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London:Tensions are rising in the southern Mediterranean's migrant crisis, after Italian coastguards seized a German aid group's boat suspected of aiding illegal immigration.

But refugee advocates have in return accused Italy of being complicit in human rights abuses, by sending navy vesselsinto Libyan waters to turn back migrant boats.

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Jugend Rettet, an aid group working in the Mediterranean say their equipment may have been hacked after being accused of allegedly helping people traffickers.

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Italian police arrested a 30-year-old man suspected of abducting a British model in Milan and threatening to auction her online unless a ransom of $300,000 was paid.

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China has said new UN sanctions on North Korea were the right response to a series of missile tests, but dialogue was vital to resolve a sensitive issue.

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US Vice President Mike Pence denounced as false New York Times article suggesting he is eyeing a run for president.

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Jugend Rettet, an aid group working in the Mediterranean say their equipment may have been hacked after being accused of allegedly helping people traffickers.

Refugee advocates deny accusations that non-government organisations have formed a "taxi service" for migrants fleeing Libya, saying instead they are providing a vital search-and-rescue service that is saving thousands of lives.

Italian coastguards confiscated the boat, named Iuventa and operated by activistcollective Jugend Rettet, on the island of Lampedusa after receiving evidence that its crew were in communication with people smugglers.

"The evidence is serious," Ambrogio Cartosio, chief prosecutor in the western Sicilian city of Trapani, said.

"We have evidence of encounters between traffickers, who escorted illegal immigrants to the Iuventa, and members of the boat's crew."

He said nobody had been charged but his investigation was continuing. He also said it would be a "fantasy" to say there was a coordinated plan between the NGOs and the Libyan traffickers.

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Jugend Rettet did not respond to a request for an interview from Fairfax Media.

On Twitter on Thursday they said their crew were interviewed by officials "as part of the standard procedure" and they had received no information about an investigation.

"Our legal teams are working hard to examine the legal basis of the confiscation of the ship," they said.

They watched their ship's forced departure from Lampedusa "with heavy hearts" because the ship was "dearly needed", they said.

Last month, Italy, with the backing of the European Union, imposed a code of conduct for NGOs in the Mediterranean.

Jugend Rettet said they had been negotiating with Rome over the code, but on Tuesday had decided not to sign it until it was rewritten.

"Our top priority is to save people in distress but this is not prioritised [in] this code of conduct [which] would legally put us in an uncertain position," they said in a statement on Facebook.

In May,Cartosio told a parliamentary committee in Rome that he had become suspicious of NGOs after noticing some rescue crews seemed to know in advance where to find migrant boats, and were making rescues without informing the Italian coastguard.

Carmelo Zuccaro the chief prosecutor of the Sicilian port of Catania, has claimed he had evidence of phone calls between people smugglers and aid groups, but in May admitted he was expressing only a "hypothesis" and had no proof that could be used in court.

A fleet of around a dozen boats crewed by humanitarian groups are working on the Mediterranean to perform rescues.

Around 85,000 migrants arrived in Italy by boat in the first six months of 2017, 21 per cent more than in the same period in 2016.

More than 2200 people have died attempting the crossing this year, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

Last year, rescues in the Mediterranean were closer to Italy, but now they were happening much closer to the border between Libyan and international waters, prompting accusations the NGOs are encouraging people smugglers.

Smugglers were "including the presence of NGO boats in their business model", aEuropean official familiar with the situation told Fairfax Media last month.

Izza Leghtas, a senior advocate for Refugees International, said search and rescue should not be made into a political issue.

NGOs performed more than a third of the rescues in the area in the first part of 2017, Leghtas said.

"They are filling a huge gap if they weren't doing that work then we would be talking probably about thousands more people drowning."

"They are proactive, they go to the areas where they know people are at risk in international waters," she said, while official boats were more focused on border control. "We are talking about life and death situations and that needs to be the priority."

Part of the problem was the pressure Italy was coming under because other European countries, including Italy's closest neighbours, had not stepped up to take a share of the migrants and refugees arriving from Africa.

The Italians had been traumatised by the number of deaths at sea and felt they had been left alone to handle it, Leghtas said.

She rejected the claim that NGOs were encouraging migrants to take to the sea.

"The conditions in Libya are so horrific, it's a question of a push factor not a pull factor," she said. "People get out of Libya because it's unbearable, because people are killed and tortured and sexually abused.

"To focus on the rescue operations and ignore the fact they are fleeing for their lives [is wrong] people are going to go regardless [of the NGO boats]."

She said her group was deeply concerned by the Italian government's plan to send its vessels into Libyan territorial waters to help the Libyan coastguard intercept migrant and refugee boats.

"It is no secret that migrants and refugees who are intercepted and returned by the Libyan coast guard face horrific abuses in Libya's migrant detention centers," said Leghtas. "By engaging in these operations, the Italian government would be knowingly complicit in these abuses."

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Migrant crisis: German NGO boat that 'contacted people ...

"Deal. Breakthrough with Turkey," read the tweet from Martin Selmayr.

The proposal still needs formal approval. The next step is for the proposal to be taken to EU leaders at the European Council migration crisis meeting scheduled for March 17-18.

"President of #EUCO will take forward the proposals and work out the details with the Turkish side before the March #EUCO," read a tweet from Xavier Bettel, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg.

"We agreed to work on the basis of 6 principles," he tweeted. Those principles were later spelled out in a statement from the European Council. They are as follows:

Donald Tusk, president of the European Council -- as the group of 28 EU leaders is known -- said the key outcome of all the steps being taken to deal with the refugee crisis was this message: "The days of irregular migration to Europe are over."

The news came as European Union leaders held an emergency summit Monday with Turkey aimed at staunching the flow of migrants to Europe as they search for a solution to the continent's worst refugee crisis since World War II.

The vast majority of the migrants have come via Turkey.

EU heads of government were expected to push Turkey to do more to prevent migrants from leaving its shores, by targeting human trafficking networks and repatriating so-called economic migrants -- people who have left their homelands in hopes of a better life, rather than out of fear for their lives.

In return, the EU will support Turkey in managing the millions of refugees the country has already taken in. It already hosts 2.6 million migrants.

He proposed doing so by smashing trafficking gangs and stepping up the return of economic migrants, supporting Turkey and providing technical assistance to Greece to speed up the processing of migrant claims and repatriation of illegal migrants.

Also before the summit Monday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, "The only way to respond to this challenge is solidarity.

"At the end of the day, our continent is our continent altogether," he told reporters in Brussels.

The International Rescue Committee lauded the meeting Monday but warned that "closing all of Europe's borders without offering alternative routes to safety will not work."

"In fact," the humanitarian organization said, "the only winners will be the smugglers, as people take more elaborate and more dangerous routes to safety."

The summit comes as a desperate bottleneck of more than 10,000 people swells at the Greece-Macedonia border, and a senior NATO expert on strategic communications warned that a belligerent Russia was attempting to stir up emotions in Europe over the migrant influx.

NATO's Janis Sarts told CNN that Moscow appeared to be conducting an information war over the refugee issue, drumming up public anger to its own political ends.

"What we have seen is a lot of strong evidence to suggest that by deliberately distorting facts through their centrally controlled media, Russia is exploiting contentious issues in order to undermine European democratic values such as freedom of speech, tolerance and human rights," said Sarts, director of the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence based in Riga, Latvia.

"Russia's political establishment has had no reservations about capitalizing on a potentially divisive issue such as refugees with a view to interfering in legitimate democratic processes outside of its own borders."

Meanwhile, a major backlog of about 35,000 migrants has built up in Greece, a country already struggling under the weight of a debt crisis, following a decision by eight countries along the main overland migration route to Western Europe to all but close their borders in response.

Greece is the entry point into Europe for the overwhelming majority of the migrants, with arrivals averaging 1,800 a day last month.

On Monday morning, CNN's Arwa Damon reported from at a migrant camp at Idomeni, a village on the Greek border with Macedonia. Doctors without Borders said more than 11,000 people are crammed into the camp, which was designed as a transit camp for 1,500.

Authorities are letting only a few hundred Syrians and Iraqis through to Macedonia each day, raising fears that Greece is at risk of becoming a mass refugee camp.

Damon said those taking shelter in tents at Idomeni told her they hoped the Brussels meeting could result in the borders opening. But the reality is that there have been more barriers built than removed in the past six months.

Many said they had already experienced the effects of Ankara's efforts to crack down on migrants on the Turkish coastline, with some reporting having been turned back multiple times before they eventually made it across the Aegean Sea to Greece.

The Aegean, a stretch of the Mediterranean separating Turkey and Greece, is the main route that traffickers use to bring migrants into Europe.

Twenty-five migrants died in its waters Sunday in an attempt to reach Greece when their boat capsized off of Turkey's western coast, Turkey's semiofficial Anadolu news agency reported.

Last month, ministers from countries along the main Balkan migration route through Europe -- including Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia -- agreed to tighten border controls to slow arrivals to a trickle.

Arriving at the Brussels summit Monday, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras stressed it was a common European problem: "So we have to find collective, European solutions."

Unfortunately, since the previous summit on the crisis, "there were agreements that didn't implement for everybody," he said, apparently referring to restrictions along the Balkan migration route.

He said he looked forward to "substantial results" from the meeting on decreasing migrant flows, breaking trafficking networks and accelerating efforts to relocate asylum seekers throughout EU countries.

EU leaders agreed last year to accept 160,000 refugees among its member states, but so far less than 1,000 have been processed.

Cameron described the migration crisis as "the greatest challenge facing Europe today."

The RFA Mounts Bay will join ships from Canada, Germany, Turkey and Greece on patrol.

They will participate in an operation aimed at reducing the flow of migrants from Turkey by spotting smugglers and sharing information with the Turkish coast guard, Cameron's statement said. From there, it's up to the Turkish coast guard to determine whether to turn smugglers' boats around.

"We've got to break the business model of the criminal smugglers and stop the desperate flow of people crammed into makeshift vessels from embarking on a fruitless and perilous journey," Cameron said.

"That will disrupt the business model of the criminal gangs encouraging people to risk their lives by making these dangerous journeys," he said.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced Sunday that the anti-trafficking operation in the Aegean had been expanded into Greek and Turkish territorial waters as well.

CNN's Radina Gigova and Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report.

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Migrant crisis: EU and Turkey agree on refugee proposal - CNN

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Tommaso Fabbri, believes organisations like his are being left to fill the void left by Europe.

A new code of conduct was created to address the migrant crisis and lays down 13 rules Rome insists must be followed to prevent aid groups rescuing migrants from acting as a magnet for human traffickers.

Mr Fabbri said: The Code of Conduct that the Italian Ministry of Interior asked us to sign seems to be entrenching the view that states can outsource the life-saving response to NGOs, allowing states to concentrate their efforts on naval and military operations.

The responsibility to organise and conduct search and rescue operations at sea lies as it always has with states. As such, our current rescue activities are simply filling the void left by Europe.

The Italian government has considered trying to contain migrants and refugees in Libya through military operations.

Mr Fabbri added: Libya is not a place where people should be returned to, be it from European territory or from the sea.

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Austrian riot police line up to face protesters (not pictured) during a rally against the Austrian government's planned re-introduction of border controls at the Brenner Pass, Austria

We do not believe that search and rescue should be the solution to address boat migration and mortality at sea, but it is needed in the absence of any other safe alternative for people to seek safety.

Cutting the only and last escape they have from exploitation and violence cannot be an acceptable solution.

Italian ministers believe they have been left alone to deal with the rising number of migrants arriving on their shores.

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Former prime minister Matteo Renzi recently declared: I cannot accept the idea that Europe is just the single market.

If there are some European countries that make great speeches and that we help by giving them a lot of money, and then these countries, when it comes to helping out on immigration, close their doors after being helped by us I would stop giving them money.

"This is not being against Europe. This is defending European ideals."

UN figures estimate more than 94,000 people have arrived this year alone, with more than 2,300 dying while trying to attempt the perilous crossing, mainly from Africa.

Privately-funded aid boats reportedly performed 26 percent of the rescues carried out in 2016, rising to 35 percent so far this year.

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Migrant crisis reaches boiling point as NGO head Tommaso Fabbri ... - Express.co.uk

August 7 2017, 12:01am,The Times

Clare Foges

Western nations must crack down on sea crossings and reform the UNs Refugee Convention

The competition among United Nations officials to make the most irritating comment about the UK continues. There was the UN human rights expert who said sexism was more pervasive here than in any other country she had visited. Then the UN special representative for international migration described British plans to build a wall around the port of Calais as inhumane. Now we have Volker Trk, of the UN high commissioner for refugees, vying hard for first prize.

Last week Mr Trk said the UK needs to step up and help to address the migrant crisis. Never mind that we have committed hundreds of millions to help refugees in the camps around Syria, or that in 2016 we resettled more refugees than any other country in

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Time for a harder line on the migrant crisis - The Times

According to Nicola Latorre, an Italian senator and ally of the minister, Mr. Minniti was the protagonist of the breakthrough last week, when Prime Minister Fayez Serraj of Libya requested the support of Italian naval ships to counter human trafficking.

It is a risky endeavor that Italy has nevertheless sought for years, desperate to cut the migrant flow. Its success or failure now falls to Mr. Minniti, who polls show to be a popular member of a government with uncertain chances in the next election.

Some political observers have even suggested that Mr. Minniti, with his leftist background and ability to please conservatives with tough talk on security, might be a good candidate for prime minister. He has served in five center-left Italian governments, though he emphasized that he had never asked for a position. Ive always been chosen, he said.

Minniti could be a card to play, said Marco Damilano, a prominent Italian journalist who has written often about him.

Mr. Minniti dismissed such talk. He said he was instead more focused on countering Islamic radicalism by making pacts with local imams that required them to preach in Italian, building new relationships in Africa and working with the Libyans to defeat human traffickers.

Human relationships count a lot, said the old spy master.

The number of migrants who have landed in Italy this year totals more than 95,000, with about 2,000 who drowned. It is a crisis that has defied nearly every attempt to solve it.

Despite a mix of appeals and threats by Mr. Minniti at European Union meetings, neighboring countries have done little to share Italys crushing burden.

In particular, tensions have risen with President Emmanuel Macron of France, who has resisted accepting migrants and started an uncertain peace process in Libya that, critics here say, blindsided Italy and weakened its chances of stopping traffickers by legitimizing a rival of Mr. Serraj.

Mr. Minniti said that he agreed in principle with Mr. Macron on trying to reach a peace in Libya, but that a target of 2018 would be too late for him. I cannot wait, he said.

He argued that smashing human trafficking networks and investing in Libyan mayors were the best ways to stabilize a porous southern Libyan border that allows migrants from traditionally Francophone African countries to pass.

As Mr. Minniti fidgeted with a silver Casio watch, representatives of humanitarian organizations met in the ministry with officials to try to agree on a new code of conduct for rescuing migrants near Libyan waters.

More than 40 percent of migrants at sea are now rescued by private aid ships, and Mr. Minniti wants to make sure those ships are not colluding with traffickers an accusation popular among right-wing politicians, white nationalist groups and a Sicilian prosecutor.

He also insists that it is only appropriate that the Italian police be able to board those ships, which they did on Wednesday.

My duty is to be close to those who are afraid, to reassure them, to liberate them from fear, Mr. Minniti said, arguing that the left can no longer afford to ignore or look down on people scared by immigration or terrorism.

I think fear is the crucial element of the next 10 years in democracy, he said. In Italy and all the world.

That law-and-order talk has been too much for some of Mr. Minnitis old comrades on the left. (One left-leaning newspaper suggested that Mr. Minniti thought he was Batman.) But the intense and abstemious minister said service to the state was in his blood.

His father was one of nine brothers to make a career in the military. In high school in Reggio Calabria, he developed a love of the ancient poet Catullus.

But his true passion was for the skies. He hoped to follow his familys tradition by becoming an air force pilot. Instead, his mother put her foot down, saying the family had already given enough.

Mr. Minniti said he took the ban badly. (The shelves of his office still display the models of the jets he once hoped to fly.)

In an act of rebellion, he studied philosophy at the University of Messina. He wrote his thesis on the Georgics of Virgil, and to help understand the exploitation of slaves in the ancient Roman fields, he said I used Marx.

Those studies helped bring him closer to the Communist Party, and when he graduated, he said, his father showed how proud he was of his communist philosopher son when he didnt show up.

But that opposition only fueled Mr. Minnitis conviction as he sought to stand up for the countrys democratic values in dangerous sections of Calabria ruled by one of Italys feared mafias, the Ndrangheta (pronounced n-DRAHN-ghe-ta).

In 1980, Mr. Minniti, a free-diving enthusiast, was trying on a swimsuit when he received word that a friend in the Communist Party had been gunned down by the mob. It fell on him to tell his comrades parents.

In the 1980s, he began working closely with the Communist Partys rising star, Massimo DAlema. In the early 1990s, Mr. Minniti by then married to a musician, Mariangela, with whom he has two daughters moved with Mr. DAlema to form a new political party.

When Mr. DAlema became prime minister in 1998, he brought Mr. Minniti in as his right-hand man. The young aide worked at a desk once used by Benito Mussolini, and less than a month into his tenure answered a secure phone in his bedroom.

I was convinced it would never ring, he said.

The Italian authorities had stopped Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party, who was considered a terrorist by many, as he entered Italy. Mr. Minniti ordered his arrest, setting off on a crash course in international intelligence operations and spy craft.

The experience followed almost immediately by his crucial role in the Italian intervention in Kosovo gave him a taste for security work.

In 1999, he made his first visit to Libya, a former Italian colony, and began to learn about its disparate centers of power. Today he rattles off the names of Libyan towns where traffickers loom, places that he says he knows better than his native Calabria.

But whether that deep experience can resolve Italys endless migrant crisis remains a long shot. Already, like with an earlier agreement with the Libyans that Mr. Minniti helped broker, not all has gone according to plan.

Early in the planning, a competing Libyan leader, Gen. Khalifa Hifter whom Mr. Macron has included in peace talks has threatened to bomb the Italian navys ships. The Italian ambassador in Tripoli responded that such threats were useless and that the Italian mission would go ahead.

Mr. Minnitis ministry eager to show its strategy is working has latched on to a dip in the number of migrants arriving in Italy compared with last year.

The minister himself knows skepticism is high and said that when he first broached dealing with Libya, which lacked an empowered interlocutor with whom to negotiate, critics laughed in my face.

They said, You dont understand the most basic thing: Libya is instable.

What he does understand, he said, is that such instability means anything can happen at any time and that any deal could blow up. But we have built a path.

A version of this article appears in print on August 5, 2017, on Page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: Italys Lord of the Spies Takes On a Migration Crisis.

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Italy's 'Lord of the Spies' Takes On a Migration Crisis - New York Times