World
France, Germany join forces against migration from Tunisia in wake of latest Mediterranean tragedy
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Ministers from Germany and France tasked with regulating migration are joining forces to try to curb deaths on dangerous routes across the Mediterranean Sea, traveling Sunday for talks with the president and their counterpart in Tunisia, a major North African stepping stone for migrants trying to reach Europe at risk of their lives.
The two-day trip by the German and French interior ministers, Nancy Faeser and Gérald Darmanin, follows what is feared to be the deadliest migrant shipwreck in years in the Mediterranean — the capsizing last week of a fishing vessel packed with men, women and children trying to reach Italy from Libya, Tunisia’s neighbor.
More than 500 migrants are presumed to have drowned in the sinking Wednesday off the southern coast of Greece that renewed criticism of Europe’s yearslong failure to prevent migration tragedies.
The U.N. migration agency said it could be the second-deadliest migrant shipwreck recorded — after the April 2015 capsizing of another vessel on the Libya-Italy route that killed an estimated 1,100 people.
A statement from the German minister’s office about her trip with Darmanin said: “We want to create legal migration routes in order to remove the basis for the inhumane business of smugglers. We want the human rights of refugees to be protected and the terrible deaths on the Mediterranean to stop.”
With migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, undertaking perilous sea crossings from Tunisia in unprecedented numbers, European authorities are seeking reinforced action from the government of Tunisia’s increasingly autocratic president, Kais Saied.
In the first three months of this year, Tunisian authorities intercepted 13,000 people on boats off Tunisia’s eastern port city of Sfax, a main route to Europe for sub-Saharan Africans, who don’t need visas to travel to Tunisia.
As well as working to reduce migrant flows from Tunisia, European authorities are also offering aid to stabilize the North African country, which is in the midst of its deepest economic crisis in a generation. European leaders visiting Tunisia earlier this month held out the promise of more than 1 billion euros in financial aid — including 100 million euros earmarked this year for Tunisian border management and search-and-rescue and anti-smuggling operations.
The German minister’s statement said discussions would focus on “important current migration and security issues,” including promoting legal migration channels, reducing irregular migration and people smuggling, strengthening sea rescue operations and promoting the voluntary return of migrants not entitled to stay in the European Union.
Darmanin, the French minister, did not detail his objectives for the trip to Tunisia in advance. But his ministry confirmed planned meetings on Monday for Darmanin and Faeser with their Tunisian counterpart and with Saied. As well as migration issues and hoped-for strengthened efforts against people smugglers, the French minister also wants to discuss security issues following an attack on a Tunisian island during an annual Jewish pilgrimage in May.
In the attack on Djerba, a Tunisian naval guard shot and killed a colleague and two civilians — one of them French — as he tried to reach the 2,500-year-old Ghriba temple, one of Africa’s oldest synagogues. Security guards killed the attacker. Ten people were injured.
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John Leicester in Le Pecq, France, and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed.
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Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
World
US military conducts successful airstrikes on Houthi rebel forces in Yemen
The U.S. military confirmed it conducted airstrikes in Yemen, saying it targeted a missile storage site and a command-and-control center operated by Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the successful strikes in a release Saturday, saying they were meant to “disrupt and degrade” Houthi operations.
“CENTCOM forces conducted the deliberate strikes to disrupt and degrade Houthi operations, such as attacks against U.S. Navy warships and merchant vessels in the Southern Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb and Gulf of Aden,” CENTCOM said in a news release.
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Footage from CENTCOM showed F/A-18’s taking off. The agency said it also used assets from the Navy and the Air Force.
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“The strike reflects CENTCOM’s ongoing commitment to protect U.S. and coalition personnel, regional partners and international shipping,” it said.
The attacks against shipping are ongoing, and Houthi militants have vowed to continue until Israel ends its campaign in Gaza.
The terrorist group has targeted more than 100 merchant vessels since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023.
World
Fact check: How deadly was 2024 for journalists?
An estimated 104 journalists lost their lives in 2024, with Palestine the most dangerous territory.
An estimated 104 journalists were killed worldwide over the past year, according to data shared earlier this month by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
Another report by NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) puts the figure at 54, but its methodology means it only includes killings that are considered “directly related” to journalists’ professional activity.
Both organisations say that Palestine is the deadliest place on earth for journalists. More than half (55) of the 104 killings reported by IFJ were Palestinian media professionals in Gaza, while a further six were killed in Lebanon.
At least 138 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out on 7 October 2023, making the country one of the “most dangerous in the history of modern journalism, behind Iraq, the Philippines and Mexico,” according to the IFJ.
Reporters without Borders has described the number of killings in Gaza as “an unprecedented bloodbath”.
Israel firmly denies it has intentionally targeted any journalists, but has recognised some that have been killed in its airstrikes on Gaza.
The 104 total killings reported by the IFJ is a slight decrease on the 129 they reported on in 2023, which is considered the bloodiest year for journalists since 1990.
How do other world regions fare?
Asia Pacific is the world’s second most dangerous region for journalists, after the Middle East, according to the IFJ.
It recorded 20 deaths in the region in 2024, of which 70% happened in the southern Asian countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India.
The region has seen an “upsurge” in violence, according to the IFJ, with deaths increasing sharply from the 12 recorded in 2023.
Africa was the third most dangerous region for journalists at eight deaths, five of them in war-torn Sudan.
The number of journalists killed in south, central and north America has dropped sharply over the past two years, from 30 in 2022 to six in 2023, and another six in 2024. Mexico, considered to be one of the deadliest places in the world to do journalism, continues to see “threats, intimidation, kidnappings and murders” against journalists, particularly due to reporting on drug trafficking.
Number of journalists behind bars on the rise
According to IFJ estimates on 10 December, there were 520 journalists in prison across the world, considerably more than in 2023 (427) and 2022 (375).
China, including Hong Kong, accounts for most of journalists behind bars, followed by Israel and Myanmar.
The IFJ says the figures show how “fragile” the independent press is and how “risky and dangerous” the profession of journalism has become.
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