General NewsBalkan floods claim dozens of lives, Israel tensions rise
Balkan floods claim dozens of lives, Israel tensions rise
It happened while you were sleeping. Here’s what global agencies reported overnight from Friday to Saturday.
- At least 21 people died in Friday's floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 40 are considered missing - N1 television reported on Friday, citing Bosnian authorities. Heavy rainfall also caused rivers overflowing that day in Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Albania, affecting several other Balkan countries. The flood hit the southeastern Albanian city of Pogradec, Macedonian Tetovo, and Budva on Montenegro's Adriatic coast. Ogulin, in northwestern Croatia, was also flooded on Friday. Authorities warned that river water levels are continuously rising, putting cities like the capital, Zagreb, at flood risk.
- Israel has not given assurances to the Biden administration that targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities is off the table in retaliation for the Iranian ballistic missile strikes earlier this week - a senior U.S. State Department official told CNN on Friday. The American president urged Israel to exercise restraint.
- The USA, France, and the United Kingdom accused Russia of hypocrisy at the UN Security Council meeting convened by Moscow on Friday to address the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage. Some Kremlin allies criticized the lack of progress in the investigation. Several speakers sharply criticized Russia for calling another meeting, two years after the September 2022 explosions that damaged pipelines No. 1 and 2 in the Baltic, and for wasting the Council's time and resources. They expressed support for the ongoing investigation led by Germany and condemned Moscow for its hypocrisy in criticizing the explosions involving Nord Stream while consistently attacking Ukrainian water-energy infrastructure.
- An 11-year-old Egyptian girl and her 18-year-old sister were among those killed after Mexican army troops opened fire on a truck carrying migrants earlier this week [near Guatemala's border] - reported the AP on Friday, citing a prosecutor's office official. The shooting occurred on Tuesday in the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico. The father of the slain Egyptians was injured but survived, according to the American agency.
- I'm confident [the election] will be free and fair; I don't know whether they will be peaceful - said U.S. President Joe Biden during a press briefing at the White House on Friday. He also admitted he doesn’t know if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to assist Donald Trump in the elections. "I’m confident it will be free and fair. I don’t know whether it will be peaceful. Things that Trump has said and the things that he said last time when he didn’t like the outcome of the election were very dangerous. Have you noticed, [because] I've noticed, that the Republican Vice-President candidate did not say he'll accept the outcome of the election." He added, "So, I’m concerned about what they’re going to do."
- This year's floods have affected more than 4.4 million people in West and Central Africa, and at least a thousand people have died because of them. Heavy rains during the prolonged rainy season have also led to an increase in malaria cases in this part of the continent. The UN warned on Friday that the current situation increases the risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera. By the end of September, over 750,000 people had been internally displaced due to flooding in eight African countries: the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gambia, Guinea, Nigeria, and Liberia.
- The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced on Friday that it had initiated an investigation into the potentially unlawful use of facial recognition technology by the Irish airline Ryanair. The matter involves the processes used by Ryanair for customer verification when booking flights through third-party websites or online travel agencies. The DPC explained that it had received multiple complaints regarding Ryanair's practice of requesting additional identity verification, with methods including facial recognition technology.
- A man threw 175,000 U.S. dollars out the window in southern Italy when the police came to search his apartment as part of a corruption investigation. The investigation involves a total of seven people, including local politicians, officials, and entrepreneurs. Italian media explained on Friday that the incident occurred in the Santa Maria Capua Vetere area in the Campania region.
