Five migrants have died and 16 went missing after their boat sank off the coast of eastern Libya while attempting to reach Europe.

A rescue unit official told the AFP news agency on Tuesday that the boat with 27 people on board — all Egyptians — capsized off Tolmeta in the east, but without specifying when this happened.

The official said five bodies were recovered and six people rescued. Another 16 were missing and presumed drowned.

"The boat was 35 kilometres off the coast in a rocky and hard to reach area, and this hampered rescue efforts," the source said.

The chaos that erupted after the fall of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 made Libya a preferred stop for tens of thousands of migrants and refugees from sub-Saharan Africa, Arab states and South Asia, mainly seeking to reach the Italian coast in Europe.

Thousands remain stranded in the lawless North African state.

Human Rights Watch said this month some 32,450 people had been intercepted by Libyan forces last year and "hauled back to arbitrary detention and abuse" in the war-ravaged country as European countries turned a blind eye.

Since the start of the year, 14,157 migrants and refugees have been intercepted and dragged back to detention in Libya while trying to cross the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration's (IOM) latest figures.

The IOM said at least 216 people have died attempting to make the crossing to Europe and 724 are missing and presumed dead.

Source: AFP

Mikhail Gorbachev, who as the last leader of the Soviet Union waged a losing battle to salvage a crumbling empire but produced extraordinary reforms that led to the end of the Cold War, has died at the age of 91.

"Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev died this evening after a serious and long illness," the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow said on Tuesday, quoted by the Interfax, TASS and RIA Novosti news agencies.

"President [Vladimir] Putin expresses his deep sympathies over the death of Mikhail Gorbachev. In the morning he will send a telegram of condolences to his family and friends," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies.

Gorbachev was "a one-of-a-kind statesman who changed the course of history. He did more than any other individual to bring about the peaceful end of the Cold War," UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

"I'm saddened to hear of the death of Gorbachev. I always admired the courage and integrity he showed in bringing the Cold War to a peaceful conclusion," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Twitter. 

French President Emmanuel Macron praised Gorbachev as a "man of peace".

Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, forged arms reduction deals with the United States and partnerships with Western powers to remove the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe since World War Two and bring about the reunification of Germany.

When pro-democracy protests swept across the Soviet bloc nations of communist Eastern Europe in 1989, he refrained from using force — unlike previous Kremlin leaders who had sent tanks to crush uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.

But the protests fuelled aspirations for autonomy in the 15 republics of the Soviet Union, which disintegrated over the next two years in a chaotic fashion.

Gorbachev struggled in vain to prevent that collapse.

A quarter-century after the collapse, Gorbachev told The Associated Press that he had not considered using widespread force to try to keep the USSR together because he feared chaos in the nuclear country. 

"The country was loaded to the brim with weapons. And it would have immediately pushed the country into a civil war," he said. 

Turbulence from his reforms

On becoming general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985, aged just 54, he had set out to revitalise the system by introducing limited political and economic freedoms, but his reforms spun out of control.

His policy of "glasnost"  — free speech — allowed previously unthinkable criticism of the party and the state, but also emboldened nationalists who began to press for independence in the Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and elsewhere.

"I see myself as a man who started the reforms that were necessary for the country and for Europe and the world," Gorbachev told The AP in a 1992 interview shortly after he left office. 

"I am often asked, would I have started it all again if I had to repeat it? Yes, indeed. And with more persistence and determination," he said. 

Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War and spent his later years collecting accolades and awards from all corners of the world. 

Many Russians never forgave Gorbachev for the turbulence that his reforms unleashed, considering the subsequent plunge in their living standards too high a price to pay for democracy.

His run for president in 1996 was a national joke, and he polled less than 1 percent of the vote.

'He gave us all freedom'

In 1997, he resorted to making a TV ad for Pizza Hut to earn money for his charitable foundation. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country's troubles. 

"In the ad, he should take a pizza, divide it into 15 slices like he divided up our country, and then show how to put it back together again," quipped Anatoly Lukyanov, a one-time Gorbachev supporter. 

Gorbachev won a Grammy in 2004 along with former US President Bill Clinton and Italian actress Sophia Loren for their recording of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, and the United Nations named him a Champion of the Earth in 2006 for his environmental advocacy. 

Gorbachev had a daughter, Irina, and two granddaughters.

After visiting Gorbachev in hospital on June 30, liberal economist Ruslan Grinberg told the armed forces news outlet Zvezda: "He gave us all freedom — but we don't know what to do with it."

Gorbachev will be buried at Moscow's Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife, Tass reported.

Source: agencies

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Twitter have lobbed more accusations at each other in the latest round of legal filings over Musk’s efforts to rescind his offer to buy the social media platform.

Musk filed more paperwork in his bid to terminate the deal on Tuesday, this time based on information in a whistleblower complaint filed by Twitter’s former head of security.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk said his legal team notified Twitter of “additional bases” for ending the deal on top of the ones given in the original termination notice issued in July.

Twitter fired back by saying Musk's attempt to back out is “invalid and wrongful.”

Twitter has sued Musk, asking the Delaware Chancery Court to force him to go through with the $44 billion deal. A high-stakes trial is set to start the week of October 17.

In a letter to Twitter Inc., which was included in the filing, Musk's advisors cited the whistleblower report by former executive Peiter Zatko — also known by his hacker handle “Mudge."

Zatko, who served as Twitter’s head of security until he was fired early this year, alleged in his complaint to US officials that the company misled regulators about its poor cybersecurity defences and its negligence in attempting to root out fake accounts that spread disinformation.

The Musk letter, addressed to Twitter's Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, said Zatko's allegations provide extra reasons to end the deal if the July termination notice “is determined to be invalid for any reason.”

Billionaire Musk has spent months alleging that the company he agreed to acquire undercounted its fake and spam accounts, which means he doesn’t have to go through with the deal.

Delaying the trial 

Musk asked the judge on Tuesday to let both sides continue briefing their cases through November 10, followed by a conference to discuss what evidence they can introduce at trial.

Musk said a trial could begin later that month "subject to the court's availability".

In a separate SEC filing, Twitter responded to what it called Musk’s latest “purported termination,” saying it’s “based solely on statements made by a third party that, as Twitter has previously stated, are riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lack important context.”

Zatko received a subpoena on Saturday from Musk’s team compelling him to testify in what Zatko’s lawyers emphasised would be an “involuntary” deposition ahead of the coming courtroom battle between Twitter and Musk.

“He did not make his whistleblower disclosures to the appropriate governmental bodies to benefit Musk or to harm Twitter, but rather to protect the American public and Twitter shareholders,” Zatko's lawyers wrote in a prepared statement.

Analysts say Twitter is likely to amend its lawsuit to include Zatko's allegations, so the court can decide on both the bot and cybersecurity issues. 

Source: AP

The EU donated 5.5 million potassium iodide pills to Ukraine, the European Commission said on Tuesday, amid the threat of an explosion at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

With a total financial value of more than €500,000 ($500,000), pills will be sent “as a preventative safety measure to increase the level of protection around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” the EU executive body said in a press statement.

Five million pills are provided by the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, while Austria contributes with an additional 500,000 drugs following the request of the Ukrainian government.



“We will continue to be on the lookout and stand ready to act, because preparedness saves lives,” said Janez Lenarcic, EU commissioner for crisis management.


“No nuclear power plant should ever be used as a war theatre,” he added, calling to cease immediately military action around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.


Potassium iodide tablets offer protection in case of exposure to high radiation levels at a nuclear explosion. It prevents the inhaled or swallowed radioactive iodine from being absorbed by the thyroid.


On Thursday, the Zaporizhzhia plant was temporarily disconnected from Ukraine's electricity grid after the last remaining power line caught fire due to shelling.

Russian forces captured the facility with critical importance shortly after the war in Ukraine began on Feb. 24.

Since then, the international community, including the EU, UN, and US, have warned Moscow repeatedly not to use the plant as a shield in its forces' attacks on Ukraine and to stop breaching atomic safety rules.

Russia, for its part, said on Monday that it sees as necessary the visit by representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

The Zaporizhzhia facility is Europe's largest nuclear power plant, producing around 20% of Ukraine's electricity.

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President Joe Biden sought Tuesday to energize action to address the US's epidemic of gun violence, saying he is "determined" to ban assault weapons.

Biden said the US has to act "for all those kids gunned down on our streets every single day that never make the news."

"I did it once before. I'll do it again," the president said, referring to his time in the Senate when lawmakers outlawed the weapons for a decade beginning in 1994. "It's not about taking away anybody's guns. In fact, we should be treating responsible gun owners as examples how every gun owner should behave."

Biden pointed to his own gun ownership, maintaining he is not opposed to firearms or constitutional protections to own guns. But he emphasized that there are limits to the Second Amendment, including on what types of weapons are legal to possess.

"The rights granted by the Second Amendment are not unlimited," he told supporters in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. "More children in America die from guns than active duty police and active duty military in the United States combined. We have to act."

In what appeared to be an effort aimed at galvanizing Democrats ahead of November's national elections, Biden ridiculed Republicans who have continued to defend former President Donald Trump's supporters who stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, overrunning barricades and clashing with law enforcement as lawmakers fled to secure locations.

"We're in a situation where to this day, the MAGA Republicans in Congress defend the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6," Biden said.

"Let me say this to my MAGA Republican friends in Congress. Don't tell me you support law enforcement if you won't condemn what happened on the sixth," the president said to raucous applause.

Biden is next expected to visit the key battleground state of Pennsylvania on Thursday to deliver a major prime time nationally-televised address. Pennsylvania is home to several key races in November's midterm elections, including an open US Senate seat where Democratic nominee John Fetterman holds a sizable lead over his Republican challenger, Mehmet Oz.

Fetterman leads by nearly 8 points with just over two months to go, according to an average of polling compiled by the Real Clear Politics website.

The seat is critical for Democrats in the evenly-split Senate. It is currently held by outgoing Republican Sen. Pat Toomey.

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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez met German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Germany on Tuesday to discuss national security and ways to cope with the EU’s looming energy crisis. 

“Spain is willing to use all of its capacities to help countries like Germany, which are suffering more from Putin’s energy blackmail,” Sanchez told a joint press conference in Berlin, emphasizing that Spain is home to 30% of all Europe’s liquid natural gas (LNG) regasification capacity.

Both Sanchez and Scholz agreed on the need to connect the Iberian Peninsula’s largely isolated gas infrastructure with the rest of the EU.

Indirectly, this agreement puts pressure on France to reconsider its pessimistic view of the Midcat pipeline that would connect it with Spain through the Pyrenees mountains.

Spanish officials argue that the pipeline could be built in a year, while French authorities have said it would take much longer than that.

As a “Plan B,” Sanchez added that Spain is considering a pipeline with Italy to “remove the bottlenecks.”

Meanwhile, Scholz sent a calm note about Germany’s ability to cope with Russia cutting off natural gas supplies.

Gazprom is set to suspend gas supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline due to "maintenance" on Wednesday for three days, sparking concerns that the shutdown could be more permanent.

“You can’t say ‘we’re through with our problems,’ but you can say we are much more relaxed about the situation,” said Scholz, referring to gas reserves that are around 83% full and the rapid set up of new LNG terminals.

“We are also firmly convinced that the current price formations on the electricity exchanges do not reflect the real situation,” he said.

On Monday, German power prices for next year broke the €1,000 ($999.80) per megawatt hour threshold for the first time.

Now that Germany has more or less secured energy supply for the winter, the German chancellor said: “We can now look to the question of how we can prevent exaggerated pricing.”

During the joint presser, Sanchez also shared how Spain is moving to tax windfall profits of the energy companies benefiting from high electricity prices.

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Albania has arrested the founder of cryptocurrency exchange Thodex who fled Türkiye and left users’ funds irretrievable, the Turkish Interior Ministry said on Tuesday.

Faruk Fatih Ozer, 27, who is sought on charges of fraud and founding a criminal organization, was arrested in the Vlore city. Türkiye had issued an international arrest warrant after he fled with a reported $2 billion (£1.4billion) in investors' assets last year.

A red notice was issued for Ozer on April 23, 2021 by Interpol.

Albania's Internal Affairs Minister Bledar Cuci informed his Turkish counterpart Suleyman Soylu that the fugitive, Ozer, was caught in Vlore and his identity was confirmed by biometric results, according to a Turkish Interior Ministry statement.

His extradition proceedings have been initiated by the Turkish police’s Interpol department, the statement said.

Since last year, a total of 68 suspects have been arrested in the country as part of an investigation into Thodex.

Also, a large number of digital materials and documents were seized during operations.

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