'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Construction workers with heavy machinery have started work on Poland's border with Belarus on a US$394 million wall to stop migrants pushed across by Belarus in what the European Union calls a "hybrid attack."
Reporters were allowed Thursday to see the work in the village of Tolcza, near the closed border crossing of Kuznica in eastern Poland.
Border guards and the military patrolled as excavators and cranes prepared the ground for the metal wall that Poland's right-wing government says will serve the interests of all of the EU. Bloc member Poland is opposed to taking in large numbers of migrants.
"The Belarusian side is ready to do anything when it comes to provocations, so we have to be ready for any kind of event," said Maj. Arkadiusz Tomaszewski, deputy commander of the Border Guard in Ku┼║nica, where clashes with migrants and Belarusian security officers took place last year.
The 5.5-meter (18-foot) high metal wall topped with barbed wire will run more than 180 kilometers (115 miles) along the land part of the border, which also includes the Bug River. Cameras and electronic alarm systems are to be added.
Two construction companies will work on it around the clock. It is due to be completed in June, at a cost of some 1.6 billion zlotys ($394 million.)
European nations, facing a continuing inflow of migrants and refugees, are debating stepping up external border protection, tightening travel rules within Europe's passport-free Schengen zone and introducing stricter rules for returning migrants to their countries of origin.
During the 2015 massive inflow of migrants to the EU, Hungary drew condemnation when it built a wall on its borders with Croatia and Serbia to block migration routes.
Pressure from thousands of migrants from the Middle East and Africa on Poland's and Lithuania's wooded borders with Belarus began in the summer, leading to clashes with Poland's border guards. The migrants are mostly headed for Germany.
Last year, Lithuania started building a wall on its frontier with Belarus, while Poland sealed its border with Belarus using razor wire, increased the number of guards and restricting access to the frontier.
The EU says the migrants are being used by Belarus' authoritarian leader to destabilize the 27-member bloc in retaliation for its sanctions on Minsk following an election widely seen as rigged, and a clampdown on opposition protests.
At least 12 migrants have died in the wooded border area and conditions have got worse in sub-freezing winter temperatures.
Critics and environmentalists say the wall will fail to stop migrants, but will harm one of Europe's last pristine woodlands, the Bialowieza forest.
Natalia Gebert, from the Grupa Granica (The Border Group) that brings aid to migrants and asylum-seekers in Poland, says the wall "stops only the disabled, the weak, the sick."
"It doesn't stop desperate people who are fleeing danger from trying to cross," Gebert told The Associated Press.
She said that in the first three weeks of 2022 the group received requests for help from nearly 350 people, including 51 children.
Kalina Czwarnog of the Ocalenie (Deliverance) Foundation said the money for the wall could be better spent on ways of managing migration in a "humanitarian way and in line with international law."
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.