World

Italy’s coast guard, navy, bring hundreds of migrants ashore

Published

3 years ago

March 12, 2023

Italian coast guard and navy vessels on Saturday ferried hundreds of rescued migrants toward shore, while elsewhere in the Mediterranean Sea thousands of migrants overflowed from a shelter on a tiny tourist island.

The influx of sea arrivals came in the face of a crackdown by Italy’s right-wing government on people smugglers announced only two days earlier, Associated Press reported.

The coast guard said in a statement that overcrowding on two vessels and adverse sea and weather conditions had complicated rescue operations that began Friday in the Ionian Sea off Calabria.

A 94-meter-long coast guard vessel took 584 migrants aboard, while two smaller coast guard motorboats took on 379 and then transferred them to an Italian naval vessel, which was headed to Augusta, a port in eastern Sicily, as migrant shelters in Calabria quickly filled up.

Separately, a boat carrying 487 people, intercepted by Italian vessels some 112 kilometers off Crotone in Calabria on Friday, was aided by two coast guard motorboats and a border police boat. The migrants disembarked in Crotone’s port before dawn on Saturday.

A beach in Cutro, a town south of Crotone, is where survivors and bodies were found on Feb. 26 after a wooden boat, crowded with migrants who had set out from Turkey days earlier, broke apart on a sandbank.

The known death toll from the shipwreck climbed to 76 on Saturday after the bodies of two children and an adult were recovered, Italian news agency ANSA reported. Eighty passengers survived, but others were reported missing and presumed dead.

Italian prosecutors are investigating whether authorities should have swiftly launched a rescue operation after a patrol plane operated by Frontex, the European Union’s border protection agency, spotted the wooden boat, hours before it broke apart dozens of meters from the beach.

Some 5,000 people, walking behind a bearer of a cross fashioned from the boat’s wreckage, joined a procession to the beach in Cutro on Saturday, demanding increased efforts to save migrants at sea.

The U.N. migration agency estimates that some 300 people have died this year, or were missing and presumed dead, after attempting to cross the perilous central Mediterranean route.

The Turkish coast guard reported Saturday that its personnel rescued 11 migrants off the coast of Turkey’s Aydin province after their rubber dinghy burst and started to take water. The bodies of five people were recovered, while a search for other possible survivors and victims continued, the coast guard said in a statement.

Meanwhile, on Italy’s tiny Lampedusa island, an Italian fishing and tourist location south of Sicily, some 3,000 newly arrived migrants overflowed from a shelter meant to hold less than 350. Hundreds of migrants spent the night sleeping on mattresses on the fenced-off grounds of the shelter.

Plans to ease some of the overcrowding on Lampedusa by transferring hundreds of migrants aboard a ferry were complicated by high winds whipping the island, making it impossible for the ship to dock on Saturday morning. Italian media reported that some 140 migrants were then transferred from the island by air.

Authorities on Lampedusa said many of the migrants arriving on the island, which is closer to northern Africa than to the Italian mainland, had sailed from the port of Sfax, in Tunisia, a route increasingly used by smugglers, AP reported.

Related Topics:featured Italy Migration Refugees

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World

Israel built and defended a secret base in Iraq for Iran war, WSJ reports

Published

2 days ago

May 10, 2026

Ariana News

Israel established a covert military installation in the Iraqi desert to support its air operations against Iran, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal, citing individuals familiar with the matter, including U.S. officials.

The report said the facility was used as a logistical hub for the Israeli Air Force and also housed special forces, as well as search-and-rescue units prepared to assist any downed pilots during operations.

According to the newspaper, the base was built with the knowledge of the United States shortly before the onset of what it described as a joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran.

The report added that Israeli forces conducted airstrikes against Iraqi troops on at least one occasion after they allegedly came close to discovering the site, in order to prevent exposure of the facility.

The existence of the installation reportedly came under threat in early March, when Iraqi state media said a shepherd had alerted authorities to unusual military activity in the area, including helicopter movements. Iraqi forces were subsequently dispatched to investigate.

The Wall Street Journal further reported that Iraqi troops were struck by Israeli air operations while approaching the area, based on accounts from sources familiar with the incident.

Later in March, Iraq submitted a complaint to the United Nations alleging that foreign forces were involved in attacks in the area and initially attributed responsibility to the United States. However, the report cited a source familiar with the matter as saying the U.S. was not involved.

World

Trump releases government UFO files, more expected

Published

3 days ago

May 9, 2026

Ariana News

At the order of U.S. President Donald Trump, the Defense Department on Friday released dozens of previously classified files on alleged UFO sightings to provide what ‌it called “unprecedented transparency” to the American people, though analysts said many of the documents had already been made public.

The disclosure of documents, photos and videos of “unidentified anomalous phenomena” will be followed by future releases as more materials are declassified, the Defense Department said in a statement, Reuters reported.

Trump was the latest president to release U.S. government reports on UFOs, a disclosure process that began in the late 1970s. Experts said the batch of around 160 files released on Friday contained new videos of known sightings but gave no conclusive evidence of alien technology or extraterrestrial life.

The files include a 1947 report of “flying discs” as well as grainy photos of “unidentified phenomena” taken from the moon’s surface by the 1969 Apollo 12 lunar mission and a transcript of the Apollo 17 crew describing unidentified objects seen from the moon in 1972.

‘BRIGHT PARTICLES’ DURING APOLLO 17

Apollo 17 mission pilot Ronald Evans reported “a few very bright particles or fragments or something that go drifting by as we maneuver,” based on the transcript.

“Roger. Understand,” mission control replied.

“These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled justified speculation – and it’s time the American people see it for themselves,” Hegseth said in a statement.

The records release is likely to fuel fresh debate over government secrecy and the possible existence of life in the cosmos.

“Whereas previous Administrations have failed to be transparent on this subject, with these new Documents and Videos, the people can decide for themselves, “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?” Trump said in a statement. “Have fun and enjoy!”

The move was welcomed by U.S. Representatives Tim Burchett and ‌Anna Paulina ⁠Luna, both proponents of declassifying UFO files. Luna said an additional tranche of material was expected in about 30 days.

“The files show that UAP are not simply a matter of speculation or public curiosity,” Harvard University astrophysicist Avi Loeb said in an email to Reuters. “The government has collected records.”

The images from Apollo 12 and 17 were fascinating but could be the result of asteroid impacts on the lunar surface, Loeb said.

DISTRACTION FROM POLITICAL PROBLEMS?

Some critics cast the UFO disclosures as a distraction from Trump’s political woes, including ⁠the unpopular U.S. military campaign against Iran and public pressure to release further files tied to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“I really don’t care about the UFO files. I just don’t. I’m so sick of the ‘look at the shiny object’ propaganda,” former Republican U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X.

UAP investigator Mick West said the administration of former President ⁠Joe Biden disclosed much of the same information as Friday’s release.

“They’re evidence of us not being able to identify a small white dot that’s a long distance away,” the Sacramento, California-based analyst said of the new UAP videos and images.

Independent journalist Leslie Kean said the release showed there was still a lot ⁠of government information on UAP that should be disclosed. Kean co-authored a 2017 New York Times story on a secret Pentagon UAP program, which prompted Congress to push for declassification of UFO documents.

“I think we’ve already proven the existence of UAP, but that doesn’t mean we’ve proven they’re alien or extraterrestrial or that we know what they are,” said Kean.

World

Trump says United States will get uranium from Iran

One of Trump’s central objectives in launching ‌military ⁠strikes against Iran was to ensure Tehran does not develop a nuclear weapon.

Published

5 days ago

May 7, 2026

Ariana News

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the United States ‌would get enriched uranium from Iran, as the two countries struggle to reach an agreement on ⁠ending the Gulf war, Reuters reported.

“We’re going to get it,” Trump told a reporter as he left a White House event.

One of Trump’s central objectives in launching ‌military ⁠strikes against Iran was to ensure Tehran does not develop a nuclear weapon. Iran ⁠has yet to hand over more than 900 pounds (408 kg) ⁠of highly enriched uranium.