Amnesty News

Thousands of mourners and protesters marched in the Lebanese capital on Friday to remember those killed in a huge port blast three years ago, as religious leaders and rights groups decried the lack of accountability amid a stalled investigation.The explosion killed at least 220 people and wounded thousands when hundreds of tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse detonated just after 6 p.m. (1600 GMT) on Aug. 4, 2020, sending a huge cloud over the city.Despite the devastation…

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on Thursday called for a "credible" probe into a migrant shipwreck off Greece in June in which hundreds died, saying that contrasting accounts by the Greek coastguard and survivors "were extremely concerning".The overcrowded fishing trawler said to be carrying between 400-750 people from Pakistan, Syria and Egypt sank in international waters off Greece on its way to Italy from Libya. Some 104 men survived and authorities recovered only…

“Until every employee, and every midshipman, and cadet, and every trainee trusts the system and until all allegations are handled properly, abuse will continue to occur, it will continue to go unreported, and people will continue to suffer alone—and that is simply intolerable,” said Lucinda Lessley, Acting Maritime Administrator, presenting at the Connecticut Maritime Association Shipping Expo and Conference, in February.On March 30, the Maritime Administration (MARAD) released…

The Biden administration recently issued a sweeping Executive Order [1] aimed at protecting and enhancing competition, and the transportation sector—including air, ocean, and rail—is among the industries specifically identified and likely to see heightened antitrust scrutiny under the new directives. This executive action was soon followed by the long-awaited announcement of Biden’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (Division), Jonathan Kanter, who…

Indonesia will allow a boat packed with Rohingya which had become stranded off its coast to dock in the Southeast Asian country, its security ministry said on Wednesday, after calls from aid organizations to allow the vessel to seek refuge.Local officials in Aceh, a province on the western island of Sumatra said on Tuesday that they would provide the roughly 120 passengers on board with food, medicine and water, but would not allow them to seek refuge in Indonesia, despite international pleas to do so."Today…

Students from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) are set to resume at sea training with new safety measures in place following a temporary pause due to sexual assault and harassment concerns. The U.S. federal maritime academy’s Sea Year training program, which typically consists of a sailing period during a cadet’s sophomore year and a longer sailing period during a cadet’s junior year, was put on hold in early November as lawmakers and the U.S. Department of Transportation…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will use a visit to Turkey this weekend to try to soothe tensions over a deal meant to stem the flow of migrants to Europe as questions about its effectiveness and long-term viability mount. The pact, which came into force almost three weeks ago, aims to help end the chaotic arrival of migrants and refugees on the Greek islands, many fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa. More than one million reached Europe last year. The deal initially slowed the numbers of new arrivals to Greece sharply, but boats have been coming again with about 150 people a day, indicating the "hermetic sealing" of the route appears to be over, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

Three passenger boats return migrants from Lesbos, Chios; desperate migrants continue to cross despite deal. The first migrants deported from Greek islands under a disputed EU-Turkey deal were shipped back to Turkey on Monday in a drive to shut down the main route by which a million people fleeing war and poverty crossed the Aegean Sea in the last year. Under the pact criticised by refugee agencies and human rights campaigners, Ankara will take back all migrants and refugees who enter Greece illegally, including Syrians. In return, the European Union will take in thousands of Syrian refugees directly from Turkey and reward it with more money, early visa-free travel and progress in its EU membership negotiations.

Nigerian authorities hope to put an end to rampant oil theft in eight months by increasing drone and naval monitoring of territorial waters and working with local communities, the state oil company chief said on Tuesday. The Niger delta has been plagued by oil theft for years that has left the region heavily polluted and prompted foreign oil companies, particularly Shell, to sell onshore assets. "We must eradicate oil theft in eight months ... Most of our product pipelines are ruptured and attacked frequently," Emmauel Ibe Kachikwu, head of the National Nigerian Petroleum Corp, said in an emailed statement. The reason for the deadline was not immediately clear.

The Yemen's Red Sea port of Hodeida was seriously damaged and closed after the airstrikes of the Arab Coalition against Houthi, reports Reuters. Warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition hit Yemen's Red Sea port of Hodeidah. The raids destroyed cranes and warehouses in the main entry point for aid supplies to the north of the country. Hodeida, controlled by Iranian-allied Houthi forces, has become a focal point of efforts to resupply the impoverished Arab state, battered by five months of war that has killed over 4,300 people. The port is main import hub for aid supplies to the country’s north, but most of the warehouses with humanitarian aid delivered by the United Nations were also completely damaged and burning.

The European Union seeks U.N. authorization to deploy military force in the Mediterranean to stop migrant smugglers. EU foreign policy Chief Federica Mogherini has pleaded for UN help to dismantle criminal groups smuggling migrants into the European Union. According to AFP, Mogherini addressed the UN Security Council as it prepares to endorse a controversial European Union plan aimed at stemming a record tide of refugees making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean. She said her first priority is to save lives and prevent further loss of lives at sea. "No one is thinking of bombing,” Federica Mogherini said briskly to the UN Security Council on Monday, after concerns were expressed by some members that migrants might be harmed in an operation to destroy smugglers' boats.

The Italian coastguard has said it had coordinated the rescue of thousands of migrants as they sailed across the Mediterranean on rickety boats, bringing the number of people rescued this weekend to 5,800. The migrants were to be taken to the Italian region of Calabria as well as the islands of Sicily and Lampedusa, it said. The bodies of eight migrants were found on board two of the rescued vessels. Two other people drowned after they jumped into the sea to rush towards the rescue teams, the coastguard said. The Italian Coast Guard said the bodies were found in three separate rescue operations off Libya's coast. The Coast Guard was being aided by a tug and a merchant ship in at least some of the rescue efforts.

With Italian authorities rescuing 8,500 migrants in the Mediterranean over the weekend and reports up to 400 may have died, there can be no doubt that an unprecedented summer surge in migrant sea crossings is already under way, say Italian media. AP reports that the feared drowning of 400 migrants in a shipwreck this week in the Mediterranean Sea — one of the deadliest such tragedies in the last decade — raised alarms Wednesday amid an unprecedented wave of migration toward Europe from Africa and the Middle East. The deaths are believed to have occurred during a shipwreck 24 hours after leaving Libya, which is plagued by violence and civil war, in an attempt to reach Italy.

The European Commission extended its rescue mission off Italy until at least the end of the year, it said on Thursday, and gave Rome extra funding to deal with an influx of migrants from Africa and the Middle East. The Commission launched the mission, dubbed Operation Triton, in November just as Italy wound down a much larger and more costly programme known as Mare Nostrum. Triton, managed by the European Union's border control agency Frontex, was only expected to run for a few months and has fewer ships and a smaller operational area than Mare Nostrum -- drawing criticism from human rights groups. "We are willing to go further," said Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos.

Rights groups warn of risk of more deaths; EU mission Triton will have more limited scope. Italy said on Friday it would close a sea rescue mission that has saved the lives of more than 100,000 migrants from Africa and the Middle East, a move one rights group warned could lead to a "surge of deaths" in the Mediterranean. Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said the Mare Nostrum or "Our Sea" mission would end to make way for a smaller European Union scheme - and to help relieve the strain on Italy's public finances amid a three-year economic slump. "Mare Nostrum is closing down because it was an emergency operation," Alfano told a news conference.

South Korean prosecutors on Monday sought the death penalty for the captain of a ferry that capsized in April, leaving 304 people, most of them school children, dead or missing, in a trial of 15 crew who abandoned ship before it sank. Lee Joon-seok, 68, charged with homicide, should be sentenced to death for failing to carry out his duty, which in effect amounted to homicide, the prosecution told the court before resting its case in a trial that has taken place amid intense public anger. Sentiment turned sharply hostile after evidence surfaced that the mostly teenage passengers waited in their cabins, obediently following orders, as the crew escaped. Lee was among 15 accused of abandoning the sharply listing ferry. Four, including the captain, face homicide charges.

Kidnappers in Nigeria's Niger Delta region released three Dutch nationals held since May 4, Anka Mustapha, a spokesman for Bayelsa state's Joint Task Force, which includes the military and police, told Reuters on Saturday. The kidnapping of expatriates by armed gangs seeking ransom money has been rife in the oil-producing Delta region, although it has tailed off since a 2009 amnesty was signed with militant groups there. Foreign companies have also improved their security. "Yes they have been rescued (released) and handed over to their country's ambassador," Mustapha said. He declined to give further details. Nigeria has Africa's largest population and it has become the biggest economy on the continent, overtaking South Africa.

While global piracy is constantly changing, modern technology adapts to exploit the weaknesses in the pirates’ mode of operation. Intelligence gained from such technologies enables voyage planners and navigators to steer clear of harm – but what kind of information is required? While the image of the Somalian pirate is still high in the public’s mind as the number one piracy threat, the reality is not as straightforward. Pirates have had to change their tactics in the last few years…

The United States on Thursday partially lifted a long-time ban on lethal weapon sales to Vietnam to help it improve maritime security, a historic move that comes nearly 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War. "The State Department has taken steps to allow for the future transfer of maritime security-related defense articles to Vietnam," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a briefing. State Department officials told a separate briefing that sales of any specific weapons would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis as requests came in from Vietnam. They said the focus would be on helping Vietnam patrol and defend itself in the South China Sea, amid growing naval challenges from China, but said weapons sales could potentially include airborne systems as well as ships.

Pirates have launched a spate of attacks in the creeks of Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta region since last Thursday, killing three policemen and abducting at least nine people, security officials said. Most of those kidnapped were local workers in Africa's biggest oil industry, where piracy in the surrounding waterways and seas is on the rise again after a brief lull, bucking a global trend that has seen pirate attacks fall elsewhere. In the most recent attack, gunmen on a boat opened fire on police escorting a barge operated by Italian oil company ENI along the Santa Barbara River, killing three policeman. "Sea pirates attacked and killed three of our men. They were escorting an Agip (ENI) barge when they were attacked.

Pirates have launched a spate of attacks in the creeks of Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta region since last Thursday, killing three policemen and abducting at least nine people, security officials said. Most of those kidnapped were local workers in Africa's biggest oil industry, where piracy in the surrounding waterways and seas is on the rise again after a brief lull, bucking a global trend that has seen pirate attacks fall elsewhere. In the most recent attack, gunmen on a boat opened fire on police escorting a barge operated by Italian oil company ENI along the Santa Barbara River, killing three policeman. "Sea pirates attacked and killed three of our men. They were escorting an Agip (ENI) barge when they were attacked.

President Vladimir Putin hailed Russia's first shipment of Arctic offshore oil on Friday, saying the platform decried by environmentalists will help Moscow expand its global energy markets share. Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russia's top gas producer Gazprom, shipped the first 70,000 tonnes of oil by tanker from the Prirazlomnoye platform, the site of a protest by 30 Greenpeace activists who were arrested last year. The launch of oil production in the Arctic, seen by Russia as one of the key sources in the gradual replacement of output from its depleted West Siberian fields…

A day after an international deal in Geneva to defuse the East-West crisis in Ukraine, pro-Russian separatists vowed not to end their occupation of public buildings and Washington threatened further sanctions on Moscow if the stalemate continued. Leaders of gunmen who have taken over city halls and other sites in and around Donetsk this month in pursuit of demands for a Crimea-style referendum on union with Russia rejected the agreement struck in Geneva by Ukraine, Russia, theUnited States and European Union and demanded on Friday that the leaders of the Kiev uprising must first quit their own government offices. Moscow renewed its insistence that it has no control over the "little green men" who…