Illegal migrants

GERMAN authorities said yesterday that the number of migrants arriving in the country via Poland and Belarus has gone up in recent months.

German federal police said more than 4,300 people illegally crossed the border from Poland this year, with most of the migrants coming from Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Iran, German news agency dpa reported.

While from January to July only 26 people traveling by the “Belarus route” were registered, 474 arrived in August, 1,914 in September and 1,934 in the first 11 days of October, federal police said.

Iran arrests 10

IRAN has arrested 10 people in a southern province it says are linked to foreign intelligence services, the official IRNA news agency reported Tuesday.

The report said Iran’s intelligence agency arrested the 10 after “sophisticated and continuous” surveillance in Bushehr province.

The 10 worked for “regional” countries whose intelligence services acted as accomplices and proxies for the spy agencies of “hostile countries,” the news agency reported, a reference to Iran’s arch-enemy Israel and the U.S. The report said the 10 people were Iranian expatriates in the regional countries.

French soldier dies

A FRENCH soldier died in Mali on Tuesday in a maintenance accident, armed forces minister Florence Parly said yesterday.

The military said in a statement the serviceman died after the truck cabin fell while he was working on the vehicle’s engine.

It also said it was investigating the precise causes of the accident. The soldier, aged 29, was a mechanic specialist for the army.