Officials say 179 people trying to cross Channel were rescued after four French-led operations
One person has died and two others are missing in the Channel after an incident involving a small boat, French rescue services have said.
According to the Préfecture maritime Manche et mer du Nord, four French-led rescue operations took place in the Channel on Wednesday, coordinated by the regional operational surveillance and rescue of Gris-Nez.
Continue reading...Decision by premier Danielle Smith further pits Canadian province against environmental groups pushing green energy
Alberta will block renewable energy projects on “prime” agricultural land and limit the placement of wind turbines to preserve “pristine viewscapes”, a decision that increasingly pits the western Canadian province against environmental groups pushing green energy – and the companies investing in it.
The decision, announced by the premier, Danielle Smith, and utilities minister, Nathan Neudorf, on Wednesday, follows a controversial six-month ban on new renewable energy projects that is due to expire on 29 February.
Continue reading...New legislation threatens prison sentences of up to five years for ‘wilful promotion, sponsorship or support of LGBTQ+ activities’
Ghana’s parliament has passed legislation that intensifies a crackdown on the rights of LGBTQ people and those promoting lesbian, gay or other non-conventional sexual or gender identities in the West African country.
The new legislation passed on Wednesday imposes a prison sentence of up to five years for the “wilful promotion, sponsorship or support of LGBTQ+ activities”.
Continue reading...Women and children suffering acute malnutrition as territory faces ‘catastrophic conditions’, according to UN
One in five pregnant women treated at a central Gaza clinic are malnourished, doctors have warned, as fuel and medical supply shortages closed the last hospital operating in the north of the strip.
“Every day, we see women and children coming into our clinic suffering from acute malnutrition,” said Dr Maram, the lead physician for Project Hope.
Continue reading...Ombudsman says papers show EU agency made four offers to help Greece with surveillance of boat that sank, but got no response
The rules governing the EU’s border and coastguard agency Frontex must be urgently revised if Europe is to avoid a repeat of last year’s tragedy off the coast of Greece in which about 600 people are thought to have died, an official investigation has found.
In one of the worst disasters in the Mediterranean sea in recent years, the Adriana, a dangerously overcrowded fishing trawler en route to Italy from Libya, capsized and sank in the middle of the night near Pylos on 14 June. Only 104 survivors were rescued and 82 bodies recovered after the ship, estimated to have been carrying more than 750 people, sank off the Peloponnese.
Continue reading...Protesters gather in cities to demand justice for victims of collision, which killed 57
Tens of thousands of people have joined protests in Greece, with strike action bringing the country to a standstill, on the first anniversary of a deadly train crash blamed on decades of poor railway management.
As church bells tolled in memory of the 57 men and women who lost their lives in an accident deemed entirely preventable, protesters gathered in major cities to demand justice for the victims.
Continue reading...Senior church officials in Rome decline to act, citing worsening health of French clergyman known as ‘devil priest’
A French clergyman dubbed the “devil priest” who stands accused of sexually abusing Inuit children in Canada’s north will not be dismissed from his congregation after senior church officials in Rome declined to act, citing the nonagenarian’s declining health.
Johannes Rivoire, a priest with the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, worked in several Canadian Arctic communities in the 1960s and 70s before returning to France in 1993.
Continue reading...‘Crucial’ UN resolution attempts to avoid repeat of injustices produced by Africa’s fossil fuel sector
In an attempt to avoid the “injustices and extractivism” of fossil fuel operations, African leaders are calling for better controls on the dash for the minerals and metals needed for a clean energy transition.
A resolution for structural change that will promote equitable benefit-sharing from extraction, supported by a group of mainly African countries including Senegal, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Chad, was presented at the UN environmental assembly in Nairobi on Wednesday and called for the sustainable use of transitional minerals.
Continue reading...Yemeni government warns of Red Sea environmental disaster after cargo ship struck by rebels last week
Houthi leaders have denied they have targeted critical underwater sea telecommunication cables, as Yemen’s UN-recognised government warned of an imminent marine environmental disaster if a cargo ship struck by the rebels last week was not quickly rescued.
The Rubymar, a Belize-flagged but British-owned bulk carrier, has been drifting in the Red Sea after it was struck by two missiles. The ship, which is feared to be in danger of sinking, is leaking an 18-mile oil spill and carrying 41,000 tonnes of volatile fertiliser.
Continue reading...Outgoing president confers honour on presumed successor, Prabowo Subianto, who is accused of human rights violations
Human rights experts have condemned a decision by Indonesia’s outgoing president to award the rank of honorary four-star general to his presumed successor, Prabowo Subianto, a controversial figure accused of human rights violations.
Prabowo, 72, a former son-in-law of the dictator Suharto and a special commander under his regime was dismissed from the military over allegations he was involved in kidnapping and torturing pro-democracy activists in 1998.
Continue reading...Indian conglomerate says gigafactory in Bridgwater will bring about 4,000 jobs to region
The Indian conglomerate Tata has confirmed Bridgwater in Somerset as the site of its new £4bn battery factory, which will bring about 4,000 jobs to the region.
Tata’s battery business, Agratas, said it had bought land at the Gravity Smart campus off the M5, just outside the town.
Continue reading...Firm told it must take responsibility for toxic legacy of pollution and safe decommissioning of abandoned oil infrastructure
The oil firm Shell cannot be allowed to withdraw from the Niger delta before it takes responsibility for its toxic legacy of pollution and the safe decommissioning of abandoned oil infrastructure, a report says.
Shell plc is preparing to divest from the delta but a report warns that it must remain until it has cleaned up its legacy of pollution.
Continue reading...Regulator demands recall of two models, understood to affect about 10,000 of the popular products
Dutch authorities have ordered a leading European manufacturer of cargo bikes to suspend sales and recall thousands of its products amid safety concerns over frame breakages.
The Dutch regulator for food and consumer product safety (NVWA) called a temporary halt to trading by Babboe, which makes family cargo bikes seen daily on school runs from Berlin to Bristol, “because their safety cannot be sufficiently guaranteed”.
Continue reading...Europe has been ‘negligent,’ as an acceptance of cocaine and cannabis leads to corruption, violence, and misery, says Aboutaleb
The mayor of a city on the frontline of the illegal drug trade has said that a “negligent” attitude to recreational drug use, including an acceptance of cocaine as the middle-class narcotic of choice, has led to violence and corruption in Europe’s poorest neighbourhoods.
As the Netherlands digests three life sentences handed out in the criminal trial of drug baron Ridouan Taghi and his “well-oiled murder machine” gang, Ahmed Aboutaleb, mayor of Rotterdam, has demanded authorities take a tougher line on cocaine use.
Continue reading...Hanah Lahe is just 24 but she is already a leading voice for change in the former Soviet Baltic state
Hanah Lahe can’t remember the fall of the iron curtain. Estonia’s youngest MP grew up surfing the web and consuming American television. Just nine years before her birth, it was all so different. When borders reopened after the end of Soviet rule in 1991, Estonians rushed to stare at bananas, enthralled by the arrival of this new, exotic fruit.
“People were standing in line sometimes not even to buy, but just to have a look at them. Those who would buy them would not even eat them because it was such a big thing,” says Lahe, 24, recounting a story her grandmother told her. “When a plastic bag from another country that had a big brand name arrived, people would use it all the time.”
Continue reading...Hilda Heine says US funding delays damage relationship with the Pacific nation as lawmakers say hold-up delivers a ‘gift’ to China
Hilda Heine, the president of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, has warned relations with the US are “gradually being destroyed by party politics” as Congress delays approval of crucial funding for the Pacific nation.
US lawmakers have not yet passed funding packages agreed in 2023 with the Marshall Islands, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), in a move some argue is opening the door to China to build its influence in the Pacific region.
Continue reading...City hall engineer had put bag with sensitive data in overhead luggage rack on train at Gare du Nord
A bag containing a computer and two USB memory sticks holding police security plans for the Paris Olympic Games has been stolen from a train at the capital’s Gare du Nord station.
The bag belonged to an engineer from Paris city hall, the police said late on Tuesday, confirming a report by BFM television, adding that he had put the bag in the luggage compartment above his seat.
Continue reading...Rise of femicide follows country’s 2021 withdrawal from Council of Europe convention on preventing violence against women
Seven women were killed by their partners or ex-partners across Turkey on Tuesday, according to the television station Habertürk.
“In total, seven women were savagely killed in İzmir, Bursa, Sakarya, Erzurum, Denizli and Istanbul,” Habertürk reported, listing the country’s major cities.
Continue reading...Salvatore Mancuso was taken into police custody and is expected to cooperate with investigation into war crimes in 1990s and 2000s
A Colombian warlord found responsible for more than 1,500 murders and cases of forced disappearance has been returned to his native country after serving a drug-trafficking sentence in the United States and being denied several requests to be sent to Italy, where he also has citizenship.
Salvatore Mancuso arrived in Bogotá’s El Dorado airport on a charter flight that also carried dozens of Colombians who had been deported from the US after illegally crossing the southern border. Mancuso was quickly taken into police custody, wearing a green helmet and a bulletproof vest.
Continue reading...Palestinian ambassador to UK says Hamas will be consulted but would have no members in government
The formation of a new Palestinian technocratic government would be aided by both Qatar and Egypt and involves consultations with all Palestinian political factions – including Hamas, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, has said.
The move appears to be part of an attempt to show that a reformed interim Palestinian government that has roots in the entire Palestinian movement is ready to take over the governance of both Gaza and the West Bank soon after any ceasefire.
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