World Echo

Israeli airstrikes continued in Gaza for a second straight day on Sunday, killing at least nine Palestinians, despite US President Donald Trump's announcement of a breakthrough in efforts to implement last year's Gaza ceasefire agreement. Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said on Sunday that there was no deal to halt attacks on Gaza and that he saw a need for Israel, which already controls 70% of the Strip, to take full control of it. Cohen is a member of Prime Minister Netanyahu's security cabinet, a small circle of ministers that oversees security and diplomatic policy. Palestinian health officials said Israeli warplanes carried out separate strikes across the enclave in the northern Gaza City, the central city of Deir al-Balah, and the southern area of Khan Younis. Read: Gaza ceasefire talks show rare breakthrough A man and his wife were killed and four other civilians were wounded in an airstrike on an apartment in Deir al-Balah, while two more people, includi...

The death toll from the migration crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta has risen to 72, while more than 48,300 migrants have returned to Morocco, Spanish public broadcaster RTVE reported Sunday. Rescue teams have recovered the bodies of 72 people who drowned while trying to swim from Morocco to Ceuta, one of Spain’s North African enclaves. Spanish authorities on Saturday installed a 500-metre (1,640-foot) sea barrier at the Tarajal border area to prevent further irregular crossings. Read: Pope urges Europe to protect migrants in visit to Island Frontier The autonomous city has gradually begun returning to normal, although security forces continued searching neighbourhoods for migrants who remain in the city. Many of those returning to Morocco have done so voluntarily. Authorities also escorted groups of migrants to the Tarajal border crossing, where they are returning to Morocco. In the separate Spanish enclave of Melilla, 224 kilometres (140 miles) east of ...

A small tourist plane crashed on Saturday as it flew over the Nazca Lines archaeological site in southern Peru, killing 13 people, Peru's government said. Peru's Ministry of Transport and Communications said in a statement that the plane was carrying 11 foreign tourists — German, Italian and Spanish visitors — and two crew members. The Ministry said the plane crashed in the area of Socos, approximately 6 kilometres (4 miles) from the city of Nazca and roughly 19 kilometres (12 miles) from the Nazca Lines site. The small plane, a Cessna Caravan C-208 aircraft, belonged to the local Peruvian airline Aerodiana and had taken off from the Pisco Airport at roughly 12:10pm local time. Read: Countdown to find K2's wreckage, black box At approximately 1:00pm local time the crew reporte...

“To cover up one high level report … looks odd,” remarked Caroline Lucas, the former leader of the UK’s Green Party. “To cover up two looks like a pattern.” Lucas was commenting on reporting in the Guardian revealing that the Labour government was again burying an explosive report by UK military and intelligence leaders warning that the global collapse of ecosystems poses grave threats to the UK’s security and food supply within as little as five years. The UK “has no future” if it cannot “restore the natural world on which we rely for our food, water, and clean air,” said Chris Hinchliff, who is among the members of parliament pressing the government to release the full report, rather than a shorter, redacted version. Even that version, which was obtained by The Guardian’s Fiona Harvey, “paints a devastating picture of severe food shortages, price rises, migration, political destabilisation, and possib...

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that Iran is more willing to negotiate, including on its nuclear programme and the Strait of Hormuz, as a result of Washington’s military attacks, according to Al Jazeera. In an interview with Fox News, Rubio repeated his claims the attacks had destroyed Iran’s navy, air force, missile defences, launchers and weapons-production facilities, and had “severely degraded” its defensive capabilities. “They still have missiles, and they still have drones, and they can still do damage,” Rubio said. He claimed, however, that Iran no longer had the “conventional shield that they were going to hide behind”. “And that’s changed the whole dynamic. It’s the only reason why they are now willing and in some cases, seem eager, to do a deal on denuclearisation, to do a deal on the straits. Because we are now approaching them from a position of strength, not from a position of we...

Russia ​pounded Kyiv and the region in a heavy ballistic missile attack early on Saturday, killing 10 people, as President Volodymyr Zelensky ‌warned that Ukraine had run out of interceptor missiles for its US Patriot air defence systems. Zelensky said that Russia launched 35 missiles at Ukraine, including 27 ballistic missiles, and also 185 drones. Only one ballistic missile was intercepted, "simply because there are no interceptors for the Patriot system", he said. More than a dozen explosions reverberated through the city during several ​waves of attacks, according to Reuters witnesses. "Every package of ballistic missile interceptors saves the lives of our people. And every night without ​them results in more casualties," Zelensky said on the Telegram app. With the war in its fifth year, fighting is raging ⁠along about 1,200 kilometres of front line. But Russian advances have slowed by more than half this year, and Ukraine has been launchi...