A group of migrants rescued by a Danish tanker in the Mediterranean have been allowed to land in Italy after more than 40 days at sea.

The 27 people – including one pregnant woman – set off from Libya on 2 August.Danish tanker the Maersk Etienne picked them up shortly afterwards when their vessel started to sink.

But the ship was denied permission to dock in any country for more than a month. The migrants finally disembarked in Sicily on Saturday night.

On Friday the group had been transferred to a rescue vessel operated by the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans.

They were brought to the port of Pozzallo.

“This puts an end to the longest and most shameful stand-off in European maritime history,” Mediterranea wrote on Twitter.

It comes at the same time as Greece is struggling to cope with more than 12,000 migrants on Lesbos after the Moria refugee camp was destroyed in a fire.

Tens of thousands of people are reportedly marching in the capital Minsk and other cities, in the latest of several weeks of mass protest against President Alexander Lukashenko.

Large numbers of police have been deployed, blocking key areas. Police said they had arrested about 250 people ahead of the demonstration, dubbed the March of Heroes.

The protests have been triggered by a widely disputed election a month ago and subsequent brutal police crackdown.

Demonstrators want Mr Lukashenko to resign after alleging widespread ballot-rigging. But the Belarusian leader – in power for 26 years – has denied the allegations and accuses Western nations of interfering.

The 66-year-old has promised to defend Belarus.

Most opposition leaders are now under arrest or in exile.

It is the fifth successive Sunday of mass protests, with about 100,000 rallyings each week.

An Israeli cabinet minister has resigned in protest against plans to impose a second national lockdown.

Housing Minister Yaakov Litzman said the restrictions would prevent Jewish people from celebrating religious festivals later this month.

The lockdown is due to come into force on Friday, the Jewish new year, and affect Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, on 27 September.

Mr Litzman also threatened to pull his party out of the governing coalition.

The measures will be the most extensive imposed in Israel since the country’s first lockdown, which ran from late March until early May.Mr Litzman, who leads an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party, said in his resignation letter:

“This wrongs and scorns hundreds of thousands of citizens.”Where were you until now? Why have Jewish holidays become a convenient address for tackling the coronavirus?” he queried.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee was, on Saturday, elected president of the Inter-American Development Bank, the region’s main economic development lender, making him the first U.S. citizen to lead the institution in its 61-year history.

Mauricio Claver-Carone, Trump’s senior Latin America adviser, told the bank’s governors before voting began that he would be “a passionate advocate” for the bank, its staff and the region.

He will take office on Oct. 1 and has pledged to serve only one five-year term.

Trump’s decision to nominate a U.S. candidate to head the bank broke with a tradition for the president to come from the region and sparked criticism from some Latin American countries, development groups and the European Union.

But Claver-Carone won the backing of a majority of countries in the region.

Thirty of the Bank’s 48 governors voted for Claver-Carone, including 23 from the region, amounting to 66.8 per cent of the vote, a spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council said.

A source familiar with the vote said 16 countries abstained.

Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica – concerned about the longer-term precedent of the move – initially sought to delay the vote but failed to win sufficient backing to do so.

The IDB vote turned into a geopolitical battle between the Trump administration, which is keen to gain leverage in resource-rich Latin America and counter the rise of China, and some in the region who wanted to retain control of the top job.

Some countries also were concerned about Claver-Carone, a Trump loyalist, if Trump loses the Nov. 3 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden, whose campaign also criticised the nomination of the Cuba hawk.

Claver-Carone said he would work with member countries to “strengthen the bank, respond to the needs of the region and create opportunities for shared prosperity and economic growth’’.

The IDB has been led by Latin Americans, with an American in the No. 2 job, since the institution’s inception in 1959.

Critics say electing Claver-Carone to head the bank and his pledge to appoint a Latin American as executive vice president sets a precedent that could harm Washington in the end by loosening its hold on the bank’s No. 2 post.

Senator Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the vote raised questions about Latin Americans “charting their own future” and signalled it could have consequences for U.S. funding of the institution.

“I have always believed that to be successful, countries need to take responsibility for their own development, and the U.S. should play a supportive role.

“Those roles have now been reversed and we need to review whether this is the best use of resources to assist the people of those countries,’’ Leahy said in a statement to Reuters.