Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Blinken meets Ukraine official, warns Russia on natgas supplies

By Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is watching for signs that Russia may be using energy as a political tool in Europe’s energy crunch, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday, adding that Washington was committed to take appropriate action, along with Germany, if Moscow were to take that path.

Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met at the State Department and signed a charter on a strategic partnership. Discussions focused on Ukraine’s neighbor, Russia, which Kuleba said was already using gas supplies as a weapon.

Blinken said Washington was also concerned by reports of “unusual Russian military activity” near Russia’s border with Ukraine, warning that escalatory or aggressive action would be of concern to the United States.

“Should Russia attempt to use energy as a weapon or commit further aggressive acts against Ukraine, we are committed, and Germany is committed, to taking appropriate action,” Blinken said, adding that Washington was “watching very carefully for signs” that Russia was using energy as a weapon as it has in the past.

Russia has been accused of holding back energy supplies amid record high gas prices, but Putin has blamed the EU’s energy policy and said Russia can boost supplies to Europe once the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline gets approved.

“Russia could and should take steps to alleviate the energy crunch by increasing gas supplies,” said Blinken.

Washington opposes the $11 billion pipeline, currently nearing completion, which runs under the Baltic Sea to carry gas from Russia’s Arctic region to Germany.

The Biden administration has waived sanctions on the pipeline’s operator and reached an agreement with Germany in July over the pipeline. Germany agreed to take action if Russia uses energy as a weapon in its relations with Ukraine, but the pact did not provide a specific criteria for how that would be judged.

The United States was looking to Germany to “make good on” its promise to make sure that Nord Stream 2 is not a substitute for transit deliveries of gas though Ukraine,” Blinken said.

“What we see is that Russia is already using gas as a weapon,” Kuleba said in response, adding that Ukraine wanted Germany to use its “leverage” over Russia

“Russia should receive a very strong message not only from the United States and from other capitals, but also from Berlin, that this is not the game that will benefit Russia.”

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

In the charter signed on Wednesday, the United States vowed to support Ukraine’s efforts to counter armed aggression, economic and energy disruptions and malicious cyber activity by Russia, including by maintaining sanctions on Russia, and applying other relevant measures.

Washington remained committed to assisting Ukraine with continuing its robust training exercises and reiterated that it supported Kyiv’s efforts to maximize its status as a NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner.

Kuleba underscored the importance of support from the United States and added that Ukraine would benefit from any potential defense cooperation that would strengthen its capabilities including intelligence sharing or air defense systems.

“We are in a situation where we cannot allow losing or wasting any time and we are looking forward to working with the United States in this field,” he said.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Simon Lewis, Daphne Psaledakis and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chris Reese)

Factbox – Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

(Reuters) – The Americas is facing an impending crisis in routine vaccinations because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pan American Health Organization said, and vaccinations against the coronavirus are behind where they should be.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

EUROPE

* France is at the beginning of a fifth wave of the epidemic, Health Minister Olivier Veran said.

* Russia’s deaths hit a record in the previous 24 hours, two days after most of its regions emerged from a week-long workplace shutdown.

* People aged under 30 in Germany should only receive the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine as it causes fewer heart inflammations in younger people than the Moderna shot, an advisory committee said.

AMERICAS

* Over 900,000 U.S. children aged 5 to 11 are expected to have received their first COVID-19 shot by the end of Wednesday, the White House said, as the government ramped up vaccinations of younger children.

* The United States has brokered a deal between Johnson & Johnson and the COVAX vaccine-sharing program for the delivery of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine to people living in conflict zones.

* U.S. National Institutes of Health scientists played “a major role” in developing Moderna’s vaccine and the agency intends to defend its claim as co-owner of patents on the shot, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins told Reuters.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* South Korea encouraged citizens to take booster shots as more of the elderly fell ill and reported vaccine breakthrough infections, driving serious and critical cases to a record.

* Thailand said it will set aside up to 500,000 doses of vaccines for foreign workers.

* Vietnam will by the end of this month have sufficient vaccines to cover its population, a deputy prime minister said, as the country approved India’s Covaxin vaccine for emergency use.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* Israel’s pandemic advisory board backed administering Pfizer’s and BioNTech’s vaccine to children age 5-11, as a fourth wave of infections subsides nationwide.

* Bahrain will cancel working with its coronavirus travel red list from Nov. 14.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* French vaccines company Valneva won European Commission approval for a deal to supply up to 60 million doses of its vaccine candidate over two years.

* Merck and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics said Japan will pay about $1.2 billion for 1.6 million courses of their COVID-19 antiviral pill molnupiravir.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Wall Street lost ground on Wednesday as surging consumer prices fueled fears of a longer-than-expected wave of heightened inflation dampened investor risk appetite.

* San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Mary Daly said she expects high inflation to moderate once COVID-19 recedes, and repeated that it would be “quite premature” to raise rates now or even to speed up the Fed’s bond-buying taper.

(Compiled by Devika Syamnath and Sarah Morland; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Sriraj Kalluvila)

U.S. and allies would ‘take action’ if Taiwan attacked – Blinken

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States and its allies would take unspecified “action” if China were to use force to alter the status quo over Taiwan, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.

Blinken was asked at a forum hosted by the New York Times whether the United States would step in to defend Taiwan in the event of an attack by China. He repeated regular U.S. statements that Washington’s role is to make sure the island has the means to defend itself, as is required under U.S. law.

“At the same time, I think it’s fair to say that we’re not alone in this determination to make sure that we preserve peace and stability in that part of the world,” Blinken added.

“There are many countries, both in the region and beyond, that would see any unilateral action to use force to disrupt the status quo as a significant threat to peace and security, and they too would take action in the event that that happens.”

Blinken did not say what sort of action he was referring to.

U.S. President Joe Biden caused a stir last month when he said the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense if China attacked.

Those remarks appeared to depart from a long held policy of “strategic ambiguity”, not making clear how the United States would respond. But the White House quickly said Biden was not signaling a change in policy, and some analysts dismissed his comments as a gaffe.

The Democratic chairman of the influential House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, last week urged the Biden administration to be less ambiguous about what he called a U.S. obligation to defend Taiwan from attack by China.

Blinken’s remarks came ahead of a planned virtual meeting between Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which a source briefed on the matter told Reuters will be held as soon as next week.

Asked if the meeting would happen next week, Blinken said it was “coming up soon” but was not more specific.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

World at risk of measles outbreaks as COVID-19 disrupts infant shots, report says

(Reuters) – The risk of measles outbreaks is high after more than 22 million infants missed their first vaccine doses during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned.

Reported measles cases fell by more than 80% last year compared with 2019, but a higher number of children missing their vaccine doses leaves them vulnerable, a joint report by the WHO and the U.S. CDC showed on Wednesday.

About 3 million more children missed the shots in 2020 than the previous year, the largest increase in two decades, threatening global efforts to eventually eradicate the highly infectious viral disease.

“Large numbers of unvaccinated children, outbreaks of measles, and disease detection and diagnostics diverted to support COVID-19 responses are factors that increase the likelihood of measles-related deaths and serious complications in children,” the U.S. CDC’s immunization head, Kevin Cain, said.

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known, more so than COVID-19, Ebola, tuberculosis or flu. It can be especially dangerous for babies and young children, with pneumonia among the possible complications.

In 2019, reported cases of measles were at their highest in almost a quarter of a century.

The latest report said 24 measles vaccination campaigns originally planned for 2020 in 23 countries were postponed, leaving more than 93 million people at risk.

“It’s critical that countries vaccinate as quickly as possible against COVID-19, but this requires new resources so that it does not come at the cost of essential immunization programs,” said Dr Kate O’Brien, director of the WHO’s department of immunization, vaccines and biologicals.

“Routine immunization must be protected and strengthened; otherwise, we risk trading one deadly disease for another,” she said.

(Reporting by Amna Karimi and Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)

Over 900,000 U.S. kids to get first COVID-19 shot by end of Wed -White House

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Over 900,000 U.S. children aged 5-11 are expected to have received their first COVID-19 vaccine shot by the end of Wednesday, White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said, as the government ramped up vaccinations of younger children.

The United States on Wednesday began administering Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine to children ages 5 to 11, the latest group to become eligible for the shots that provide protection against the illness to recipients and those around them.

“While our program is just fully up and running this week, by the end of the day today, we estimate that over 900,000 kids aged five through 11 will have already gotten their first shot,” Zients said during a briefing with reporters.

The figure comes from a White House analysis of available data from pharmaceutical partners, some states, and localities, Zients said, adding the CDC has not yet collected the full tally.

COVID-19 is the largest vaccine-preventable killer of children in that age group, with 66 children dying from it over the past year, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at the same briefing.

The seven-day average of total COVID-19 cases in the U.S. was flat at about 73,300 over the past week, she said, with the hospitalization rate also flat at 5,000 a day. The seven-day average of daily deaths fell 11% to around 1,000 per day.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Alexandra Alper, and Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Nick Zieminski and David Gregorio)

Ellume’s COVID-19 home test recall most serious, FDA says

(Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration classified the recall of Ellume’s over-the-counter COVID-19 home test as Class 1, the most serious type of recall, after the Australian diagnostic test maker removed some of its tests from the market last month.

Ellume had cited higher-than-acceptable false positive test results for SARS-CoV-2 as the reason for the recall.

A ‘false positive’ indicates that a person has the virus when they actually do not.

The antigen test, which detects proteins from the SARS-CoV-2 virus from a nasal sample, is available without a prescription for use by people above two years of age with or without COVID-19 symptoms.

The agency said on Wednesday there have been 35 complaints of the antigen test giving false positive results, but no death had been reported related to the test.

Ellume has so far recalled 2,212,335 tests in the United States.

(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

Worst to come: pasta makers fret over durum wheat supply crunch

By Gus Trompiz and Giancarlo Navach

PARIS/MILAN (Reuters) – Italian pasta makers are fearful of a substantial supply squeeze in the coming months after this summer’s durum wheat price shock, as the market runs out of ways to offset a dire harvest in top exporter Canada.

Extreme heat and drought this year in the North American country, which usually accounts for about two-thirds of global durum trade, are expected to cut output there by about 3 million tonnes to nearly 50% below 2020 levels.

That has sent durum quotations to 13-year highs, stoking concerns about food inflation at a time when many economies are struggling to recover from COVID-19.

An index of food prices from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization is at a 10-year high, with the cost of bread also climbing as European wheat prices hit a 13-year peak this month.

With forecasts for Italy’s domestic durum crop, which typically covers most of pasta makers’ needs, also recently cut, the country’s food producers are particularly exposed to turmoil in the wider market for the niche wheat variety.

Some Italian processors risk being caught short when the local crop runs out and may see production stoppages in the coming months, Strategie Grains analyst Severine Omnes-Maisons said.

“In terms of prices and scarcity of durum, the worst is perhaps still to come.”

Canada’s output wilted just as world durum stocks were already at a six-year low, partly due to at-home hoarding of pasta during pandemic lockdowns.

Several crops have seen prices jump this year due to harvest setbacks and mounting supply chain costs, but tensions in durum have been particularly intense, with export prices almost doubling since June.

Italy’s durum crop had been expected to surpass 2020 levels this year, but the European Commission in October cut its estimate to 3.7 million tonnes from 4.3 million, leaving pasta makers fretting about availability in the first half of 2022.

“It will be more dramatic than it is now because at the moment we can find domestic wheat,” said Vincenzo Divella, chief executive of the Divella pasta brand. “The situation with durum wheat is very serious.”

WEATHER SHIFTS

Supply from this year’s harvests may be even lower than anticipated. Unfavorable local crop reports in Canada suggest its official durum production estimate may be cut again in December, Omnes-Maisons says.

“Durum presents the greatest challenge in terms of balancing global import requirements with global export availability,” Rhyl Doyle, director of export trading at Paterson Grain in Winnipeg, said.

Buyers have adjusted to some extent with non-Canadian supply. Australia has become the EU’s second-largest durum supplier this season after Canada, while Mexico was expected to fill most of a large import purchase by Algeria in September.

Like Canada, the United States is set to see production drop by about half this year after suffering similar torrid weather since spring. France’s rain-hit harvest meanwhile has curbed European supply.

That has led some to blame weather shifts for upsetting a balance of moderately warm and dry growing conditions suited to producing the hard, high-protein wheat variety.

“The increase in the price of durum wheat is a symptom of climate change,” said Alberto Cartasegna, chief executive of Miscusi, which has a dozen restaurants in Italy.

PAYING MORE FOR STAPLES

Adjusting to low stocks will partly come from paying more for durum-based staples and switching to less costly common wheat.

Price rises are not expected to dampen pasta demand in wealthy European countries – where pasta is required to be made from durum – despite double-digit percentage increases by some manufacturers that are being passed on partly to shoppers.

But consumption patterns may shift more in emerging economies.

North African households face an increase of around a quarter in the price of durum-based semolina bread, which is expected to reinforce the prevalence of soft wheat bread.

“We have no choice but to increase prices to cover costs,” Abdelaziz Bouchireb, an Algerian baker, said of semolina bread.

Turkey, a major pasta exporter, earlier this year relaxed rules to increase the maximum share of common wheat allowed in pasta exports from 30% to 100% in response to dwindling durum supply.

Reduced demand in Turkey and North Africa is expected to account for the bulk of a 6% drop in global food use of durum in the 2021/22 season compared with pre-pandemic levels, Strategie Grains forecasts.

The International Grains Council projects that worldwide durum demand will hit a 19-year low in that period. Nevertheless it sees end-season durum stocks at a 14-year low, suggesting a tightrope for the market before next year’s harvests.

Even in wealthy economies, households may feel the pinch.

Market data specialist Nielsen says supermarket prices of budget pasta brands – those most dependent on raw material costs – rose nearly 20% year-on-year in France in October, which could augur significant across-the-board increases to come.

In the United States, stores are still stocking products made with last year’s durum, so the impact of tighter supplies has not reached the end of the supply chain, said Jeffrey McPike, a U.S.-based trader and consultant with McWheat Trading Inc.

“It will,” he warned.

(Reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris, Giancarlo Navach in Milan, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Ahmed Eljechtimi in Rabat, Can Sezer in Istanbul, Nigel Hunt in London, Julie Ingwersen in Chicago and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; Editing by Veronica Brown and Jan Harvey)

Soaring gasoline, food prices boost U.S. inflation; labor market tightening

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. consumer prices accelerated in October as Americans paid more for gasoline and food, leading to the biggest annual gain in 31 years, suggesting inflation could stay uncomfortably high well into 2022 amid snarled global supply chains.

Inflation pressures are also brewing in the labor market, where an acute shortage of workers is driving wages higher. The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits fell to a 20-month low last week, other data showed on Wednesday.

High inflation is eroding the wage gains, adding to political risk for President Joe Biden, whose approval rating has been falling as Americans grow more anxious about the economy. The White House and the Federal Reserve, which views high inflation as transitory, have maintained that prices will fall once supply bottlenecks start easing.

“There is increasing evidence that inflationary pressures are broadening out, underlining that inflation will remain elevated for much longer than Fed officials expect,” said Andrew Hunter, a senior economist at Capital Economics.

The consumer price index jumped 0.9% last month after climbing 0.4% in September, the Labor Department said on Wednesday. The largest gain in four months boosted the annual increase in the CPI to 6.2%. That was the biggest year-on-year rise since November 1990 and followed a 5.4% increase in September.

The broad-based increase in prices last month was led by gasoline prices, which surged 6.1% after rising 1.2% in September. Food prices advanced 0.9%, with meat, eggs, fish, vegetables, cereals and bakery products becoming more expensive. But prices for alcoholic beverages declined. Rents increased a solid 0.4% and prices for both new and used motor vehicles rose.

Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the CPI gained 0.6% after climbing 0.2% in September. The so-called core CPI jumped 4.6% on a year-on-year basis, the largest increase since August 1991, after being steady at 4.0% for two straight months. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the overall CPI shooting up 0.6% and the core CPI rising 0.4%.

U.S. stocks opened lower. The dollar rose against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury yields rose.

WORKER SHORTAGES

Inflation is heating up again as the economic drag from the summer wave of COVID-19 infections, driven by the Delta variant, fades and supply bottlenecks persist. Trillions of dollars in pandemic relief from governments across the globe fueled demand for goods, leaving supply chains overstretched.

The nearly two-year long pandemic has upended labor markets, causing a global shortage of workers needed to produce raw materials and move goods from factories to consumers. The government reported on Tuesday that producer prices increased strongly in October, reversing a slowing trend in the monthly PPI that had become entrenched since spring.

Though the Fed last week restated its belief that current high inflation is “expected to be transitory,” most economists are skeptical, also noting that wages are rising strongly as companies scramble for workers.

The U.S. central bank this month started reducing the amount of money it is injecting into the economy through monthly bond purchases. The Fed’s preferred inflation measure for its flexible 2% target increased 3.6% year-on-year in September.

With labor scarce, companies are holding on to their workers. In another report on Wednesday, the Labor Department said initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 267,000 for the week ended Nov. 6.

That was the lowest level since the middle of March in 2020, when the economy almost ground to a halt under the onslaught of mandatory business closures aimed at slowing the first wave of COVID-19 infections. Claims, which have now declined for six straight weeks, are within striking distance of their pre-pandemic level.

The report was published a day early because the federal government is closed on Thursday for the Veterans Day holiday.

The government reported last Friday that the economy added 531,000 jobs in October, with annual wage growth the largest in eight months. The labor force is down 3 million from its pre-pandemic level, making it harder to fill the 10.4 million job openings as of the of August.

“Businesses facing labor shortages are likely retaining rather than laying off workers,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics in White Plains, New York. “Even so, for the labor market, supply remains a constraint that is a headwind for the recovery for now.”

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Dan Burns and Andrea Ricci)

Rock rises out of the sea as second La Palma lava flow reaches ocean

MADRID (Reuters) – New cascades of red-hot lava tumbled into the Atlantic Ocean off Spain’s La Palma on Wednesday morning, sending up plumes of white smoke and extending a platform of volcanic rock created by earlier flows.

The stream of molten rock from the Cumbre Vieja volcano, which began erupting in mid-September, reached the water near the popular surf spot of Los Guirres beach just before 2 a.m., according to the Transport Ministry.

A video uploaded by Spain’s Geology and Mining Institute showed rivers of molten rock sliding into the sea and large rocks rolling down a cliff, causing a cone of debris to emerge from the waterline.

Unlike the first time lava reached the ocean – just over a month ago – authorities said there was no need for residents to stay indoors.

“New confinements are not necessary because the populations are far away from the point of contact with the sea that occurred last night,” an emergency services spokesperson told Reuters.

Few people live in the affected area, which is mostly banana plantations.

Early on in the eruption authorities had feared that the reaction between the superheated lava and seawater could unleash powerful explosions and set off toxic gas clouds.

During the last major eruption on the island, some 50 years ago, a man died after inhaling such gases.

La Palma’s council said on Tuesday that seismic activity around the eruption site, as well as emissions of toxic sulphur dioxide, had been decreasing and the air quality remained good across most of the island.

(Reporting by Nathan Allen and Emma Pinedo; Editing by Giles Elgood)

EU accuses Belarus of ‘gangster’ methods as migrants shiver at Polish border

By Alan Charlish and Felix Hoske

NAREWKA, Poland (Reuters) – Hundreds of migrants huddled around forest campfires in freezing temperatures on Tuesday near the Belarus-Poland border where razor wire fences and Polish border guards blocked their entry into the European Union.

The EU vowed more sanctions against Belarus, accusing President Alexander Lukashenko of using “gangster-style” tactics in the months-long border stand-off in which at least seven migrants have died.

Poland and other EU member states accuse Belarus of encouraging the migrants – from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa – to illegally cross the frontier into the EU in revenge for sanctions slapped on Minsk over human rights abuses.

“The Belarusian regime is attacking the Polish border, the EU, in an unparalleled manner,” Polish President Andrzej Duda told a news conference in Warsaw.

“We currently have a camp of migrants who are blocked from the Belarusian side. There are about 1,000 people there, mostly young men. These are aggressive actions that we must repel, fulfilling our obligations as a member of the European Union.”

Reuters reporters saw Polish border guards detain a group of Iraqi Kurdish migrants in a forest on the Polish side of the border on Tuesday afternoon. Medics put Red Cross blankets around some of the migrants. One elderly woman could not walk.

NGO Grupa Granica (Border Group) said there were 16 migrants in the group, nine of them children. It said the group had been pushed back and forth between Polish and Belarusian border guards four times since they reached the border on Oct. 24.

“I ask for asylum in Poland,” read a message scrawled in English on a piece of paper held up by a middle-aged man.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiekci, who earlier visited Polish troops stationed at the border, said the migrants were being used by Belarus as part of “a new type of war in which people are used as human shields”.

Lukashenko’s government, which is backed by Russia, denies engineering the migrant crisis and blames Europe and the United States for the plight of the people stranded at the border.

It summoned Poland’s defense attaché on Tuesday to protest what it said were unfounded allegations about the involvement of Belarusian military personnel in the crisis.

‘BLACKMAIL’

Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the situation by phone and expressed concern over the build-up of Polish troops at the border, the Belarusian state news agency Belta reported on Tuesday.

“To conduct a war with these unfortunate people on the border of Poland with Belarus and move forward columns of tanks – it’s clear this is either a training exercise or it’s blackmail,” Lukashenko said in televised comments.

“We will calmly stand up to this.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested the EU provide Belarus with financial assistance to stop the migrant flows, referencing an earlier such deal with Turkey.

The European Commission said around 2,000 migrants had now reached the border. Some could be seen milling around tents and campfires set up just beyond Poland’s barbed-wire barrier.

“This is part of the inhuman and really gangster-style approach of the Lukashenko regime that he is lying to people, he is misusing people…and bringing them to Belarus under the false promise of having easy entry into the EU,” a Commission spokesperson said.

EU governments partially suspended a visa facilitation deal for Belarusian officials.

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR called for an end to the use of vulnerable people as political pawns.

‘DANGEROUS EVENTS’

A spokesman for Poland’s security services, Stanislaw Zaryn, said Belarusian security personnel were “firing empty shots into the air, simulating dangerous events”, while also providing tools to the migrants to help them destroy the border fence.

On Monday some migrants used spades and other implements to try to break down the fence.

Poland’s Border Guard recorded 309 illegal attempts to breach the frontier on Monday and detained 17 people, mainly Iraqis.

Lithuania also reported a surge in attempted migrant crossings and followed in Poland’s footsteps by declaring a state of emergency along its border with Belarus on Tuesday.

The move allows border guards to use “mental coercion” and “proportional physical violence” to stop the migrants.

The crisis erupted after Western powers slapped sanctions on Belarus over its violent crackdown on mass street protests that were sparked by Lukashenko’s disputed claim of victory in a presidential election in 2020.

Poland denies accusations by humanitarian groups that it is violating the international right to asylum by hustling migrants back into Belarus instead of accepting their applications for protection. Warsaw says its actions are legal.

“We can never be certain what will happen to people we offer help to in this forest because Polish authorities are breaking the law and the Geneva Convention,” Grupa Granica’s Jakub Sypianski said as Polish police detained migrants nearby.

A poll by IBRiS for Polish daily Rzeczpospolita this week showed 55% of Poles believe migrants who have illegally crossed the border should be sent back.

(Additional reporting by Joanna Plucinska and Pawel Florkiewicz in Warsaw, Matthias Williams in Kyiv, Sabine Siebold in Berlin, Robin Emmott in Brussels, Andrius Sytas in Kapciamiestis, Lithuania, Polina Devitt and Mark Trevelyan in Moscow; writing by Matthias Wiliams; editing by Gareth Jones and Mark Heinrich)