Mcthomas updates

Italian artist Jorit Agoch paints a mural depicting jailed Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi on Israel's controversial separation barrier in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on July 25,2018 Israeli forces have arrested two Italians for drawing a giant mural of a Palestinian teenager seen as a symbol of resistance on the separation wall in the occupied West Bank, police said. The roughly four-metre (13 foot) image near Bethlehem in the West Bank depicts Ahed Tamimi, 17, who was released from prison Sunday after an eight-month sentence for slapping two Israeli soldiers, an episode captured on video. On Saturday, Israeli border police arrested two Italians and a Palestinian "on suspicion of damaging and vandalising the security fence in the Bethlehem area," a statement said. The three, whose faces were masked, "illegally drew on the wall, and when border policemen took action to arrest them, they tried to escape in their car, which was stopped by the forces," the st

        Around 800 migrants stormed border fences separating Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco to get into Europe, police said Thursday. The Guardia Civil said 602 migrants made it onto Spanish soil in a massive assault on high, barbed-wire fences shortly after dawn. Migrants cut holes in the fences and threw feces and quicklime, a skin irritant, at police officers trying to hold them back, the Guardia Civil said in a statement. They also threw stones at police vehicles, breaking windows, and hurled makeshift flamethrowers at police officers.                       The police statement said 16 migrants were taken to the hospital, while five of 15 police hurt were also hospitalized. The Spanish Red Cross said in a tweet that 132 migrants were hurt in the mass charge. Sub-Saharan Africans living illegally in Morocco try to get to Europe each year by climbing rows of 6-meter (20-feet) high fences surrounding Ceuta and Melilla, Spain’s other North Afr

        The vote for Pakistan's lower house of parliament, National Assembly, marks only the second time in the country's history since 1947 that a civilian government is handing over power to another government.

         Migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were rescued Spanish rescue services have rescued nearly 500 people from the Mediterranean Sea in a single day as they attempted to reach the country's coast. The Spanish Maritime Safety Agency said that it had picked up a total of 484 people in 30 makeshift vessels in the Strait of Gibraltar and Alboran Sea, which separate Spain from Morocco. According to a count by the International Organisation for Migration, some 18,653 migrants reached Spanish shores between the beginning of the year and 18 July. They are mainly from sub-Saharan Africa - notably Guinea, Mali, and Mauritania - as well as Morocco. At least 294 migrants have died in their attempts to reach Spain this year, out of a total of 1,489 who died in the Mediterranean, according to IOM. In June, Spain agreed to take in 630 migrants who arrived aboard three vessels, including the French NGO rescue ship Aquarius. The Aquarius rescued the migrants off Libya's coa

© AFP | Late on Thursday, an Italian coastguard vessel carrying 67 migrants was allowed to dock in Sicily Another 450 migrants on board two military vessels were stranded at sea on Saturday as Italy and Malta locked horns over whose responsibility it was to offer them safe harbour. The boats, which are currently in Italian waters, had initially set sail from Libya in a single wooden vessel which was identified early Friday while passing through waters under Malta's jurisdiction. But Italy's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who has authority over the country's ports, on Friday refused to let them dock in his latest show of intransigence over migrants stranded at sea. And on Saturday, as those on board were transferred to two other vessels, he insisted the boats be instructed to "head south, to Libya or Malta". "We need an act of justice, of respect and of courage to fight against these human traffickers and generate a European intervention," he