Flash floods in Romania kill at least 3 people and force hundreds of evacuations

A Russian overnight air attack on #Kyiv wounded eight residents of an apartment building, including a 3-year-old child, authorities in the #Ukrainian capital said on Monday.

#Israeli settlers attacked the Christian Palestinian village of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank, torching cars and spray-painting threatening graffiti, the Palestinian Authority said on Monday.

Powerful sister of North #Korean leader Kim rejects outreach by South’s new president.

Kim Yo Jong’s comments suggest again that North Korea, now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia, has no intentions of returning to diplomacy with South Korea and the U.S. anytime soon. But experts said North Korea could change its course if it thinks it cannot maintain the same booming ties with Russia when the Russia-Ukraine war nears an end.

“We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither a reason to meet nor an issue to be discussed with” South Korea, Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media.

It’s North Korea’s first official statement on the government of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, which took office in early June. In an effort to improve badly frayed ties with North Korea, Lee’s government has halted anti-Pyongyang frontline loudspeaker broadcasts, taken steps to ban activists from flying balloons with propaganda leaflets across the border and repatriated North Koreans who were drifted south in wooden boats months earlier.

Kim Yo Jong called such steps “sincere efforts” by Lee’s government to develop ties. But she said the Lee government won’t be much different from its predecessors, citing what it calls “their blind trust” to the military alliance with the U.S. and attempt to “stand in confrontation” with North Korea. She mentioned the upcoming summertime South Korea-U.S. military drills, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.

North Korea has been shunning talks with South Korea and the U.S. since leader Kim Jong Un’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019 due to wrangling over international sanctions. North Korea has since focused on building more powerful nuclear weapons targeting its rivals.

North Korea now prioritizes cooperation with Russia by sending troops and conventional weapons to support its war against Ukraine, likely in return for economic and military assistance. South Korea, the U.S. and others say Russia may even give North Korea sensitive technologies that can enhance its nuclear and missile programs.

Since beginning his second term in January, Trump has repeatedly boasted of his personal ties with Kim Jong Un and expressed intent to resume diplomacy with him. But North Korea hasn’t publicly responded to Trump’s overture.

In early 2024, Kim Jong Un ordered the rewriting of the constitution to remove the long-running state goal of a peaceful Korean unification and cement South Korea as an “invariable principal enemy.” That caught many foreign experts by surprise because it was seen as eliminating the idea of shared statehood between the war-divided Koreas and breaking away with his predecessors’ long-cherished dreams of peacefully achieving a unified Korea on the North’s terms.

Many experts say Kim likely aims to guard against South Korean cultural influence and bolster his family’s dynastic rule. Others say Kim wants legal room to use his nuclear weapons against South Korea by making it as a foreign enemy state, not a partner for potential unification which shares a sense of national homogeneity.

At least 34 killed in attack on east #Congo church by Islamic State-backed rebels, civil leader says.

#GOMA, Congo — Islamic State-backed rebels attacked a Catholic church in eastern Congo on Sunday, killing at least 34 people, according to a local civil society leader.

Dieudonne Duranthabo, a civil society coordinator in Komanda, in the Ituri province, told The Associated Press that the attackers stormed the church in Komanda town at around 1 a.m. Several houses and shops were also burnt.

“The bodies of the victims are still at the scene of the tragedy, and volunteers are preparing how to bury them in a mass grave that we are preparing in a compound of the Catholic church,” Duranthabo said.

Video footage from the scene shared online appeared to show burning structures and bodies on the floor of the church. Those who were able to identify some of the victims wailed while others stood in shock.

At least five other people were killed in an earlier attack on the nearby village of Machongani.

“They took several people into the bush; we do not know their destination or their number,” Lossa Dhekana, a civil society leader in Ituri, told the AP.

Both attacks are believed to have been carried out by members of the Allied Democratic Force (ADF) armed with guns and machetes.

Lt. Jules Ngongo, a spokesperson for the Congolese army in Ituri, confirmed at least 10 fatalities in the Komanda church attack. However, U.N.-backed Radio Okapi reported 43 deaths, citing security sources. The attackers reportedly came from a stronghold about 12 kilometers (7 miles) from Komanda and fled before security forces arrived.

Duranthabo condemned the violence in what he said was “a town where all the security officials are present.” He called for immediate military intervention, warning that “the enemy is still near our town.”

Eastern Congo has suffered deadly attacks in recent years by armed groups, including the ADF and Rwanda-backed rebels. The ADF, which has ties to the Islamic State, operates in the borderland between Uganda and Congo and often targets civilians. The group killed dozens of people in Ituri earlier this month in what a United Nations spokesperson described as a bloodbath.

The ADF was formed by disparate small groups in Uganda in the late 1990s following alleged discontent with President Yoweri Museveni.

In 2002, following military assaults by Ugandan forces, the group moved its activities to neighboring Congo and has since been responsible for the killings of thousands of civilians. In 2019, it pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

The Congolese army (FARDC) has long struggled to contain the group, especially amid renewed conflict involving the M23 rebel movement backed by neighboring Rwanda.

Justin Kabumba and Ope Adetayo, The Associated Press

Adetayo reported from Lagos, Nigeria and Saleh Mwanamilongo contributed to this report.

#Iran executes 2 opposition members over alleged attacks on civilian sites.

#TEHRAN, Iran — Iran said Sunday it has executed two members of the exiled opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq after convicting them of carrying out attacks on public and civilian infrastructure.

The judiciary’s official news website, Mizan Online, reported that Behrouz Ehsani Eslamlou and Mehdi Hasani were hanged on Sunday morning after being found guilty of using improvised mortar launchers to target residential areas, educational institutions and government buildings.

In January, rights group Amnesty International had issued an appeal for Eslamlou and Hasani, saying the two had been interrogated without the presence of lawyers and had been subjected “to torture and other ill-treatment, including beatings and prolonged solitary confinement, to extract self-incriminating statements.”

The Mojahedin Organization of Iran, also known as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, issued a statement decrying the executions and said both men had been “subjected to savage torture.”

Calling for international condemnation of the executions, the group said another 14 people have been sentenced to death in Iran for alleged membership in the organization “and are at imminent risk of execution.”

Iranian courts charged the two men with several offenses, including waging war against the state, conspiracy, sabotage and membership in a terrorist organization. Prosecutors accused them of plotting to destabilize national security and damage public property.

The Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, once a Marxist-Islamist group that opposed Iran’s monarchy, backed the 1979 Islamic Revolution but later broke with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s government. It carried out a series of deadly bombings and assassinations in the 1980s and supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war — stances that still provoke widespread resentment within Iran. The group is now largely based in Albania but claims to operate a clandestine network inside Iran.

The last known execution of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq members took place in 2009, following their conviction in connection with an attempted bombing in Tehran’s central Enghelab Square.

The Associated Press

The #Israeli military said it had also begun airdropping food into the Palestinian territory -- making one drop of seven palettes -- while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected what he characterised as #UN “lies” that his government was to blame for the dire humanitarian situation.

The army also dismissed allegations that it had been using starvation as a weapon, saying it had coordinated with the UN and international agencies to “increase the scale of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip”.

UN emergency relief coordinator Tom Fletcher welcomed the tactical pauses, saying he was in “contact with our teams on the ground who will do all we can to reach as many starving people as we can in this window”.

But the UN’s World Food Programme said a third of the population of Gaza had not eaten for days, and 470,000 people were “enduring famine-like conditions” that were already leading to deaths.

The Israeli decision came as international pressure mounted on Netanyahu’s government to head off the risk of mass starvation in the territory.

Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz joined the chorus of concern on Sunday, urging Netanyahu “to provide the starving civilian population in Gaza with urgently needed humanitarian aid now.”

Accusing the UN of fabricating “pretexts and lies about Israel” blocking aid, Netanyahu said in remarks at an airbase that “there are secure routes” for aid.

“There have always been, but today it’s official. There will be no more excuses,” he added.

Since Israel imposed a total blockade on aid entering Gaza on March 2, the situation inside the territory has deteriorated sharply. More than 100 NGOs warned this week of “mass starvation”.

Though aid has trickled back in since late May, the UN and humanitarian agencies say Israeli restrictions remain excessive and road access inside Gaza is tightly controlled.
‘Life’s wish’

The Jordanian military said its planes, working with the United Arab Emirates, had delivered 25 tonnes of aid in three parachute drops over Gaza on Sunday. Truckloads of flour were also seen arriving in northern Gaza through the Zikim area crossing from Israel, according to AFP journalists.

The charity Oxfam’s regional policy chief Bushra Khalidi called Israel’s latest moves a “welcome first step” but warned they could prove insufficient.

“Starvation won’t be solved by a few trucks or airdrops,” she said. “What’s needed is a real humanitarian response: ceasefire, full access, all crossings open, and a steady, large-scale flow of aid into Gaza.

“We need a permanent ceasefire, a complete lifting of the siege.”

In general, humanitarian officials are deeply sceptical airdrops can deliver enough food safely to tackle the hunger crisis facing Gaza’s more than two million inhabitants.

In Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa district, 30-year-old Suad Ishtaywi said her “life’s wish” was to simply feed her children. She spoke of her husband returning empty-handed from aid points daily.

Chaotic scenes broke out at the site where Israel conducted its first food drop, witnesses told AFP.

Samih Humeid, a 23-year-old from the Al-Karama neighbourhood of Gaza City, said dozens of people had gathered to rush towards the palettes of supplies parachuted onto the area.

“It felt like a war, everyone trying to grab whatever they could. Hunger is merciless. The quantities were extremely limited, not enough even for a few people, because hunger is everywhere. I only managed to get three cans of fava beans,” he said.

In a social media post, the Israeli military announced it had “carried out an airdrop of humanitarian aid as part of the ongoing efforts to allow and facilitate the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip”.

AFP journalists saw Egyptian trucks crossing from Rafah, with cargo routed through Israel’s Kerem Shalom checkpoint for inspection before entering Gaza.

The Israeli army’s daily pause from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm will be limited to areas where its troops are not currently operating -- Al-Mawasi in the south, central Deir el-Balah and Gaza City in the north.

Israel said “designated secure routes” would also open across Gaza for aid convoys carrying food and medicine.

The military said the measures should disprove “the false claim of deliberate starvation”.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, citing “reasonable grounds” to suspect war crimes including starvation -- charges Israel vehemently denies.
Activists intercepted

On Sunday, according to the Gaza civil defence agency, Israeli army fire killed 27 Palestinians, 12 of them near aid distribution areas.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency and other parties.

Separately, the Israeli navy brought an activist boat, the Handala operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, into the part of Ashdod, after intercepting and boarding it late Saturday to prevent it attempting to breach a maritime blockade of Gaza.

The legal rights centre Adalah told AFP its lawyers were in Ashdod and had met with 19 of the 21 detained activists and journalists from 10 countries. The other two detainees, dual US-Israeli nationals, had been transferred to Israeli police custody, the group said.

Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

The Israeli campaign has killed 59,733 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

AFP

Crowd surge at Hindu temple in northern India leaves at least 6 dead.

The incident in the pilgrimage city of Haridwar occurred after a high-voltage electric wire reportedly fell on a temple path, triggering panic among the large crowd of devotees.

Vinay Shankar Pandey, a senior government official in Uttarakhand state where the incident happened, confirmed the deaths and said worshippers scrambled for safety following the incident.

Some 29 people were injured, according to Haridwar city’s senior police official Pramendra Singh Doval.

Thousands of pilgrims had gathered at the Mansa Devi hilltop temple, which is a major site for Hindu devotees, especially on weekends and festival days, local officials said. They were celebrating the holy month of Shravan.

Someone in the crowd shouted about an electric current on the pathway around 9 a.m.

“Since the path is narrow and meant only for foot traffic, confusion and panic spread instantly,” said local priest Ujjwal Pandit.

“A wall along the path is also suspected to have worsened the crowd bottleneck,” he added.

Police and emergency services rushed to the scene and launched a rescue operation. The injured were transported to a nearby hospital, officials said.

“The situation is now under control,” Pandey told the Associated Press by phone from Haridwar. “But the panic led to tragic consequences.”

Authorities are investigating what caused the overhead wire to collapse, and whether proper crowd management protocols were in place.

The town of Haridwar draws millions of visitors each year. The Mansa Devi temple, which is accessible by cable car or foot, is a major pilgrimage site that draws thousands of visitors daily during Shravan.

Crowd surges at religious gatherings are not uncommon in India, where massive groups often congregate at temples or pilgrimage sites, sometimes overwhelming local infrastructure and security measures.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his condolences to the victims and their families in a social media post and wished for a fast recovery for those who were injured.

Biswajeet Banerjee, The Associated Press

The latest child to starve to death in #Gaza weighed less than when she was born.

On a sunny street in shattered Gaza, the bundle containing Zainab Abu Halib represented the latest death from starvation after 21 months of war and Israeli restrictions on aid.

The baby was brought to the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital on Friday. She was already dead. A worker at the morgue carefully removed her Mickey Mouse-printed shirt, pulling it over her sunken, open eyes. He pulled up the hems of her pants to show her knobby knees. His thumb was wider than her ankle. He could count the bones of her chest.

The girl had weighed over three kilograms (6.6 pounds) when she was born, her mother said. When she died, she weighed less than two kilograms (4.4 pounds).

A doctor said it was a case of “severe, severe starvation.”

She was wrapped in a white sheet for burial and placed on the sandy ground for prayers. The bundle was barely wider than the imam’s stance. He raised his open hands and invoked Allah once more.
She needed special formula

Zainab was one of 85 children to die of malnutrition-related causes in Gaza during the war, according to the latest toll released by the territory’s Health Ministry on Saturday. It said 127 people had died of malnutrition-related causes overall, with the adult deaths counted in just the past few weeks.

“She needed a special baby formula which did not exist in Gaza,” Zainab’s father, Ahmed Abu Halib, told The Associated Press as he prepared for her funeral prayers in the hospital’s courtyard in the southern city of Khan Younis.

Dr. Ahmed al-Farah, head of the pediatric department, said the girl had needed a special type of formula that helps with babies allergic to cow’s milk.

He said she hadn’t suffered from any diseases, but the lack of the formula led to chronic diarrhea and vomiting. She wasn’t able to swallow as her weakened immune system led to a bacterial infection and sepsis, and quickly lost more weight.
‘Many will follow’

The child’s family, like many of Gaza’s Palestinians, lives in a tent, displaced. Her mother, who also has suffered from malnutrition, said she breastfed the girl for only six weeks before trying to feed her formula.

“With my daughter’s death, many will follow,” she said. “Their names are on a list that no one looks at. They are just names and numbers. We are just numbers. Our children, whom we carried for nine months and then gave birth to, have become just numbers.” Her loose robe hid her own weight loss.

The arrival of children suffering from malnutrition has surged in recent weeks, al-Farah said. His department, with a capacity of eight beds, has been treating about 60 cases of acute malnutrition. They have placed additional mattresses on the ground.

Another malnutrition clinic, affiliated with the hospital, receives an average of 40 cases weekly, he said.

“Unless the crossings are opened and food and baby formula are allowed in for this vulnerable segment of Palestinian society, we will witness unprecedented numbers of deaths,” he warned.

Doctors and aid workers in Gaza blame Israel’s restrictions on the entry of aid and medical supplies. Food security experts warn of famine in the territory of over two million people.
‘Shortage of everything’

After ending the latest ceasefire in March, Israel cut off the entry of food, medicine, fuel and other supplies completely to Gaza for 2 1/2 months, saying it aimed to pressure Hamas to release hostages.

Under international pressure, Israel slightly eased the blockade in May. Since then, it has allowed in around 4,500 trucks for the UN and other aid groups to distribute, including 2,500 tons of baby food and high-calorie special food for children, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said last week. Israel says baby formula has been included, plus formula for special needs.

The average of 69 trucks a day, however, is far below the 500 to 600 trucks a day the UN says are needed for Gaza. The UN says it has been unable to distribute much of the aid because hungry crowds and gangs take most of it from its arriving trucks.

Separately, Israel has backed the U.S.-registered Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which in May opened four centres distributing boxes of food supplies. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since May while trying to get food, mostly near those new aid sites, the UN human rights office says.

Much of Gaza’s population now relies on aid.

“There was a shortage of everything,” the mother of Zainab said as she grieved. “How can a girl like her recover?”

Magdy reported from Cairo.

Most #ICE detainees have no criminal history: AFP analysis. The number of migrants detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reached record numbers in June and a vast majority do not have criminal records, according to AFP analysis of official data.

Private prison corporations, running the United States’ already-huge and expanding detention system, are set to benefit from the Trump administration’s unprecedented deportation drive, data shows.

A record 60,254 people were held in ICE facilities last month, up from 40,500 in January before Trump took office.

Of those, 71 percent have no criminal record compared to 54 percent last year, ICE data from the end of the 2024 fiscal year shows.
Expanding detention capacity

President Donald Trump was elected last year on a promise to lead the largest migrant deportation program in US history.

His administration has been aggressively targeting the country’s estimated 11 million undocumented migrants.

Lawmakers also delivered a big win for the president this month by voting to give ICE its biggest budget to date, with $45 billion set to go towards constructing immigration facilities.

Data from June shows the detention system is already growing: 200 facilities held ICE detainees in June compared to 107 in January.

The Trump administration aims to increase the number of beds available for detainees to 100,000 by the end of the year, more than doubling the capacity available in 2024.

This rapid expansion is being carried out by building new centers and repurposing existing facilities.

A new migrant camp dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” opened on July 1 and is built on a disused airfield surrounded by alligator-filled swamps deep in the Florida Everglades.

Trump has also said he would like to turn the Guantanamo Bay navy station in Cuba into a 30,000-bed facility.

This has yet to happen, though. Official data shows a daily average of 22 people were held in the station’s two existing detention centers in June.

Various non-profits have raised concerns about the swift growth and the conditions that people are being detained in.

Human Rights Watch published a report on Monday describing abusive treatment at three facilities in Florida, where migrants are reportedly sleeping on floors and women are held in cells with exposed toilets visible to men in nearby rooms.

Soft-sided facilities, which are quick-to-build tent structures increasingly used by ICE, are also raising alarm bells.
Highly profitable

The private companies running large parts of the detention system are set to profit from the expansion.

More than four out of every five detainees were held at one of the United States’ 62 privately-operated facilities as of June 2025, according to AFP analysis of the ICE data.

These facilities are run by a handful of firms: the GEO Group and CoreCivic, both publicly traded companies, are the biggest operators and respectively manage 25 and 17 centers, official data shows.

The GEO Group – which announced a $70 million investment in December 2024 to grow its detention capabilities – has signed two new contracts with ICE since January and significantly expanded a third.

The firm hopes to earn an additional $153 million annually from these new deals alone, according to company reports.

A second Trump term has been good news for the private prison firms’ bottom line.

The GEO Group and CoreCivic’s stock prices increased by 75 and 69 percent each in the days following the Republican’s reelection, and both have remained at 5-year highs since.

The two leading private prison firms and some of their top executives also made significant contributions to Republicans and the Trump campaign last year, according to data from nonprofit OpenSecrets.

The GEO Group donated over $3.6 million to Republicans in 2024, including $1 million to a Trump PAC.

The corporation also has close ties with the administration: Pam Bondi, the US Attorney General, was a GEO Group lobbyist as recently as 2019.

CoreCivic donated $784,974 in 2024, mostly to Republicans. The group’s president Damon Hininger also made individual contributions to the Trump campaign, as did other executives, OpenSecrets Data shows.

By Laetitia Commanay in Paris with Corin Faife in New York