In light of the latest migrant tragedy off Lampedusa, in which more than 300 people reportedly lost their lives, the European Union needs to consider all options including deploying assets within its naval force, EU NAVFOR, to the Mediterranean, MEP Roberta Metsola said.
Royal Air Force landing in Malta: ‚request for diplomatic clearance from the UK was made early in January for aircraft to land in Malta in transit to a third country; nothing to do with the current crisis in Libya or IS offensive‘
Miriam Dalli
The government has received no information purporting Malta to be the target of a terrorist attack, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this evening. In a recorded interview which appeared on Times Talk, the Prime Minister said the government was monitoring everything and rumours that went on the Internet over the past week were “exaggerated”.
The Libyan National Army (LNA) has bombed a tanker it says was attempting to make a delivery of petrol to Ansar Al-Sharia .Spokesman for the LNA Chief of Staff Mohamed Hejazi confirmed that the LNA had carried out the attack on the vessel on Tuesday. He told the Libya Herald that the tanker had been attempting to make a delivery of petrol to Ansar Al-Sharia and associated forces.
Einen halben Tag bestimmten Desinformationen über ein bewaffnetes Flüchtlingsschiff die Nachrichten. Zum Teil war sogar die Rede von einem ISIS-Schiff. Nun landet die italienische Küstenwache, transportiert von italienischen Militärhubschraubern, auf dem Frachter mit 600 syrischen Flüchtingen aus der Türkei. Sie hatten heute mittag um Lebensmittel, Wasser und Decken per SOS gebeten.
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Forces loyal to Libya’s recognised government staged air strikes on targets in Misurata yesterday in the first such attacks on the city allied to an armed group that seized the capital in the summer, officials and residents said.
The internationally recognised Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni has been forced to run a rump state in the east since a group known as Libya Dawn took control of Tripoli in August, setting up a rival government and parliament.
The North African country, a major oil producer, has been engulfed in fighting between the two sides, each with its own government and parliament.
Benghazi (Libya) (AFP) – Islamists killed at least 22 soldiers on Thursday after a surprise attack in which they used speedboats in a failed bid to seize some of Libya’s main oil terminals, officials said.
The fighting in the oil-rich region came as pro-government forces lost ground to Islamist militias in the eastern city of Benghazi, where jihadists beheaded six people and killed 14 others, military officials said.
Mimoun Charqi
Armes chimiques de destruction massive sur le Rif
VOICES OF LAMPEDUSA (part 1): Interview with Antonio Mazzeo
Voices of Lampedusa, curated by photojournalist Alessia Capasso, gathers together a series of interviews with those who are personally experiencing (or studying in depth) the consequences of European policy on life on a small island in the Mediterranean.
We’ll begin Voices of Lampedusa with an interview with Antonio Mazzeo, an Italian peace-researcher and journalist who has published several essays on conflicts in the Mediterranean area and on human rights violations. He received the „Premio G. Bassani – Italia Nostra 2010“ prize for journalism and began working as a militarization expert with the Collettivo Askavusa di Lampedusa (Lampedusa Askavusa Collective), which is involved in several struggles in the area. The installation of new military radar on the island a few months ago, justified as well by the need to monitor migrant routes, has led to numerous protests among citizens. Starting with Triton, the new Frontex operation, we’re back with a series of questions in order to gain a clearer picture of the relationship between EU migration policies and the process of militarization in the Mediterranean.
Reuters
Forces loyal to Libya’s recognised government yesterday conducted air strikes on targets near the eastern oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Es-Sider to stop an advance by a rival force, officials said.
The clashes are part of a wider struggle in the North African country between competing governments allied to armed factions over control of the vast oil reserves, three-and-a-half years after the death of Muammar Gaddafi.
The Diplomat. Madrid
Moving forward in the multilateral cooperation and turning the western Mediterranean into a privileged forum of trust and security are the objectives of the joint declaration signed yesterday by the ministers of Defence of the Initiative 5+5.
The meeting, chaired by the Spanish Minister, Pedro Morenés, had the presence of his counterparts from France, Italy, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Portugal and Tunisia. Algeria and Malta were represented by both delegations, according to information provided by the Ministry of Defence in a statement.
