Some 60 people are feared to have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea after the dinghy they were on sank off the Libyan coast on Monday. The dinghy set off with 140 to 150 passengers, including women, and started to sink five hours later, media reported on Friday citing testimonies by 80 survivors who were interviewed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

IOM spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo said after the dinghy sank the survivors had been clinging on to bits and pieces until help arrived and transferred them to Italy. The IOM said 95,768 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in 2017.

Many of the asylum seekers arrived in Italy and the remainder divided between Greece, Cyprus and Spain. More than 80,000 asylum seekers have landed in Italy since January, up 15 percent in the same period in 2016.

The latest fatalities increased the death toll of people dying attempting the crossing or missing, feared drowned, to more than 2,160 since the beginning of 2017. Many analysts see Western policies as the cause of increased human trafficking.

Source: Presstv

Cameroon authorities forced nearly 900 refugees back to northern Nigeria against their will this week, violating an agreement between the two countries to shield thousands from Boko Haram violence, the United Nations said on Thursday.

The Cameroonian government denied force had been used to send refugees home and said repatriation had taken place with the refugees’ consent. About 887 Nigerians, most of them children, were ferried across the border on Tuesday night in trucks provided by the Nigerian military and Cameroonian police, the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said.
“The involuntary return of refugees must be avoided under any circumstances,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a statement. “Returns to Nigeria put a strain on the few existing services and are not sustainable at this time.”

If done forcibly, the move counters an agreement signed by Nigeria, Cameroon and the UNHCR in March stating that Nigerian refugees in Cameroon will not be forced back to a remote region ripped apart by violence and where humanitarian efforts are severely stretched.

“There was no forced repatriation of 887 Nigerian refugees from Banki to Borno State in Nigeria. It happened with their consent,” said Cameroon’s government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary. “Cameroon respects the law and its international commitments.”

The Nigerian official responsible for humanitarian activities in the Boko Haram-affected northeast was not immediately available for comment. Boko Haram has forced more than two million people to flee during its seven-year campaign to create an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria. More than 85,000 Nigerian refugees reside in Cameroon’s Far North region.

Over 11,000 have returned to Nigeria this year as camps in Cameroon struggle to accommodate them. It is unclear how many of these have been forced to leave, but the U.N. has warned against repeated attempts to send refugees home against their will.

Source: DNA

Russia has said it will react “in proportion” to any US military actions against Syria on the pretense of preventing a chemical attack. “We will react with dignity, in proportion to the real situation that may take place,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday during a press conference.

Lavrov added that he hoped the US would not use its intelligence assessments concerning the Syrian government’s alleged intentions to further provoke the country. “I expect that our partners in the region – American, European – will also have an open and comprehensible approach aimed at de-escalation through normalization of the humanitarian situation,” he added.

Earlier in the day, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov cautioned the US against any unilateral action in Syria. He further added that Syrian army troops pose no threat to US forces, and that the US attacks on the Syrian armed forces are provocative in nature.

On Monday, US Press Secretary Sean Spicer claimed that the US had “identified potential preparations” for an attack “that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children.”

He added that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian military would “pay a heavy price” if they went ahead with the alleged plan. The Pentagon claims that it has seen activities linked with chemical weapons at Shayrat airfield in Homs province that was hit by American missiles in April.

Different foreign-backed terrorist groups have been wreaking havoc in Syria since 2011. Over the past few months, Syrian forces have made sweeping gains against Takfiri elements, who have lately increased their acts of violence across the country following a series of defeats on the ground.

Source: Presstv

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has paid a visit to a Russian-run air base in the country’s western coastal province of Latakia, from which Russian fighter jets conduct airstrikes against Daesh terrorists and foreign-sponsored Takfiri militants.

The Syrian leader inspected a single-seat, twin-engine and super-maneuverable Sukhoi SU-35 fighter jet as well as armored vehicles at Hmeimim base southeast of the provincial capital city of Latakia on Tuesday, and met with a number of Russian military commanders there, Syria’s official news agency SANA reported.

Chief of Russia’s General Staff Valery Gerasimov accompanied Assad during the visit. “The Syrian people will not forget the support of their Russian brothers,” Assad wrote in the base visitors’ book, AFP reported.
Russian Defense Ministry issues a statement noting that during the visit, Assad and Gerasimov had held talks at the base on “coordination between Syrian government forces and Russia’s air force”.

Source: Presstv

The Russian military says it has successfully test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from a nuclear-powered submarine in the Barents Sea near Norway. “The strategic Borey-class nuclear submarine, Yuri Dolgoruky, has successfully fired the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile from a designated area in the Barents Sea to the Kura Missile Test Range in Kamchatka (Peninsula)” in the Far East, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

“The launch was made from an underwater position in accordance with the combat training plan,” said the statement, adding that “the ICBM units completed the full flight program and successfully hit the targets in the range.”
With an estimated range of 9,300 kilometers (about 5,770 miles), the Bulava missile must have traveled at least 4,600 kilometers across nearly the whole Asian part of Russia to hit its target. The Yuri Dolgoruky is a fourth-generation Borey-class nuclear submarine serving with the Russian Northern Fleet.

This type of submarines can carry up to 16 intercontinental sea-based Bulava missiles. They are planned to be the basis for Russia’s strategic naval nuclear forces in the future. Russia has two more such subs, while another five are in development and estimated to be in active service by 2020.

Source: Presstv

A top military official says Iran has the means to punish Washington after the US Senate approved a new sanctions bill which targets the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on terrorism charges. “The ruling establishment in the US is a hegemonic, expansionist, bullying and blackmailing regime and the root of hostilities with us is based in these things,” Deputy Chief of Staff of Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said.

“Since the early years of the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian nation has been familiar with US enmity towards the revolution, the establishment and its effective organs such as the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps,” he added. On Thursday, US senators approved sweeping sanctions against Iran over its ballistic missile program. The measure would also enforce sanctions and an arms embargo against IRGC.

The Senate legislation, hailed by Israel and its influential lobby groups in the US, still must pass the House of Representatives and be signed by President Donald Trump to become law. Iranian officials have said the bill violates, “both in letter and spirit”, a nuclear accord, to which the US is a party. They have called for a strong response, with Iran’s parliament working on retaliatory measures, according to an MP. “If the Americans and the Zionists do not change their manners, we will take more drastic steps – hereby announcing that we have the means of punishment at our disposal,” Gen. Jazayeri said without elaboration.

“Of course, America has to change its manners, or we will force the Americans to do that,” he told the Central News Service which is affiliated to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).  Jazayeri said the world public opinion views “the US and international Zionism as the godfathers of terrorism.”

“Evidence suggests that Daesh and other terrorist groups have been raised in the lap of America and the reactionary regimes of the region,” he said.  The commander said US measures in intensifying sanctions on Iran and accusing IRGC of supporting terrorism “will make us fight the Great Satan with a more determined spirit.”

The “Great Satan” is the late founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini’s description of the United States, who led a revolution against Iran’s Pahlavi regime which was a close American ally. “This is a historical irony that the terrorist Americans are calling the revolutionary and popular IRGC, whose mission has been fighting terrorism from its inception and supporting the Palestinian, Iraqi and Syrian people as well as confronting homegrown terrorists, as a sponsor of terrorism,” Jazayeri said.

“The other strange thing is that the peoples of the world have not forgotten the current American president’s admission about the creation of Daesh and assistance to it,” he added. Addressing supporters at a campaign rally in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in August, Donald Trump said then-President Barack Obama and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton “founded” Daesh in the Middle East.

Source: Presstv

The United Nations says the government of the African country of Burundi is condoning the torture and killing of its opponents security forces and government-allied militia. Investigators said state security agencies and the ruling party’s youth wing the Imbonerakure are continuously engaged in torture, rape, disappearances and murder of opponents.

Those crimes are fueled by hate speech” from government officials, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Burundi said in a briefing to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday. The investigators said they recorded a “feeling of deep and widespread fear” in the hundreds of testimonies gathered from people who had fled to neighboring countries. “Today we can say that our initial fears concerning the scope and gravity of human rights violations and abuses in Burundi since April 2015 have been confirmed,” they said.

The investigators said they were struck by the cruelty and brutality of the perpetrators. “We most specifically gathered a number of testimonies alleging the use, during torture sessions, of clubs, riffle butts, bayonets, iron bars, metal chains or electric cables, resulting in some cases in the breaking of bones of the victim or making them lose consciousness.

“Long needles stuck into victims’ bodies or unidentified products injected into them; nails ripped out with pliers; burns; and many abuses inflicted on male detainees’ genital organs,” they added. Fatsah Ouguergouz, chairman of the UN commission, said a woman in her fifties was raped by four members allegedly belonging to the Imbonerakure and wearing police uniforms, as a punishment for her children belonging to an opposition party.

The government, which has denied entry to Burundi to the UN officials investigating the allegations, rejected the charges. “We do not accept the content of this report,” said the country’s human rights minister Martin Nivyabandi, claiming the aim of the UN investigators was to discredit the country’s officials.

Burundi was thrown into a political crisis in April 2015 when President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to run for a third term that his opponents said was unconstitutional. Since then at least 500 people have been killed while over 400,000 have fled the country. The UN’s Commission of Inquiry on Burundi was established in September 2016 with the aim of investigating the alleged violations of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity. The commission’s final report is due to be presented to the Human Rights Council in September.

Source: Presstv

Qatar said Wednesday it has pulled all of its troops from the border of Djibouti and Eritrea, east African nations that have a long-running territorial dispute which Doha had helped mediate.

Qatar offered no explanation for the move, though it comes amid a diplomatic dispute with other Arab nations that have cut diplomatic ties and now are trying to isolate Qatar from the rest of the world.

While the dispute hasn’t escalated to a military confrontation, Qatar’s military is dwarfed by neighboring Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two of its biggest opponents in the crisis.

The 450 Qatari troops controlled a mountainous border crossing between Eritrea and Djibouti, said Nasredin Ali, a spokesman for Eritrea’s biggest armed group, known as the Red Sea Afar Democratic Organization. Eritrean forces moved in after the troops departed, Ali said.

Eritrea’s top diplomat to the African Union, Araya Desta, told The Associated Press the move came after Eritrea cut diplomatic ties to Qatar. However, Desta said his country wanted no confrontation with Djibouti.

“We don’t want to take any of Djibouti’s land,” Araya said. “The last time we had some skirmishes. It was unnecessary.” Doha mediated the conflict between the two countries in 2010. Persian Gulf nations have stationed troops in both African countries, using that as a jumping-off point for the ongoing Saudi-led war in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have accused Qatar of supporting terrorism and severed ties with Doha last week. Qatar denies the allegations, but its ties to Iran and embrace of various extremist groups have put the country under intense scrutiny.

(Source: AP)

The Iranian Intelligence Ministry has released the names of and other information about the five Takfiri Daesh terrorists who carried out twin attacks in the Iranian capital city of Tehran on Wednesday. The Intelligence Ministry on Thursday released a statement detailing information on the five terrorists and “affiliated nuclei,” whose full identities it said had been determined after intelligence work by the Ministry.

The statement only released the first names of the terrorists and said that their last names were being withheld due to “certain social and security considerations.”

On Wednesday, gunmen stormed Iran’s Parliament (Majlis) and the Mausoleum of the late founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, in two coordinated attacks. At least 17 people lost their lives and nearly 50 others were wounded in the assaults, which involved shootings and blasts. Daesh claimed responsibility for the attacks. According to the Intelligence Ministry’s Thursday statement, the individuals involved in carrying out the attacks were five elements with a history of past terrorist activities and linked to Wahhabi and Takfiri groups.

They were identified as Seriyas, Fereydoun, Qayyoum, Abu Jahad, and Ramin. The statement said that the five had left Iran after being recruited by the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group and had participated in the group’s atrocities in the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqah.

It said they had entered Iran in July-August 2016 under the command of “Abu Ayesheh” — a high-ranking commander with the Daesh terrorist group — and planned to carry out terror attacks in religious cities in Iran, but “had fled the country following the full obliteration of the network and blows [dealt] to the case’s main elements, including the killing of Abu Ayesheh.”

Wahhabi terrorist groups are closely associated with Saudi Arabia, where government-sanctioned clerics preach the strongly intolerant pseudo-ideology of Wahhabism.

Earlier on Thursday, Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said that it was still soon to judge whether Saudi Arabia had had a role in the attacks in Tehran.

He did say however that in the current month and in recent days, “we witnessed heavy pressure from terrorists, to the extent that we have been identifying and arresting two-member and three-member teams or single individuals every week.”

Earlier in May, the Saudi defense minister, Mohammed bin Salman, had threatened in opaque remarks to move “the battle” to Iran. While Iranian people have been mourning the victims of the terrorist attacks, there has also been a strengthened sense of unity among them.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that the terror attacks in Tehran could not undermine the Iranian nation’s resolve in the face of threats. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also condemned the attacks as “cowardly,” stressing that the country would crush enemy plots through unity and solidarity.

The attacks also drew strong international condemnation, with many heads of states extending condolences to the Iranian nation and government. Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) blamed the sponsors of the Takfiri Daesh for the attacks and pledged to retaliate.

The IRGC said the fact that the terrorist attacks had been carried out by Daesh just days after US President Donald Trump met with “the rulers of a regional reactionary regime,” which has been supporting Takfiri terrorists — a thinly-veiled reference to Saudi Arabia — indicated that “they have a hand in the bestial attacks.”

Source: Presstv

German officials say growing numbers of pregnant immigrant women are paying German men to pose as fathers so that they can qualify for residency. German broadcaster RBB found up to 700 cases in Berlin alone. “There are many unreported cases,” said Ole Schröder, a top interior ministry official.

There has been a rise in asylum requests from pregnant women from Vietnam, Africa and Eastern Europe. A new law is being drafted to tackle the fake paternity racket, RBB reports. Some pregnant immigrant women are reported to have paid fake fathers and solicitors as much as €5,000 (£4,356; $5,628) to get paternity registered. Once that is done, the baby automatically becomes a German citizen and the mother has the right to stay.

However, in 2013 a German Constitutional Court ruling said that even in suspicious cases it might not be worth contesting paternity, because the child could end up stateless and left in legal limbo. It is generally easier for refugees fleeing conflict to get residency in Germany than for economic migrants who have escaped poverty in Africa, Asia or Eastern Europe.

Germany has moved to tighten asylum rules since the 2015 influx of more than 800,000 migrants, most of them refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Immigration is a major issue ahead of parliamentary elections in September. The influx hit some local authorities especially hard, as they struggled to house and integrate the newcomers.

However, there was a sharp drop in the numbers claiming asylum in 2016, after barriers were erected on the Balkan migration route. Polls suggest that the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD), opposed to mass immigration, has gained support and is on course to enter the federal parliament (Bundestag) for the first time.

Mr Schröder, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), said “we have a lot of evidence from the immigration authorities – fake fathers are making money out of this… in other words, this involves a considerable amount of criminality”. In one case reported by RBB, a far-right sympathiser, convicted for sporting neo-Nazi symbols, claimed to be the father of a Vietnamese child.

Martin Steltner, a state prosecutor in Berlin, told ARD television there were signs of widespread abuse involving paternity, for example one man claiming to be the father of 10 children. The fake fathers rarely pay any child support, as many are living off social welfare, ARD reports.

Source: BBC