The Local

The European Union has committed to resettling nearly 61,000 refugees in some of its member countries over the next two years. Around 20 percent of world's refugees have been welcomed by the bloc over the last three years. , ...ادامه مطلب

Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti. Photo: AFP Up to 10,000 people stranded in refugee camps and detention centres in Libya could be relocated to Europe in 2018, the Italian govement said on Sunday. The initiative would be part of an attempt by EU countries to address the deteriorating conditions in Libya, where thousands of people are held captive in inhumane conditions.  "In 2018, up to 10,000 refugees will be able to come to Europe without risk, through humanitarian corridors," Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti said in an interview with the newspaper La Repubblica. The announcement comes after a group of 162 "vulnerable" people, from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen, were evacuated from Libya and arrived by military plane in Rome on Friday. The group included single mothers, unaccompanied children and handicapped people, and was the first time refugees and migrants had been relocated directly to Europe by the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR). About 400,000 migrants are in Libya, including roughly 36,000 children, the UN children's agency UNICEF and the Inteational Organization for Migration (IOM) said earlier this month. &, ...ادامه مطلب

Italy Interior Minister Marco Minniti. Photo: AFP A group of 162 "vulnerable" refugees were flown directly from Libya to Italy on Friday for the first time, a day hailed as "historic" by Interior Minister Marco Minniti. "For the first time a humanitarian corridor has been opened from Libya to Europe. It's a start," Minniti said, adding: "Today is a historic day."  Those evacuated came from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen. They comprised families, single mothers, unaccompanied children and handicapped people, who were flown on a military jet. Vincent Cochetel, the UNHCR's special envoy for the central Mediterranean, said: "For the first time, we have been able to evacuate extremely vulnerable refugees from Libya directly to Italy. Many of those evacuated spoke of great suffering and were kept prisoners by traffickers in inhuman conditions."  Libya has long been a transit hub for migrants seeking a better life in Europe, but people smugglers have stepped up their lucrative business in the chaos since the 2011 revolution. Libyan authorities have come under fire over migrant abuses since the airing last month of CNN footage of a slave mar, ...ادامه مطلب

Pope Francis arrived in Bangladesh from Myanmar on Thursday for the second stage of a visit that has been overshadowed by the plight of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees. PHOTO: MUNIR UZ ZAMA Pope Francis on Saturday said he wept hearing the plight first-hand of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, adding that this meeting was a condition set for his trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh. The Rohingya meeting was a highly symbolic gesture of solidarity with the Muslim minority fleeing violence in Myanmar, and the pontiff told joualists on his plane flying back to Rome that the refugees cried as well.   "I knew that I was going to meet the Rohingyas but I did , ...ادامه مطلب

Rohingya refugees near Bangladesh's border with Myanmar. Photo: Fred Dufour/AFP Pope Francis will meet Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar in Dhaka when he visits the Bangladeshi capital next week, a Vatican spokesman said on Wednesday. , ...ادامه مطلب

Junventus' chairman Andrea Agnelli pictured last year. Photo: Marco Bertorello/AFP Juventus president Andrea Agnelli has been banned for a year for his role in the sale of tickets to fan groups, the Italian Football Federation said on Monday. Agnelli was also fined 20,000 euros ($23,770) while champions Juventus copped a fine of 300,000 euros ($356,000).Agnelli was accused of helping sell, ...ادامه مطلب

John Keats, by William Hilton/National Portrait Gallery. In Rome, the Keats-Shelley house where the British Romantic poets once lived hosted an art workshop for refugees, artists, and volunteers, to discuss what it means to leave one country for another. They discovered surprising parallels between Keats' jouey and their own, writes Dr Amanda Frances Johnson. The great sensualist Roman, ...ادامه مطلب

Ai Weiwei, pictured here in 2016. Photo: Patrick Kovarik/AFPAn impatient toddler chides his mother for not being quick enough in getting him into his pair of newly-acquired boots. Finally they're on and he wriggles free to put the new footwear to good use: kicking his siblings and friends on the shins. He might be a refugee, detained in a transit camp with the rest of his family, waiting to hear w, ...ادامه مطلب

Italy is set to issue new guidelines on refugee evictions after the UN criticised the ousting of hundreds of people from a Rome building last week, local media reported Saturday. The unexpected eviction -- carried out when Rome is virtually deserted at the height of the holiday season -- was seen by commenters as a sign of hardening attitudes in Italy towards asylum seekers. On the moing of Augu, ...ادامه مطلب

Pope Francis. File photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFPA Belgian Catholic charity said Thursday it has been waed by Pope Francis to stop offering euthanasia in its psychiatric hospitals by the end of the month or face expulsion. The board of directors of the Brothers of Charity group, which runs 15 hospital, ...ادامه مطلب

Project Director Rebecca Benefiel uses an iPad to take a photograph of a drawing in Herculaneum. Photo: Ancient Graffiti ProjectNo site in the world has been continually excavated for so long as Pompeii, the city that lay buried after being destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted, until its accidental, ...ادامه مطلب

Smoke rises from the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. Photo: Eliano Imperato/AFPItalian mafia expert and writer Roberto Saviano on Wednesday evening blamed "criminal organizations" for the huge fire which has spread over the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, as the Italian army were deployed to tackle the blaze. S, ...ادامه مطلب

Accommodation rental site Airbnb on Wednesday launched a project in Milan allowing residents to offer their spare rooms or apartments to refugees. The Open Homes Refugees initiative, set up in collaboration with Refugees Welcome Italy and Catholic organization the Community of Sant'Egidio, allows Mi, ...ادامه مطلب

File photo of migrants being helped aboard a rescue vessel. Photo: AFP Photo/Yara Nardi/Italian Red CrossPrivately-run aid organizations rescuing migrants off Libya have slammed the idea of creating a "code of conduct" for them to follow, saying European ministers tackling the crisis are bungling th, ...ادامه مطلب

Memorial to early 1990s war in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Clay Gilliland, CC BY-SAWith peak season approaching for refugees making treacherous joueys to and through Europe, don’t be surprised if we are told again that this is unprecedented. In fact, Europe has coped with comparable situations – not leas, ...ادامه مطلب