Right now near times, journalists across the? U S, a reporting from events such as volcanic eruptions, championship games and political demonstrations with Verizon five g. They can deliver high resolution video to editors in the newsroom quicker than ever. So you get stories seen through the eyes of the rapporteur in a flash explore the future, a video journalism with a clips, an app developed in the five g journalism lap, a collaboration between the New York Times and Verizon Is it and why times that calm, Slash, Verizon, five g video to learn more money up on drugs? cover the European Union for the times and I'm usually based in Brussels, but for the past couple of days I've been reporting from the Polish Belarus and border where thousands of asylum seekers from the Middle EAST I stuck

This is a very, very difficult environments. This is one of Europe's others and thence as tourists and end the nights. The temperatures drop below forty two degrees, Fahrenheit, and actually I just came back from being outside for two or three hours, and I am truly shaking it so called come. Every day. I've been going out with activists are walking around the forest here. looking for people that do make it through and need help, and so we are a couple of hundred metres from them Main roads a boarding pass, but sometimes you only finally sort of ghosts.

I agree that are no longer there. I cannot see the days. Oh no it's here. Nineteen of so there are passes fresh dates from I run winter shoes, backpack, sleeping bag, empty medicine, could this baby diapers hygienic pads? We even found a box of eyeshadow at all. He had so weird reared sites dispersed. So we ve been finding all those objects that were signs that there were people there recently, but we have not seen actual people

crossing until Sunday night, when the activists alerted us that there were going to rescue to certain men, we walked for the forests and we arrived, and there are two men wrapped in those terminal, blankets. In order once that looked like tinfoil used for marathons and their basic completely pale, there were incapable of saying anything: they barely managed to tell us their names and where they from and that the brothers and they had such advanced stage of hyper area. There were unable to move one of the pair medics was just tending to them and just said, while we really caught them in their last moment of their lives

We begin tonight with its border crisis at the doorstep of the European Union put out and was of refugees are trapped between those countries as they try to make their journey further into Europe Polar Criminal times. I'm likeable borrow this: isn't it foolish riot police fired, tear gas unleashed water cannon on migrants after they were pelted with stones today in refugees. Insight

The high stakes standoff playing out at the border between pain and pillars, grenades also go no, though its own. I spoke with two of my colleagues who been reporting from the border Monica Project and Anton train of Ski, about how a political gamble by a desperate leader has become a diplomatic and humanitarian crisis. It's Friday November, nineteen. Anyone tell us who these people are at the border who our colleague Monica just described and how it is that they came to be at the border. Police In Belarus and Poland, they are thousands of people from Kurdistan region of Iraq, from Syria, from countries in Africa

Eritrea and Nigeria from Asia. From Afghanistan from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan? These are people, from all over the world as an incredibly broad cross section of people absolutely and they ve all converged in Belarus, which is not a member of the European Union, but that borders the EU to the east. So all these people have been flying to Belarus with the hope of being able to get to the border and step across the border into Poland, which is a member of the EU, where'd, they would be able to claim asylum and have a better life. But why would always hear from all these different countries be arriving in the exact same, please, Belarus of all places and use them as their way into the European Union. There are many different ways into the EU

so? Why dollars? I mean, to put it bluntly: it's because the leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, wanted them there. He is essentially using migration as a way to put pressure on the European Union, and even why were Lukashenko do that. Well, that has everything to do with the position that Lukashenko has found himself in further last year and a half this is Mr Lukashenko has ruined fellows since nineteen ninety four and has been dumped Europe's last dictator. This is a man who was run this eastern european country that used to be part of the Soviet Union with an iron fist for most thirty years, official exit polls claimed that Alexander Lukashenko has won a landslide victory. He declared Victor in a highly disputed election. Last year, the August ninth bellers,

eventually: elections were neither free nor fair. Around the world, especially in the west. Governments, saw that as a fraudulent elections, the EU does not recognise their falsified results the European Union didn't recognize Lukashenko as a legitimate president there were huge street protests in Minsk: the Capital of Belarus that look Anko violently put down. He arrested thousands of people, the twenty seven heads of government and top EU leaders decided to impose economic sanctions on the former Soviet Republic and Lukashenko. was protests led to sanctions from the European Union and from other western countries then amazed and today Lukashenko personally close an international scandal. Lukashenko forced a european

commercial jets to land in Minsk as it was passing over Belarus. In order for the belarussian security forces to arrest a Belarus and dissident who was on board right, very brazen, very terrified there s the world. Absolutely I mean that was what a lot of european countries at the time were. Calling us state sponsored hijackings these outlined action by Lukashenko will have serious implications and they more sanctions against Lukashenko, so he's really become a pariah, especially for the EU and clearly, Lukashenko, was looking for a way to strike back and that's where migration comes in, because Lukashenko has said for years to the Europeans that he's helping them that he's protect

the Eu Eastern flank from illegal migrants, and he's also always said that if he wanted to, he could stop doing that. He could stop helping the EU protect itself from these external forces and the summer. He clearly me the decision to make good on his threat, and how did he make good on his threat, so the bottom line is he made it easier for people from around the world who are looking to get into the EU to come to Belarus emitted

here to get visas, the belarussian state Airline and the Minsk Airport added a bunch of flights to places like Syria, Beirut with the added new flights from those countries? Absolutely yet there were regular flights to Damascus added. There were regular flights to Baghdad added. There were more flights added to Istanbul and do by and major travel hubs in that region, and there is also a lot of evidence that companies owned by the belarussian state were facilitating this. There was a Belarus in state owned tourist company that was organizing bees, visas. These people, who were coming to Belarus, were being put up in hotels in Minsk that were run by the Bela routes in presidential administration and then in the summer, large numbers of migrant start arriving in Minsk allotted

M, are put up in state owned hotels in the capital. They are in some cases according to western officials taken to the border on military buses or in other ways organised by the belarussian authorities, and probably the biggest evidence of Belarus in state. Involvement in this crisis is what actually happening at the border, which is that Belarus in border guards are not. trying to prevent, as they normally would people from trying to cross the border illegally, and in fact our colleagues have spoken to migrants and what their reporting is that these migrants are being told what to do by the belarussian security forces that the belarussian authorities have handed out wire cutters and access to help the migrants cut through the border fence separating Belarus from Poland. So there's.

No sense that the belarussian authorities are trying to somehow prevent these people from crossing illegally, and there is a lot of evidence that they are trying to facilitate this isn't. Is it fair to say that, with out all of this assistance from Lukashenko government that these people, would not have made it into bellers and to the border. Yes, obviously many thousands of people in the Middle EAST and elsewhere have long wanted to come to Europe by Belarus was never a major pathway for them to do That I mean Belarus is actually quite at

closed country and an authoritarian system. It's quite difficult to come to Belarus right. It's a country of nine million people with one international airport and until recently, belarussian border guards were actually doing a decent job, keeping migrants out of the EU from everything you just said. Lukashenko has very much orchestrated this situation and I guess my question is: how does he think it's gonna play out and if we try to put ourselves into his head for just a moment, knowing that he so deeply unhappy with sanctions from the European Union and feeling aggrieved about Europe's efforts to punish him for his behaviour, how does he think drawing all these migrants into his country, and bringing them to the border with a country like Poland is going to make

whose situation any better I mean, I think he sees that migration is potentially the most device of political issue in Europe. It something that pits right against left inside various countries in Europe is something that pits the eastern part of the EU against the western part of the EU. an enormously controversial and divisive issue. So I think he sees this as a really brilliant move, potentially to hit back against all these sanctions and against the fact that the Europeans haven't even recognised him as the president. This to Lukashenko is the way to get back at all that

But to what end? What does he hope? In the best case scenario, he might get out of creating this crisis, while the evidence we have points to the idea that Lukashenko imagines that by creating a crisis at the border, he will force european countries to negotiate with him to recognize him president, potentially to lift the sanctions that were imposed over the last year, this is a high stakes, gambit that he's pursuing and it's a game in which the people, all who he has brought into Belarus these migrants a better life in Europe, are basically the ponds exactly

we'll do it back. When the reliability and exceptional performance of horizon five g meet the ambitious journalism of the New York Times, world class video Learning from around the country can reach you even sooner eclipse. A new up from the five G journalism lab was built for the speeds that Verizon five G can provide its helping time journalists deliver video footage to editors in the newsroom more quickly and easily putting you on the front lines of news events in record time. Learn. about this high tech solution visit and why times, dot com, sash, Verizon, five g, video my name is a poor vat Monday. Really, I am science and global health reporter at the New York Times my job is to talk to scientists to speak their language, to go deep with them and then figure out how It is relevant to the everyday reader-

put it on scientific concepts for about twenty years. Everything have learned up to this point has helped me, deliver stories about covered, I feel Just an enormous responsibility, too It makes sense of what we are learning about here is how to protect ourselves. I feel, like I, and training for the sharp, my entire life, everybody at the New York Times is cause and they thinking about asking that have questions and making sure that our leaders have all the information they need, but this relies on. You are subscribers. We need you on board to keep the times as a resource for everyone. If you're not I read you can become one by going to end Time Stockholm Slash, subscribe. and on once all these migrants reached the border of Belarus in Poland, once Lucas

Go, has manufactured this crisis. What is the response from Poland and how does that reaction play into Lukashenko plan or not play into it? So Poland has been doing everything it can

to keep these migrants out. What we ve seen is Poland massing troops on the border, thousands of border guards soldiers, police forces have been deployed on Poland's eastern border with values. They ve created this special exclusion zone along the border, where no one is allowed in whether its humanitarian aid workers or journalists, and so what we ve seen are terrifying images, frankly of increasingly desperate migrants on the belarussian side, who came there expecting a more or less easy entry into Europe, many with children and pregnant women, and then

We ve seen these rows of riot police lined up with shields and wearing helmets to keep people out. key people from crossing the border. There was even an instance the other day when the polish police used a water cannon and tear gas to keep people out, and then you know you have to remember on the other side on the loose inside, these people have been sleeping the open intense for days, while our by her pneumonia. This is MID November. In Eastern Europe, it's getting cold persuaded. They ve been trying to one themselves with tyres that they set at the camp so it's just a calm and extraordinarily bad situation for them.

Along the ground. Poland really put themselves on war for doing this. I view this as a grave national security threat all to keep these people entering their country. So this is very aggressive response from Poland, and I wonder if this is exactly the kind of fierce response that Lukashenko perhaps was hoping for when he created a situation. It is Lukashenko, I think understood. The kind of polish government he was up against. Poland is governed by the nationalist and conservative law and Justice Party, which actually won the election in October of two thousand fifteen right on the heels of the refugee crisis in Europe. Campaigning on this idea of we can

let people into the Europe and certainly not into our country, from the Middle EAST, from different cultural backgrounds and you're just to remind everyone. This was a wave of thousands on thousands of migrants. May them refugees from.

Many of these same countries who ended up on Europe's doorstep seeking to get inside absolutely, and that was something that really fired up right wing parties across the continent, including Poland, and so this before the law and Justice Party. This has been a great opportunity to show those conservative bonafide to show their people that they are going to stand up for polish sovereignty for the sanctity of borders, even if it means creating this dire humanitarian situation on the other side of the fence. So I think this is what Lukashenko was expecting to provoke. You can see it even in the domestic state media in Belarus, Is that every day or carrying stories about the the heartless Poles leaving women and children out in the cold, so is Lukashenko getting what he wanted and he's getting negative attention for Poland he's in full

pain on a European Union country, but is accomplishing these larger aims of his getting sanctions removed getting paean leaders to recognize him as president, and so on. It kind of looked like he was getting some of what he wanted. He was certainly getting the EU attention. There was all this attention globally on Belarus on this tiny country, and then earlier this week, Angela Merkel, the most

and leader in all of Europe caused Lukashenko. Morocco haven't spoken to him since the disputed election last year, but that's where you see that you know maybe he's not really getting all that much out of this in the call angle. America does not refer to him as President the read out of the car we get from the german government simply refers to Mr Lukashenko and finally, just a few days ago, the EU implemented new sanctions against Belarus rather than ratchet back sanctions. They implemented new sanctions again people, airlines, travel agencies and, and others involved in the migrant push, so he's really not getting what he wanted. Now I mean that the situation on the border is getting worse and worse the

p and community is uniting around Poland and sort of squarely putting the fault for that awful situation at the border in Lukashenko, lap people are dying trying to cross the border and at the border at least eleven people have died so far as it gets cold and as people are forced to spend more and more time facing the elements you know, do we also see Lukashenko kind of flailing in rather gaining authority through this crisis is losing it to. Where does that leave him? It leaves him. It seems trying to find a negotiated solution. So he's now spoken to Angela Merkel twice this week. There is a lot talk out there about Lukashenko looking to do a deal where potentially the EU would take. Some of the migrants

on the border, while Belarus repatriate others. At this point it looks like the flow of migrants into Belarus has, for the most part, stopped. Even the belarussian state Airline has largely stopped flying migrants into Belarus. There are fewer reports of more migrants bound to the border on the ground in Belarus and is even apparently cleared out that immediate border area, where people were camping out in the open and instead brought people into a warehouse in a which looks, like kind of a last ditch effort or very belated effort to improve the humanitarian situation there. So Lukashenko is very much backing down he's backing down for the moment, but this remains a really volatile situation and there are thousands of people who are still

at risk here on the ground right in what becomes now of these thousands of people who have been lured into Belarus by Lukashenko in this political gambit, as we ve been describing it that clearly hasn't worked. What happens to them now I mean that biggest question. You know the fact remains. There is very little if any political will in the European Union to take these people in you know, even if there's a lot of concern about these people's lives, theirs, I think an overwhelming sense and much of Europe that if we let these migrants in that all lead to even more people trying to arrive and that that could only worsen the crisis in the medium term. So it seems, like many people, want these migrants to be sent back to their

countries that starting to happen, but on a minuscule scale. So today, on Thursday of a flight took about four hundred migrants from Belarus to Iraq, four hundred is is a small fraction of the thousands that are there on the ground and I think it's hard to imagine all of them. Leaving that way, a lot are saying they have nowhere to go home. To do. You're in your conversations with these migrants and on have they absorb the reality that the law Belarus tried to use them for his own political gain made a promise that he now can't keep to get them. the European Union, and now their either stuck in Belarus or they're. Gonna have to be right, turn to their home countries and how they feel about that, you don't mind,

of them have realised that there being used, but those still say that this was a chance. They had a unique chance to try to get into the European Union and try to get a much better life for themselves, and I mean you have to remember that in the two thousand fifteen refugee crisis in Europe there were thousands of people drowning in the Mediterranean, trying to get to Europe Bible

You know from Libya to ITALY, from Turkey to Greece. So by comparison, this land rout seemed like a much safer bet too many people, and it is a much safer better, and you know I I spoke to one syrian today who came through Belarus and managed to get into the EU a couple months ago. He was saying guy. He understands that Lukashenko had turned migrants like him into weapons, but he said he didn't care, because this was his chance to get out of his war torn country and. try to create a better future for himself. So the question now is: what happens

all those thousands of migrants who remain in limbo? Will they be able to somehow still cross into the EU? Will they be forced to return to their home countries, even though they might spend all their life savings to get to Belarus? Or you know there are people increasingly saying maybe we'll just stay in Belarus and try to get asylum in Belarus. It may be an authority on country, but it is probably safer than Syria or parts of Iraq, so Alexander Lukashenko, you know who clearly you engineered this crisis in order to put pressure on the EU might see all these migrants who have stayed behind and Belarus putting pressure on him.

Well, thank you very much, Mr President, he probably Michael, We'll be right back. When the reliability and exceptional performance of horizon five g meet the ambitious journalism of the New York Times, world class video

Learning from around the country can reach you even sooner eclipse. A new up from the five G journalism lab was built for the speeds that Verizon five G can provide its helping time. journalists, deliver video footage to editors in the newsroom more quickly and easily putting you on the front lines of news. Events in record time learn about this high tech solution visit and why times, dot com, sash, Verizon, five g video hears. What else you need Turner Day on Thursday, a judge out the convictions of two men found guilty of murdering one of the countries most prominent black leaders, Malcolm X, more than fifty years ago. The ruling is an acknowledgement of grief. errors in the nineteen sixty six prosecution of the men, Mohammed Aziz, and we'll Islam, both of whom spent

within twenty years in prison and investigation conducted by the Manhattan district attorney. Sigh Vance found them prosecutors and law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, withheld key evidence that would likely have led both men to be acquitted, Again, I say, as we understand, as of the family Islam. now the match, good. Oh sure, relations more and apologise in remarks. On Thursday, Mohammed Aziz called himself a victim of the criminal justice. for this very day.

Today's episode was produced by Sidney Harper mooted clear tennis, scatter were show bonds and Lindsey guessed. It was edited by Michael by law, Patricia Wilkins an injury Davis Lip contains original music from Dan Power and Marion Lozano and was engineered by Chris. What our theme music, by Jim, proper and then lansford of wonder, special cheese and Andrew Higgins,

that's it for the daily unworkable Bach, see you on Monday, right now near times, journalists across the? U S, a reporting from events such as volcanic eruptions championship games political demonstrations with Verizon five g. They can deliver high resolution video to editors than the newsroom quicker than ever see you get stories seen through the eyes of the rapporteur in a flash explore the future, a video journalism with a clips, an app developed in the five g journalism lap, a collaboration between the New York Times and Verizon is it and why times that calm, Slash, Verizon, five g video to learn more