Tripoli

Some 250 Turkish citizens are leaving Libya, after a call from a renegade Libyan general to Turks and Qataris to leave the country’s east within two days or suffer a backlash from the public.

Most Turkish nationals have left the country since the Foreign Ministry issued its own warning, Anadolu Agency quoted Turkey’s Benghazi Council General Ali Sait Akın as saying on June 23.

A Libyan renegade general has called on all Turks and Qataris to leave volatile eastern Libya, accusing the two countries of supporting “terrorism,” his spokesman said June 22.

Illegal border crossing at the EU external borders increased sharply in 2013, rising to over 107,000 from 75,000 in 2012, an EU agency reports.

With just a week to go before local authority elections and two weeks before elections for the European Parliament, party leaders ratcheted up their campaigning over the weekend as new opinion polls put New Democracy, which leads the ruling coalition, and the left-wing opposition SYRIZA neck and neck.

By George Georgakopoulos

Dimitris Salpingidis salvaged a draw for PAOK at Panathinaikos on Sunday that keeps the Thessaloniki club tied on top of the play-off mini-league with the Greens as well as with Asteras Tripolis that defeated Atromitos at home.

Former Libyan Interior Ministry Undersecretary, Al-Bahlul Al-Said, has been kidnapped in Tripoli, a security official revealed on Wednesday.

Al-Said was taken from his car by gunmen driving in two vehicles while traveling in the Tajoura district of the Libyan capital. His location and captures remain unknown.