PARIS – The Latest on global migration and World Refugee Day (all times local):
1:15 p.m.
Christian and Muslim religious leaders in Cyprus have for the first time issued a joint call for acceptance and support of refugees arriving to the small, ethnically divided island nation.
In a video message issued Wednesday, the religious leaders called on individuals to welcome refugees who are forced to flee their homelands and urged authorities to work to end their plight.
The message includes brief statements form the leaders of Cyprus' Greek Orthodox, Latin, Armenian and Maronite churches and the Mufti who heads the island's Muslim community.
Although Cyprus hasn't seen the huge influx of migrants arriving from neighboring Syria, the United Nations refugee agency says the island has just over 1,300 registered refugees, nearly 8,000 individuals who have been granted subsidiary protection and another 5,400 people seeking asylum.
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12:20 p.m.
Germany, France and other key European nations hit by the migration crisis will hold an informal mini summit on Sunday.
The European Commission announced Wednesday that several government leaders will be gathering in Brussels to look into "finding European solutions" to solve the political crisis that has pitted many EU nations against one another.
Officials said Germany, France, Italy and Greece would attend. The officials declined to be identified because the mini summit is still in its planning stage.
A full summit of the bloc's 28 government leaders that will focus on migration is set for June 28-29.
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12 noon
Italian President Sergio Mattarella says it is up to a united European Union to manage the arrival of refugees forced to flee their homelands.
In a message for World Refugee Day Wednesday, Mattarella said "the international community must work with shared and long-term political choices to manage a phenomenon that involves the entire world. The European Union in particular must know how to intervene, without delegating to the countries of first-arrival the responsibility to confront the emergency."
The comments come as Italy's new hard-line interior minister, Matteo Salvini, presses Europe to relieve Italy of the burden of arrivals, making his point by refusing port to an aid agency's rescue boat with some 630 migrants onboard.
Salvini is meeting later with the Italian premier to discuss Italy's position on the migrant issue at an upcoming EU summit. The leader of the anti-migrant League has long argued the majority of those rescued at sea are economic migrants, not refugees.
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11 a.m.
Asylum claims rose sharply in the United States last year but migration declined overall in the developed world for the first time since 2011, according to a new report from an economic organization representing the world's wealthiest countries.
Asylum claims rose 26 percent in the United States, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Wednesday, adding that migration for economic and political reasons is unlikely to diminish in coming years. The group said countries need to find ways to prepare their native-born populations and integrate new foreign residents.
The report found a growing share of the population in the OECD's 35 member countries, including the United States and Western Europe, was born abroad — up from 9 percent in 2000 to 13 percent in 2017.
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