naturalfeature:mediterranean coast

Desperate for a way out

“A tragedy of epic proportions” — that’s how the International Organization for Migration describes what’s been happening to the migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean this year. On the African continent, while instability and economic stagnation have driven thousands of young people to leave home, chaos in Libya has made it easier for migrants to get access to the Mediterranean coast.

https://bamakobruce.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/n-africa-route-map.jpg?w=640&h=457 https://bamakobruce.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/bruce-restaurant.jpg?w=300&h=240

▻http://bridgesfrombamako.com/2015/04/24/desperate-for-a-way-out
#témoignage #Mali #ceux_qui_restent #mourir_en_mer #Méditerranée #naufrage #projet_migratoire #celleux_qui_restent
cc @reka

The Walls That Hurt Us

CALGARY, Alberta — New coils of razor wire top the fence around Melilla, one of two Spanish territories on North Africa’s Mediterranean coast. Along with Ceuta, the enclaves share the European Union’s only land borders with Africa and are targets for would-be migrants desperate to reach Europe. Spain has long maintained high-tech fencing systems around the enclaves in an attempt to keep the migrants out, but they had removed barbed wire from the top of Melilla’s fence in 2007 after it inflicted serious injuries on those who dared to climb over.

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/01/24/opinion/24dicintio/24dicintio-master675.jpg

▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/opinion/the-walls-that-hurt-us.html?smid=tw-share

#barrières_frontalières #murs #Espagne #Melilla #Ceuta #migration

Admire le gloubi-boulga confessionaliste de France 24-avec-Reuters :
▻http://www.france24.com/en/20130522-syria%E2%80%99-national-coalition-calls-rebels-defend-qusair-0

Assad’s forces are intent on seizing Qusair in order to cement their hold on a belt of territory that connects the capital Damascus to Assad’s stronghold on the Mediterranean coast, home to his minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam that has largely supported him.

Seizing Qusair would also allow Assad to sever links between rebel-held areas in the north and south of Syria.

With Shi’ite Hezbollah leading the fight in Qusair, its involvement could drag Syria’s civil war - which already pits mainly Sunni Muslim rebels, including radical Islamists and foreign fighters, against an Alawite-led army - into a more regional sectarian conflict.

Rebel leaders have warned of sectarian revenge attacks against Shi’ites and Alawites on either side of the Syrian-Lebanese border if rebels lose Qusair. Fighters speak of a tacit agreement among their units to launch village by village attacks should they be defeated in the town of 30,000.

Sabra warned that Hezbollah forces in Qusair could regionalise Sunni-Shi’ite tensions across the Middle East.

C’est donc la faute au Hezbollah si les chefs rebelles menacent de représailles sectaires… La beauté de cette compilation d’arguments confessionnels ineptes, c’est qu’il n’est fait nulle part mention des chrétiens de Qusayr. Est-ce parce qu’ils ont disparu, chassés l’année dernière par les rebelles (ceux qui ne seraient pas confessionnels si ce n’était l’intervention du Hezbollah) : Christians Flee from Radical Rebels in Syria
►http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/christians-flee-from-radical-rebels-in-syria-a-846180.html

“There were always Christians in Qusayr — there were around 10,000 before the war,” says Leila, the matriarch of the Khouri clan. Currently, 11 members of the clan are sharing two rooms. They include the grandmother, grandfather, three daughters, one husband and five children. “Despite the fact that many of our husbands had jobs in the civil service, we still got along well with the rebels during the first months of the insurgency.” The rebels left the Christians alone. The Christians, meanwhile, were keen to preserve their neutrality in the escalating power struggle. But the situation began deteriorating last summer, Leila says, murmuring a bit more before going silent.

“We’re too frightened to talk,” her daughter Rim explained, before mustering the courage to continue. “Last summer Salafists came to Qusayr, foreigners. They stirred the local rebels against us,” she says. Soon, an outright campaign against the Christians in Qusayr took shape. “They sermonized on Fridays in the mosques that it was a sacred duty to drive us away,” she says. “We were constantly accused of working for the regime. And Christians had to pay bribes to the jihadists repeatedly in order to avoid getting killed.”

Ou ce rapport du Vatican qui accusait les rebelles d’avoir chassé les chrétiens de Qusair : Syria opposition denies Vatican report of Christians ordered out
►http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/06/syria-opposition-denies-vatican-report-of-christians-ordered-o

Opponents of the Syrian government disputed a Vatican report that Christians had fled the town of Qusair after an “ultimatum” from the rebel leader, denouncing it as government propaganda.

News of alleged Christian persecution in the town close to the Lebanese border had been reported Saturday by the official Vatican news agency, adding to ongoing worries that the uprising against President Bashar Assad could devolve into sectarian strife between Islamists and religious minorities.

The Vatican agency said it wasn’t clear why Christians had been ordered out of the town. “According to some, it serves to avoid more suffering to the faithful; other sources reveal ’a continuity focused on discrimination and repression.’ Still others argue that Christians have openly expressed their loyalty to the state and for this reason the opposition army drives them away,” the news agency reported.

(Reuters) - Rebels in Syria’s embattled western town of Haffeh said on Tuesday they were struggling to smuggle out civilians trapped in fierce fighting that has drawn international condemnation.

Three fighters contacted by phone said that hundreds of rebels who have joined the 15-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad are fighting a tank and helicopter-backed assault on their district, tucked among rugged mountains near Syria’s Mediterranean coast.

Read more
►http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/12/us-syria-crisis-haffeh-idUSBRE85B0DT20120612

Bienfaits de l’intervention occidentale en faveur de la démocratie : les #milices.
►http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/01/us-libya-tripoli-battle-idUSTRE81029420120201

Rival militias fought a two-hour gunbattle over a luxury beach house being used as a barracks in the Libyan capital Wednesday, underscoring how volatile the country is following the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

A Reuters reporter heard exchanges of both heavy and light weapons coming from the Tripoli district of El-Saadi beach, a stretch of Mediterranean coast overlooked by office skyscrapers and the Marriott Hotel.

Militias have carved up Tripoli and the rest of Libya into competing fiefdoms, each holding out for the share of power they say they are owed.

A witness, who had been relaxing on the beach with his family, told a local television channel fighters armed with anti-aircraft guns screeched along the coastal highway and stormed a walled residence.

“It was chaos, the fighters suddenly arrived in cars and started shooting at the house. Families fled from the beach,” Abdul Musharim told the Libyan news channel ’Libya’.

►http://vanshardware.com/2011/05/the-case-of-the-missing-8-4-libyan-earthquake
The case of the missing 8.4 Libyan earthquake

“
Two different European earthquake monitoring sites (here and here) reported an 8.4 earthquake deep inside the Libyan desert about 30 miles southeast of Sinawin on May 19. The epicenter was approximately 120 miles south of the Mediterranean coast and roughly 200 miles southwest of Tripoli. Here are the earthquake details:
Oddly, this earthquake does not appear on the USGS website or any other earthquake reporting site.

Interestingly, the largest nuclear device ever detonated, the 50 megaton Soviet-made Tsar Bomba, would have been capable of producing almost exactly an 8.4 earthquake on the Richter Scale if it had been detonated deep underground.

Is this earthquake being censored? If so, was it a subterranean detonation in a remote desert location to safely demonstrate Libya’s nuclear capabilities to its Western attackers? The West would certainly want to contain that information to prevent widespread panic since a 50 megaton nuke could utterly wipe out an entire metropolis. Was the earthquake the result of a NATO attack? Or was the earthquake a real, natural event or simply a strange glitch on a pair of seismic instruments?”