European Union ministers were summoned on Sunday to meet in two weeks' time to seek urgent solutions to a migration crisis unprecedented in the bloc's history, as the mounting death toll on land and sea forced governments to respond.
The number of refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe has passed 300,000 this year, up from 219,000 in the whole of 2014, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday.
Dozens of protesters shouted at Chancellor Angela Merkel and waved placards with the slogan "traitor" on Wednesday when she visited an eastern German town where anti-refugee protests erupted into violence at the weekend.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Monday he expected sanctions on Iran could start to be lifted as early as Spring next year.
