HMS Cumberland back in Benghazi to rescue Britons
The British naval frigate, HMS Cumberland, has returned to the Libyan port of Benghazi to evacuate remaining Britons.
Read our news file
It comes as volunteers from Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Turkey combine efforts to distribute food and aid to residents of the city.
Benghazi has been under the control of a disparate coalition of people and rebel military units for a week now.
Freelance journalist Francesa Cicardi talked to euronews about conditions in the city: “Life in Benghazi has not yet returned to normal because people here are thinking only about the revolution and they’re waiting for Tripoli to fall,” she said.
“Nevertheless, there is some semblance of normality. Some shops are open, traffic is more or less the same. Banks are shut and schools remain closed. But communication is far from normal. It’s very difficult, there’s no internet for example. As a result, the city feels isolated from the rest of the country,” Cicardi added.
Rock’n roll photographer shoots stars old-style
He has been doing this for more than 30 years: shooting rock’n roll stars with his traditional camera and developing the pictures in his bathroom, with the aim of catching that unique moment.
Euronews met French photographer Richard Bellia, who has been documenting the history of music since the early 1980s and is about to publish his third book.
Influx of North Africans with sights set on Italy
They are arriving in their scores, crammed onto?�small craft.?�In the last week alone, an estimated 5,500 illegal immigrants, mainly from Tunisia, have landed on the southern coast of Italy. It is a massive influx aimed mainly at the island of Lampedusa.?� ?�The?�tiny island?�only has?�6,000 inhabitants itself. It is?�just 138 kilometres from the Tunisian coast.?�Hundreds of young Tunisians from towns like Zarziz, Ben Guerdane, Tataoiune, Medenine?�and Gafsa, have joined the exodus towards Europe driven by high unemployment at home.?�“We’re not afraid to go from Djerba to Lampedusa,” said one voyager. “It’s 24-hours on a boat by sea. You pay 2,000 dinars – about 1,500 euros.”?�Italy declared a humanitarian emergency on Saturday and re-opened the Lampedusa centre for identification and expulsion. More than 2,000 immigrants jammed in, the majority young Tunisian men.?�“I come from Tunisia, everyone you see here comes from Tunisia, we are all afraid after the revolution that has taken place because nothing has changed,” said one?�newly arrived immigrant.?�“From the 14th of January nothing has changed. All of us here, we are not asking for anything, we only ask for a possibility to find work in Europe.”?�Italy has already dealt with significant waves of illegal immigration, but since a controversial deal with Libya signed?�in 2008, the numbers have?�tumbled in recent years from 36,000?�to 4,300 last year.?�But this latest influx has caught Italy and the European Union unawares.?�Mario Marazzitti from the Catholic humanitarian organisation?�Sant’Egido said: “I think that it is correct that in an international crisis now we have to find?�immediately a European table (sic) and decide who can help Italy to bear this weight.”?�Marazzitti said?�this current flow of immigrants is not going to stop in the near future. He compared it to the wave of Albanians who headed into Italy after the fall of communism in 1991.?�
EU reviews policy towards turmoil-hit countries
EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels have called for an immediate end to the violence in Libya but stopped short of sanctions against Tripoli.
Instead their attention focussed on providing support for those countries in the grip of unrest to manages a peaceful transition to democratic government.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague was adamant. “ If we don’t succeed in that then the dangers to the European Union of instability or extremism on our frontiers are immense so it is a historic opportunity for the EU but a real historic responsibility as well.”
Despite the bloodshed in Libya, Italy leads a group of southern EU states wanting to avoid antagonising Tripoli over its threat to halt cooperation on migration policies.
Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said:
“Italy is a first destination country where potentially an enormous number of migrants could make for….dozens of people who, due to disasters, chaos or violence could flood on to its shores.”
Thousands have already fled their home countries as the unrest in Tunisia and Egypt.
More than 5,000 of them have arrived in Italy.
An EU proposal to fund infrastructure and development in the unstable nations is being planned to prevent further long term migration.
Discovery’s final flight good to go
Good weather is forecast for the final flight of space shuttle Discovery and everything appears good to go for later today.
The Kennedy Space Centre said Discovery’s countdown was proceeding without a hitch.
It is Discovery’s last mission, the orbiter’s 39th out of a total of 133 shuttle flights.
Unrest continues on the streets of Iran
In Iran, a ceremony to mark the death of a student during an opposition rally has turned violent.
The 26-year old’s funeral procession had set off from Tehran University.
Iran’s state broadcaster says there was fighting between pro- and anti-government activists. Sanee Zaleh was shot dead on Monday during the first opposition rally for more than a year.
Both sides have blamed each other for his death.
Iran’s leading opposition figures, Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karoubi, have urged the government to listen to the protesters’ demands.
The Iranian government put them under house arrest before Monday’s protest.
There have been calls for both to be tried and face the death penalty.
Pick of the Clicks: Nature’s worst brings out Human nature’s best
Pick of the Clicks looks at the most clicked story of the week on our website and how it is being treated elsewhere on the net. This week: Disaster in Japan.?�Last?�week, it was while writing a POTC about the Apocalypse that?�one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded?�triggered a tsunami so powerful that even now it leaves us clueless as to the human cost.?�In the time since – rightly or wrongly – the world’s focus has turned from?�the very real human tragedy of the natural disaster itself to the?�theoretical threat of nuclear meltdown created by the earthquake.?�But the Apocalypse was last week. Now, despite the circumstances, is a time for an attempt at optimism.?�The worst that Nature has thrown at us is bringing out the?�best in humankind. First, let’s talk about heroism.?�Their job titles?�may sometimes be?�such?�mundane descriptions as ‘technicians’, ‘reactor operators’ or ‘security agents’. There are more colourful?�and?�less bureaucratic terms being bandied about out there like?�‘Atomic Kamikazes’ or even ‘Nuclear Samurai’.?�I prefer heroes because that is what they are.?�They are the men and women who choose to wade into a nuclear disaster zone to clear up the mess. They know there is a good chance that what they are doing will kill them or, at the very?�least, permanently damage their health. ?�But they do it all the same. Not for glory, not for money but?�so that their families and friends will be saved.?�?�In the aftermath of Chernobyl, they went in their hundreds of thousands although?�many of the Liquidators?�(as they were called at the time)?�would have known?�little about?�the dangers?�awaiting them. Their bosses had more of an idea but filtered the details. ?�Some died agonising deaths within days. Others survived, but not for as long as they otherwise would have. A few remain. ?�There were many heroes too in the aftermath of the Twin Towers strikes on 9/11. The surviving ‘responders’ have managed, after a long battle, to get a compensation package out of the authorities but even now there are cases where one feels heroism might have been taken for granted.?�Let that not be the case for the Fukushima 50 .?�They, unlike their predecessors in Chernobyl,?�are under no illusion?�about the nature of the?�risk they are taking yet still they take it.?�That’s just how some folk roll.?�It’s not only that handful of heroes who deserve enormous credit for their reaction to such appalling adversity. The?�absence of self-pity?�of the people of Japan also provides an example of what humans can feel proud of.?�The?�thought of?�suffering?�a magnitude 9 earthquake followed by a massive tsunami only to have that misery compounded by the threat of atomic fallout is completely unimaginable to most people. It should perhaps have been imaginable to the people who chose where to built a nuclear plant, but that’s another matter.?�Any one of those disastrous events could break a person’s resilience. All three in one day could break a nation’s. Not Japan.?�Japan has known all three and each time it has been shaken to the core. And each time it has picked itself up, dusted itself down and ploughed on. In the years and decades after the dropping of the Atom bombs, Japan managed somehow to climb its way up to second on the world’s?�biggest economy list.?�One South Korean?�resident of Tokyo?�interviewed for a Bloomberg article told how in the?�moments after the quake, “no one was crying or showing any negativity…In Korea, people would be bawling.”?�Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Lewis M. Simons, resident in Japan for 14 years,?�writes in this article that “…rebuild the people of Japan will. Stoically, quietly courageously, they will start over.”?�An article in The Economist even tells us that in Tokyo “many queued patiently on March 15th to meet their tax deadlines.” There are people in other countries (and I am one of them) who do not meet their tax deadlines in disaster-free circumstances.?�Japan rebuilt after the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923 which took more than 100,000 lives. It rebuilt after the 1995 earthquake in?�Kobe, Japan’s second most populated area after Tokyo. While?�a question mark may follow the future of nuclear energy?�in Japan after this latest disaster, there is nothing to suggest Japan will not rebuild again. And it will do so by itself, even if there is no lack of support from the international community. Japan will carry the cost of reconstruction, which by some estimates?�could even?�rise to something like five percent of GDP.?�Initially though, rescue teams arrived from across the globe to help sift through the rubble in the hope of finding anyone still alive. The Japanese government had not done wonders in its international relations?�with Russia or China in the months before the quake but quarrels about territory have been put to one side and the response to the disaster from Moscow and Beijing has been warm.?�Charities all over the world have been sent donations destined for Japan even without having to launch appeals. Canadians for example have given around 7.5 million euros worth of donations to the Red Cross without needing to be prompted.?�Minutes of silence and other similar gestures have been offered. They may be just gestures but at least they are showing that people everywhere care?�about other humans in trouble.?�And it’s not just humans who have this capacity to show strength in adversity. Animals too look after each other?�in the immediate wake of calamity, as this video quite nicely illustrates.?�It has been one of those terrifying weeks in which we remember that when Nature strikes there’s little or nothing we can do about it. But if we are capable of looking straight into the face of what can seem like the Apocalypse and?�reacting with humanity, maybe we’re not damned after all.?�
By Mark Davis
Ariane mission passes weight-and-date milestone
The 200th Ariane space mission is set to blast off from a base in French Guyana later.
As well as being an anniversary flight, it will also be carrying the heaviest cargo ever sent into orbit by the European project.
The Automated Transfer Vehicle will carry supplies to the International Space Station.
An hour after launch and 260 kilometres up in space, the ATV2 will separate from its rocket booster and embark on an orbit at 7.6 kilometres a second.
It will still take it eight days to reach the International Space Station.
The remote link-up involves fitting the ATV2 into a 10 cm wide port on the ISS at a speed of 28,000 kilometres an hour.
French FM defends Tunisia links once again
French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie has again been forced to defend her links to the regime of ousted Tunisian president Zine Al-Abdine Ben Ali.
Alliot-Marie holidayed in Tunisia in December during anti-government protests.
She flew there on a private jet belonging to Aziz Miled, a Ben Ali associate.
Her office admitted she spoke with Ben Ali during her stay, contradicting her earlier account that her visit was a purely personal affair.
Le Canard Enchaine newspaper also reported on Wednesday that her parents bought a stake in a property company from Aziz Miled.
Alliot-Marie has refused to resign and has attacked the French media for dragging her parents into the matter.
Mexico’s Calderon enters diplomatic spat with France
Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon has told France to respect his country’s legal system.
Earlier this month, Mexican judges upheld the conviction of Florence Cassez, a French woman sentenced to 60 years in jail for kidnapping.
Despite pressure from Paris, Calderon expressed confidence in the ruling.
‘‘We’re talking about a kidnapper, a woman who was part of a very dangerous criminal gang that was devoted to kidnapping Mexicans, that mutilated their fingers, that threatened their relatives. Besides, the victims themselves recognise the woman. They recognise her; they recognise her voice,’‘ Calderon declared.
Arrested in 2005, Cassez, now 36 years-old, was convicted for her part in three kidnappings.
Despite Mexico insisting her guilt has been proven, the French government says the case has serious flaws. President Sarkozy has demanded Cassez be allowed to serve her sentence in France and warned the decision to keep her jailed in Mexico could weigh on bilateral relations.
On Monday, the Mexican government suspended its participation in France’s year-long festival celebrating Mexican culture because of the diplomatic row.
News seolopleuhe
