, EU and Turkish officials just made a deal to send back to Turkey migrants now arriving on Greek islands . The action was to begin Sunday , but it was not clear if that would be the case . After the Mass , Francis joyfully greeted tens of thousands of people as he toured the square in his white popemobile , and let some children aboard for a while .
In Greece , smugglers are peddling offers to take migrants clandestinely to Italy , either by boat from the Greek mainland or via a more precarious route walking through the mountainous terrain of Albania , where they can then cross the Adriatic Sea . Others are offering to take them on less guarded paths through Macedonian forests , or to Bulgaria to reach Serbia and beyond . In the camp at Idomeni , at the border with Macedonia , where more than 13,000 migrants have been stuck in muddy conditions after Macedonia sealed its border , talk of smugglingmovement.transportperson.smuggleextractis everywhere . Migrants point to the Hara Hotel and to gas stations along the highway to Idomeni as places where smugglers loiter and operate . Video
It said one foundation has sent 7,500 vehicles with various supplies to IS - controlled territory since 2011 . The letter said that among the supplies delivered to IS were ammunition for TOW anti - tank missile systems , RPG-7 grenade launchers and small arms , M-60 recoilless rifles , 82 mm mortar shells , hand grenades , communication tools and equipment from the Turkish intelligence services . The letter also said " smugglingmovement.transportperson.smuggleextractexplosives and industrial chemicals to terrorist groups operating in Syria is also usually organized from Turkish territory " through the border crossings . " In order to pass through the border controls unimpeded , effectively with the complicity of the Turkish authorities , products are processed for companies that are purportedly registered in Jordan and Iraq , " it said . Churkin said large consignments of explosives are often transported by water , especially the Euphrates River .
According to the extremist group ’s apocalyptic creed , representations of deities and sites of pre - Islamic worship are worthy of destruction . As the group ’s fighters wreaked havoc on the civilian populations caught up in their onslaught , they also pulverized what they could of the region ’s supposedly apostate history . Moreover , as my colleague Loveday Morris detailed last year , the Islamic State — also known as ISIS and ISIL – developed a lucrative , illicit trade in smugglingmovement.transportperson.smuggleextractthe antiquities it chose not to smash . This also was the case in Tal Ajaja , where the militants dug tunnels in previously untouched areas of the site and unearthed hitherto unknown treasures — most of which have disappeared . “ They found items that were still buried , statues , columns .
The Ukraine president , Petro Poroshenko , called the journalist ’s death a “ terrible tragedy ” and ordered specialists from the US and the European Union be brought in to assist the investigation . Sheremet began his career as a television journalist in his native Minsk . He was arrested after filming himself crossing into Lithuania and back illegally for a Russian television story about smugglingmovement.transportperson.smuggleextractin 1997 , sparking a diplomatic spat between Russia and Belarus . Under pressure in his home country , he left to work in Russia before moving to Ukraine several years ago . He was a supporter of the pro - European movement that toppled president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 and was known for his criticism of the Belarusian and Russian governments .
In Piraeus , migrants said some smugglers talked of stashing people in trucks destined for Italy or Northern Europe , raising the prospect of tragedies like an episode last year when 71 migrants suffocated in a truck found abandoned by smugglers in Austria near the border with Hungary . Human rights groups said migrants moving recently through Bulgaria reported violent beatings by police officers and local vigilante groups , and being set upon by dogs in Macedonia . In Serbia , which could remain part of the migrant path if flows pick up from Albania , Bulgaria or Romania , the border closings have already revived old smugglingmovement.transportperson.smuggleextractnetworks after years of police clampdowns . This week , smugglers brought 45 Kurds into Serbia using an old path from Bulgaria , said Jelena Hrnjak , the program manager at Atina , an aid group working with the International Rescue Committee . Migrants who have no money left , especially unaccompanied minors , are frequently put into a kind of “ debt bondage ” by the smugglers .
“ Chain of custody is important , but it ’s not a deal breaker , ” Wiley said . “ It ’s not worth getting — Well , people have been killed and wounded moving this stuff . ” The first casualty was a courier , shot and wounded in 2012 as he ran toward a smugglingmovement.transportperson.smuggleextractroute out of Syria with a suitcase full of documents . Since then , two others have been injured during extractions , and one — the brother of the commission ’s deputy chief investigator — was killed in an ambush by Syrian troops . Also in 2012 , a courier and his wife came to an unexpected checkpoint outside Aleppo .
The director of one of Russia ’s largest plutonium and heu processing facilities and two of his deputies were arrested for corruption in a multimillion scheme , while a Russian general in command of a nuclear weapon storage site was fired due to massive corruption . A colonel in the Russian Interior Ministry in charge of nuclear security inspections was also arrested for soliciting bribes to overlook security violations . Most recently , an Associated Press investigation reported four separate incidents where Moldovan police broke up smugglingmovement.transportperson.smuggleextractattempts involving nuclear materials linked to Russian organized crime — one of which involved an attempt by a Russian gang to sell nuclear material to the Islamic State . Furthermore , forensic analysis revealed the materials seized were produced in the early 1990s in a Russian nuclear facility in the Ural Mountains . This raises a frightening question — what else has gone missing from Russian nuclear facilities since the breakup of the Soviet Union that we are unaware of ?
I dislike the symbolism of a wall , but the status quo , where we have large swaths of a wall , death - trap gaps in parts of the desert that are particularly dangerous to cross , and armed guards on patrol , many of them corrupt , is n't exactly a symbol of welcome ! It may have more costs than a barrier that decreased instances of agents and migrants meeting . Either way , so long as the War on Drugs continues , there will be drug - smuggling routes that double as human smugglingmovement.transportperson.smuggleextractroutes . I am not for totally open borders . While I ca n't tell you exactly how many immigrants I favor , I can say with confidence that America can easily accommodate the people already living here and the levels of both legal and illegal immigration we 're seeing now .
But the weaker regulations also make it potentially easier for arms smugglers and human rights abusers to get their hands on US arms . For example , 36 US allies — from Argentina and Bulgaria to Romania and Turkey — will no longer need licenses from the State Department to import weapons and weapons parts from the United States . This will make it far easier for smugglingmovement.transportperson.smuggleextractnetworks to set up front companies in such countries and get US arms and arms components that they can then pass on to third parties like Iran or China . Already a common practice , it will only increase under the new regulations . The degree to which the Obama administration has been willing to bend over backward to help weapons exporters was underscored at a 2013 hearing on those administration export “ reforms . ” Tom Kelly , then the deputy assistant secretary of the State Department ’s Bureau of Political - Military Affairs , caught the spirit of the era when asked whether the administration was doing enough to promote American arms exports .
See the most - read stories this hour » Online exhortations and blueprints for attacks that are pushed to followers on Twitter and via encrypted apps can inspire individuals to “ embark on this path to destruction ” while evading a surveillance net that tracks communications and travel for potential signs of terrorist plots , Brennan said . Intelligence analysts are concerned that Islamic State may try send terrorists into Western countries by hiding them among refugees , by using smugglingmovement.transportperson.smuggleextractchannels or by finding weaknesses in the security screening of legitimate travelers , he said . Gunmen and suicide bombers , including some who had returned from the war in Syria , killed 130 people in restaurants , a concert hall and a sports arena in Paris last Nov. 15 . And on March 22 , another terrorist team directed by Islamic State bombed the airport and subway in Brussels , killing 32 people .