Health alerts issued as blistering heat scorches southern Europe
Tourists collapse in Greece and Italy and worker killed near Milan amid heatwave worsened by carbon pollution
A ferocious heatwave inflamed by carbon pollution is baking southern Europe, posing severe health risks to older people and those with underlying health conditions.
Scorching heat has already hit several countries, with local media reports of tourists collapsing in Greece and Italy, and an outdoor worker dying near Milan. Temperatures are expected to hit 42C in Athens on Saturday, 41C in Seville on Monday and 40C in Rome on Tuesday.
An area of high pressure called Cerberus – named after a three-headed dog from Dante Alighieri’s poem Inferno – has brought hot air from Africa to Europe. Warm air, which holds more moisture than cold air, can lead to hot and dry conditions in some areas, and heavy rains and flash floods in others.
South Africa: Zuma in Russia for 'health reasons'
The former president who had his bid to avoid returning to prison denied, is in Russia for medical treatment. Zuma had been jailed for contempt of court amid a corruption case.
South Africa's former President Jacob Zuma is in Russia where he traveled to for "health reasons," according to his foundation, which commented amid speculation over whether he would be returning to prison.
"Zuma travelled to Russia last week for health reasons," the Jacob Zuma Foundation spokesman Mzwanele Manyi said in a statement issued on Friday.
Manyi said that the 81-year-old would return to South Africa "once his doctors have completed their treatment." It was not disclosed what medical condition the former president was receiving treatment for.
Communication cuts, disease outbreak in Sudan as fighting rages
War-torn Sudan's capital experienced a communications blackout for several hours on Friday, residents said, as the army and paramilitary forces waged intense battles across Khartoum and humanitarian groups warned of worsening crisis
"Violent clashes" shook the capital, witnesses told AFP over the phone, after residents woke up to an outage of vital internet and mobile phone connections.
The source of the malfunction was not clear, though mobile and internet networks were restored by the afternoon.
Throughout the day, columns of black smoke were seen rising near army headquarters in the centre of Khartoum as well as in the city's south.
Witnesses in Khartoum North said there were "clashes using all kinds of weapons". In Omdurman, just across the Nile river, witnesses reported fighter jets and drones flying overhead.
China coast guard warns Japanese fishing boat near disputed islands
China says its coast guard issued a warning to a Japanese fishing boat operating in waters surrounding uninhabited East China Sea islands that are controlled by Japan but claimed by China.
The warning is the latest event pointing to lingering tensions between the sides, just over a week after China's senior diplomat, Wang Yi, made controversial comments suggesting China, Japan and South Korea should establish an alliance based on cultural and racial similarities in order to exclude the U.S. and other Western-style democracies.
State media ran a statement just before midnight Thursday quoting coast guard spokesperson Gan Yu saying a Chinese vessel issued a “warning to depart” to the Japanese fishing boat Zuiho Maru on Thursday near the the island known as Chiwei Yu in Chinese and Taisho in Japanese.
The tiny islet is the easternmost of the eight islands making up the Senkaku chain, known as Diaoyu in Chinese
Palestinian leader calls on world to ‘protect us,’ and his people respond with bitter laughter
President Mahmoud Abbas, the 87-year-old veteran who has led the Palestinian Authority for nearly two decades, is trending on Palestinian social media – but not in the way he might like.
When he made a rare flying visit to Jenin this week, eight days after the largest Israeli incursion into the city’s refugee camp in decades, many comments in the Facebook live feed of Palestine TV were harsh.
“Most of those cheering are his security forces. Where are the injured people?” one viewer asked.
“Good morning, you can wait for a week more, no harm,” another said, in reference to the time that had passed between the Israeli pullout and Abbas’s arrival.
“Those helicopters were rented,” another said of the two Jordanian aircraft that brought the leader and his entourage to Jenin.
El Salvador's secretive mega-jail
Angelica already had a hunch where her missing husband, Darwin, was. But official footage, shared by the government and uploaded on to social media, confirmed her suspicions.
Painstakingly scrolling through it, frame by frame, she spotted him 25 minutes into the footage, shaking hands with his cellmate. She pressed pause, rewound, and examined the footage again.
Though his head was shaved, and he was wearing nothing except regulation white shorts, she had no doubt that this person was Darwin, whom she had not seen since his arrest 11 months previously.
This was her first evidence that he had been transferred to El Salvador’s notorious mega-jail, Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (Cecot), which was opened in January by the country’s president, Nayib Bukele, in Tecoluca, 74km (46 miles) south-east of the capital San Salvador.
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