International
17 migrants found dead on Libya beach: coast guard

AFP
The bodies of 17 migrants have been found washed up on a Libyan beach after their boat capsized during a bid to reach Europe by sea, the coast guard said on Wednesday.
Libya is a major departure point for desperate migrants, tens of thousands of whom board unseaworthy boats every year in attempts to reach Italian shores 300 kilometres (190 miles) away.
The voyages often turn deadly.
“Over the past 24 hours, the bodies of 17 migrants were found on the coast between the cities of Zawiya and Sorman, by Red Crescent teams,” a coast guard official told AFP.
The victims drowned after their boat overturned, he said.
The Red Crescent in Zawiya, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the capital Tripoli, published images of corpses covered in shrouds.
The number of migrants who have died at sea trying to reach Europe more than doubled this year compared to the same period in 2020, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in mid-July.
In September, the IOM counted 1,369 migrants who had drowned in the Mediterranean since the beginning of the year.
The latest deaths come days after a “security campaign” by Libyan authorities in the suburbs of Tripoli, mostly targeting illegal migrants.
“The numbers of migrants and refugees held in detention centres in Tripoli, Libya, have risen dramatically –- to more than threefold — over the past five days,” the aid group Doctors without Borders (MSF) said on Wednesday.
“The arrests and treatment during detention have often been violent, with multiple people beaten, injured and even killed.”
It said “at least 5,000 migrants and refugees (had) been rounded up across Tripoli,” including women and children, with many reporting violence.
The United Nations’ Libya mission UNSMIL said at least one person had been killed and 15 wounded.
Rights groups regularly warn of dire conditions for migrants at detention centres in the country, where human traffickers have profited from a decade of violence following the 2011 fall of dictator Moamer Kadhafi to carve out lucrative but brutal businesses.
International
Trump urges Putin to reach peace deal

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his desire for Russian President Vladimir Putin to “reach a deal” to end the war in Ukraine, while also reaffirming his willingness to impose sanctions on Russia.
“I want to see him reach an agreement to prevent Russian, Ukrainian, and other people from dying,” Trump stated during a press conference in the Oval Office at the White House.
“I think he will. I don’t want to have to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil,” the Republican leader added, recalling that he had already taken similar measures against Venezuela by sanctioning buyers of the South American country’s crude oil.
Trump also reiterated his frustration over Ukraine’s resistance to an agreement that would allow the United States to exploit natural resources in the country—a condition he set in negotiations to end the war.
International
Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links

A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.
Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.
However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.
International
Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”

The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.
“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.
The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.
His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”
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