Sicily Shipwreck: Dozens Of African Migrants Die Off Coast Of Lampedusa

ROME -- ROME (AP) — A ship carrying African migrants to Europe caught fire and capsized off the Italian island of Lampedusa on Thursday, killing at least 94 people as it spilled hundreds of passengers into the sea, officials said. Over 150 people were rescued but some 200 others were still unaccounted-for.
It was one of the deadliest accidents in recent times during the notoriously perilous Mediterranean Sea crossing from Africa for migrants seeking a new life in the European Union.
"We need only caskets, certainly not ambulances," Pietro Bartolo, chief of health services on the island, told Radio 24. He gave the death toll of 94 but told Sky TG24 he expected that to rise as search operations continued.
"It's an immense tragedy," said Lampedusa Mayor Giusi Nicolini, adding that the dead included at least one child of about 3 and a pregnant woman.
Blue, white and black tarps covered the bodies at the port.
Coast guard ships, local fishing boats and helicopters from across the region were combing the waters trying to find survivors, said coast guard spokesman Marco Di Milla. The boat left from Tripoli with migrants from Eritrea, Ghana and Somalia, Di Milla said.
Antonio Candela, the government's health commissioner for Palermo, said 159 people had been rescued, but the boat is believed to have been carrying as many as 500 people, the LaPresse news agency reported.
Nicolini said the ship had caught fire after those on board set off flares so it would be seen by passing ships. The ship apparently then capsized, spilling the passengers into the sea near Conigli island.
Lampedusa is closer to Africa than the Italian mainland — a mere 70 miles (113 kilometers) off the coast of Tunisia — and is the frequent destination for smugglers' boats.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano canceled his appointments Thursday and headed to Italy's southernmost island to oversee the rescue operations. Pope Francis, who visited Lampedusa in July, quickly sent condolences.
It was the second shipwreck this week off Italy: On Monday, 13 men drowned while trying to reach southern Sicily when their ship ran aground just a few meters (yards) from shore.
Hundreds of migrants reach Italy's shores every day, particularly during the summer when seas are usually calmer. They are processed in centers, screened for asylum and often sent back home. Those who aren't usually melt into the general public and make their way to northern Europe, where immigrant communities are bigger and better organized. In Italy, migrants can only work legally if they have a work permit and contract before they arrive.
According to the U.N. refugee agency, 8,400 migrants landed in Italy and Malta in the first six months of the year, almost double the 4,500 who arrived during the first half of 2012.
It's still a far cry from the tens of thousands who flooded to Italy, especially through Lampedusa, during the Arab Spring exodus of 2011.
The numbers, though, have spiked in recent weeks, particularly with Syrian arrivals.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees had recorded 40 deaths in the first half of 2013 for migrants arriving in Italy and Malta, and a total of 500 for all of 2012, based on interviews with survivors. Fortress Europe, an Italian observatory that tracks migrant deaths reported by the media, says about 6,450 people died in the Canal of Sicily between 1994 and 2012.
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Obama's Government Shutdown Strategy: Maintain The Appearance Of A Leader

WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — Attend a black-tie gala? No. Meet with business leaders who oppose a government shutdown? Yes. Jet off to Asia for a four-country tour? Maybe, but shorten the trip and keep the option to cancel.
President Barack Obama's strategy during the partial shutdown of the federal government is aimed at keeping up the appearance of a leader focused on the public's priorities and avoiding looking tone deaf to the hundreds of thousands of Americans forced off the job. He's also trying to maintain what the White House sees as a political advantage over Republicans, with nearly all the president's events providing him a platform to blast House GOP lawmakers for opposing a Senate bill to keep the government running.
Republicans have sharply criticized the president's approach, saying that if he were serious about ending the shutdown, he would be negotiating a solution. Obama did summon congressional lawmakers to the White House to discuss the shutdown Wednesday evening, but the leaders emerged to say no progress had been made.
"The meeting was cordial but unproductive," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
The president's allies say Obama is best served by staying away from the negotiating table and letting Republicans argue among themselves.
"I think if you're the White House, you just sit back and watch," said Robert Gibbs, former White House press secretary and a longtime Obama adviser. "I don't think there's anything for you to do. I don't think there's anything you should do."
The government shut down after Congress failed to pass a spending bill by Monday's midnight deadline, forcing about 800,000 federal workers off the job, shuttering national parks, and halting a range of government services. House Republicans are demanding changes to Obama's health care law in exchange for funding the government, a tactic the White House opposes.
Most polling ahead of the shutdown shows Republicans taking more of the heat than Obama for the political impasse. No polling on the shutdown itself has been completed.
The power of the presidential bully pulpit does give Obama one distinct advantage over Republicans. He can streamline the message coming from the White House, while GOP leaders must contend with the different factions of their party airing competing and sometimes contradictory views.

In the opening days of the shutdown, Obama's message has been squarely focused on the economic impact of the shutdown and the benefits of the health care law Republicans are seeking to curtail. On Tuesday, he met with Americans who say they're being helped by the new health law. On Wednesday, he met with business executives — traditionally a core Republican constituency — to discuss the impact of the shutdown and the upcoming debt-ceiling debate on the economy. And on Thursday, he plans to visit a construction company in nearby Maryland to highlight how small businesses are affected by the shutdown.
But Obama canceled an appearance Wednesday night at the glitzy Congressional Hispanic Caucus gala, an event he has attended every year since winning the White House. The White House also announced that the president was scaling back his upcoming trip to Asia, canceling stops in Malaysia and the Philippines — two of the four countries he had planned to visit.
The White House also left open the possibility that the whole trip might be canceled. Obama is scheduled to depart Saturday night for economic summits in Indonesia and Brunei.
National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the White House "will continue to evaluate those trips based on how events develop throughout the course of the week."
Even a shortened trip abroad could be risky for Obama. Presidential travel is a high-dollar endeavor that may not sit well with Americans facing financial burdens because of the shutdown. A trip to Asia would also require Obama to spend long stretches on an airplane, limiting the amount of time he can be making his case to the public for restarting the government. And the time difference would mean that nearly all of his events would take place when most Americans are sleeping.
Chris Lehane, a Democratic consultant who worked for President Bill Clinton during the 1995 government shutdown, said Obama needs to strike "a very fine balance" between overseeing the shutdown and his other obligations as president.
"You're the president of the United States, you have a thousand things you need to do and you need to continue to be in position to do those things," Lehane said. "But the optics of being in Washington, D.C., ready to move the government forward are important."
Further complicating the president's travel plans: Most of the staffers who help plan and manage the logistics of foreign trips have been furloughed because of the shutdown.
Canceling a presidential foreign trip — even a long-planned one — is hardly unprecedented. Clinton canceled a trip to Asia during the 1995 shutdown. Obama canceled two trips to Asia in 2010, once to stay in Washington for votes on his health care law and once to deal with the devastating BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
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