LONDON: Three BBC journalists and a Swedish reporter were abducted in Libya and later released following diplomatic pressure from the British organization and the two governments, media reported on Monday. The reporters were kidnapped and interrogated in a torture cell for five days by intelligence agents shortly after their arrival in Libya in March. The BBC journalists — who remain unnamed — together with Kassem Hamade, a Swedish national working for the news outlet Expressen, arrived in Libya to make a documentary about Imam Musa Al-Sadr, who disappeared in 1978. A BBC spokesperson said: “A small team working for the BBC entered Libya in March of this year with full permission to gather material for a story. Libya has always denied any involvement in his disappearance, but authorities believe he was kidnapped and executed.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday directed Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah to “formulate recommendations related to the necessary legislation to prevent human trafficking”. The incident prompted outrage, a period of national mourning and a government move to crack down on human smugglers. Chairing a meeting in Islamabad regarding human smuggling and the Greece boat tragedy today, the premier directed the interior minister to supervise the investigation process and ordered that those responsible for human trafficking be brought to justice at the earliest. It further said that Shehbaz ordered the investigation committee to submit the report at the earliest while also directing the Gujranwala commissioner to identify the agents involved in human trafficking. The FIA also stated that its Lahore zone had arrested 16 suspects so far and 37 cases had been registered against human smugglers in Lahore, Gujranwala and Gujrat.

WASHINGTON – Hunter Biden isn’t the first relative of a president to find himself the subject of unwanted attention, but his agreement Tuesday to resolve criminal charges placed him among the more serious targets of investigations aimed at relatives of presidents. Biden also agreed to enter a pretrial diversion program for a charge of unlawfully possessing a firearm in 2018. The White House said the president hadn’t spoken to him for 20 years. After leaving the White House, Kushner’s investment firm Affinity Partners secured a $2 billion investment from the government of Saudi Arabia. Kushner’s company denied links between the New York real estate deal and the White House.

“Today, Tuesday, June 20, 2023, illegal immigrants of Nigerian nationality are being deported. The deportation was supervised by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), as part of an ongoing joint program with the Libyan government to deport illegal migrants. Libya is a major starting point for migrants who wish to cross the Mediterranean to Europe in search of a better life. "About 165 illegal immigrants were deported today, in coordination with their embassy. There will be another flight next week to deport other Nigerian immigrants.

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CAIRO: Nine Egyptians suspected of being people smugglers connected with the deadly sinking of an overloaded migrant boat off Greece have been charged with human trafficking and remanded, a Greek legal source said on Tuesday. The men denied the charges during a hearing before a magistrate in Kalamata that lasted more than 10 hours on Tuesday, the legal source added. Officials say the migrants aboard the boat which capsized in the Ionian Sea last week had departed from Libya towards Italy. A Greek navy frigate, a patrol boat and four other vessels on Tuesday searched the waters off the Peloponnese peninsula where the migrants disappeared. But the hopes of finding any survivors are scant a week on from the disaster.

“He left his country looking for a better life in Europe because of economic difficulties,” lawyer Athanasios Iliopoulos said. The boat is thought to have set off with passengers from the Libyan coastal city of Tobruk on 10 June. Authorities said the vessel repeatedly refused Greek help, saying it wanted to go to Italy. The group said it alerted Greek authorities and aid agencies hours before the disaster unfolded. Greek authorities also denied reports the vessel was stationary for hours, saying that it had sailed a distance of about 30 nautical miles from its detection to its sinking.

165 female immigrants deported from Libya to NigeriaThe Libyan Illegal Immigration Control Department has deported 165 female illegal immigrants to their home country of Nigeria. Tripoli: The Libyan Illegal Immigration Control Department has deported 165 female illegal immigrants to their home country of Nigeria. The International Organisation for Migration has said that a total of 7,477 illegal immigrants have been rescued and returned to Libya so far this year, Xinhua news agency reported. Due to the insecurity and chaos in the country since the fall of late leader Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, many immigrants, mostly Africans, choose to cross the Mediterranean Sea to European shores via Libya. Like this: Like Loading...

Counter-terrorism experts say Africa is the world's terrorism hot spot with half of 2022's victimsCounter-terrorism experts say Africa is now the world’s terrorism hot spot, with half of the victims killed last year in sub-Saharan Africa

The testimonies also echoed previous accounts that the steel-hulled trawler sank in calm seas during a botched attempt to tow it. “The Greek ship cast a rope and it was tied to our bows,” survivor Abdul Rahman Alhaz said in his sworn testimony. Being in the hold, he had no first-hand account of why the ship sank and said there were no women and children in his section below decks. By the time the ship sank, they had been at sea for five days. “In the pulling, (the trawler) sank,” he said.

The EU Border Assistance Mission in Libya (EUBAM) announced today that it is hosting a 3-day workshop in Counter Terrorism with members of the Libyan Counter-Terrorism Cell (CT) and international observers. EUBAM said it has previously been engaged in this topic and will further improve information exchange and trust between all the actors. “The overall impact of the project will be to contribute to improving effectiveness and efficiency in combatting terrorism”, stated the unnamed EUBAM Libya project manager. “This workshop is a new milestone in the Mission’s support to the Libyan Centre for Counter Terrorism. Together with other EU agencies and Commission tools, we offer solutions to further build up the CT fusion cell while taking the Libyan specifications into consideration”, concluded Jérôme Buaillon, head of EUBAM Libya operations.

Libya’s private sector Tadawul Financial Group (TFG) launched its first entrepreneurship incubator, branded the “Innovation Garden”. The project comes within the Libya Startup project funded by the European Union and with the participation of the French NGO Supernovae and the Dutch NGO Spark. Speaking exclusively to Libya Herald, TFG Innovation Garden Project Director, Najlaa Al-Masallati, said the project involves supporting Libyan entrepreneurs with creative ideas and entrepreneurial projects through training workshops and linking them with investors and project development experts. It aims to provide ideas for developing emerging entrepreneurship, providing alternatives to employment in the public sector, and developing the spirit of entrepreneurship among Libyan youth. Today we have 4 projects out of 26 projects, and 4 various projects were chosen as a start for the official opening of the incubator.

UN envoy Abdoulaye Bathily said Monday that a deal between Libyan rival camps over long-delayed elections contained “politically contested issues” that could spark a new crisis in the divided country. The main stumbling block he identified was “the eligibility criteria for candidates for the presidential election”. “Short of this, related provisions in the laws would surely remain unimplementable and might even trigger a new crisis,” he added. He urged Libyan decision-makers to act “in a spirit of compromise” and strike a political agreement to ensure “buy-in and inclusion of all major stakeholders”. Haftar also holds US citizenship, and his detractors accuse him of seeking to restore military dictatorship in Libya.

More than two months after the outbreak of the fighting, the United Nations fears that the scale of the crisis will spread outside the country, threatening the stability of neighboring African countries. Without strong additional support, Sudan could quickly become a place of lawlessness and spreading insecurity across the region. “Before this conflict broke out, Sudan was already experiencing a humanitarian crisis,” Guterres said. Germany doubled its contribution to 200 million euros ($218 million), while the European Union pledged 190 million euros in humanitarian and development aid. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said that the conflict threatens a humanitarian crisis that may cross borders.

Libyan boxer Mohammed Ali Ahmed Elmushraty’s request for bail was rejected by the court on Tuesday. In decrees handed down late in the afternoon, the court rejected Elmushraty’s bail request and decreed that it had seen sufficient prima facie evidence to merit Elmushraty’s indictment. The testimony heard so far indicates there was a case for him to answer, ruled the court. Proceedings on bail came unstuck over the course of three hours, with incrementally strident submissions culminating in Elmushraty’s lawyer suggesting that the magistrate was discriminating against his client. Bail submissionsThe defence provided an address where Elmushraty would reside if granted bail and pointed out that he had returned from abroad of his own free will.