Some 5,000 refugees bound for Italy have been rescued in waters off the coast of Libya between Thursday and Saturday morning by Italian and Libyan coastguards, statements from both countries say.

Around 2,900 people were rescued Thursday, 2,300 of whom were found in international waters and taken to Italy, while 580 picked up in Libyan waters were returned to the North African country.

Through Friday until Saturday morning, coastguards rescued another 2,100 refugees packed in 17 vessels, but found the body of one man who drowned, the Italian coastguard said.

The number of refugees arriving in Italy has soared this year by more than 30 percent in comparison with the same period last year, with 46,000 people arriving so far.

But of every 39 refugees, who survive the perilous journey across the Mediterranean, one dies, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said, adding that 1,244 refugees were known to have died so far this year.

(Source: AFP)

Ousted FBI Director James Comey has agreed to testify in an “open session” of the Senate Intelligence Committee to answer questions on the investigation into possible links between President Donald Trump’s election campaign and Russia.

The committee said in a statement late on Friday that it planned to schedule the hearing for some time after Memorial Day. “The committee looks forward to receiving testimony from the former director on his role in the development of the intelligence community assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 US elections,” said Senator Richard Burr, the committee chairman.

“I am hopeful that he will clarify for the American people recent events that have been broadly reported in the media,” the North Carolina Republican added. Trump fired Comey in a surprise move last week, triggering accusations that the president obstructed justice by seeking to thwart an ongoing FBI probe about alleged Russian interference in last November’s election. The Senate Intelligence Committee is also investigating the alleged meddling by Moscow and any possible links between Russian officials and the Trump team.

Senator Mark Warner, the committee’s vice chairman, said he hoped Comey’s testimony would “shed light on issues critical” to the investigation. “Director Comey served his country with honor for many years, and he deserves an opportunity to tell his story. Moreover, the American people deserve an opportunity to hear it,” the Virginia Democrat said.

The US Justice Department appointed a special counsel to oversee the probe, potentially limiting the Congress’s ability to look into the matter separately. There is concern that the counsel, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, would object to Comey speaking in public about an ongoing probe.

Trump has condemned the investigation as the “greatest witch hunt” in the US history. Last week, the president warned Comey against leaking information to the media. “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press,” he tweeted on May 12.

 The latest twist in the controversy came on Friday when The New York Times reported that Trump allegedly told senior Russian officials visiting the White House that Comey was a “nut job” and that his termination relieved “great pressure.”

Source: Presstv

British police are prepared to arrest WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on charges of skipping his bail if he leaves the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and possibly extradite him to the United States where the Trump administration has prepared charges against him, according to reports.

On Friday, prosecutors in Sweden dropped their rape investigation into Assange, who sought refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy five years ago.

A spokesman for England’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) told AFP on Friday that after Assange’s arrest his case would be referred to a judge and he could face a maximum one year prison term in the UK.

According to The Guardian, police cars are parked near the Ecuadorian embassy building in Knightsbridge, London, presumably ready to arrest the WikiLeaks founder for breaching his bail, which the Metropolitan Police Force has claimed he is still wanted for.

Dozens of media persons are waiting outside the embassy but there has been no sign of Assange emerging from the building yet, reports said.

Britain ‘must grant safe passage to Assange’

Meanwhile, Ecuador’s foreign minister called on Britain on Friday to “grant safe passage” out of the country to Assange. “The European Arrest Warrant no longer holds. The UK must now grant safe passage to Mr Julian Assange,” Guillaume Long wrote on Twitter, shortly after Swedish prosecutors announced they had dropped their rape probe against the WikiLeaks founder.  Assange took refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy in London in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden after Swedish prosecutors issued a European arrest warrant against him.

The Australian has denied the rape accusations, and says the claims are part of an attempt to ultimately have him extradited to the United States, where he could be charged over WikiLeaks’ release of 500,000 secret military files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. British police said an arrest warrant was issued against Assange in 2012. “The Metropolitan Police Service is obliged to execute that warrant should he leave the embassy.”

Possible extradition to the US 

The police spokesman said he did not know whether Britain had received an extradition request from the United States.

“The UK government’s policy is to neither confirm nor deny any request for extradition until and unless an arrest is made,” he said.

The head of America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has called WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service,” accusing its chief of helping the enemies of the US.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo on April 13 accused Pompeo WikiLeaks of overwhelmingly focused on the US and encouraging its followers to join the CIA with the sole purpose of obtaining intelligence.

He said WikiLeaks under the leadership of Assange “directed Chelsea Manning to intercept specific secret information, and it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States.”

American whistleblower and former US Army soldier Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning) was released from prison on Wednesday after serving seven years for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks.

US prepares charges to seek Assange’s arrest

The Trump administration has reportedly prepared charges against Assange in an attempt to arrest him.

Since 2010, US prosecutors have struggled with whether the First Amendment of the US Constitution prohibited the prosecution of Assange.

However, now they believe they have found a way to arrest the man who published thousands of files taken away by Manning, the former US Army intelligence analyst.

In an interview with RT on Tuesday, Assange described the CIA as “dangerously incompetent.” “The CIA is the world’s most dangerously incompetent spy agency. It has armed terrorists, destroyed democracies and installed and maintained dictatorships the world over,” Assange said.

Culled from Presstv

A white policewoman in the US state of Oklahoma, who was accused of fatally shooting an unarmed African American man, has been acquitted from all charges. Officer Betty Jo Shelby, 43, shot dead 40-year-old Terrence Crutcher next to his car on a street in Tulsa on September 16, 2016.

The Tulsa County District Court jury of eight women and four men ruled Wednesday that the officer, who has been on unpaid leave since she was charged, was not guilty of manslaughter. During the proceedings, Shelby said that she acted according to her training because she had reasonable fear that the victim was reaching for a gun.

However, the Crutcher family’s lawyer, rejected her reasoning, saying that video from the killing shows Crutcher was “simply going to the car with his hands up, and making the turn and pivoting to put his hands on the car when the shot is fired.”

Prosecutors also argued against Shelby, noting that she shot Crutcher a few seconds before he made the gesture that the defense cited as the basis for her reaction. Shannon McMurray, Shelby’s lawyer, accused the prosecutors of hypocrisy and said they were attacking the officer in response to the media frenzy surrounding the case.

Crutcher’s father, Joseph, accepted the vote but said he knew the officer was guilty. “I have four grandchildren that are at home that has lost their daddy. I said I would accept whatever the verdict was, and I’m going to do that. But let it be known that I believe in my heart that Betty Shelby got away with murder,” he said.

The ruling makes Shelby the latest white officer to escape unharmed after killing an African American over the past few years. Similar rulings were issued by grand juries in the deaths of Eric Garner on Staten Island, Tamir Rice in Cleveland and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, all of them controversial cases that prompted a national debate about race relations and the use of force by law enforcement.

Source: Presstv