France, Italy launch project to exchange migrant trafficking information

The interior ministers of France and Italy signed a declaration on their intention to exchange information related to migrant trafficking, the French interior ministry said on Friday. (Reuters/File)

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Updated 04 October 2024

Reuters

October 04, 2024 15:45

France, Italy launch project to exchange migrant trafficking information

The project will be modeled after a similar deal between France and Britain
France’s new Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said it was his priority to further toughen immigration laws

Updated 04 October 2024

Reuters

October 04, 2024 15:45

PARIS: The interior ministers of France and Italy signed a declaration on their intention to exchange information related to migrant trafficking, the French interior ministry said on Friday.
The project will be modeled after a similar deal between France and Britain, launched in 2020 in the north of France in a bid to stop attempts to reach the United Kingdom.
France’s new Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, a law-and-order politician from the conservative Republican party (LR), said it was his priority to further toughen immigration laws, echoing remarks from the prime minister who said the country needed to control its border better.
Immigration is also a tense domestic issue in Italy, where far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has pledged to drastically curb entries, though has not yet proved successful.
“Its objective is clear: to trigger judicial investigations, often combined, aimed at dismantling the networks underpinning the illegal flow through Italy to the rest of the European Union, in which France remains a sought-after destination,” the French interior ministry said in a statement.
In November 2022, tensions flared between France and Italy after Italy refused to let a charity ship with migrants dock, forcing it to go instead to a port in southern France.
The countries share a 500 km (300 mile) land border, mainly cutting through the Alps. Both countries are in the EU’s Schengen area with no border controls between them, though individual countries are responsible for asylum seekers who arrive in them.

Topics: Europe migrants France Italy

An Iraqi man who carried out several Qur’an burnings in Sweden has died

Updated 8 sec ago

January 30, 2025 08:27

An Iraqi man who carried out several Qur’an burnings in Sweden has died

Updated 8 sec ago

January 30, 2025 08:27

STOCKHOLM: An Iraqi man who carried out several Qur’an burnings in Sweden has died, a court in Stockholm said Thursday. Swedish media reported that he was killed in a shooting in a nearby city.
Salwan Momika, 38, staged several burnings and desecrations of Islam’s holy book in Sweden. Videos of the Qur’an burnings got worldwide publicity and raised anger and criticism in several Muslim nations, leading to riots and unrest in many places. He is currently being investigated by Swedish authorities for incitement against ethnic groups in Sweden.
The Stockholm District Court said a verdict scheduled Thursday in a trial in which Momika was a defendant was postponed because one of the defendants had died. Court documents and the judge in the case, Göran Lundahl, confirmed that the deceased was Momika, Swedish news agency TT reported.

International Criminal Court has Putin, Netanyahu in its sights, yet its courtrooms are empty

Updated 49 min 47 sec ago

January 30, 2025 08:18

International Criminal Court has Putin, Netanyahu in its sights, yet its courtrooms are empty

Though its docket remains empty, the court still wields an $200 million annual budget
The International Criminal Court has found itself without a single trial ahead for the first time in years

Updated 49 min 47 sec ago

January 30, 2025 08:18

THE HAGUE: For a few hours last week, the International Criminal Court looked poised to take a Libyan warlord into custody. Instead, member state Italy sent the head of a notorious network of detention centers back home.
That has left the court without a single trial ahead for the first time since it arrested its first suspect in 2006. And it’s now facing serious external pressure, notably from US President Donald Trump.
Though its docket remains empty, the court still wields an $200 million annual budget and a large number of legal eagles keen to lay their hands on Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The lack of trials damages the court’s reputation,” said Danya Chaikel of the International Federation for Human Rights. “The point of the ICC is to investigate and prosecute those most responsible for international crimes.”
Empty courtrooms show how hard it is to end impunity
The only permanent global court of last resort to prosecute individuals responsible for the world’s most heinous atrocities has not been in this position for almost two decades.
Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga became the first person convicted by court in The Hague. In 2012, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison for conscripting child soldiers.
Since Lubanga’s trial began, the court has had a slow but steady stream of proceedings. To date it has convicted 11 people and three verdicts are pending.
It has issued 32 unsealed arrest warrants. Those suspects range from Netanyahu and Putin to Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and Gamlet Guchmazov, accused of torture in the breakaway region of South Ossetia in Georgia.
But it faces numerous challenges. Trump, on his first day in office, reinstated an executive order from his previous term sanctioning court staff. A more damaging piece of legislation, which would sanction the court as an institution, has passed one chamber of Congress but is stalled in the Senate for now due to opposition from Democrats.
Putin will probably remain beyond court’s reach
The previous chief prosecutor, Gambian Fatou Bensouda, described being the subject of “thug-style tactics” while she was in office. The court was the victim of a cybersecurity attack in 2023 that left systems offline for months and some technical issues have still not been resolved. In 2022, the Dutch intelligence service said it had foiled a sophisticated attempt by a Russian spy using a false Brazilian identity to work as an intern at the court.
The current prosecutor, British lawyer Karim Khan, has requested a record-breaking 24 arrest warrants. But many suspects — like Putin — will probably remain beyond the reach of the court.
Neither Russia nor Israel are members of the court and do not accept its jurisdiction, making it highly unlikely those countries would extradite their citizens, let alone their leaders, to the ICC.
“They haven’t issued arrest warrants for people who they are likely to arrest,” says Mark Kersten, an international criminal justice expert at University of the Fraser Valley in Canada.
Ultimately, countries are responsible for physically apprehending people and bringing them to The Hague, says Chaikel, whose group oversees nearly 200 human rights organizations worldwide.
Many of the court’s 125 member states are unwilling to arrest suspects for political reasons. Mongolia gave Putin a red-carpet welcome for a state visit last year, ignoring the obligation to apprehend him. South Africa and Kenya refused to arrest former Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir when he visited. The 81-year-old was ousted from power in a coup in 2019 but the authorities in Sudan have still refused to hand him over to the ICC.
Unwanted attention to Italy’s migration policies
Italy claims the ICC warrant for Libyan warlord Ossama Anjiem had procedural errors. He was released this month by an order of Rome’s Court of Appeal. “It was not a government choice,” Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni told reporters.
But Italy, which was a founding member of the court, may have had its own reasons for not executing the warrant. Italy needs the Tripoli government to prevent waves of migrants from setting out on smugglers boats. Any trial in The Hague of the warlord could not only upset that relationship, but also bring unwanted attention to Italy’s migration policies and its support of the Libyan coast guard, which it has financed to prevent migrants from leaving.
On Wednesday, three men who say they were mistreated by Anjiem, also known as Ossama Al-Masri, while in Libyan detention centers told a packed conference in Italy’s lower house of parliament that they want justice for themselves and others who died before making it to Italy.
David Yambio, a South Sudanese migrant who said he had cooperated with the ICC investigation, called Al-Masri’s repatriation “a huge betrayal. A huge disappointment.”
There is little consequence for countries who fail to arrest those wanted by the court. Judges found that South Africa, Kenya and Mongolia failed to uphold their responsibilities but by then, the wanted men had already left.

Topics: october 7

Unfazed devotees shrug off stampede at India mega-festival

Updated 30 January 2025

AFP

January 30, 2025 08:40

Unfazed devotees shrug off stampede at India mega-festival

The disaster, which saw a crowd spill out of a police cordon and trample bystanders, prompted spooked pilgrims to leave festival
The Kumbh festival attracts tens of millions of Hindu faithful from around India every 12 years to the northern city of Prayagraj

Updated 30 January 2025

AFP

January 30, 2025 08:40

Prayagraj: Swarming throngs of devotees bathed in rivers at the world’s biggest religious gathering in India on Thursday, undeterred by a stampede a day earlier that killed at least 30 people.

The Kumbh Mela attracts tens of millions of Hindu faithful from around India every 12 years to the northern city of Prayagraj but has a woeful record of deadly crowd incidents.

Wednesday’s pre-dawn disaster, which saw a surging crowd spill out of a police cordon and trample bystanders, prompted some spooked pilgrims to leave the festival.

But many more were still arriving in the stampede’s aftermath to participate in what they said was a matter of religious obligation.

“We’ve obviously heard about the stampede,” 21-year-old Naveen Pradhan, who arrived at the festival with his family hours after the disaster, told AFP.

“But this is a holy thing, a religious thing, something we should do as Hindus, and my family wouldn’t have missed this no matter what.”

The six-week Kumbh Mela is the single biggest milestone on the Hindu religious calendar, and Wednesday marked one of the holiest days in the festival, coinciding with an alignment of the Solar System’s planets.

Despite the early morning disaster, saffron-clad holy men continued with the day’s rituals hours later, leading millions into a sin-cleansing bath by the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.

“The journey was challenging — the trains were packed, the train stations were packed,” pharmacist Padmabati Dam, who traveled by train for more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to reach the festival, told AFP.

“We were tired after such a long journey but as soon as we took a dip in the river we just felt so fresh and happy. It was as if all that inconvenience was really worth it.”

The Kumbh Mela is rooted in a mythological Hindu battle between deities and demons for control of a pitcher containing the nectar of immortality.

Organizers have likened the scale of this year’s festival to a temporary country, forecasting up to 400 million pilgrims would visit before the final day on February 26.

Authorities waited nearly 18 hours after Wednesday’s stampede to give an official death toll, an apparent effort to minimize disruption to the day’s events.

Even before the latest incident, attendees have fumed over what they said was poor crowd management.

Reserved pathways and cordoned-off areas reserved for eminent attendees have been a source of vehement complaint at the festival for reducing the amount of space for common pilgrims.

Police this year installed hundreds of cameras at the festival site and on roads leading to the sprawling encampment, mounted on poles and a fleet of overhead drones.

The surveillance network feeds into an artificial intelligence system at a command and control center meant to alert staff if sections of the crowd get so concentrated that they pose a safety threat.

More than 400 people died after they were trampled or drowned at the Kumbh Mela on a single day of the festival in 1954, one of the largest tolls in a crowd-related disaster globally.

Another 36 people were crushed to death in 2013, the last time the festival was staged in Prayagraj.

Topics: India Kumbh Mela Prayagraj

American Airlines jet collides with helicopter near Washington’s Reagan Airport

Updated 30 January 2025

Reuters

January 30, 2025 07:24

American Airlines jet collides with helicopter near Washington’s Reagan Airport

A web camera shot from Kennedy Center in Washington showed an explosion mid-air across the Potomac around 2047 ET with an aircraft in flames crashing down rapidly
There has not been a fatal US passenger airplane accident since February 2009, but a series of near-miss incidents in recent years have raised serious safety concerns

Updated 30 January 2025

Reuters

January 30, 2025 07:24

WASHINGTON: An American Airlines regional passenger jet and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed into the Potomac River after a midair collision near Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday night, officials said.
The Washington Post said multiple bodies had been pulled from the water. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said on social media that “we know there are fatalities,” though he did not say how many.
An American Airlines source told Reuters that 60 passengers, along with two pilots and two crew members were scheduled to be on the flight. Three soldiers were aboard the helicopter, a US official said.
There has not been a fatal US passenger airplane accident since February 2009, but a series of near-miss incidents in recent years have raised serious safety concerns.
NBC reported that four people had been pulled alive from the Potomac River.
A web camera shot from the Kennedy Center in Washington showed an explosion mid-air across the Potomac around 2047 ET with an aircraft in flames crashing down rapidly.
The US Federal Aviation Administration said a PSA Airlines regional jet collided midair with the helicopter while on approach to Reagan.
PSA was operating Flight 5342 for American Airlines, which had departed from Wichita, Kansas, according to the FAA.
Police said multiple agencies were involved in a search and rescue operation in the Potomac River, which borders the airport.
Dozens of police, ambulance and recuse units, some ferrying boats, staged along the river and raced to positions along the tarmac of Reagan airport. Live TV images showed several boats in the water, flashing blue and red lights.
The airport said late on Wednesday that all takeoffs and landings had been halted as emergency personnel responded to an aircraft incident.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was gathering more information on the incident.
American Airlines said on social media that it was “aware of reports that American Eagle flight 5342, operated by PSA, with service from Wichita, Kansas (ICT) to Washington Reagan National Airport (DCA) has been involved in an incident.”
American Airlines said it would provide more information as it became available to the company.
Over the last two years, a series of near-miss incidents have raised concerns about US aviation safety and the strain on understaffed air-traffic-control operations.
FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker stepped down on Jan. 20 and the Trump administration has not named a replacement — or even disclosed who is running the agency on an interim basis.
The last deadly major crash involving a commercial airliner in the US was in 2009, when 49 people aboard a Colgan Air flight crashed in New York state. One person also died on the ground.

Topics: American Airlines Reagan Airport Washington

Passenger jet with 64 aboard collides with Army helicopter while landing at Reagan Airport near DC

Updated 30 January 2025

January 30, 2025 02:47

Passenger jet with 64 aboard collides with Army helicopter while landing at Reagan Airport near DC

Updated 30 January 2025

January 30, 2025 02:47

ARLINGTON: A jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members collided Wednesday with an Army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, prompting a large search-and-rescue operation in the nearby Potomac River.
There was no immediate word on casualties or the cause of the collision, but all takeoffs and landings from the airport were halted as helicopters from law enforcement agencies across the region flew over the scene in search of survivors. Inflatable rescue boats were launched into the Potomac River from a point along the George Washington Parkway, just north of the airport, and first responders set up light towers from the shore to illuminate the area near the site of the collision.
President Donald Trump said he had been “fully briefed on this terrible accident" and, referring to the passengers, added, “May God Bless their souls.”
The Federal Aviation Administration said the midair crash occurred around 9 p.m. EST when a regional jet that had departed from Wichita, Kansas, collided with a military helicopter on a training flight while on approach to an airport runway. It occurred in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, just over three miles south of the White House and the Capitol.
Investigators will try to piece together the aircrafts' final moments before their collision, including contact with air traffic controllers as well as a loss of altitude by the passenger jet.
American Airlines Flight 5342 was inbound to Reagan National at an altitude of about 400 feet and a speed of about 140 miles per hour when it suffered a rapid loss of altitude over the Potomac River, according to data from its radio transponder. The Canadian-made Bombardier CRJ-701 twin-engine jet, manufactured in 2004, can be configured to carry up to 70 passengers.
A few minutes before landing, air traffic controllers asked the arriving commercial jet if it could land on the shorter Runway 33 at Reagan National and the pilots said they were able. Controllers then cleared the plane to land on Runway 33. Flight tracking sites showed the plane adjust its approach to the new runway.
Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked the helicopter if it had the arriving plane in sight. The controller made another radio call to the helicopter moments later: “PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ.” Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.
The plane’s radio transponder stopped transmitting about 2,400 feet short of the runway, roughly over the middle of the river.
Video from an observation camera at the nearby Kennedy Center showed two sets of lights consistent with aircraft appearing to join in a fireball.
The collision occurred on a warm winter evening in Washington, with temperatures registering as high as 60 degrees Fahrenheit, following a stretch days earlier of intense cold and ice. On Wednesday, the Potomac River was 36 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The National Weather Service reported that wind gusts of up to 25 mph were possible in the area throughout the evening.
The U.S. Army described the helicopter as a UH-60 Blackhawk based at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. A crew of three soldiers were onboard the helicopter, an Army official said. The helicopter was on a training flight.
The crash is serving as a major test for two of the Trump administration’s newest agency leaders. Pete Hegseth, sworn in days ago as defense secretary, posted on social media that his department was “actively monitoring” the situation that involved an Army helicopter. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, just sworn in earlier this week, said in a social media post that he was “at the FAA HQ and closely monitoring the situation.”
The airport was to remain closed until 5 a.m. Friday.
Located along the Potomac River, just southwest of the city. Reagan National is a popular choice because it’s much closer than the larger Dulles International Airport, which is deeper in Virginia.
Depending on the runway being used, flights into Reagan can offer passengers spectacular views of landmarks like the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the National Mall and the U.S. Capitol. It’s a postcard-worthy welcome for tourists visiting the city.
The incident recalled the crash of an Air Florida flight that plummeted into the Potomac on January 13, 1982, that killed 78 people. That crash was attributed to bad weather.
The last fatal crash involving a U.S. commercial airline occured in 2009 near Buffalo, New York. Everyone aboard the Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane was killed, including 45 passengers, 2 pilots and 2 flight attendants. Another person on the ground also died, bringing the total death toll to 50. An investigation determined that the captain accidentally caused the plane to stall as it approached the airport in Buffalo.

Topics: airplane Washington

France, Italy launch project to exchange migrant trafficking information

France, Italy launch project to exchange migrant trafficking information

Rescuers race to find over 100 migrants missing off Djibouti coast

Merchant ship rescues dozens of migrants from yacht in distress off southern Greece

An Iraqi man who carried out several Qur’an burnings in Sweden has died

An Iraqi man who carried out several Qur’an burnings in Sweden has died

International Criminal Court has Putin, Netanyahu in its sights, yet its courtrooms are empty

International Criminal Court has Putin, Netanyahu in its sights, yet its courtrooms are empty

First Gaza aid ship arrives at Egypt’s El-Arish port since ceasefire

Palestinians’ return to northern Gaza complicates Netanyahu’s war aims

Unfazed devotees shrug off stampede at India mega-festival

Unfazed devotees shrug off stampede at India mega-festival

American Airlines jet collides with helicopter near Washington’s Reagan Airport

American Airlines jet collides with helicopter near Washington’s Reagan Airport

Passenger jet with 64 aboard collides with Army helicopter while landing at Reagan Airport near DC

Passenger jet with 64 aboard collides with Army helicopter while landing at Reagan Airport near DC

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France, Italy launch project to exchange migrant trafficking information

France, Italy launch project to exchange migrant trafficking information

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An Iraqi man who carried out several Qur’an burnings in Sweden has died

International Criminal Court has Putin, Netanyahu in its sights, yet its courtrooms are empty

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Unfazed devotees shrug off stampede at India mega-festival

American Airlines jet collides with helicopter near Washington’s Reagan Airport

Passenger jet with 64 aboard collides with Army helicopter while landing at Reagan Airport near DC

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