ROME: The Italian coast guard has recovered 14 more bodies from last week’s shipwreck in the Ionian Sea off the southern Italian coastline, bringing to 34 the number of known victims from the sinking. Dozens are still missing and presumed dead.
The bodies, recovered on Friday, were transferred to a port in Calabria. Three coast guard ships were active in the air-and-sea search, some 190 kilometers (120 miles) from shore.
Survivors reported that the motorboat had caught fire, causing it to capsize off the Italian coast overnight last Sunday, about eight days after departing from Turkiye with about 75 people from Iran, Syria and Iraq on board, according to the UN refugee agency and other UN organizations. Eleven survivors were being treated on shore.
The latest deaths bring to more than 800 people who have died or went missing and are presumed dead crossing the central Mediterranean so far this year, an average of five dead a day, the UN agencies said.
Humanitarian groups have decried the deaths as evidence of the failure of European migration policy.
Italian coast guard recovers 14 more bodies of shipwreck victims off Calabria, dozens still missing
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Italian coast guard recovers 14 more bodies of shipwreck victims off Calabria, dozens still missing
- Humanitarian groups have decried the deaths as evidence of the failure of European migration policy
German authorities warn people against becoming ‘disposable agents’ for Russia
- Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office said it is seeing increasing activity in Germany and elsewhere in which Russian intelligence services apparently use social media to recruit people for espionage or sabotage
BERLIN: German security authorities are warning people against becoming “disposable agents” as worries mount about Russia using social media to find recruits for spying and sabotage in or against Germany.
Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks and other incidents across Europe since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022. They worry that the risks are rising as untrained saboteurs are increasingly used. German officials have voiced concern over the use of “low-level agents.”
Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office said Tuesday that, along with the country’s domestic, foreign and military intelligence services, it is seeing increasing activity in Germany and elsewhere in which Russian intelligence services — directly or via intermediaries — apparently use social media to recruit people for espionage or sabotage.
It said the so-called “low-level agents” or “disposable agents” carry out crimes without receiving intelligence training, for only a little money and often without knowing who is ordering the activities or what their purpose is.
“They are ‘used’ and then ‘thrown away,’” the police office said in introducing a campaign titled “Don’t become a disposable agent.” It warned that “anti-constitutional sabotage” carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison and espionage can carry a 10-year sentence.
It urged people to get in touch with Germany’s domestic intelligence agency if they or acquaintances have been contacted by strangers offering them money to engage in activity such as spreading pro-Russia slogans, scoping out people or property, or causing damage.
Several suspected cases are currently under investigation in Germany, involving among other things arson, damage to property, drone overflights and suspicious filming and photography, police said.
Suicide behind one in every 100 deaths globally — WHO
- In 2021, last year data was available, there were an estimated 727,000 suicides worldwide
- Sicide leading cause of death among young people across geographies, socioeconomics
GENEVA: More than one in every 100 deaths globally is due to suicide, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, calling for urgent action to stem a mounting mental health crisis among young people especially.
The WHO said that, while global suicide rates had fallen somewhat in recent years, progress in combating the issue was far too slow.
In 2021 — the last year for which data was available — there were an estimated 727,000 suicides worldwide, the United Nations’ health agency said.
“Globally, suicide accounts for more than one in every 100 deaths, and for each death, there are 20 suicide attempts,” said Devora Kestel, the interim head of the WHO’s non-communicable disease and mental health department.
Those suicides “affected countless more lives and livelihoods, as friends, carers and loved ones were forced to grapple with unimaginable hardship,” she told reporters.
The WHO’s World Mental Health Today report highlighted that suicide remains a leading cause of death among young people across geographies and socioeconomic contexts.
In 2021, it was the second leading cause of death for girls and women aged 15 to 29, and the third leading cause for males in the same age category, it found.
Despite a 35-percent global decline in the age-adjusted suicide rate between 2000 and 2021, the world is still falling short of its goal: instead of the targeted one-third reduction in suicide rates between 2015 and 2030, current progress suggests only a 12 percent decrease will be achieved, according to the WHO.
Decreases were seen in every region — except in the Americas, where the suicide rate increased by 17 percent in the same period.
Nearly three-quarters of all suicides take place in lower-income countries, where most of the global population lives.
Although wealthier countries have a higher suicide rate, as a proportion of population, it is difficult to compare since they also tend to have better data available than lower-income countries, the WHO pointed out.
The agency cautioned that, while suicide rates have been slowly declining, the prevalence of mental disorders like anxiety and depression has been swelling.
“Between 2011 and 2021, the number of people living with mental disorders increased faster than the global population,” the report said.
According to the latest findings, more than one billion people are living with mental health disorders.
The WHO voiced particular concern about growing mental health distress among young people.
While there are likely a long line of drivers behind the increase, Mark van Ommeren, head of the WHO mental health unit, said “the two main hypotheses are social media and the impact of the Covid pandemic.”
In this context, WHO voiced alarm at a “stagnation” in mental health investment around the world, with median government spending on mental health remaining at just two percent of total health budgets — unchanged since 2017.
Globally, only nine percent of people with depression get treatment, it found.
“Transforming mental health services is one of the most pressing public health challenges,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
Probe launched after German police officer punches pro-Palestine activist
- Kitty O’Brien hit twice before being dragged away, reportedly suffering broken arm, nerve damage
- Irish ambassador raises ‘concern’ with German government, protests held in Dublin
LONDON: An investigation has been launched after a German police officer was filmed punching an Irish activist in the face at a pro-Palestine demonstration in Berlin on Thursday, The Guardian reported.
Activist Kitty O’Brien was hit twice by the officer before being dragged away with a bloodied face, footage uploaded to social media showed.
O’Brien, who was reported to have suffered a broken arm by local newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, reportedly swore at police and was filmed calling the officer a Nazi before the incident took place.
“We as the Berlin police are reviewing whether the officer acted proportionately, and we’re doing it as part of a criminal investigation on suspicion of bodily harm on duty,” a spokesperson said. O’Brien is being investigated for insulting officers and resisting arrest, the police said.
The incident sparked criticism in O’Brien’s homeland, with Maeve Collins, the Irish ambassador to Germany, conveying her “concern” to the German government, the Irish Department for Foreign Affairs said. Protests were held outside the German Embassy in Dublin on Saturday.
Zoe Lawlor, chair of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: “They had to take it seriously. It was two very violent assaults … It’s shocking. The German police are just horrendous when it comes to Palestine activism.”
Lawlor added that O’Brien’s injury means the activist will be unable to work for a period, and that a fundraiser has been launched.
O’Brien’s aunt Catherine Stocker, a Social Democrat councillor, said the activist had suffered nerve damage in the broken arm.
“What you have here is a bunch of mostly young Irish people standing up for international law and standing up for the people of Gaza and Palestine, which has effectively been made illegal to do in Berlin at this stage,” Stocker told Irish broadcaster RTE.
The Berlin police said its officers were responding to an unauthorized “gathering in the context of the Middle East conflict” in the Hackescher Markt area of the capital.
They added that protesters — including members of a group called Irish Bloc Berlin, which organized the event — were “verbally aggressive” and chanted “criminal, prohibited slogans” while marching through the area.
“As there was no apparent leader of the gathering, the crowd was ordered to disperse,” the police said in a statement. “During the operation, there were insults, physical attacks and acts of resistance against police officers.”
The police arrested 94 people at the protest, with media reports that chants of “Yallah, yallah, intifada” and “From the river to the sea” were heard.
Criminal investigations have been opened into 96 people in total, including for “using symbols of unconstitutional and terrorist organizations, attacks on law enforcement officers, insulting behavior and bodily harm.”
Israeli president to meet Pope Leo at the Vatican on Thursday
ROME: Israeli President Isaac Herzog will travel to the Vatican on Thursday to meet Pope Leo, who has recently stepped up his calls for an end to the war in Gaza.
The one-day visit is being made at the invitation of the pope, Herzog’s office said in a statement on Tuesday.
The president will also meet Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s chief diplomat, and tour the Vatican Archives and Library, it added.
“Central to their meetings will be the efforts to secure the release of the hostages, the fight against global antisemitism, and the safeguarding of Christian communities in the Middle East, alongside discussions on other political matters,” the presidency said.
Leo, the first US pope, last week issued a “strong appeal” for an to end to the nearly two-year conflict between Israel and Hamas, calling for a permanent ceasefire, the release of hostages held in Gaza and the provision of humanitarian aid.
Extreme summer heat a ‘turning point’: French minister
- The summer of 2025 was France’s third hottest since the country’s weather agency Meteo France began measuring temperatures in 1900
PARIS: This year’s punishing back-to-back heatwaves and ferocious wildfires in France were a “taste of what’s to come,” as climate change pushed summer temperatures to near record highs, the country’s environment minister warned Tuesday.
Swathes of Europe have suffered deadly heatwaves, withering drought and vast forest fires in recent months, while countries across the world have recorded historic temperature spikes.
“We all know that the summer we are experiencing is in many ways a turning point,” said France’s Minister for Ecological Transition Agnes Pannier-Runacher.
“It’s a taste of what’s to come, unfortunately, because heatwaves will be more frequent and more intense in the coming years,” she said at a press conference.
The summer of 2025 was France’s third hottest since the country’s weather agency Meteo France began measuring temperatures in 1900. It ranked second in terms of the number of heatwave days.
The country has also suffered devastating fires, with one that raged in the Mediterranean region seen as the worst blaze in at least half a century, according to government data on area burned.
