ROME: The young German captain of a migrant-rescue ship stranded off Italy dismissed threats of arrest and personal criticism from the country’s far right interior minister on Friday, saying her main priority was the safety of 40 rescued Africans.
After two weeks at sea, the dreadlocked 31-year-old, Carola Rackete has become a symbol of defiance for challenging the authority of minister Matteo Salvini, known as “Il Capitano” at home for closing ports to non-government rescue ships.
Speaking to reporters from her ship, the Sea Watch, via a Skype connection, Rackete said she was forced to enter Italian waters due to the worsening condition of the migrants plucked by her crew from international seas off Libya on June 12.
“The need which we have on board is psychological...The necessity to go into port is to prevent any harm or any self-harm which people might be contemplating,” she said.
Rackete, a conservationist who has served on cruise ships and on a Greenpeace vessel in the past, has drawn strong support from Italy’s pro-immigration opposition parties and also felt the sting of Salvini’s ever-busy Twitter account.
She says she now devotes her time to rescuing migrants as a reaction to her privileged upbringing.
“My life was easy...I am white, German, born in a rich country and with the right passport,” she said in comments provided by Germany’s Sea Watch, a charity that has been running rescue operations in the Mediterranean since 2014.
“When I realized it, I felt a moral obligation to help those who did not have the same opportunities as me.”
In a stream of tweets, the latest on Friday, Salvini has called her a pirate and outlaw, and drawn attention to her motivation for captaining a rescue vessel.
“The lady has said ‘I have to volunteer because I was born white, rich and German’. But not everybody who is white, rich and German have to come and break Italy’s balls. Help the kids in Germany!“
On Friday, Salvini also compared her with an earlier rescue volunteer from another charity, a man who sported a red mohawk and was reported to have called the minister a “fascist.”
Salvini says he will only allow Rackete to dock when other EU states agree to immediately take the migrants once ashore, and even then Italian authorities would seize the ship and prosecute its captain for assisting people-smugglers.
However, a European Commission official was quoted by Italian news agency AGI on Friday as saying the allocation of migrants among EU nations needed to be worked out and that in the meantime the ship must be allowed to dock.
After waiting in international waters for an invitation from Italy or another EU state to accept the Sea Watch, Rackete decided this week to sail for the southern Italian island of Lampedusa but was blocked by Italian government vessels.
On board the ship, sitting off Lampedusa, Rackete responded sharply when asked to comment on Salvini’s criticisms.
“To be honest I haven’t read the comments, I really don’t have time. I have 40 people to take care of ... Mister Salvini might just get in line.”
Rackete is already under investigation for breaking Italy’s beefed up laws against non-government rescue ships. A prosecutor in southern Italy added that it was a formality once the Sea Watch had entered Italian waters.
Sea Watch spokesman Ruben Neugebauer said the group hoped Rackete would be allowed to dock later on Friday or Saturday and that it was a disgrace for Europe that it was taking so long.
“We are really proud of our captain that doesn’t hesitate to even take personal consequences for doing exactly the right thing, for following the law of the sea and for bringing these people to safety,” Neugebauer told Reuters TV in Berlin.
Sea Watch asked the European Court of Human Rights to force Italian authorities to allow the ship to dock, but the request was rejected. Instead, the court ruled that Italy should provide all necessary assistance to those aboard.
In a tweet on Friday, Rackete said she was ready to face the consequences of Italian law. Once informed that she was under investigation, she tweeted: “I will deal with everything with the support of lawyers and Sea Watch, now I just want people to be put ashore.”
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German captain becomes anti-populist heroine in Italy migrant standoff
German captain becomes anti-populist heroine in Italy migrant standoff
- After two weeks at sea, the dreadlocked 31-year-old, Carola Rackete has become a symbol of defiance for challenging the authority of minister Matteo Salvini
- Rackete, a conservationist who has served on cruise ships and on a Greenpeace vessel in the past, has drawn strong support from Italy’s pro-immigration opposition parties
Donald Trump, once unstoppable, hits snag after snag ahead of State of the Union address
- The US president is unlikely to back down in his State of the Union address
- His boasts will have less sting on Democrats, and world leaders, who have been bulldozed by his agenda
WASHINGTON: For a year, Donald Trump has governed the United States with little standing in his way.
Now, as the president prepares for his State of the Union address on Tuesday, he’s weighed down with Supreme Court reversals on tariffs, souring public opinion on his immigration crackdown and mounting economic concerns.
Trump is unlikely to back down in his speech, a primetime American political institution where the president is invited by Congress to present his accomplishments and lay out his agenda.
But his boasts will have less sting on Democrats — and world leaders — who have up to this point been bulldozed by his agenda.
On Friday, the Supreme Court delivered a sharp rebuke of his use of tariffs, which he slapped on countries often arbitrarily via a simple order on social media in an effort to gain leverage over diplomatic matters sometimes wholly unrelated to trade.
The same day, the government data showed the US economy expanded at a 1.4 percent annual rate in the October to December period — significantly below the 2.5 percent pace that analysts had forecasted for the quarter.
Polls meanwhile show growing dissatisfaction with the cost of living as well as Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
Cost-of-living concerns
Trump’s strategy so far on inflation has been to cede no ground.
“I’ve won affordability,” Trump said during a speech in the southeastern state of Georgia on Thursday.
But “you cannot out-message the economy. People know what they are spending,” Todd Belt, a political science professor at George Washington University, said.
“People become very resentful when being told something they know is not true,” he said — which applies to both the cost of living but also the crackdown on immigrants, which many Americans had falsely believed would focus on deporting violent criminals.
American voters have proven extremely sensitive to economic issues, which in part sunk Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden but now threaten Republicans.
As midterms approach in November, the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate will be up for grabs.
Trump has already warned that if Democrats take control they could try to impeach him.
Backing down?
Even the normally bombastic Trump has been cowed in recent days, including when a racist video of Barack Obama — the country’s first Black president — was posted onto his Truth Social account.
The White House tried to brush off the issue before claiming that an unnamed aide posted it, as even loyal members of Congress broke ranks to criticize the president.
After federal immigration agents shot and killed two US citizens during their wide-sweeping operations in Minneapolis, the administration announced it was scaling back the deployment in the city, which was the scene of mass protests.
On the international scene, a US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss Washington’s security concerns in the Arctic, but Trump has had to dial back his threats to seize Greenland.
He has imposed an across-the-board 10 percent tariff on imports into the United States after the Supreme Court rebuffed his previous tariffs Friday — but that still means some nations are now trading at reduced rates than they had agreed to under his previous levies.
The administration has vowed to find other ways to implement tariffs as it decried the court’s “lawlessness.”
In the meantime, challenges to Trump’s policies are slowly winding their way through the courts.
But while Trump has been chastened, the House and the Senate still remain in Republican control — for now. And Trump himself will be in the White House until 2029.
Now, as the president prepares for his State of the Union address on Tuesday, he’s weighed down with Supreme Court reversals on tariffs, souring public opinion on his immigration crackdown and mounting economic concerns.
Trump is unlikely to back down in his speech, a primetime American political institution where the president is invited by Congress to present his accomplishments and lay out his agenda.
But his boasts will have less sting on Democrats — and world leaders — who have up to this point been bulldozed by his agenda.
On Friday, the Supreme Court delivered a sharp rebuke of his use of tariffs, which he slapped on countries often arbitrarily via a simple order on social media in an effort to gain leverage over diplomatic matters sometimes wholly unrelated to trade.
The same day, the government data showed the US economy expanded at a 1.4 percent annual rate in the October to December period — significantly below the 2.5 percent pace that analysts had forecasted for the quarter.
Polls meanwhile show growing dissatisfaction with the cost of living as well as Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
Cost-of-living concerns
Trump’s strategy so far on inflation has been to cede no ground.
“I’ve won affordability,” Trump said during a speech in the southeastern state of Georgia on Thursday.
But “you cannot out-message the economy. People know what they are spending,” Todd Belt, a political science professor at George Washington University, said.
“People become very resentful when being told something they know is not true,” he said — which applies to both the cost of living but also the crackdown on immigrants, which many Americans had falsely believed would focus on deporting violent criminals.
American voters have proven extremely sensitive to economic issues, which in part sunk Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden but now threaten Republicans.
As midterms approach in November, the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate will be up for grabs.
Trump has already warned that if Democrats take control they could try to impeach him.
Backing down?
Even the normally bombastic Trump has been cowed in recent days, including when a racist video of Barack Obama — the country’s first Black president — was posted onto his Truth Social account.
The White House tried to brush off the issue before claiming that an unnamed aide posted it, as even loyal members of Congress broke ranks to criticize the president.
After federal immigration agents shot and killed two US citizens during their wide-sweeping operations in Minneapolis, the administration announced it was scaling back the deployment in the city, which was the scene of mass protests.
On the international scene, a US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss Washington’s security concerns in the Arctic, but Trump has had to dial back his threats to seize Greenland.
He has imposed an across-the-board 10 percent tariff on imports into the United States after the Supreme Court rebuffed his previous tariffs Friday — but that still means some nations are now trading at reduced rates than they had agreed to under his previous levies.
The administration has vowed to find other ways to implement tariffs as it decried the court’s “lawlessness.”
In the meantime, challenges to Trump’s policies are slowly winding their way through the courts.
But while Trump has been chastened, the House and the Senate still remain in Republican control — for now. And Trump himself will be in the White House until 2029.
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