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Ross Kemp goes to sea with the Libyan coastguard. Photograph: Sky UK

Ross Kemp loves danger the way the rest of us love suspending our disbelief in front of a long-running BBC soap. So, its no surprise that after pursuing gangs, pirates, Isis fighters, British troops in Afghanistan, illegal loggers in the Amazon, drug dealers, Tiffany and a whole lot of publicity, the actor-turned-investigative-journalist turns his attention to the deadliest migrant route in the world. The 1,000 miles of Libyan desert, a journey more dangerous than the sea, followed by the treacherous Mediterranean crossing from Tripoli to Italy in rubber boats unfit for purpose. Three thousand people make this journey every week. Twelve die each day.

In Ross Kemp: Libyas Migrant Hell (Sky1, 9pm), which should really be called Refugees Libyan Hell, he tracks the route with his usual brawn studded with the occasional fleck of emotion. This is not nuanced film-making, but somehow that feels right for an issue so huge, horrifying and urgent; a bit of plain-spoken directness feels welcome. Beginning in the Sahara, where threats include smugglers, Isis training camps, armed militias and kidnappers, Kemp intercepts a truck rammed with 22 people. We are running for our lives, one man explains. Later, he joins 30 men and women on a 350-mile desert stretch to the next handover point: a seven-hour journey travelling 70mph in 45C heat. Instantly sweating like a pig in his headscarf, Kemp declares: I dont think I could do it, thats for sure.

Yet do it he does. Why? Its only right, if we want to understand what these people go through, to experience a bit of it myself. Perhaps Kemp cannot see that a white male western film-maker joining some of the most traumatised people on the planet for a mini leg of their journey before returning to his armoured vehicle probably still wont be able to understand what they are going through.

What Kemp can do is show us the horrors he finds; his access what with being a white male western filmmaker who looks like Grant Mitchell is amazing. He meets women held in a house against their will and forced to work in what is clearly the sex trade. He enters one of Tripolis three recognised detention centres, where 490 male refugees are locked up indefinitely, beaten, starved and abandoned by every person and government in the world. He interviews a smuggler who has transported 2,000 people into Europe along a coast where smuggling now accounts for half of the local economy. And he spends a night at sea with the Libyan coastguard, getting shot at in the process (this being a Kemp documentary) and rescuing 750 people in just nine hours. Rescue, though, is the wrong word. We have seen the detention centres to which they will be taken.

In the most distressing scene, Kemp visits one such centre for women and meets a woman and two small boys rescued from the Mediterranean the previous night. Out of 120 people, only 18 survived: the boys mother was not one of them. Do these boys understand what happened to their mother yet? Kemp asks, as they look on with blank expressions. No idea, the woman replies before bursting into tears. Another woman, unable to leave her bed, tells Kemp about the baby she recently birthed inside the toilet, who died a week later. Now Im dying also, she wails. Im dying. Im dying. Im dying.

Kemps style may be about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but when he says, with tears in his eyes, that I dont care who you are or where you come from as human beings we have a duty to try and stop this suffering, its a deeply powerful plea. So yes, we now live in a world where Ross Kemp is a rare public voice of compassion and reason in the immigration debate.

Inside No 9 (BBC2, 10pm) is back for a full third series after a Christmas special and is as nasty, brutish and short as ever. Its a masterclass in how to cram a plot, fully fleshed out (and flesh-crawling) character and a dozen twists into 30 minutes. This episode has a simple premise: four men argue over whos going to pay the bill in a restaurant. Three are northern (two played by creators Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton), the fourth is a brash, lecherous Londoner (Philip Glenister) willing to risk the safety of his sleeping children in order to prove he has an Amex gold card; all are heinous. Cue lots of northern/southern caricature skewering, and a particularly disgusting lie about a brain tumour. Naturally, it all comes to blows, or rather a nail-biting game involving a knife and five fingers. As Archie (Shearsmith) points out: Theres always a bill. Somebody has to pay.

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Ross Kemp: Libya's Migrant Hell review a deeply powerful plea - The Guardian

New York Times

Australia, Libya, North Korea: Your Morning Briefing New York Times The shift in enforcement faces resistance from many states and dozens of so-called sanctuary cities. The new rules will be high on the agenda as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the head of Homeland Security, John Kelly, visit Mexico this week. _____.

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Australia, Libya, North Korea: Your Morning Briefing - New York Times

Eastern Libyas military government has banned women under the age of 60 from traveling abroad alone, prompting an outcry from womens rights activists in the North African country.

Military officials in the eastern city of al-Baida imposed the ban on Thursday, starting with the citys Labraq international airport, the BBC reported. It is to be enforced on all women traveling alone via land, air and sea, and will also affect those transiting through the east of the country.

There are several rival governments competing for legitimacy in Libya, where a 2011 revolution overthrew longtime leader Muammar el-Qaddafi. The U.N.-backed Government of National Accord, led by Prime Minister Fayez Serraj, is based in Tripoli, while the eastern government is led by Libyan Chief of Staff Abdel-Razek al-Nadhouri and overseen by Khalifa Haftar, an influential military general. A third administration calling itself the National Salvation government has also recently claimed to have taken control of several of the U.N.-backed governments ministries in Tripoli.

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The director and co-founder of the Libyan Womens Platform for Peace, Zahra Langhi, tells Newsweek that the ban is appalling and that she has received reports of high-ranking women fleeing the country through unofficial routes.

Weve lost many of our friends who stood against Islamist militias and radical Salafiswe lost many of our friends, [but] not to get this in return, says Langhi, speaking via telephone from Aswan, Egypt. We believe in the importance of having an inclusive democracy, gender equality, [and] a civil state, but this is what we are getting.

Libyan women take part in a celebration marking the sixth anniversary of the Libyan revolution, which toppled strongman Muammar el-Qaddafi, at the Martyrs' Square in the capital Tripoli, on February 17. The military authority in eastern Libya has imposed a ban on women under the age of 60 traveling abroad alone without a guardian. MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP/Getty

One of Langhis close friends, theprominent Libyan womens rights activist, Salwa Bugaighis, was assassinated in Benghazi in 2014 by unknown assailants on the day of the countrys general election. Langhi says she fled the country in 2014.

Langhi says the ban is evidence of the rise of so-called quietist Salafism in eastern Libya. Salafism is an ultra conservative form of Islam, often accompanied by adherence to a strict moral code. Quietist Salafism refers to a form of the religion that eschews political engagement, according to the Brookings Institution.

In an interview on Libyan television, al-Naduri claimed that the ban was a national security measure and was not motivated by politics or religious ideology. Al-Naduri said that women claiming to represent civil society groups were often used by foreign intelligence for espionage.

The ban has prompted criticism and mockery online from activists, while the U.N. mission in Libya tweeted that freedom of movement was a basic human right of all people. The ban has also prompted a satirical version of Spanish musician Enrique Iglesiass song Hero. The Libyan version is titled, I can be your Mahram baby. Mahram is an Arabic, religious term referring to a male guardian.

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Eastern Libya Ban on Women Traveling Abroad Alone Spurs Outrage - Newsweek

Libyas returning oil wealth could bring back cheap fuel, food and foreign goods in a subsidy-based system in the most optimistic scenario. But as oil prices and production rise, the future of new political developments hangs in the balance in a growing power struggle between Russia and the United Nations.

Last week, the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Libya announced plans to reshuffle its leadership, which it hoped would be a way to bring influential General Khalifa Haftarthe GNAs key rivalinto the Tripoli-based organizations ranks.

Cairo hosted members of both parties to discuss cooperation between Haftars House of Representatives/Libyan National Army based in Tobruk and the GNA which vowed a 180 degree turn in relations if Haftar agreed to take a role within its hierarchy. But the meeting never happened.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi could not convince Haftar to accept a position within the GNAs governing structure, rendering the meeting fruitless at a crucial moment for the next stage of Libyas reconstruction. More than ever, the presence of a strong U.N.-backed GNA with Haftars support is necessary to keep Russian interests at bay.

As highlighted by the Huffington Post last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin is paying his dues to solidify Moscows foothold in Libya after all but guaranteeing the future of President Bashar Al-Assad in Syria.

Haftar a U.S. citizen who lived in Virginia for 20 years -- has travelled to Moscow twice in the past six months for meetings with senior Russian military and defense officials. Leading up to the swearing in of U.S. President Donald Trump, the general toured a Russian aircraft carrier parked right off of the Benghazi coast, where he held a video conference with Defense Secretary Sergei Shoigu.

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Putin maintains that his country has observed the terms of the U.N.s weapons embargo to any military organization other that its own GNA, but Russian military advisors have been offering their services to the LNA with increased enthusiasm in recent months.

The relative stability of the status quo could fall apart at any moment jeopardizing the progress that the unified National Oil Corporation (NOC) has made in recovering oil production to levels seen only in the last days of dictator Muammar Ghaddafi.

New figures from the NOC marked oil production at 700,000 barrels per day, on track to meet its 1.7 million bpd production goal for March 2018, when all oil facilities will be at full capacity. The increasing revenues are crucial for the reconstruction of the countrys major industrial areas as the Arab Spring-sparked civil war wraps up.

So far, the NOC has been able to reliably secure areas with the presence of foreign oil and gas multinationals.

Eni and Total are working there with no problems, so the situation is improving every day in Libya and Id like to take this opportunity as an introduction for those who have interest to work in Libya, NOC board member Jadalla Alaokali said in an interview during the Cairo talks. More than 45 percent of the land is still virgin, hasnt been explored, so we still have large areas that havent been discovered, so the opportunity is there.

Domestic turmoil led fellow members of OPEC to exempt Libya from the restrictive terms of a recent deal to cut output and reinvigorate oil prices. Unencumbered by the production limits endured by its rivals, Tripoli now has an opportunity to benefit from US$50+ oil prices without stalling new exploration projects.

Russia is making another major move on Libyan oil. Russias state-owned Rosneft just signed investment and crude oil purchasing agreements with the NOC, agreeing to invest in exploration and production.

Burgeoning Russian influence and new wealth could mean weapons contracts for Russia, which lost a few billion in arms deals after the fall of Ghaddafi. Installing Haftar in a Ghaddafi-style government would be Moscows surest route to recovering those upended contracts.

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Observers should take new developments in the North African state with a grain of salt. An assassination attempt on Fayes al-Sarraj prime minister of the GNA -- like the one that happened just this morning in Tripoli could cause the political arena to erupt with a vengeance.

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"The prime ministers convoy came under fire as it passed by a government complex held by supporters of the national salvation government [led by Khalifa al-Ghawiel]," a member of the presidential council told Anadolu Agency anonymously. Al-Ghawiel, who disbanded the GNAs rival General National Congress (GNC) in April, only to revolt and reestablish it in October, would have gained notoriety had the attack succeeded.

In 2015, the U.N. established the unity GNA to end the conflict between Haftars HoR and the GNC. The unwelcome return of the latter, and its latest attempt at a political knockout, guarantees forceful clashes between militias affiliated with both groups.

At any point, all momentum could be thwarted by a strategic explosion or murder, ending fragile truces. And the stakes only grow higher as Libyan oil wealth returns.

By Zainab Calcuttawala for Oilprice.com

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As Haftar Moves Closer To Russia, Will Libya Become The Next Syria? - Yahoo Finance

February 21, 2017 The bodies of at least 74African migrants have been found washed up on the shores ofwestern Libya after their inflatable boat's engine was stolen, according tothe Libyan Red Crescent and local officials from the Libyan coast guard.

The bodies were recoveredMondayafternoon and eveningnear the city of Zawiya. The refugees appeared to have been dead for about two days prior to their recovery. Another 12 migrants from the boatremain missing and are "presumed drowned," according to the UN migration agency. The sole survivor of the tragedy was transferred to a local hospital in a coma.

It is unfortunately common for smugglers to packlarge rubber boats with up to 180 migrants to send towards Italy and other parts of Europe, which make them easy to capsize. Poor conditions and accidents on these overcrowded vessels led to a record number of deaths over the past year.

But according toJoel Millman, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), this incident may have been a little different. A local IOM staff member had reported that "traffickers came and removed the engine from the boat and left the craft adrift," leaving the people on board completely helpless in open ocean.

"This is not a only horrible number of deaths in one incident but it strikes us as something that we haven't really seen much of, which is either deliberate punishment or murder of migrants," he said.

These kinds of cynical and often outright cruel measures taken by smugglers against refugees attempting to flee into Europe have been well documented over the course of the refugee crisis. As Peter Ford reported for The Christian Science Monitor in August 2016:

No longer do people-smugglers carry refugees to the Italian coast and then return home to Libya for another consignment.

Instead they pack boats with passengers, load just enough fuel for them to reach international waters, give basic instructions on how the engine works and which direction to head in, and then cast the migrants loose.

It is not the intention that these boats make it to Europe, a recent EU report found. They are designed to reach the high seas, to then trigger a search and rescue operation.

Sometimes the smugglers leave a satellite telephone with their clients, along with a number for the Italian maritime rescue center in Rome, so that the refugees can call to tell somebody that they exist.

But while a number of rescue ships do patrol international waters between Libya and Europe in search of these migrants, they often arrive too late to help. And the longer the refugee crisis drags on, the more perilous the journey becomes for those who choose to make it, as smugglers grow ever cheaper.

"We are seeing the new boats, which are not equipped with anything, but they carry more people," said Libyan coast guard spokesman Ayoub Gassim. "This is going to be even more disastrous for the migrants."

The escape route between Libya and Italy is a popular but dangerous one for migrants fleeingpoverty and conflict elsewhere in Africa. Libya, which has been in a state of civil war itself since2011, is largely governed by local militias that often turn a profit from the trafficking, with its two main opposing governments busy competing for power in separate parts of the country.

The European Union hopes to stem the tide of migrants by sending money to the UN-brokered government in Tripoli(which is weak and not recognized by the rival government) and by training the Libyan coast guard.But many human rights groups have decried the EU's plan, which they say would strand migrants in the country and leave them open to further human rights abuses at the hands of the local militias.

Arjan Hehenkamp,head of Doctors Without Borders,criticized the plan, calling the EU "delusional about just how dangerous the situation in Libya really is."

Last year, 181,000 migrants attempted the crossing between Libya and Italy, 4,500 of which are known to have died on the way. The IOM said this latest discovery of bodies has brought the 2017 death toll up to more than 365.

This article contains material from the Associated Press and Reuters.

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Dozens of migrants found drowned on Libya's coast: Refugees' route to Europe continues to be deadly - Christian Science Monitor