It’s the lowest number in 17 years. 

Executive director of the Committee To Protest Journalist Joel Simon says there’s no room for complacency has enemies of press freedom have a considerable armory.

CPJ boss Joel Simon doesn’t know whether the international storm that raged after the deaths of Saudi analyst Jamal Khashoggi and Maltese journalist Daphne Galizia was a deterrent to killing journalists.

25 reporters were slain this year – the lowest number since 2002.

Syria and Mexico are the most dangerous countries on Earth to be a reporter with seven and five deaths respectively.

Stern says the number of reprisal killings is the lowest on record and regional conflicts have claimed fewer journalists’ lives.

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Maltese naval vessels ferried the refugees ashore because the German-flagged vessel was not allowed into Valetta harbor

The migrants will be moved to Germany, France, Portugal and Luxembourg who agreed to take them in. They’ve come from Libya, where fighting around the capital Tunis has prevented naval operations curbing refugee boats starting the perilous crossing to Europe. So far this year, 356 migrants have drowned or gone missing on the Mediterranean.

Malta and Italy have barred rescue ships from their harbours.

The 67 aboard the Alan Kurdi, named after a three-year-old Syrian son of migrants who drowned in 2015, were in desperate straits on the overcrowded the vessel.

Two had already been evacuated because of  medical emergencies. 

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The EU’s agency for fundamental rights calls on countries of the grouping to end this shameful and infuriating phenomenon.

The study is based on interviews with 6 000 people in 12 European countries.

It finds one in three people of African descent experienced racial harassment in the past year.

One in ten has been stoped by police.

Five percent have been victims of police brutality.

Finland is the worst culprit with 60 percent of people surveyed finding racism commonplace.

Britain and Malta fare best with one-fifth of black residents reporting racist behaviour.

The study will be presented to the European Parliament next week which has only three black MPs in its 751-member chamber.

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The drama’s provoked a call by medical charity Doctors Without Borders for governments to put lives ahead of politics.

ends intro

MSF denounces Italy’s closure of its ports to stop rescued people from disembarking and European governments’ choice of political point-scoring over saving lives at sea.

The charity’s head of emergencies Karline Kleijer says the men, women, and children on board the Aquarius have fled conflict and poverty, and have survived horrific abuse in Libya. They have been shipped from one boat to another like cargo and endured the elements on an unnecessarily long journey at sea.

She says MSF is grateful to Spain for stepping in, even as Italian and other European governments have shamefully failed in their humanitarian responsibilities and placed politics over the lives of vulnerable people.

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Their ship carrying seven pregnant women, 11 infants and 123 unaccompanied minors is still at sea at this hour.

The migrants were rescued in six operations by the organization SOS Mediterranee.

Because this happened in Libyan waters, the rescue vessel Aquarius headed for Sicily where Italy’s new rightwing government declared the port closed to it.

Authorities in Rome urged the ship to head to Malta which was also barred it.

The United Nations High Commission For Refugees declared the ship was running out of supplies and urgently needed help.

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez said the Aquarius could dock in Valencia – 1 400 km away.

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Italy’s new rightwing government has closed its ports to the migrants rescued by a German vessel in Libyan waters.

ends intro

The UNHCR says migrants aboard the rescue ship Aquarius are in distress, running out of provision and urgently in need of help.

Italy’s closed its ports to the ship and said it should dock in Malta where prime minister Joseph Muscat insists international law determines Italy is responsible for them.

Mayors across southern Italy say they’re prepared to admit the migrants.

But they need the cooperation of the Italian coastguard. 

This afternoon Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez says the rescue ship can dock in Valencia,

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This is 50% more than the number who took on the often deadly crossing in unseaworthy boats in the same period last year.

As European leaders met in Malta last Friday to talk about how to stop the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean, more than 1 300 of these desperate people were  rescued from the sea.

They were aboard 13 vessels saved by the Italian coastguard and the Italian and British navies.

It brought to 2 600 the number rescued in three days last week.

The EU leaders agreed to pay Libya, the migrants’ major launching point, to improve coastguard services and upgrade camps accommodating those who have reached there from various African troublespots.

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