Hezbollah fires more than 50 rockets, hitting Israel-annexed Golan Heights
ISRAEL (AP) – Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Wednesday launched more than 50 rockets, hitting a number of private homes in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights.
The attack came a day after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar as he pressed ahead with the latest diplomatic mission to secure a cease-fire in the war in Gaza, even as Hamas and Israel signalled that challenges remain. Diplomatic efforts had redoubled as fears grow of a wider regional war after the recent targeted killings of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, both blamed on Israel, and threats of retaliation.
Hezbollah said Wednesday’s attack was in response to an Israeli strike deep into Lebanon on Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, key mediator Egypt expressed skepticism Wednesday as more details emerged of the proposal meant to bridge gaps between Israel and Hamas.
Officials in Egypt, in its unique role as both a mediator and affected party since it borders Gaza, told The Associated Press that the Hamas militant group will not agree to the bridging proposal for a number of reasons — ones in addition to the long-held wariness over whether a deal would truly remove Israel forces from Gaza and end the war.
Divers find 4 bodies during search of super yacht wreckage after it sank off Sicily, 2 more remain
By: Nicole Winfield, Danica Kirka And Andrea Rosa
PORTICELLO, Sicily (AP) — Divers searching the wreck of a super yacht that sank off Sicily found four bodies Wednesday, as the search continued for two more missing passengers and questions intensified about why the vessel sank so quickly.
Divers and rescue crews unloaded two body bags from the rescue vessels that pulled into port at Porticello. Salvatore Cocina, head of the Sicily civil protection agency, said two other bodies had also been found Wednesday in the wreckage for a total of four.
The discovery indicated that the operation to search the hull on the seabed 50 metres (164 feet) underwater was a recovery one, not a rescue, given the amount of time that had passed and no signs of life had emerged over three days of searching, maritime experts said.
The Bayesian, a 56-metre (184-foot) British-flagged yacht, went down in a storm early Monday as it was moored about a kilometre (a half-mile) offshore. Civil protection officials said they believed the ship was struck by a tornado over the water, known as a waterspout, and sank quickly.
Greek authorities rescued 147 migrants trying to reach the country in small boats
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek authorities rescued nearly 150 migrants trying to reach the country by sea in small boats over a 24-hour period, officials said Wednesday, including one that had 115 people crammed into it.
A coast guard statement said the vessel was located in distress Tuesday off the eastern Aegean Sea island of Lesbos that’s close to the Turkish coast. Three patrol vessels picked up 67 men, 27 women and 21 children, who were taken to a migrant reception centre on Lesbos.
The boat sank shortly after the passengers were taken off it, the statement said. It was one of the largest single boatloads of migrants to reach the island from Turkey in recent months.
Smugglers typically target Greek islands close to Turkey’s coastline, but in recent months they have increasingly chosen longer routes from Libya to Crete, much farther south, and from Turkey through the central Aegean Sea, where coast guard patrols are more relaxed.
Pakistan authorities charge man with cyber terrorism over misinformation that sparked riots in U.K.
By: Babar Dogar And Brian Melley
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Authorities in Pakistan on Wednesday arrested and charged a man with cyber terrorism for his alleged role in spreading misinformation that led to widespread rioting in the U.K. earlier this month.
The suspect was identified as freelance web developer Farhan Asif, 32, said Imran Kishwar, deputy inspector general of investigations in Lahore, the capital of eastern Punjab province.
The man is accused of spreading misinformation from YouTube and Facebook about the British teenage suspect in a stabbing attack that killed three girls and injured 10 other people July 29 at a dance class in Northwest England.
The false information claimed that the suspect was a recently arrived asylum-seeker and had a name that suggested he was Muslim.
After the misinformation led to a violent mob attacking a mosque near the site of the stabbing the next day, police took the unusual step of clarifying that the suspect was born in the U.K.
Putin meets China’s No. 2 as Moscow-Beijing relations deepen
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Chinese premier Li Qiang Wednesday, hailing growing trade relations as Moscow becomes increasingly dependent on Beijing for political and economic support.
“Our trade relations are developing, developing successfully … The attention that the governments of the two countries on both sides are paying to trade and economic ties is yielding results,” Putin said at the meeting in the Kremlin.
He also said that Russia and China have developed “large-scale plans” for economic and other projects.
“Chinese-Russian relations are at an unprecedentedly high level,” said Li, who earlier had met with his Russian counterpart, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
The meeting took place as Russia struggled to push back an incursion by Ukrainian forces into the Kursk region that began more than two weeks ago.
Russian news reports did not indicate whether Putin and Li discussed Ukraine.
Bus carrying Shiite pilgrims from Pakistan to Iraq crashes in Iran, killing at least 28 people
By: Nasser Karimi
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A bus carrying Shiite pilgrims from Pakistan to Iraq crashed in central Iran, killing at least 28 people, an official said Wednesday.
The crash happened Tuesday night in the central Iranian province of Yazd, said Mohammad Ali Malekzadeh, a local emergency official, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
Another 23 people suffered injuries in the crash, 14 of them serious, he added. He said all of the bus passengers hailed from Pakistan.
There were 51 people on board at the time of the crash outside of the city of Taft, some 500 kilometres (310 miles) southeast of the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Iranian state television later broadcast images of the bus, turned upside down on the highway with its roof smashed in and all of its doors open.
In the state TV report, Malekzadeh blamed the crash on the bus brakes failing and a lack of attention by its driver. A surveillance video later aired by state TV showed the bus speeding past a parked car into a dirt lot just before the crash, narrowly missing bystanders.
Greek oil tanker drifting and ablaze after repeated attacks in the Red Sea, British military says
By: Jon Gambrell
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A Greek-flagged oil tanker travelling through the Red Sea came under repeated attack Wednesday, leaving the vessel “not under command” and drifting ablaze after an assault suspected to have been carried out by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the British military said.
The attack, the most serious in the Red Sea in weeks, comes during a months-long campaign by Houthis targeting ships over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip that has disrupted a trade route through which $1 trillion in cargo typically passes each year.
In the attack, men on small boats first opened fire with small arms about 140 kilometres (90 miles) west of the rebel-held Yemeni port city of Hodeida, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre said.
Four projectiles also hit the ship, it added. It wasn’t immediately clear if that meant drones or missiles.
Congo reports more than 1,000 new mpox cases in a week. African authorities ask for vaccines
By: Gerald Imray
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Congo reported more than 1,000 new mpox cases in the last week up to Tuesday as African health authorities asked for desperately needed vaccines to help fight its “growing” threat on the continent. The World Health Organization has declared the outbreaks in Africa a global emergency.
Mpox belongs to the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes milder symptoms like fever, chills and body aches, and mostly spreads through close skin-to-skin contact, including sexual intercourse. People with more serious cases can develop lesions on the face, hands, chest and genitals.
While mpox has been reported in 12 of Africa’s 54 countries during these outbreaks, the vast central African nation of Congo has recorded by far the most cases this year. Out of a total of 18,910 cases in 2024, 94 per cent — or 17,794 — were in Congo, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, with 535 of the 541 deaths reported.
The figures are likely an underestimate, as only about one in five suspected cases in Congo are being tested for mpox. Africa CDC director-general Dr. Jean Kaseya said many affected African countries had limited testing and surveillance capabilities.
