(Xinhua) -- Italy has agreed to grant temporary residence permits to Tunisian migrants on its soil, following an agreement signed with the North African country, the official press agency TAP reported on Wednesday.
Italy has also agreed to provide Tunisia with 10 navy patrol boats and 100 jeeps to monitor its coastline, while the North African country has taken the commitment to prevent would-be undocumented Democrats to leave the country. All the migrants who would have arrived following the signing of the agreement will be repatriated.
The decision which will be submitted to the Italian cabinet for approval at a date which has not been disclosed, will give the Tunisian migrants the right to sojourn in Italy for 6 months, however, the decision does not allow for the free circulation of the migrants in the Schengen space, TAP said.
"The fragility of the Tunisian political scene, would not have allowed a massive return of Tunisian migrants to their country," said a communique released by the Italian interior ministry.
The agreement was signed on Tuesday in Tunis during a meeting between Italy's Interior Minister Roberto Maroni and his Tunisian counterpart, Habib Essid.
It is estimated that more than 22,000 Tunisian migrants have landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa since the toppling of the former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on January 14.
Continued on Page 47
[Al Jazeera] Jose Socrates, the caretaker Portuguese prime minister, has announced that his debt-laden country has sent a request for financial aid to the European Commission.
Speaking in a televised address to the nation on Wednesday, Socrates termed the move "inevitable".
"I tried everying, but in conscience we have reached a moment when not taking this decision would imply risks that the country should not take," he said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, the finance minister, said that Portugal would need to resort to European Union mechanisms in order to avoid defaulting on its debt.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2011 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
