Whenever there is a flare-up of coverage regarding an issue it signals that an agenda is being pushed:
"EU ready to bolster migrant watch" by Lorne Cook, Associated Press February 20, 2015
BRUSSELS — The European Union stands ready to beef up its border surveillance mission in the Mediterranean if Italy requests it, and it is supplying $15.6 million to help Rome cope with the migrant influx, the EU’s top migration official said Thursday.
While all the citizens of the E.U. deal with forced austerity and social service cuts.
Btw, this is also an outgrowth of the wars based on lies. Those, unfortunately, are all too real.
‘‘We are ready to respond constructively if Italy identifies the need to step up Operation Triton,’’ Dimitris Avramopoulos said, adding that the Triton mission would be extended until at least the end of this year.
The mission was launched in November as Italy deals with growing numbers of would-be migrants attempting the perilous crossing from Libya, headed mostly for the southern island of Lampedusa.
Italy withdrew its search and rescue mission, Mare Nostrum, in December due to heavy costs and because it appeared to be a safety net that encouraged more migrants.
Some 19,500 migrants have been picked up in the Mediterranean since November, according to EU figures. Of those, 5,600 were rescued in January, a 50 percent increase over the same month in 2014. More are expected as the weather improves.
In another escalation on Sunday, four armed smugglers threatened an Italian Coast Guard motorboat involved in one of several operations that rescued more than 2,000 migrants.
Some Italian officials fear that terrorists, mingled among boatloads of migrants, could reach Italy. ‘‘We cannot turn a blind eye, and we cannot carry on as if it was business as usual,’’ said Avramopoulos.
Boy, is that self-serving and self-created threat ever useful for being tossed out for damn near anything, 'eh?
One option tried in Greece in 2010-2011 but not explored with Italy is the use of rapid reaction teams from the EU borders agency Frontex.
Well, we know why they are not heading to Greece:
"Running out of options to keep Greece afloat, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has ordered local governments to move their funds to the central bank. With negotiations over bailout aid deadlocked, Tsipras needs the cash for salaries and pensions and to repay the International Monetary Fund. Greek bonds fell, pushing three-year yields to the highest since the nation’s debt restructuring in 2012. Greece’s three-year yield jumped 193 basis points to 28.7 percent. The decree could raise about 2 billion euros ($2.15 billion), said two people familiar with the decision. The ‘‘regulation is submitted due to extremely urgent and unforeseen needs,’’ the government said. A default on the country’s 313 billion euros ($336 billion) of obligations and a decision to stop using the euro would plunge Greece into crisis, said a member of the European Central Bank governing council, Christian Noyer. The decree is a sign of the ‘‘dire liquidity situation for the Greek financial system,’’ said Gianluca Ziglio, at Sunrise Brokers in London. The ‘‘next step may be forcing all public-sector entities, including public-sector companies, to do the same.’’ Greece’s main opposition party decried the seizure. Greece and its creditors remain at loggerheads. European leaders want Greece to do more to revamp its debt-burdened economy. But Greek officials say the government will not betray its electoral promises and worsen the pain that came from previous austerity measures."
They just did, the radical leftists, and it is a shorter trip to Italy anyway. Or you could try France, for that matter.
They could be deployed within seven days if any formal request is made, said an EU official who is not permitted to speak publicly about the agency’s work.
‘‘There is a pool of 1,800 persons that are being trained nearly constantly,’’ he said, confirming that the use of force is permitted if Italy requests it.
Triton, meant to operate for only a few months, has just three aircraft and nine ships at its disposal, most of which cannot work in open seas.
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It's like another war!
"Influx of migrants across Mediterranean nears record levels" by Jim Yardley New York Times April 14, 2015
ROME — With spring barely arrived, the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean is already approaching last year’s record levels after a startling weekend in which more than 5,600 people were rescued from a small armada of smugglers’ wooden and rubber boats as nine others died after their vessel capsized.
The figures suggest that European officials are likely to be confronted again with a humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean, after a year in which more than 3,200 people died and more than 130,000 were rescued by Italian naval and coast guard ships.
And yet those stories only bobbed up and down once or twice in the war-promoting propaganda pre$$.
Humanitarian groups said nearly 500 people have already died at sea this year, compared with about 50 in the same period last year.
“We are experiencing a trend similar to last year,” said Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesman in Italy for the International Organization for Migration. “It is an emergency from a humanitarian point of view. These people are risking their lives, and many people are losing their lives at sea. It is also an operational emergency.”
Why?
For years, migrants have paid smugglers to deliver them to Europe via the Mediterranean, with the numbers spiking during the summer when the sea is calmer.
But unrest in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, along with war and poverty in some African countries, has transformed migration into a year-round phenomenon with increased risks.
EUSrael's and Obama's wars!
In Brussels on Monday, the humanitarian aid group Doctors Without Borders said it is launching a search-and-rescue operation in the Mediterranean next month in dismay over efforts to manage the migrant influx.
It is the first time the group has undertaken such an operation. The search-and-rescue work will be conducted for six months aboard the Phoenix, a vessel operated by the Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station group.
Europe has struggled to absorb the huge numbers of migrants and to develop a strategy to rescue them at sea. Italy has borne much of the burden and won praise for its Mare Nostrum program, in which Italian ships served as the front line in rescue operations.
Which is rare because throughout history Italy has seldom won praise for being on the front lines of a war.
But Mare Nostrum ended in November and is being replaced by a new program, Triton, under the command of Frontex, the European immigration agency. Under Triton, the patrolling is supposed to be shared by a variety of nations, although Italy is still doing the most. During the weekend, the Italian coast guard said the rescue operation included four of its vessels, an Italian naval ship, an Icelandic patrol ship under the Triton program, and nine merchant boats.
The European authorities say that the upheaval in Libya has exacerbated the migration crisis, as smugglers are able to operate freely along the largely unmonitored Libyan coastline.
During the weekend, 22 rubber or wooden boats set off from Libya, Italian officials said, including one that capsized on Sunday night 80 miles off the African coast. Rescuers saved 144 people, but nine others died, said Commander Filippo Marini, a coast guard spokesman.
It's going to get much worse soon.
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"Survivors tell aid group about 400 migrants drowned off Libya" Associated Press April 15, 2015
ROME — Survivors of a capsized migrant boat off Libya have told the aid group Save the Children that up to 400 people are believed to have drowned. Even before the survivors were interviewed, Italy’s Coast Guard said it assumed that there were many dead given the size of the ship and the fact that nine bodies had been found.
The Coast Guard had helped rescue 144 people on Monday and immediately launched an air and sea search operation in hopes of finding others. No other survivors or bodies have been recovered.
The hundreds of deaths, if confirmed, would add to the skyrocketing numbers of migrants lost at sea: The International Organization of Migration estimates that 3,072 migrants died in the Mediter-ranean in 2014, compared with about 700 in 2013. But the agency says even those estimates could be low. Overall, since the year 2000, it estimates that more than 22,000 migrants have lost their lives trying to reach Europe.
Also Tuesday, the European Union’s top migration official said the EU must adapt to the growing numbers of migrants trying to reach its shores.
‘‘The unprecedented influx of migrants at our borders, and in particular refugees, is unfortunately the new norm and we will need to adjust our responses accordingly,’’ the EU’s commissioner for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, told lawmakers in Brussels.
The Palestinians were 70 years ahead of everyone else.
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"Hundreds feared dead as ship sinks; Migrants fleeing Libya filled vessel" by Jim Yardley New York Times April 20, 2015
ROME — Hundreds of people were feared dead Sunday after a ship overcrowded with migrants from Libya sank in the Mediterranean. Authorities described a grim scene of bodies floating in the warm waters, with the majority of the dead apparently trapped in the ship at the bottom of the sea.
Italian prosecutors said a Bangladeshi survivor flown to Sicily for treatment told them 950 people were aboard, including hundreds who had been locked in the hold by smugglers, the Associated Press reported.
And I just finished banging out a post about them.
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The fatal shipwreck may prove to be the Mediterranean’s deadliest disaster ever and is only the latest tragedy in Europe’s migration crisis. Warmer spring weather has unleashed a torrent of smuggler boats, mostly from Libya, bearing migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa, often fleeing war and poverty for a foothold in Europe.
Death at sea has become a grimly common occurrence: Even before this weekend’s sinking, humanitarian groups estimated that 900 migrants had died this year, compared with 90 during the same period a year ago.
The rising death toll is renewing criticism of the European response, especially the Triton program, introduced last November to patrol the Mediterranean and rescue migrants. UN officials and humanitarian groups have argued that Triton is too limited in scope and resources, and thus is placing migrants at grave risk.
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi focused the blame Sunday on human traffickers who smuggle migrants on rickety ships, describing them as “the slave drivers of the 21st century.”
As for the slave drivers of past centuries....
***************
Joseph Muscat, the prime minister of Malta, the island nation not far from the African coastline, also called for global action to stabilize Libya.
Oh, that is why the agenda is being focused on the sinking boats full of refugees. Libya is falling apart.
“The amount of people we’ve seen coming, and how it has been organized in the past few months, is unprecedented,” Muscat said in a phone interview. “We’ve just seen 700 people die. If we don’t get our act together on Libya, we’ll see more.”
For the past several years, Europe has been confronted with hundreds of thousands of migrants arriving illegally from Africa and the Middle East. Italy has been in the vanguard of rescue efforts, with its naval and coast guard ships rescuing more than 130,000 people last year in a widely praised program known as Mare Nostrum.
The Italian program had started in October 2013 as an emergency response to a shipwreck that killed more than 360 people near the Italian island of Lampedusa. It mobilized the Italian navy and coast guard and is credited with saving tens of thousands of lives.
But Mare Nostrum was phased out last autumn and replaced by the European-led Triton, which has fewer ships and a less-defined mandate. António Guterres, the UN high commissioner for refugees, on Sunday called on Europe to expand its rescue and patrol program as well as legal avenues for migration to Europe so that people do not have to risk their lives at sea.
See: Migrating Across the Mediterranean
More like agenda-paddling pre$$ in this case.
In European capitals, leaders pledged to confront the crisis. President François Hollande of France told the media that Europe needed “more boats, more aerial surveillance, and a much tougher fight against traffickers.”
He''ll $crew his own people to help. Hell, France is helping to create refugees with its action in Africa!
In Spain, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told supporters at a political rally that words will not be enough.
“As Europeans, we are gambling with our credibility if we aren’t able to stop these dramatic situations that are now happening on a daily basis,” he said.
What a Gem he is, huh?
Can you say that in Spain?
Federica Mogherini, an Italian who is the European Union’s foreign policy chief, announced that the migration crisis would be discussed Monday in Luxembourg at a meeting of EU foreign ministers.
“We have said too many times ‘never again,’ ” she said....
OMG!!
Are they trying to compare that trademarked event to this?
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"Captain in migrant disaster arrested, officials say; Europe considers response as hundreds of migrants die in singings" by Jim Yardley New York Times April 21, 2015
ROME — As European leaders grappled with a full-blown humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean, prosecutors revealed Tuesday that they had arrested the Tunisian captain and a Syrian crew member of the migrant boat that sank off the Libyan coast with up to 900 people aboard.
Ah, Tunisia involved, too!
Assistant prosecutor Rocco Liguori said that the two men were charged with fostering illegal immigration and that the captain was also charged with multiple reckless homicide in connection with the sinking, the Associated Press reported. The captain and crew member were arrested aboard the rescue boat that brought 27 survivors from the shipwreck to Sicily.
Our president does it and it is no big deal.
The boat sank early Sunday about 70 miles from Libya in what may be the deadliest migrant disaster ever. The development prompted calls for a new approach to the surging number of refugees crossing from Africa and the Middle East.
Hmmmmm.
As efforts continued to collect the bodies from the sinking, Italian rescue ships responded Monday to new distress calls from other vessels. A second migrant ship crashed near the Greek island of Rhodes, underscoring the relentless flow of people fleeing poverty, persecution, and war.
European foreign ministers met in Luxembourg to discuss how to respond to the crisis, which has left governments trying to balance humanitarian responsibilities against budget constraints and widespread public sentiment against immigration.
Italy’s representative pushed for Europe to make “major commitments,” and European heads of government scheduled an emergency session for Thursday.
The disaster also underscored how Libya, reeling from violence and political turmoil, has become a haven for human smuggling rings along the African coastline. In Rome, the prime ministers of Italy and Malta on Monday called for targeted, nonmilitary intervention against Libya’s human traffickers.
That's where this is leading and why it suddenly popped up in the paper.
This year’s death toll in the Mediterranean Sea is thought to have surpassed 1,500, a drastic spike from the same period last year. With the arrival of warmer weather, the number of migrants on smuggler boats has risen sharply....
Migrants now seem to be coming from a larger area — from Bangladesh and Afghanistan in Asia; Syria and Iraq in the Middle East; and African nations such as Gambia, Somalia, Mali, and Eritrea.
“What happened on Sunday was a game-changer,” Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of Malta said at a news conference with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy. “There is a new realization that if Europe doesn’t act as a team, history will judge it very harshly, as it did when it closed its eyes to stories of genocide — horrible stories — not long ago.”
There they go again!
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You know whom I turn to for final solutions:
"The EU must take responsibility for migrant ships crisis" by The Editorial Board April 20, 2015
FOR TOO long, the world has been watching in horror as African and Middle Eastern migrants drown while trying to make a dangerous voyage across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. In the latest — and worst — tragedy to date, an estimated 700 people are feared dead after an overcrowded ship sank 70 miles off the coast of Libya Saturday evening. Even as Italian and Maltese boats plucked bodies from the water and the prospect of finding any more survivors dwindled, there were reports Monday of other ships in distress.
Already this year, more than 900 migrants have perished
in the Mediterranean — a tenfold increase compared with the first four
months of 2014 (which ended with a record toll that topped 3,000). Some groups, including Human Rights Watch, have accused European leaders
of reacting slowly and inadequately to these at-sea disasters. Indeed,
there is no doubt that the European Union can do better. It must act
more quickly to rescue those in immediate peril, but it also needs to
take actions to prevent such large-scale disasters from happening in the
first place. Saving lives should come before protecting European
borders from people so desperate to find a better way of life that they
are willing to risk death.
European officials met Monday
in Luxembourg to discuss the shipwreck disaster still unfolding in the
Mediterranean, and to review a plan that includes doubling the size of
Triton, the EU-funded naval operation launched in November primarily to
patrol waters off the coast of Europe. It may seem like a logical
response, but expect criticism from some quarters. In 2013, Italy
launched Mare Nostrum, a massive emergency response operation credited
with saving more than 100,000 lives. Focusing on sea rescues, the
operation drew political opposition in Italy and throughout Europe
because of fears it would encourage more migration. With criticism
mounting and resources — including backing from the EU — shrinking, the
program was ended about a year later.
Triton was intended to replace Mare Nostrum, but the EU committed only about 3 million euros a month for its funding, compared with the 9 million euros that were being spent monthly by Italy on Mare Nostrum. Given the events of the last few days, the plan to double Triton’s funding may prove inadequate before it’s even put in place.
Perhaps the EU could learn from Italy — even without Mare Nostrum, that country’s response to the latest Mediterranean shipwrecks has been efficient and impressive. According to the International Organization for Migration, Italian authorities reported rescuing 10,000 migrants during a six-day period that began April 10.
The breakdown of the social order in Africa creates complex challenges for any type of response to what has become an intercontinental migrant crisis. A long-term, comprehensive, and multi-faceted strategy is needed. It should include the creation of a processing center in North Africa, a plan to stop smugglers who move people under life-threatening conditions, and the institution of cohesive European immigration and refugee policies.
The European Union has a moral duty to provide the financial resources and manpower to stem this escalating humanitarian crisis.
So do other governments who are promoting or prosecuting the wars causing all the refugees
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Oh, yeah, turns out some of them were terrorists, a fact the Globe ed board left out:
"Mayor says rampage shows Rome is not secure against threat of terrorist attacks" Associated Press February 21, 2015
ROME — The mayor of Rome said Friday that Italy’s capital is not secure against the threat of terrorist attacks after hundreds of marauding Dutch soccer fans rampaged through the city’s historic center and damaged a recently renovated 400-year-old Bernini masterpiece at the foot of the Spanish Steps.
The security of Europe’s capitals has been under increased scrutiny after the terror attacks in Paris last month and in light of increasing violence and instability in the Middle East, in particular Libya, which has unleashed a flood of migrants trying to reach Italy by boat.
‘‘It is evident that yesterday we demonstrated it is not safe,’’ Rome Mayor Ignazio Marino said in response to a question about what the clashes revealed about Rome’s level of preparedness against a possible terrorist attack. ‘‘It is unacceptable that they come to a city for a soccer game and then they destroy a monument that is 400 years old.’’
Soccer fans may even be worse.
Ahead of Thursday’s Europa League match between Feyenoord and Roma, Dutch fans pounded the famed Fountain of the Barcaccia with beer bottles and unopened cans.
See?
Their actions damaged the travertine fountain that was unveiled only in September after a $227,000 restoration project.
They also terrorized tourists and littered one of Rome’s most upscale neighborhoods.
They ARE terrorists!
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Don't take the law into your own hands, though. You take 'em to court!
"Man kills 3 in Milan court, police say" by Colleen Barry Associated Press April 10, 2015
MILAN — A man on trial for alleged fraudulent bankruptcy opened fire in Milan’s courthouse Thursday in a ‘‘cold, premeditated’’ attack, officials said, killing his lawyer, a codefendant, and a judge before being captured 15 miles away as he fled on a motorbike.
Premier Matteo Renzi promised an investigation into how the gunman, Claudio Giardiello, managed to bring a pistol into the fortress-like tribunal, where metal detectors are used for visitors but not for employees, magistrates, and lawyers.
‘‘Our commitment is that this never happens again and that those responsible pay,’’ Renzi said.
He praised the ‘‘heroism’’ of police who finally identified and disarmed Giardiello in a shopping center near his hometown, where prosecutors said he planned to kill others related to his failed real estate venture.
Prosecutors said Giardiello, who was in court Thursday for a hearing on the bankruptcy, fired 13 shots during four minutes in the courthouse, moving from a courtroom, to the hallway, and finally a judge’s chambers downstairs.
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It all seems so SILLI despite how serious it is:
"Qatar withdraws its Egypt envoy" Associated Press February 20, 2015
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Qatar said Thursday it has recalled its ambassador to Cairo to protest comments made by an Egyptian official over his country’s decision to carry out airstrikes in neighboring Libya.
The spat marks a flare-up in tensions between the wealthy Persian Gulf state and Egypt.
Then don't like each other anyway. Qatar backed Morsi.
Qatar said it withdrew the envoy ‘‘for consultations’’ in response to comments by the Egyptian delegate to the Arab League, Tarek Adel.
Egyptian state news agency MENA quoted Adel as saying that Arab League representatives expressed support for Egypt’s airstrikes this week against militants linked to the Islamic State in Libya as part of its right to self-defense. It added that only Qatar ‘‘deviated’’ from the Arab consensus, with Adel accusing Qatar of continuously taking positions against Egypt.
Egypt’s airstrikes followed the posting of a video showing the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians by militants loyal to Islamic State in Libya.
All those videos are FAKE!
Qatar is a member of the US-led coalition conducting airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
--more--"
"Egypt sees growing urgency for joint force" by Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press February 23, 2015
CAIRO — Egypt’s president said Sunday the need for a joint Arab military force is growing every day as the region faces the threat of Islamic militancy.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said in an address to the nation aired by local TV that Egypt’s military has no interest in invading or attacking other nations but will defend Egypt as well as the region ‘‘if required and in coordination with our Arab brothers.’’
That's why they are sending troops to Yemen.
A soldier-turned-politician, the Egyptian leader said both Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have offered to dispatch military forces to aid Egypt after last week’s beheading in Libya of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians by militants linked to the Islamic State.
Did you see how SILLI the video was?
Egyptian warplanes struck Islamic State positions in the eastern Libyan city of Darna early last Monday, hours after the release of a video showing the beheadings. Sissi said in his address that the warplanes struck 13 targets that had been ‘‘carefully surveyed and studied.’’ He gave no further details.
Sissi delivered his recorded comments in a video that showed him in an armchair with his desk in the background in front of a giant Egyptian white, red, and black flag. His comments were made in short clips interrupted by archival footage of him meeting world leaders or speaking on previous occasions as well as Egyptian military servicemen going through their drills.
‘‘The need for a unified Arab force is growing and becoming more pressing every day,’’ said Sissi, who took office in June. As military chief, Sissi led the July 2013 ouster of the Islamist Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, after millions took to the streets to demand that he step down.
Sissi’s assertion that a joint Arab military force was needed was the first public confirmation by an Arab leader that the creation of such a force was a possibility. He gave no details and did not say whether any concrete steps have been taken.
See: Arab leaders agree to form joint military force
Didn't take that long, did it?
The Associated Press reported in November that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait were discussing the creation of a military pact to take on Islamic militants. Last week, security and military officials said discussions resumed after a hiatus, with Jordan, France, Italy, and Algeria now viewed as possible additional partners.
I don't know about Algeria.
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What I do know about Egypt:
"Northern Sinai has witnessed a series of complex and successful attacks targeting Egyptian security forces, many of which have been claimed by a local affiliate of the Islamic State group. Twitter accounts affiliated with the group claimed responsibility for the Sunday attacks. Sunday was Eastern Orthodox Easter in Egypt, and police have been on alert....
Looks like a false flag and reminder to Egypt to keep towing that EUSraeli line.
A bomb blast on a bridge leading to an upscale neighborhood in central Cairo killed a police officer and wounded at least two passers-by Sunday, hours after Egyptian security forces killed the leader of an extremist group that claimed responsibility, police said. Extremist group Ajnad Misr, or Soldiers of Egypt, claimed responsibility for the bombing in a message on a Twitter account it uses, the SITE intelligence group said."
Seeing as it came from SITE we now know it was an Israeli false flag.
Also see:
Egypt court sentences 22 to death over 2013 attack on police
American sentenced to life in prison in Egypt for protest role
It's okay; Egypt has been excused.
"Car bombings tied to radicals kill 42 in east Libya; Islamic State followers claim credit for attacks" by David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times February 21, 2015
CAIRO — Militants pledging allegiance to the Islamic State claimed responsibility for three car bombs that killed at least 42 people in a town in eastern Libya on Friday in the latest escalation in a surge of violence linked to the group.
The attacks, in the town of Qubba, appeared to be one more turn in a cycle of retaliation that began when the Islamic State released a video last week showing its fighters in western Libya beheading more than a dozen kidnapped Egyptian Christians.
The government of Egypt responded with airstrikes on the city of Darna, a hub of Islamist militancy in eastern Libya where another group of fighters has pledged loyalty to the Islamic State.
That's all governments seem to know how to do.
On Friday, the Islamic State branch in Darna claimed responsibility for the latest bombings “in revenge for the bloodshed of Muslims” in the city, according to a Twitter message linked to the group and reported by Reuters. Other Twitter messages from the group claimed to identify two of its “martyrs” who died in the bombings.
SILLI tweets of pure propaganda.
Eight of those killed in Qubba were Egyptians who had come to Libya for work, according to Mohamed Tumi, a spokesman. Other news reports put the death toll at about 40 and reported that three or four Egyptians were killed. As many as 70 others were injured, according to several reports.
The Islamic State and other militant groups have sought to take advantage of the chaos that followed the overthrow of Moammar Khadafy in 2011 to plant their flags and stake out new bases of operations.
The broader Libyan bedlam has now degenerated into a stalemated battle between two coalitions of armed groups, each of which claims its own competing national government.
Qubba is in an area under the nominal authority of Libya’s internationally recognized government, which has relocated to the nearby cities of Tobruk and Bayda.
That would be the western-installed puppets there.
It is also the hometown of Aguila Saleh, the speaker of Parliament for the Tobruk-Bayda government, and some reports indicated that his home there might have been a target. He was not hurt.
The town is in territory considered to be under the de facto control of General Khalifa Hifter, who last year announced a military takeover to end what he portrayed as the Islamist dominance of a previous Parliament.
He's the U.S. agent!
The internationally recognized government, formed by a newer Parliament, has sought to legitimize Hifter and put itself under his protection.
I thought he had been defeated, but....
Tripoli, the nominal capital, is under the control of the rival coalition, Libya Dawn, which includes moderate and extremist Islamists as well as ethnic Berbers and the powerful militia from the coastal city of Misurata.
Those are the bad guys representing all the people of Libya fed up with its western puppet rule, and also certain intelligence elements that know dividing and conquering is the way to rule and splitting Libya was the whole point of the EUSraeli endeavor.
Officials of that coalition’s provisional government, based in Tripoli, say they oppose the Islamic State. Jamal Naji Zubia, a Tripoli government spokesman, said this week that it had dispatched a brigade from Misurata to the city of Sirte, where the Egyptians were kidnapped, to drive out the Islamic State fighters.
But officials of the Tripoli government have also appeared to deny or minimize the nature of the threat the Islamic State poses. Zubia said that the Libyans who appeared to be part of the Islamic State were Khadafy loyalists who had “put on the mantle of the Islamic State.”
“These terrorists pretend that they are Daesh, but actually they are not,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for the group.
My analysis has just been confirmed!
In their fight against Hifter and the tribal militias allied with him, the Libya Dawn coalition has accepted the cooperation of other Islamist extremist groups, including Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi, which has been linked to the assault on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi in 2012 and designated by Washington as a terrorist group.
I'm not going to get into that staged and scripted false flag gone wrong right now; in fact, I'll just wait for the movie.
But the Islamic State has now assumed a central role in domestic and international debate over Libya’s future, following the attacks carried out under its banner over the past three months.
So when do western forces land on the shores of Libya?
Those attacks not only threaten to draw more international intervention but could also lead to conflict with the broadly Islamist-friendly Tripoli government.
This is really too much SILLIness.
In December, fighters calling themselves the Tripolitania Province of the Islamic State bombed a Foreign Ministry building in Tripoli because an official of the Libya Dawn government wished a “Merry Christmas” to the West.
In January, the same group attacked a luxury hotel in the capital where the Libya Dawn prime minister lives and many Westerners gather.
This month the group filmed the beheadings of the Egyptian Christians and delivered a fiery message to “the Crusaders” of the world, threatening to bring war to Rome.
A group called Fezzan Province of the Islamic State, in the South, has claimed responsibility for killing Libyan soldiers.
Another group, the Barqa Province, based in Darna, in the East, is believed to include militants who have returned from fighting alongside the Islamic State in Syria.
The military-backed government of Egypt has been backing Hifter’s side in the conflict against Libya Dawn for many months.
After the video-recorded beheadings, Egyptian leaders have threatened more unilateral military action, and they have also called for a new multinational coalition to fight the Islamic State in Libya.
So far, however, few if any Western countries have indicated much willingness to get any closer to the Libyan chaos.
That is why Obama cut 'em a pa$$ and armed them.
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Look who is retreating, as they usually do when military action is forthcoming:
"UN chief: UN mission in Libya should be cut ‘substantially’" Associated Press February 25, 2015
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations secretary-general says the UN mission in Libya should be cut ‘‘substantially’’ because of the new and increasingly dangerous situation there.
Ban Ki-moon’s report circulated Tuesday says the mission should be limited to 15 to 20 people inside the north African country while keeping a temporary base in Tunisia. The mission evacuated there from Libya last year. The report stresses this ‘‘does not mean that the United Nations is disengaging from Libya.’’
His recommendation comes as Libya’s neighbors are calling for more United Nations action on Libya amid chaos that includes two separate governments and multiple armed groups. Militants affiliated with the Islamic State group last week released a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians, leading Egypt to launch airstrikes inside Libya in retaliation.
How often they gonna flog that fake?
The UN mission, led by envoy Bernardino Leon, has been trying to find compromise in Libya between an internationally recognized government based in Tobruk in the east and another government in Tripoli, backed by Islamist militias.
You can't compromise with terrorists!
The militia fighting has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands and has left Libya vulnerable to growth of groups such as Islamic State.
No mention of them fleeing into the sea though.
Ban’s report says the mission’s first goal must be ending the conflict.
Then they have constantly failed across this planet.
While Libya last week called on the UN Security Council to lift an arms embargo to allow the Western-backed government to defend itself, Ban has said repeatedly that a political dialogue is the only way out of the crisis.
It's urgent!
The UN mission has been in Libya since 2011, the year that long-ruling dictator Moammar Khadafy was overthrown. It was meant to help rebuild and stabilize the state, but UN officials acknowledge that the country now faces its worst political crisis and escalation of violence since Khadafy was in charge.
And being hopeful for unity in the face of car bombs seems a bit naive.
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Time to let some more heads roll:
"Islamic State video purports to show execution of Ethiopian Christians" by David D. Kirkpatrick New York Times April 20, 2015
CAIRO — The Islamic State released a video Sunday that appears to show fighters from its branches in southern and eastern Libya executing dozens of Ethiopian Christians, some by beheading and others by shooting.
The footage of the killings was prefaced by extensive speeches and interviews that appear to take place in the Islamic State’s strongholds in Syria and Iraq.
If confirmed, the video would be the first evidence that the group’s leaders in those countries are coordinating with fighters under the group’s banner in those parts of Libya, compounding fears of its expansion across the Mediterranean.
Yup, ISIS is every f***ing where!
The Islamic State released a video in February that appeared to show masked fighters in its western Libyan branch, the so-called Tripolitanian province of the Islamic State, beheading a group of Egyptian Christians who had been abducted in the city of Sirte. The group has now established control of Sirte, and its fighters are sporadically battling militia troops from the nearby city of Misrata.
The video released Sunday appears to show Islamic State fighters in its “Fezzan province,” in the south, and its “Barqa province,” in the east, carrying out executions according to the group’s trademark rituals.
Militants in Egypt, Algeria, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and elsewhere have all pledged loyalty to the Islamic State and its self-declared caliphate, but Libya is the first country outside the group’s territory in Syria and Iraq where its core leadership has demonstrated practical communication and collaboration with its far-flung “provinces.”
A Libyan log of propaganda!
If more confirmation of its authenticity emerges, the new video will upend both Western and Libyan views of the Islamic State’s presence in the country.
Somehow they are in Sirte, the bastion of support (if memory serves correct) for Khadafy, who was nowhere near Islamic fundamentalism. This is the base of opposition to EUSraeli and U.N. puppet rule, folks, being sold to us as the "terrorists" -- all EUSraeli-created, -funded, and -directed groups, insomuch as they do exist -- takeover the place.
You are getting something inSIRTED into somewhere, folks.
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What’s more, Libyan banks and homes still hold significant wealth. Vast oil deposits wait below ground, and the country’s long Mediterranean coast is a useful departure point to destinations in Europe or around the region.
That's why Khadafy had to be overthrown, and the first allusion to the war refugees.
According to news reports, a spokesman for the Ethiopian government said Sunday that it could not yet confirm that those killed in the video were its citizens.
Because it is another staged fake, folks!
Many African migrants go to oil-rich Libya seeking employment or passage to Europe.
Some of the Egyptian Christians killed by the Islamic State in western Libya were recognized in the earlier video by their families in Egypt as relatives who had been abducted in Sirte, helping confirm that video’s authenticity.
Look at the propaganda pre$$ flailing about to convince you, really, really convince you this is all true. Those lousy fake video productions are real. I do believe in witches, I do!! The strenuousness with which they are arguing speaks to its falsity!!
Those killings prompted a retaliatory air raid by Egypt on targets in Derna, Libya, an Islamist stronghold where the Islamic State’s “Barqa province” is believed to be based.
Now I'm really not believing it!
Both the February video and the one Sunday were released by the Al-Furqan media group, which is controlled by the Islamic State’s leadership and often distributes its propaganda. The video released Sunday begins with about 25 minutes of scenes that appeared to have been filmed in Syria and Iraq.
Oh, readers, this is a real in-your-face laugher! The pot-hollering-kettle pre$$ referring to propaganda!
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Oh, yeah, that photo convinces me it's all real.
So what did the CIA do, move the shooting locations from Texas to Miami, and why are all the alleged ISIS guys white and in U.S. Army camo? C'mon, guys!
I mean, what's next, an attack on the South Korean(?) embassy to nab some oil workers?
"Libyan officials said militants from the Islamic State affiliate in Libya beheaded eight Libyan guards in an attack on a central oil field last week during which the extremists abducted nine foreigners. Authorities in the Philippines said Monday that four Philippine nationals were among the nine abducted from the oil field. An Austrian, a Czech, a Bangladeshi, and a Ghana national were also taken, while one hostage remains unidentified. Friday’s attack on the al-Ghani oil field near the town of Zalla, about 470 miles southeast of the capital, Tripoli, was part of a series of deadly assaults on Libya’s oil lucrative infrastructure by the Islamic State. The attacks in recent weeks have forced Libya to declare 11 fields nonoperational, including Ghani."
Are they sure it wasn't a chokehold?
At least it helped push the price of oil higher.
"Thousands of people have fled the northeastern coastline of the Philippines, where Tropical Storm Maysak was headed from the Pacific after killing at least four people and destroying hundreds of homes in Micronesia. The Philippine weather bureau Saturday downgraded Maysak from a typhoon but said strong winds and rains would lash the island of Luzon overnight and Sunday."
Last I saw of it, as was the last I saw of this:
Mass. Marine’s trial in slaying of transgender woman begins
I might have just hit bottom for the day, folks. Sorry.
NDUs:
"Captain faulted in migrant boat disaster; Authorities cite wrong moves before collision" by Jim Yardley and Dan Bilefsky New York Times April 22, 2015
I'm surprised the Concordia has not yet once been mentioned.
MINEO, Sicily —The survivors of the capsizing were taken to a detention center in Mineo, a town southwest of Catania. The center, a former residential base for US naval personnel, now houses migrants mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, some of whom were playing soccer on a dirt field Tuesday. Italian authorities declined to make them available for interviews with journalists.
Ah, freedom!
Survivors told Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, that the ship departed from a beach in Libya. More than 1,000 people gathered to board the ship, some of whom had been hiding for days or weeks in filthy “connection houses” operated by smugglers. On the beach, the smugglers first lined up the men and ordered them on the boat. Many were forced into the boat’s hull and then told to sit on one another’s laps to make more space.
“They told me, ‘They were putting us inside like fish,’ ” Di Giacomo said.
Yeah, the Holocaust™ imagery is being pushed all over the place right now in my propaganda pre$$. Noted, and I agree. People who seem so sure of their rightness while perpetrating atrocities are scary.
I then turn to Washington D.C., London, Europe, and Israel and contemplate the madmen believing they are doing right and good based on mind-boggling lies and deceit.
One of the smugglers took a head count as each man boarded the vessel, and several survivors said roughly 800 people were stuffed onto the boat. But very few women or children were included. They had been told to board after the men, and by then the boat was full.
Nearly all the men were from African countries, including Mali, Gambia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Eritrea, and Somalia, as well as some from Bangladesh. A Bangladeshi survivor, airlifted Sunday from the wreckage site to Sicily, gave prosecutors the first account of the episode.
Di Giacomo said that several survivors described the boats’ colliding but that their accounts differed on what exactly happened.
Please, no.
SFDD.
And many told him that they had been working as migrant laborers in Libya until the turmoil there had become untenable.
“They told me, ‘Libya, oh my God,’ ” Di Giacomo recalled.
Ooooooh.
Di Giacomo said that while “the testimonies are not very clear, they are convergent.”
The tragedy has put a new focus on human trafficking through North Africa to Europe, and especially the growing role of Libya as a staging point for refugees desperate to flee war, poverty, and persecution in Africa and the Middle East.
Anytime my agenda-pushing paper decides to put a new focus on something after ignoring it for so long....
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Also see: Former Egyptian president Morsi given 20-year sentence
I'm told the verdict ‘‘shatters any remaining illusion of independence and impartiality in Egypt’s criminal justice system,’’ -- as if I still had any.
I mean, they didn't make the list?
"Libya chaos linked to human smuggling" Associated Press April 22, 2015
CAIRO — Libya’s chaos has spurred human trafficking, a spokesman for the country’s internationally recognized government said Tuesday, urging the world community to help his administration gain control of the rest of the country.
Nothing silly about what we all see coming.
The appeal comes as violence in Libya surges and more and more crowded refugee rafts head to Europe, many of which have capsized, leaving hundreds feared dead. Libya has two rival governments, each claiming legitimacy as their allied militias fight across the country.
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‘‘There are those who are using Libya as a safe passage in the current situation, especially given the inability to secure the entire Libyan territory,’’ Hatem al-Aribi told The Associated Press in an interview in the eastern city of Bayda. ‘‘The amount of money involved in this trade is huge, and we have intelligence that some of this money goes to terrorist organizations.’’
When they are not executing them, anyway.
He urged the international community to support his government’s attempts to secure control of the entire country, and Europeans in particular to coordinate with his government to stop the trade, which profits from desperate refugees.
We hear you loud and clear.
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You know what I think is needed: a NATO military occupation. That always seems to improve things.
And now Greece is getting out of control:
"Greek anger over state cash grab from hospitals, schools; Cash from state entities co-opted
Associated Press April 22, 2015
ATHENS — Greek local authorities were on the brink of revolt Tuesday against the central government’s move to use cash reserves from state agencies — including hospitals and kindergartens — to help the country make ends meet.
Oh. That's not icky protesters and rabble in the street. That's AUTHORITY that is UNHAPPY with the RADICAL LEFTI$T GOVERNMENT(?) wanting to $acrifice the sick and children so BANKERS that brought the bad deals and debt can GET PAID!
At an emergency meeting in Athens, angry mayors called for blank refusal to comply, staging protests or taking the left-led government to court over its order to have spare reserves put in a central bank account.
Wow, it took all of two months for the savior Tsipras and Syriza to cave.
‘‘Not a single municipality should deposit even one euro at the Bank of Greece,’’ said Ioannis Lolos, mayor of the northwestern town of Igoumenitsa.
Citing an ‘‘extremely urgent and unforeseen’’ need for cash, an emergency government decree Monday rendered funds from state entities — such as the national opera, the national art gallery, and even hospitals and kindergartens — available for short-term loans to the state. That is expected to raise up to $2.7 billion.
OMG! Loot the people and the culture so bankers can get paid!
The move, unprecedented in recent Greek history, is the latest sign that the country is running perilously short of cash amid an impasse in bailout talks with its creditors.
Until it reaches an agreement with its creditors from the 19-country eurozone and the International Monetary Fund, Greece will not get $7.7 billion in rescue funds, without which Athens will be unable to meet loan obligations this summer.
Is that in$ane or what?
It's called debt en$lavement, and it is the "essence of the banking system."
Creditors are demanding reforms that include sweeping changes to pensions and labor rules. The three-month-old government has ruled out many key demands, arguing that it was elected to end the kind of stifling budget austerity that worsened a deep recession.
Greece has depended on rescue loans since it lost market access in 2010 and nearly went bankrupt.
How are they being re$cued here?
In exchange, successive governments adopted deeply resented spending cuts and tax hikes, as unemployment climbed to record high levels. It dipped to 26 percent late last year as incomes dropped by about a third.
The current impasse has revived fears that Greece will soon find itself unable to pay salaries and pensions or service its debt — it has to repay about 1 billion euros to the IMF in May — and have to leave the euro currency.
From what I've read off the blog roll to my right the PTB are preparing for them to be gone and it's no big deal even as we were told things had been fixed the last few months.
Many had expected that the latest crunch point could come Friday, when Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is due to meet his eurozone counterparts in the Latvian capital of Riga. But it looks increasingly unlikely that a deal can be struck by then.
Watch, they will and it will be trumpeted as a great surprise and good!
Greek shares fell for a second straight day Tuesday....
Just keeping an eye on what is important.
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