supposed to be held in centres pending the outcome of their asylum applications.

Under the deal, for every Syrian returned to Turkey, another would be resettled from Turkey to the EU, a process which has already triggered alarm from human rights groups for being discriminatory, a violation of international law and one which could be challenged in court.

Some diplomats believe the accord could unravel within months because neither side looks able to deliver on its commitments, but that the need to get the migration crisis under control is so urgent that it was felt best to clinch a deal now and deal with shortcomings later.

The fate of those migrants and refugees stranded in Greece before the accord was brokered, estimated at nearly 47,000 people, remains unclear.

Hundreds of migrants travelling from the islands to the Greek mainland continued on Monday to disembark at the Port of Pireaus near Athens. They appeared free to leave because they had landed in Greece before March 20, eyewitnesses said.

Some migrants said they would try to reach Idomeni, a northern Greek frontier outpost where some 12,000 refugees remain stranded in squalid conditions hoping that the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia will reopen the border and let them pass on.

"I will try to go to the border with Macedonia within the next 10 days even if it's closed. Maybe I will have to come back here, maybe not, but anyway it's better than Syria," said Hozefa Hasdibo, 23, from Idlib in Syria.