Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

Poland, Austria and Czechia will all introduce random checks at the countries’ borders with Slovakia from midnight on Wednesday following an influx of illegal immigration.

Temporary checks will be conducted along the length of the border for an initial 10-day period until Oct. 13.

They will focus specifically on road and railway border crossings, although, pedestrians and cyclists may also be asked for documentation. Anyone within the vicinity of the border may be requested to identify themselves.

“The numbers of illegal migrants to the EU are starting to grow again,” said Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala following the announcement. “We don’t take the situation lightly.”

“Citizens need a valid passport or identity card to cross the border,” the Czech Interior Ministry added.

The Czech policy would also be adopted by neighboring Austria, the country’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner confirmed.

Poland had already announced its intention to reintroduce checks on the Slovak border with the number of migrants along the Balkans migration route continuing to surge. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said last week he was “instructing Minister of Interior Mariusz Kamiński to check on buses, coaches, and cars crossing the border when it is suspected there could be illegal migrants on board.”

“In recent weeks, we detected and detained 551 illegal migrants at the border with Slovakia. This situation causes us to take decisive action,” Kaminski added.

Slovak caretaker Prime Minister Ludovit Odor acknowledged the growing issue of illegal migration in his country but insisted that the problem needs a European solution rather than individual nations restricting border access.

He claimed that the decision by the three neighboring countries had been fueled by the Polish government, which is involved in a tightly contested election campaign, with Poles heading to voting booths on Oct. 15.

“The whole thing has been triggered by Poland, where an election will soon take place, and the Czech Republic has joined in,” Odor said.

Slovakia revealed last month that the number of illegal migrants detained by its authorities this year had soared nine-fold to over 27,000. The majority of detainees comprise young men from the Middle East using the Balkan migratory route through Serbia as they seek to migrate to northwestern Europe.

The winner of Sunday’s general election in Slovakia, former Prime Minister Robert Fico, has vowed to tackle the issue more robustly by promising to reintroduce border checks with neighboring Hungary.

“It will not be a pretty picture,” Fico told journalists as he threatened to use force to dispel illegal migrants detected on Slovak territory.

Hungary's Viktor Orbán has long been an opponent of the mainstay of EU policy on Ukraine, having also persistently criticized Kiev for discrimination against Hungarian minorities, and demanding that a 2017 law restricting the use of minority languages be changed. He's also refused to ratify Sweden's entry into NATO.

Orbán has further throughout the conflict stood against policies which escalate against Moscow, and has constantly warned against stumbling into a WW3 scenario involving direct NATO-Russia clash. He told Tucker Carlson in a recent interview that "the Third World War сould be knocking on our door so we have to be very careful." With Budapest having been a consistent thorn in the side of the EU, Brussels now wants to pay the Hungarians off.

"The European Commission is preparing to unfreeze around €13 billion in funds for Hungary to try to avoid Prime Minister Viktor Orbán vetoing EU aid for Ukraine, in a move likely to draw criticism from the European Parliament," Politico reports Tuesday.

"The Commission needs the unanimous backing of the bloc's 27 countries for an update to the EU’s long-term budget, which includes a €50 billion funding pot for Ukraine," the report adds.

Akin to what's currently going down in Washington with a group of Republicans holding up Ukraine funding, Brussels may soon have its own Ukraine aid blockage problem. EU aid for Kiev which was previously approved runs out in December, hence the urgency for EU leadership in wanting to push through a new package.

A week ago, Orbán gave a speech declaring Hungary will no longer support Ukraine in any way unless certain significant policies are changed both in Kiev and in the European Union.

He stressed in the words given before parliament that "Hungary is doing everything for peace" but that "unfortunately the Russian-Ukrainian war continues, tens of thousands of people are victims." Thus, he continued, "Diplomats must take control back from the hands of the soldiers, otherwise it will be in vain for women to wait for their sons and fathers and husbands to come home."

The Hungarian leader has stood against ratcheting Western sanctions on Moscow, instead choosing to maintain a generally positive diplomatic relationship with the Kremlin.

He also a week ago charged that Kiev and its backers have cheated Budapest by "Ukrainian grain dumping" into his country. He had also laid out, per The Hill:

... that he was protesting a 2017 law in Ukraine that limits ethnic Hungarians from speaking their own language, particularly in schools and said Hungary would not support Ukraine on international issues "until the previous laws are restored."

Needless to say EU officials are panicking, and are readying a lucrative quid pro quo with Hungary (based on freeing frozen funds related to the prior years' so-called "rule of law" punitive measures"), so that EU aid to Ukraine doesn't get blocked at a crucial moment that Washington funding is drying up.

Several weeks after Tropical Storm Lee made landfall in the western part of Canada's Nova Scotia province, another storm is brewing in the Atlantic Basin, with computer models forecasting parts of the US Northeast and Nova Scotia could be hit again. 

The latest report from the National Hurricane Center states Tropical Storm Philippe was about 70 miles northwest of Anguilla and about 55 miles east-northeast of St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, moving northwest at 10 mph with sustained winds of 45 mph.

"It made landfall on the island of Barbuda on Monday with 50 mph winds and is now headed away from the Caribbean into the Atlantic, but its tropical-storm-force winds still extend out 175 miles," according to Orlando Sentinel. 

"On the forecast track, the center of Philippe is expected to pass just north of the British Virgin Islands today and then move away from the northern Leeward Islands beginning tonight," NHC wrote in the 1100 ET update, adding, "However, the strongest winds and heaviest rains will likely occur in the islands to the southeast of the center."

Philippe moves slowly northwestward while bringing tropical storm conditions to the northeastern Leeward Islands. pic.twitter.com/mYYMp8mOOb

— CIRA (@CIRA_CSU) October 3, 2023

NHC said, "Little change in strength is forecast during the next day or two, but Philippe could begin to strengthen after midweek." 

Models expect the storm to turn north and parallel the US East Coast while at sea, with a potential landfall impact area from Maine to Nova Scotia by as early as Sunday. 

So far, the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season has produced 18 named storms and is already above average, according to Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher with Colorado State University.