13 migrants die trying to reach Italy

LAMPEDUSA (Italy) • Italian coastguards have recovered the bodies of 13 women who died after a crowded migrant boat capsized in heavy weather as rescue boats approached it off the coast of Lampedusa, an island south of Sicily, the local authorities said yesterday.

Rescue vessels picked up 22 survivors, but it is feared many other people might have died in the incident - the latest in a long line of sea disasters to hit migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean and reach Europe.

The ship, which had set sail from Tunisia, had been carrying around 50 people, almost all from Tunisia and west Africa, the UN migration agency said.

REUTERS

US envoy's wife flees after accident

LONDON • British Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday said he wanted a US diplomat's wife who was involved in a fatal car crash to return to Britain, and that it was wrong for her to have used diplomatic immunity to leave the country.

"I hope that Anne Sacoolas will come back and will engage properly with the processes of law as they are carried out in this country," Mr Johnson said in a television interview, adding that the issue was being raised with the United States ambassador in London.

Mr Harry Dunn, 19, died in August after a road collision near RAF Croughton, an air force base in England used by the US.

REUTERS

Climate activists launch campaign

LONDON • Climate change protesters blocked traffic across London's government district of Westminster yesterday as they launched two weeks of peaceful civil disobedience to call for urgent action to curb carbon emissions.

Extinction Rebellion expects 10,000 people to show up for the protest, which is part of a coordinated global movement. There were similar protests in Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam, Madrid and other cities.

REUTERS