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00:00Thousands attend a vigil for the victims of a mass shooting in Setinje, as the government
00:05says weapons possession rules will be tightened.
00:11Police in Finland say the crew of the tanker suspected of damaging the Estlink-2 power
00:16cable have been detained indefinitely.
00:21UNICEF urges European governments to prioritize the safety of migrant children whose parents
00:27are killed at sea.
00:32Travelers crossing the Romanian-Hungarian border pass through with ease after Romania
00:37joins Schengen.
00:42Thousands of people have attended a vigil to remember the 12 victims of a mass shooting
00:47in Montenegro.
00:49It happened on Wednesday in the central town of Setinje when a man started a shooting rampage
00:54after a bar brawl, killing 12 and wounding at least four others.
00:59Two children were among the victims and the man, named as 45-year-old Arko Matinovic,
01:04died after shooting himself in the head.
01:11The government has declared three days of national mourning and all planned New Year's
01:27festivities have been cancelled throughout the country.
01:31Visiting Setinje on Thursday, Prime Minister Milojko Spajic announced a tightening of
01:36rules on weapons possession.
01:39We will also tighten the rules on weapons possession.
01:45Tomorrow we will probably have a meeting for national security where we will discuss all
01:50modulations, even the complete ban on weapons.
01:54This is a tragedy that we need to ask ourselves.
01:58Who can have weapons in Montenegro, both sport and hunting, we understand, but these
02:04must be tightened as much as possible.
02:07Tighten the rules on those who illegally possess and illegally carry weapons.
02:14Montenegro, which has a population of around 620,000, is known for its gun culture and
02:20many people traditionally have weapons.
02:23In August 2022 in Setinje, an attacker killed 10 people, including two children, before
02:28he was shot and killed by a passerby.
02:32Police said that Wednesday's shooter received a suspended sentence in 2005 for violent behavior
02:38and had appealed a conviction for illegal weapons possession.
02:47Police in Finland say the crew of a Russia-linked tanker suspected of damaging a power cable
02:52under the Baltic Sea have been detained indefinitely.
02:56The Eagle-S crew consists of 24 people with Finland's Central Criminal Police imposing
03:01movement restrictions on eight.
03:05The police in these hearings and investigations have tried to find out who has had a role
03:11in this incident and who has been responsible for the loss of the ship during these events.
03:17On this basis, eight people have been arrested.
03:21The Eagle-S is suspected of damaging the Estlink-2 power cable which runs under the Baltic Sea
03:27between Finland and Estonia by dragging its anchor along the seabed.
03:32The cable went down on Christmas Day but there was little impact to services.
03:37The Helsinki Police Department seized the vessel and moved it to port in Porvoo a day
03:42later to conduct an investigation.
03:45The Eagle-S is flagged in the Cook Islands but has been described by EU officials as
03:50being part of Russia's shadow fleet of tankers shipping oil and gas in defiance of international
03:55sanctions.
03:57At the end of December, NATO Chief Mark Rutte said he'd spoken to Finland's president and
04:02agreed that NATO will enhance its military presence in the Baltic Sea.
04:07Finland shares a more than 1,000-kilometer border with Russia and abandoned its decades-old
04:12policy of military neutrality and joined NATO in 2023 in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
04:19The UN Children's Fund has urged governments to prioritize the safety of migrant children
04:30whose parents are killed at sea.
04:32The UNICEF statement comes after two boats sank in waters off eastern Tunisia on Thursday
04:38killing at least 27 people.
04:40It's a popular departure point for irregular migrants hoping to make it to Europe.
04:46It's intolerable for a child to see his mother die in front of his eyes.
04:51It's intolerable for a child to die in the waters of the sea.
04:57But we've seen too many and we can't think every day that it's the last.
05:04Because from 2014 to today, the numbers speak for themselves.
05:09According to the International Organization of Migration's Missing Migrant Tracker,
05:132,275 people were unaccounted for in the Mediterranean in 2024.
05:20That brings the total number of people missing since 2014 to more than 31,000.
05:26The majority of those are believed to have died on the perilous central Mediterranean route,
05:31which is used by people smugglers from Libya and Tunisia to ferry people towards Italy.
05:36According to Eurostat, in 2023, more than 2,200 people considered to be unaccompanied minors
05:44filed asylum applications with Italian authorities.
05:47For Greece in the same year, that figure was over 2,600,
05:52while Spain handled just 30 such applications.
05:56Applications for asylum from unaccompanied minors across the whole of the European Union
06:01have generally fallen steadily from a peak of more than 88,000 in 2015.
06:14A few days before Christmas, this is what a border crossing point between Romania and Hungary looked like.
06:21And this is what it looked like on January 2nd, the day after the Schengen opening.
06:26As that day was still a public holiday in Romania, there were still quite few workers crossing from Hungary.
06:32But traffic was heavier in the other direction.
06:57But another man from Oradea said that he hasn't had such a bad experience,
07:02even though he worked abroad for 15 years in Spain, meaning that he travelled a lot.
07:26What was the longest waiting time?
07:28Well, the longest was during the holidays, which was longer, around 20-25 minutes,
07:34but you didn't have to wait longer than 10-15 minutes.
07:37So you could easily cross even before that, there was no traffic jam.
07:45Although the lines have been open since Wednesday at the crossing points,
07:48the practical advantages of the expansion of the Schengen zone will only be realized after this.
07:54When the workers can reach their workplaces without waiting and without waiting,
08:00and the shipping will be faster as well.
08:04Konja Rita, Euronews, Nagy Kereki.
08:25The two leaders held talks focusing largely on migration.
08:39Under Christersen's conservative government, Sweden has tightened its asylum rules.
08:54Complicated things are meant to be solved, not to be discussed.
08:5930 years after joining the bloc, both leaders aim to push for stronger EU border security
09:05and better mechanisms for returning migrants whose asylum applications are denied.
09:10They plan to advocate for these changes at the EU Commission.
09:15Ukraine.
09:19Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said diplomatic relations with Syria would be resumed
09:25and that he plans to double trade to Lebanon.
09:28Zelensky announced his intention to support all efforts to stabilize Syria
09:33and said the grain from Ukraine program would collaborate with the new Syrian government.
09:38He also said exports of agricultural goods to Lebanon would increase.
09:43The grain from Ukraine program was initially set up in 2022
09:48following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
09:51Since its launch, it has sent over 200,000 tons of agricultural products
09:55to countries across Africa and Asia.
09:58Ukraine is a global producer and exporter of grains and oil seeds
10:03and has said it wants to restore relations with Syria after rebels ousted Bashar al-Assad.
10:09Kyiv traditionally exported agricultural goods to the Middle East, but not to Syria,
10:14which imported food from Russia in the al-Assad era.
10:17Russia was a historic staunch ally of al-Assad and granted him political asylum after he fled Syria.
10:29The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, known as the PCBS,
10:33estimates that Gaza's population has decreased by about 6% since the start of Israel's war.
10:39The decline of about 160,000 people puts the enclave's current population at 2.1 million.
10:46The Palestinian State Institution says more than 55,000 people are presumed dead.
10:52The figures include Gaza's health ministry stats, which confirm more than 45,000 dead,
10:57as well as 10,000 others who remain missing.
11:00The bureau also estimates that around 100,000 Palestinians fled from Gaza
11:05at various points since the beginning of the war.
11:08Israel claims these numbers are fabricated,
11:11but they match estimates released by the UN's Humanitarian Affairs Office.
11:15The PCBS slammed Israel for its continued aggression against the Gaza Strip
11:20and the deliberate wiping of its population.
11:23International human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch,
11:27accuse Israel of committing a genocide against the Palestinian people.
11:31They also accuse it of manufacturing a humanitarian catastrophe.
11:35The UN says almost all of Gaza's population have been internally displaced,
11:40some multiple times, and are at risk of starvation.