The Star Online: World Updates

---

FACTBOX - Country, company Libya evacuation plans Posted: 24 Feb 2011 06:41 AM PST REUTERS - Following are details of countries and companies evacuating nationals and employees from Libya or closing operations due to the political turmoil in the country. * Denotes new or updated entry: A man gestures in front of burnt vehicles in a state security building in Tobruk, east of Libya February 24, 2011. (REUTERS/Suhaib Salem/Files) COUNTRIES: * BOSNIA: Bosnia's Foreign Ministry said three planes received clearance from Libyan authorities to evacuate from Tripoli the first group of up to 1,500 Bosnian nationals. It said the first three aircraft should arrive back at Sarajevo late on Thursday. * BRITAIN: There are about 500 British nationals in Libya including 170 workers in various desert camps. About 300 are in the capital and 70 in the eastern city of Benghazi. -- A flight organised by oil major BP in conjunction with the Foreign Office arrived back at London's Gatwick airport on Thursday, a second charter had flown from Tripoli to Malta, and a British military plane had also been sent to Libya, officials said. -- The Foreign Office said on Thursday that a British frigate, HMS Cumberland, is preparing to dock at Benghazi and British nationals are being encouraged to go to the port. The frigate will transport its passengers to Malta. * BULGARIA: Around 100 Bulgarian citizens residing in Benghazi will be able to leave Libya on board a Turkish ship due to dock in Benghazi on Thursday, the Foreign Ministry said. * CHINA: China Daily reported on Thursday that more than 30,000 Chinese citizens were living in Libya when the turmoil erupted. -- Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ma Zhaoxu, said more than 4,600 Chinese citizens had been evacuated, either to China or to a "safer third country". Ma said almost 100 buses had been arranged to retrieve its citizens from the Libya-Egypt border area, and that the first chartered plane had taken off for Beijing on Thursday carrying 200 passengers, mostly women and children. * CROATIA: There are 155 Croat workers still in Libya according to the Foreign Ministry. Twenty-eight people in Benghazi are expected to board a ship there on Thursday. The others are in southern Libya and a Croat plane has left for Tripoli to try to evacuate them. * GREECE: Greece will send three military planes on Thursday to evacuate Greeks from Tripoli and Sabha. It will also send a military frigate, the Foreign Ministry said. -- Two Greek passenger ships are sailing back to the island of Crete with about 4,500 evacuees on board, including Greek and Chinese nationals. * INDIA: India's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday the government has sent a ship to Benghazi and hopes to evacuate at least 1,200 citizens to Alexandria by March 1. They will be flown to India by special flights. It is waiting to get landing clearance for planes in Tripoli, for which aircraft are on standby. -- Indian companies operating in Libya have offered to help the embassy in the evacuation. There are 18,000 Indians in the country, mostly in the oil, construction and health sectors. * IRELAND: Ireland is to try on Thursday again to get a plane back to Tripoli. There are around 70 Irish people in Libya, with 54 of those in Tripoli and the majority at the airport. A plane did land on Wednesday but was prevented by Libyan security from picking up Irish nationals and it returned to Malta. * NETHERLANDS: A Dutch plane evacuated 82 people from Libya on Tuesday, 32 Dutch citizens and 50 from countries including Belgium, Britain and the United States, the Foreign Affairs Ministry said. About 77 Dutch citizens are still in Libya, 20 of whom have indicated they want to leave the country. A second Dutch plane arrived in Tripoli on Thursday, but it is not yet clear how many people will be evacuated on that flight. * PHILIPPINES: President Benigno Aquino said on Thursday his government is making preparations to repatriate about half of the 26,000 Filipino workers in Libya, most of them are professionals in the medical and oil and gas sectors. -- The government has also set aside 100 million pesos ($2.3 million) to lease planes to ferry Filipinos from Libya. Philippine Airlines and Qatar's national carrier could ferry 200-300 Filipinos per trip. ROMANIA: An airplane will leave from Bucharest to Tripoli on Feb. 24 and Romania has asked its citizens in Libya to confirm their plans to leave on an emergency basis. Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi said there were 450 Romanians in Libya. SOUTH KOREA: The Foreign Ministry has advised its nationals to leave if their business was not urgent. A total of 1,300 South Koreans are in Libya working for construction companies. * SWEDEN: The Swedish foreign office estimated that around 20 Swedish citizens remain in Libya after many Swedes left the country in recent days. Some of those remaining in Libya have made clear they do not intend to leave the country. * SYRIA: Syria has sent vessels to pick up the Syrian nationals from different areas in Libya, in addition to continuing its flights to Tripoli. Minister of Transport Yarub Badr said two ships have been sent so far, the first of which will arrive at Benghazi Port on Thursday while the second will head towards Libya's territorial waters to be directed later. * TURKEY: Some 3,000 Turks who had found sanctuary in a soccer stadium in Benghazi arrived in southwest Turkey on Thursday after making a 20-hour journey across the Mediterranean by ferry boats escorted by a Turkish frigate. There were about 25,000 Turks in Libya, most working for construction firms and other companies. UNITED STATES: Two catamarans belonging to Maltese company Virtu Ferries have landed in Tripoli for the evacuation of American citizens. The ferries were chartered by the U.S. State Department after American aircraft were not allowed to land in Tripoli. The U.S. government estimates there are several thousand Americans living in Libya. (Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Compiled and edited by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit/Maria Golovnina) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price.

Chinese dissident sent to labour camp again Posted: 24 Feb 2011 06:41 AM PST BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese woman who campaigned against a strict one-child policy was taken from her home to a labour camp on Thursday, three days after she was released from detention early on medical parole, her husband said. Mao Hengfeng, who lives in Shanghai, was seized by a team of 30 to 50 security officials, her husband, Wu Xuewei, said, in what appeared to be the latest incident in a crackdown on dissidents. Wu said officials gave him a photocopied notice that said Mao was found to have conducted "illegal activities", which he said was unfounded. "For 24 hours every day since she came back, the police have been watching us outside our door," Wu said. "She couldn't even go out to see the doctor. What chances can she get to break the law?" "We are very worried ... We don't know where she is." Mao's detention came after a rash of similar incidents has underscored the government's anxiety in the face of calls for "Jasmine Revolution" protests -- pro-democracy gatherings inspired by rallies in the Middle East. Mao, who has three daughters, has been petitioning authorities since she was dismissed in 1988 from her job at a soap factory after becoming pregnant a second time, in contravention of China's one-child policy. With a population expected to peak at 1.65 billion in 2033, China has been cautious about dropping its one-child policy that was implemented to spare the country the pressures of feeding and clothing hundreds of millions of additional people. Mao, 50, was sentenced last March to one and a half years of "re-education through labour" on charges of "disturbing the public order" for a protest at the trial of China's most famous dissident, Liu Xiaobo, Wu said. She was released six months early from a labour camp in Anhui province because of poor health, Wu said. "OUTRAGEOUS" Catherine Bremer, Asia-Pacific deputy director of rights group Amnesty International, condemned Mao's detention. "It's totally outrageous," she said. "This case is quite unusual for somebody to be released on medical parole and then to be interfered with in this way." Bremer compared Mao to Chen Guangcheng, a blind activist who campaigned against forced abortions and land grabs who recently he said remained effectively jailed despite being released from prison, because of constant surveillance. [ID:nTOE71903I]. A senior official said on Thursday that China would not succumb to the kind of unrest rocking authoritarian governments across the Middle East. . Activists have posted online messages calling for gatherings every weekend across the country but the protests have been small with those turning up outnumbered by police. New York-based group Human Rights in China has listed 29 rights lawyers and dissidents detained, confined, searched or questioned by police or government agents since Feb. 16, although it is unclear how many were targeted because of the government's worry about the calls for gatherings. (Editing by Robert Birsel) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price.

You are subscribed to email updates from The Star Online: World Updates To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610