Over 6,000 migrants plucked from sea in a single day, 22 dead

Migrants wait to be rescued as they drift in the Mediterranean Sea some 20 nautical miles north off the coast of Libya on October 3, 2016. Photo: AFP

Reuters

About 6,055 migrants were rescued and 22 found dead on the perilous sea route to Europe on Monday, one of the highest numbers in a single day, Italian and Libyan officials said.
Italy's coastguard said at least nine migrants had died and a pregnant woman and a child had been taken by helicopter to a hospital on the Italian island of Lampedusa, halfway between Sicily and the Libyan coast.
Libyan officials said 11 migrant bodies had washed up on a beach east of the capital, Tripoli, and another two migrants had died when a boat sank off the western city of Sabratha.

One Italian coast guard ship rescued about 725 migrants on a single rubber boat, one of some 20 rescue operations during the day.
About 10 ships from the coast guard, the navy and humanitarian organisations were involved in the rescues, most of which took place some 30 miles off the coast of Libya.
Libyan naval and coastguard patrols intercepted three separate boats carrying more than 450 migrants, officials said.

Monday was the third anniversary of the sinking of a migrant boat off the Italian island of Lampedusa in which 386 people died.

According to the International Organisation for Migration, around 132,000 migrants have arrived in Italy since the start of the year and 3,054 have died.
Most depart from Libya, where political chaos and a security vacuum have allowed people smugglers to act with impunity.

Attack on Sylhet college girl: SUST suspends Badrul

Shahjalal University of Science and Technology student Badrul Alam. Photo taken from his Facebook profile

Star Online Report

Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) today suspended Badrul Alam, who brutally hacked Khadija Akter Nargis, a student of Sylhet Government Women’s College yesterday.
Badrul, a fourth-year student of Economic Department and an assistant secretary of SUST unit Chhatra League, waylaid Khadija and hacked on her way to home from college.
Khadija Akter Nargis is undergoing treatment at neurosurgical intensive care unit at Square Hospital of Dhaka.
The academic council of the university took the decision at an emergency meeting this afternoon, SUST Proctor Rashed Talukdar told Sylhet correspondent.
The university also formed a three-member committee to investigate the incident.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Chhatra League has dined any political link with Badrul.
“Chhatra League unit of Shahjalal University has no relation with Badrul at present,” said a press release signed by Delwar Hossain Shahjada, office secretary of BCL.

Sharapova can play again in April after ban reduced

Maria Sharapova of Russia speaks during a news conference at the Brisbane International tennis tournament in Brisbane, Australia January 1, 2013. Reuters file photo

Reuters, Geneva

Maria Sharapova today said she could not wait to return to tennis next April after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) reduced the former world number one's two-year drugs ban by nine months.
Hailing one of the happiest days of her career, the Russian said she had learned a lesson from the "tough months" behind her and hoped the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and anti-doping authorities had also.
"In so many ways, I feel like something I love was taken away from me and it will feel really good to have it back," the 29-year-old five-times grand slam champion said in a message to fans on her facebook page.
"Tennis is my passion and I have missed it. I am counting the days until I can return to the court."
Sharapova was handed the original ban, backdated to start on Jan. 26, 2016, by the ITF following her positive test for the drug meldonium.
The arbitration panel ruled on Tuesday that she had committed an anti-doping rule violation for which "she bore some degree of fault".
It added that the decision to reduce the ban concerned solely "the degree of fault that can be imputed to the player for her failure to make sure that the substance contained in a product that she had been taking over a long period remained in compliance with the anti-doping rules."

Sharapova had called the ITF's original ruling "unfairly harsh" as an independent tribunal had found that she had not intentionally violated anti-doping rules.
She admitted taking meldonium during the season's opening grand slam in Melbourne but said she had been unaware that it had been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
Meldonium was added to WADA's list of banned substances at the start of the year after mounting evidence that it boosted blood flow and enhanced athletic performance.
"I have learned from this, and I hope the ITF has as well," said Sharapova, adding that she had always taken responsibility for not knowing the over-the-counter supplement she had taken for 10 years was no longer allowed.
The player said other federations had been much better at notifying their athletes of the rule change, especially in Eastern Europe where meldonium, or mildronate, was taken by millions of people.
"Now that this process is over, I hope the ITF and other relevant tennis anti-doping authorities will study what these other Federations did, so that no other tennis player will have to go through what I went through," she added.
Shamil Tarpishev, president of the Russian tennis federation, welcomed the reduced ban.
"It's good, they reduced the ban", he told Russia's TASS news agency. "We want her to play for the national team and win the next Olympics for us."
Sponsor Head said justice had been served.
"We eagerly await her return to competitive tennis in April 2017 and we are very proud to have stood by Maria for the right reasons throughout these difficult and testing times," CEO Johan Eliasch said in a statement.