ROME ( Italian Navy Rescues 2,500 Migrants )

ROME – Some 2,500 Italy-bound migrants were rescued from 17 boats trying to make the Mediterranean crossing from North Africa, the Italian navy said Friday.

All of the vessels assigned to the Mare Nostrum task force remain deployed in an ongoing operation, the navy said in a statement.

The San Giorgio rescued a total of 998 migrants, more than a third of them women and children, from five different boats Thursday night.

Another 400 migrants were collected by the frigate Orione.

A shortage of vessels forced Mare Nostrum units to transfer more than 600 migrants to passing freighters pending the arrival of additional ships to transport the travelers to Italian ports.

The number of migrants reaching Italy in the first five months of this year – 39,538 – is not far short of the 2013 total of 43,000.

Italy’s interior minister, Angelino Alfano, said Thursday that the European Union must aid Rome in dealing with the flood of migrants.

Italy “alone cannot pay for the instability in Libya,” he said during a visit to Luxembourg.

Rome initiated the Mare Nostrum operating following an Oct. 3, 2013, shipwreck off the Italian island of Lampedusa that left 366 migrants dead.

Since then, Mare Nostrum has rescued 27,790 immigrants at sea, including 3,034 minors, according to the Italian Defense Ministry.

The operation is costing Italy 300,000 euros ($409,000) a day, not counting the expense of food, shelter and care for the migrants.

Iran News ( Iranian Journalist Denounced as 'Whore' Amid Women's Rights Campaign )

Mere weeks after sparking the "Stealthy Freedoms" social movement, creator and London-based Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad is finding herself in the center of the story, and in the eye of the storm.

As ABC News previously reported, " Stealthy Freedoms of Iranian Women" is a social platform inviting Iranian women to share photos of themselves without the mandatory hijab. Though Alinejad, who has her own segment on Voice of America's "OnTen" program, does not endorse banning the hijab, she does advocate a woman's right to the most basic of freedoms - the freedom to choose, and the freedom to blow your hair in the breeze.

Alinejad is now facing steep criticism from Iranian state television in an attempt to temper her movement. Vahid Yaminpour, a conservative Iranian commentator and TV personality, is alleging that Alinejad was raped on the streets of London by three men as her son was made to stand by as a witness.

"Masih Alinejad is a whore, and not a heretic as some people claim her to be," Yaminpour wrote on his Facebook page. "We shouldn't elevate her to the level of a heretic. She's just trying to compensate her psychological (and probably financial) needs by recruiting young women and sharing her notoriety with younger women who are still not prostitutes."

Alinejad denied all allegations in an interview with ABC News, citing the comments as a weak attempt by Iranian officials to smear her reputation and quell the explosive activity around her Facebook page, which has now gained more than 450,000 likes.

"They want to keep journalists silent," she said. "I've been attacked several times, but this was the most fabricated, most disgusting news about me."

Iran ( Back to Prison - For female activist -Susan Tebyaniyan )

Posted on: 2nd June, 2014

        

 

HRANA News Agency – Susan Tebyaniyan, a Bahai from Semnan, was arrested in her home on the evening of May 31st.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA),  agents from the Ministry of Intelligence searched her home, seized a computer and religious books and images, and arrested her.
Mrs. Tehyaniyan, who has two small children, had a shop in Semnan until her arrest in April, 2009. In May 2010 she was sentenced to 18 months in prison on charges of propaganda against the regime and membership of a Bahai organisation.
She began her sentence in Evin prison on July 1st, 2010. After serving almost 14 months in prison, she was one of the prisoners granted clemency to mark Eid al-Fitr, on August 27 2011

LIMA ( At Least 10 Killed in Bus Crash in Peru )

 

LIMA – At least 10 people died and 20 others were injured Thursday when a bus went off the road and overturned on a highway in the southern region of Arequipa, Peruvian police said.

The accident occurred at Kilometer 87 on the highway linking the regions of Puno and Arequipa.

Police officers and members of the volunteer firefighters said that they still have not determined the exact number of fatalities because they are continuing to work on recovering the bodies.

The injured, among whom are three children, were transported to hospitals and clinics in Arequipa.

In Peru’s mountainous regions, road accidents – sometimes resulting in dozens of dead and injured – are regular occurrences, above all due to the lack of training of drivers, the use of trucks and buses in poor repair and the fact that rural roadways often traverse very rough Andean territory.

According to World Health Organization figures, traffic accidents account for 15.9 deaths per 100,000 residents.

Peruvian authorities say, however, that 92 percent of those fatalities occur in cities and the other 8 percent along interprovincial roadways, although the latter produce the greater number of victims.

TUCSON Az ( Homeless kids- Migrant Influx Strains Arizona Children’s Shelters)

TUCSON, Arizona – Children’s shelters in Arizona are overflowing after the arrival of hundreds of Central American immigrants transferred from Texas, the epicenter of a massive arrival of undocumented children characterized by President Barack Obama as an “urgent humanitarian situation.”

The Guatemalan Consulate in Phoenix said that this week it received 70 of its country’s citizens who were released at the Greyhound bus station by U.S. immigration authorities.

The migrants were brought from Texas, where the children’s shelters and detention centers are full due to the avalanche of undocumented Central Americans in recent months.

The situation is also being felt in shelters in Arizona, with the Phoenix centers already overcrowded with children who arrived alone in this country, Guatemalan Consul Jimena Diaz told Efe.

The number of children crossing the border alone has increased more than 90 percent compared with last year, Cecilia Muñoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said Monday in conjunction with Obama’s presidential memorandum ordering “a unified and coordinated Federal response.”

The number of unaccompanied children entering the United States could approach 66,000 this year, more than quadruple the number two years ago, according to unofficial estimates.

Diaz said she spoke with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and expressed to them her concern over the lack of security for mothers and children, many of whom are babies, when they are left at bus stations.

She said ICE officials assured her that this situation will prevail until Wednesday or Thursday and that then it will “normalize” and “women with children are going to be processed in Texas.”

A recent report by the Border Patrol said that more than 100,000 undocumented Central Americans have been detained on the Texas border so far in fiscal year 2014, which began last Oct. 1, and that the majority of these detentions were of minors.

“If we have a situation where the two parents are coming we ask that the decision be made who will go with the child and who will remain in detention” to be turned over to ICE, Andy Adame, the spokesman for the Border Patrol in Arizona, told Efe.

Meanwhile, activists and community organizations are offering advice and assistance to these immigrant families who are released at Arizona bus stations. One of the organizations is Casa Mariposa in Tucson, which is offering them lodging and food.

“We are helping them understand the situation and the trip. These people don’t know anyone here and everything is new for them,” Kristina Schlaback, a volunteer at Casa Mariposa, told Efe

SAN SALVADOR ( Two Cops Killed in Two Days in El Salvador )

  A Salvadoran police officer was gunned down Thursday by gang members, the second such killing in two days, the Attorney General’s Office said.

Joaquin Rosales, assigned to the Investigation Division, died in an exchange of shots with gang members in the eastern town of Guadalupe, police and the AG’s office told reporters.

Another detective, Antonio Regalado, was fatally shot on Wednesday at a market in the central municipality of Quezaltepeque.

That incident left a civilian and another police officer wounded.

A police corporal and two prison guards were among the six people killed in a May 23 attack on a bus.

Homicides are running at an average of 14 a day in El Salvador, where a truce between the two leading gangs brought a sharp, albeit temporary, decline in murders until the pact fell apart earlier this year.

Levels of lethal violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are greater than in some countries suffering armed conflict, according to a report released last week in Geneva.

The study was the work of the Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) created by three NGOs: HelpAge International, Merlin and the Norwegian Refugee Council.

“At 90.4 homicides per 100,000 people, Honduras remains the most violent country in the world. El Salvador (41.2) and Guatemala (39.9) have higher homicide rates now than during their civil wars,” ACAPS pointed out

Ukraine closes border posts after night assaults

DOLZHANSKY: Ukraine said Thursday it had abandoned three checkpoints on the Russian border after a series of night-time attacks by separatists, and AFP reporters on the scene said at least one had been taken over by the militants.
The decision to leave the border posts came as the government vowed to beef up its security presence to counter pro-Russian rebels amid reports of continued fighting in the country’s east.
The three checkpoints, all in the volatile Lugansk region, were targeted in attacks by pro-Russian rebels overnight Wednesday to Thursday, the border guards said in a statement.
“After an exchange of fire, the threat to the lives of people crossing the border prompted the evacuation of civilians and border guards at the checkpoints,” the statement said.
On Thursday afternoon, Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow flag no longer flew over the border post at Dolzhansky after it had been taken over by about 10 armed pro-Russian rebels who allowed vehicles to pass in both directions. 
Numerous civilians were also crossing into Russia on foot with suitcases and bags of belongings, seeking refuge from the hostilities on the Ukrainian side.
“The Ukrainian border guards numbered about 50 and left toward 5 a.m. today,” said Vitaly Bliznyuk, the commander of a group of pro-Russian fighters.
“When we got here, we noticed that the border guards had already left and had detonated their ammunition beforehand,” he told AFP.