ON BOARD THE GEO BARENTS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA: A UN migration agency official expressed concerns Friday over the disappearance of thousands of Europe-bound migrants who were intercepted and returned to Libya as more and more desperate people risk their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.
According to Safa Msehli, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration, the Libyan coast guard, which receives funds from the European Union, intercepted more than 24,000 Europe-bound migrants in the Mediterranean so far this year, including over 800 this week alone.
However, only 6,000 have been accounted for in official detention centers in the North African country, she said. The fate and whereabouts of thousands of other migrants remain unknown, she added.
“We fear that many are ending up in the hands of criminal groups and traffickers, while others are being extorted for release,” Msehli said.
A spokesman for Libya’s Interior Ministry, which oversees the detention centers, did not immediately respond to a request by The Associated Press for comment.
Libya has for years been a hub for African and Middle Eastern migrants fleeing war and poverty in their countries and hoping for a better life in Europe. The oil-rich country plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
Traffickers have exploited the chaos and often pack desperate families into ill-equipped rubber or wooden boats that stall and founder along the perilous Central Mediterranean route. Thousands have drowned along the way. They have been implicated in widespread abuses of migrants, including torture and abduction for ransom.
The number of migrants intercepted and returned to Libya so far this year is more than double the number for 2020, when more than 11,890 were brought back to shore.
Those returned to shore have been taken to government-run detention centers, where they are often abused and extorted for ransom under the very nose of UN officials. They are often held in miserable conditions. Libya’s government receives millions in European aid money paid to slow the tide of migrants crossing the Mediterranean.
Guards have been accused of sexually assaulting female migrants in at least one government-run detention center. Many migrants also simply disappear from the detention centers, sold to traffickers or to other centers, The Associated Press reported in 2019.
More than 1,100 migrants were reported dead or presumed dead in numerous boat mishaps and shipwrecks off Libya so far this year, compared to at least 978 reported dead or presumed dead during all of last year, according to IOM.
UN concerned about detained migrants vanishing in Libya
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UN concerned about detained migrants vanishing in Libya
- The number of migrants intercepted and returned to Libya so far this year is more than double the number for 2020
Three men to go on trial next year over fires linked to UK PM Starmer
Over five days last month, police were called to fires at a house in north London owned by Starmer, another at a property nearby where he used to live, and to a blaze involving a car that also used to belong to the British leader. Ukrainian Roman Lavrynovych, 21, is charged with three counts of arson with intent to endanger life. Fellow Ukrainian Petro Pochynok, 34, and Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc, 26, who was born in Ukraine, are accused of conspiracy to commit arson.
Lavrynovych and Carpiuc appeared by video-link at London’s Old Bailey court on Friday where Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb set the trial for April 27 next year. Pochynok was not present for the hearing.
In earlier hearings, prosecutors said the motive for the arsons was unclear.
The men will enter formal pleas at a hearing in October, but the lawyers for Carpiuc and Pochynok said their clients denied involvement.
Counter-terrorism police have led the investigation but none of the men have been charged with offenses under terrorism laws or the new National Security Act, which was brought in to target hostile state activity.
Police said the first fire involved a Toyota RAV4 car that Starmer used to own and sold to a neighbor. Days later, there was a blaze at a property where Starmer previously resided and the following day there was an attack on a house in north London that he still owns.
Starmer, who has lived at his official 10 Downing Street residence in central London since becoming prime minister last July, has called the incidents “an attack on all of us, on our democracy and the values we stand for.”
Earlier this week a fourth man, aged 48, who had been arrested at London Stansted Airport in connection with the arson, was released on police bail.
Canada and China agree to ‘regularize communications’
MONTREAL: Canada and China have agreed to regularize channels of communication, the office of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday, after a period of strained diplomatic relations between the two countries.
“Mark Carney, spoke with the Premier of China, Li Qiang. The leaders exchanged views on bilateral relations, including the importance of engagement, and agreed to regularize channels of communication between Canada and China,” it said in a statement.
They also discussed trade and “committed their governments to working together to address the fentanyl crisis.”
Ties between Beijing and Ottawa have been tense in recent years following the arrest of a senior Chinese telecom executive on a US warrant in 2018.
Li told Carney that “in recent years, China-Canada relations have faced unnecessary disturbances and encountered serious difficulties,” Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
He added that China is “willing to work with Canada to jointly uphold multilateralism and free trade” in the face of growing unilateralism and protectionism, Xinhua reported, noting that the call came at Carney’s request.
Both countries have been targeted by US President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes and have condemned them.
UN rights chief demands US withdraw sanctions on ICC judges
- Volker Turk: ‘I call for the prompt reconsideration and withdrawal of these latest measures’
GENEVA: The United Nations human rights chief on Friday demanded the United States lift sanctions it imposed on four International Criminal Court judges, saying they were contrary to the rule of law.
“I am profoundly disturbed by the decision of the Government of the United States of America to sanction judges of the International Criminal Court,” Volker Turk said in a statement.
“I call for the prompt reconsideration and withdrawal of these latest measures,” he said.
“Attacks against judges for performance of their judicial functions, at national or international levels, run directly counter to respect for the rule of law and the equal protection of the law – values for which the US has long stood.
“Such attacks are deeply corrosive of good governance and the due administration of justice,” he said.
The US on Thursday imposed sanctions on four ICC judges.
Two of the targeted judges, Beti Hohler of Slovenia and Reine Alapini-Gansou of Benin, took part in proceedings that led to an arrest warrant issued last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The two other judges, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru and Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, were part of the court proceedings that led to the authorization of an investigation into allegations that US forces committed war crimes during the war in Afghanistan.
Lufthansa to restart Tel Aviv flights on June 23
- Lufthansa suspended its flights to Israel’s main airport following a May 4 rocket attack launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and extended the suspension several times since
BERLIN: Germany’s Lufthansa airline group said Friday it would restart flights to and from Tel Aviv on June 23, having suspended them early last month amid the ongoing regional conflict.
The group said in a statement that the decision would affect Lufthansa, Austrian, SWISS, Brussels Airlines Eurowings, ITA and Lufthansa Cargo but that “for operational reasons,” the individual airlines would only resume services “gradually.”
“The decision is based on an extensive security analysis and in coordination with the relevant authorities,” it added.
The group suspended its flights to Israel’s main airport following a May 4 rocket attack launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and extended the suspension several times since.
The missile landed near a car park at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport and injured six people, the first time a missile had penetrated the airport perimeter.
The Houthis have repeatedly launched missiles and drones at Israel since the war in Gaza began in October 2023 with Palestinian militant group Hamas’s attack on Israel.
The Iran-backed Houthis, who say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians, paused their attacks during a two-month Gaza ceasefire that ended in March, but began again after Israel resumed its military campaign in the territory.
The Israeli army has reported several such launches in recent days, with most of the projectiles being intercepted.
Japan allows longer nuclear plant lifespans
- The world’s fourth-largest economy is targeting carbon neutrality by 2050 but remains heavily reliant on fossil fuels
- Many of the country’s nuclear reactors were taken offline after the 2011 Fukushima meltdown
TOKYO: A law allowing nuclear reactors to operate beyond 60 years took effect in Japan on Friday, as the government turns back to atomic energy 14 years after the Fukushima catastrophe.
The world’s fourth-largest economy is targeting carbon neutrality by 2050 but remains heavily reliant on fossil fuels – partly because many nuclear reactors were taken offline after the 2011 Fukushima meltdown.
The government now plans to increase its reliance on nuclear power, in part to help meet growing energy demand from artificial intelligence and microchip factories.
The 60-year limit was brought in after the 2011 disaster, which was triggered by a devastating earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan.
Under the amended law, nuclear plants’ operating period may be extended beyond 60 years – in a system similar to extra time in football games – to compensate for stoppages caused by “unforeseeable circumstances,” the government says.
This means, for example, that one reactor in central Japan’s Fukui region, suspended for 12 years after the Fukushima crisis, will now be able to operate up until 2047 – 72 years after its debut, the Asahi Shimbun daily reported.
But operators require approval from Japan’s nuclear safety watchdog for the exemption. The law also includes measures intended to strengthen safety checks at aging reactors.
The legal revision is also aimed at helping Japan better cope with power crunches, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked energy market turmoil.
Japan’s Strategic Energy Plan had previously vowed to “reduce reliance on nuclear power as much as possible.”
But this pledge was dropped from the latest version approved in February, which includes an intention to make renewables the country’s top power source by 2040.
Under the plan, nuclear power will account for around 20 percent of Japan’s energy supply by 2040 – up from 5.6 percent in 2022.
Also in February, Japan pledged to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent in the next decade from 2013 levels, a target decried by campaigners as far short of what was needed under the Paris Agreement to limit global warming.
Japan is the world’s fifth largest single-country emitter of carbon dioxide after China, the United States, India and Russia.
