World

GENEVA – The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is "catastrophic," five United Nations agencies said on Saturday, calling for more international help as conditions deteriorate in the densely populated coastal enclave.

Their statement came as Israel said it would step up its strikes in Gaza to increase pressure on Hamas, and its senior officers warned troops to be ready to enter the besieged Palestinian territory.

Since shock Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7 left 1,400 dead, Israel has launched devastating air and ground bombardments of Gaza. The Hamas authorities say 4,385 people have died.

The statement by the UN agencies came as the first aid trucks arrived in Gaza from Egypt Saturday.

"More than 1.6 million people in Gaza are in critical need of humanitarian aid," said the statement from agencies including the World Health Organisation and UNICEF, the children's agency.

"Children, pregnant women and the elderly remain the most vulnerable. Nearly half of Gaza's population are children," it added.

"Gaza was a desperate humanitarian situation before the most recent hostilities," it added.

"It is now catastrophic. The world must do more."

The other three agencies to sign the statement were the World Food Programme, the development agency UNDP and the UNFPA, the population fund.

NEW DELHI — India on Saturday successfully launched the first unmanned trial run of its upcoming crewed orbital mission, in the latest milestone for its spacefaring ambitions.

The Gaganyaan (“Skycraft”) mission is slated to send three astronauts into Earth’s orbit in 2025, an important yardstick of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) technical capabilities.

Saturday’s rocket tested the emergency escape system of its crew module, which separated from the thruster and made a soft sea landing about 10 minutes after the launch.

“I am very happy to announce the successful accomplishment of the mission,” ISRO chief S. Somanath said afterwards.

The lift-off was postponed for two hours after bad weather and a glitch in the engine.

ISRO will conduct a series of 20 major tests, including carrying a robot to outer space, before the final manned mission takes place in 2025.

Gaganyaan is the first mission of its kind for India and comes with an estimated price tag of $1.08 billion, according to ISRO.

India plans to send astronauts beyond the reaches of Earth’s atmosphere for three days before they are brought safely back with a soft landing in Indian territorial waters.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced plans to send a man to the Moon by 2040 following a year of triumphs for India’s space programme.

India became in August just the fourth nation to land an unmanned craft on the Moon after Russia, the United States and China.

The following month, India launched a probe to observe the outermost layers of the Sun from solar orbit.

India’s space programme has grown considerably in size and momentum since it first sent a probe to orbit the Moon in 2008, and it has steadily matched the achievements of established spacefaring powers at a fraction of their cost.

India also plans a joint mission with Japan to send another probe to the Moon by 2025 and an orbital mission to Venus within the next two years.

Experts say India can keep costs low by copying and adapting existing technology, and thanks to an abundance of highly skilled engineers who earn a fraction of their foreign counterparts’ wages.

STOCKHOLM — Deadly Storm Babet unleashed extensive flooding and damaged towns in Denmark and Norway into Saturday, while continuing to sweep across the U

Three people died in Scotland and England and families were trapped in flooded homes on Friday as the storm battered Britain and Ireland.

A woman also died in northern Germany on Friday evening after a falling tree landed on her car, the fire department said.

As the storm made landfall in Scandinavia, it triggered a sharp rise in water levels in towns in southern Denmark, flooding the first floor of homes which were left without power for several hours.

Water levels in several Danish towns exceeded their normal height by more than 2 metres, levels normally only reached once every hundred years, according to Denmark's DMI weather service.

"We are having to clear large quantities of water from the towns, especially in southern Jutland," Martin Vendelbo of the Danish Emergency Management Agency told the Ritzau news agency.

Fishing boats were left stranded or about to sink in the port town of Rodvig, according to photos from Danish media.

In southern Norway, up to 20,000 residents were without power early Saturday after strong winds blew roofs off buildings and downed trees and power masts, but the Norwegian news agency NTB said the situation was improving.

'Danger to life' 

The storm continued to wreak havoc in the UK, with London's King's Cross station forced to close on Saturday afternoon to prevent passengers massing on platforms after the cancellation or delay of numerous trains.

Network Rail said on X, formerly Twitter, that London North Eastern Railway (LNER), which runs services between London and the north-east of England and Scotland, was still severely disrupted due to the storm.

Leeds Bradford airport in northern England, which was closed on Friday after a passenger plane skidded off the runway in strong winds, reopened late Saturday morning.

The UK's Environment Agency has issued three severe flood warnings posing "a danger to life" in the area around the River Derwent in the city of Derby, central England.

Flood duty manager at the Environment Agency, Katharine Smith, said "ongoing flooding is probable on some larger rivers including the Severn, Ouse and Trent through to Tuesday".

Interviewed on BBC One on Saturday morning, Labour MP Toby Perkins said that around 400 homes in his constituency of Chesterfield in central England had been flooded, and that many people now had "no idea where they're going to be living from now".

Scotland was left reeling after two people died in the county of Angus, with First Minister Humza Yousaf warning on X for people to exercise caution in light of a red severe weather warning in the coastal county and parts of Aberdeenshire.

Germany's Baltic Sea coast was also battered by strong winds and rain which triggered flooding and the evacuation of around 2,000 people, according to the emergency services in the state of Schleswig-Holstein.

The highest water levels were recorded around midnight on Friday in the northern town of Flensburg, reaching almost 2.3 metres above normal — a level unseen for almost 120 years.

The situation appeared to be improving throughout Saturday.

PRISTINA — An EU envoy warned Saturday that any delays in calming tensions between Kosovo and Serbia — which he described as more urgent than ever — were “unacceptable”.

A shooting in Kosovo’s volatile north last month near the border with Serbia that killed a police officer triggered one of the worst escalations in years in the ethnic Albanian-majority former Serbian breakaway province.

On Saturday, the European Union’s envoy for the Serbia-Kosovo talks Miroslav Lajcak, as well as diplomats from the United States, France, Germany and Italy, visited the capital Pristina.

Later on, the five diplomats travelled to the Serbian capital Belgrade for a meeting with President Aleksandar Vucic.

“Both the de-escalation and normalisation are now more urgent than ever,” Lajcak told reporters in Pristina after meeting Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti.

“Any conditions or delays are unacceptable.”

Both Kosovo and Serbia are expected to fully meet their obligations under EU-sponsored talks, which is a condition for their progress on the path towards membership of the bloc, Lajcak said.

He stressed the urgent need to make progress on setting up an association of Serb-majority municipalities in Kosovo that would operate with some autonomy.

“Without this, there will be no progress in Kosovo’s European path.”

Kurti said that the five diplomats had presented him with a “new plan for moving forward”.

“Discussions must continue intensively,” he said in a statement.

‘Difficult meeting’ 

Vucic said after the meeting in Belgrade which he called “difficult”, that he believed that “we will find a way out of the crisis in the coming period”.

The Serbian leader said on Instagram he expected “important meetings” in Brussels in the coming days.

Earlier this week, French President Emmanuel Macron called on both sides to “show responsibility”, warning Paris could otherwise review Kosovo’s visa-free travel for the EU next year.

A close Vucic ally had at first admitted to leading the Serb commando that ambushed a Kosovo police patrol in September, but then denied it when questioned by prosecutors in Belgrade.

On Saturday, Lajcak stressed that the perpetrators of the attack must be brought to justice.

“We expect Serbia’s full cooperation” in that regard, he told reporters in Belgrade.

Tensions had been high in Kosovo’s north for months, after Pristina’s decision in May to install ethnic Albanian mayors in four Serb-majority municipalities.

That followed a Serb boycott of the local elections a month earlier.

The September 24 clash in the north was the latest of a series of incidents since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

Belgrade — and key allies China and Russia — still refuse to recognise the move.

Animosity between Kosovo and Serbia has persisted since a war between Serbian forces and ethnic Albanian insurgents in the late 1990s that drew NATO intervention against Belgrade.

LONDON — Migrants on Thursday began returning to an accommodation barge docked on the southwest English coast after it was evacuated two months ago over contaminated water supply fears.

A coach carrying migrants was seen arriving at Portland Port where the “Bibby Stockholm” vessel is moored.

The UK government’s decision to house migrants on the barge is its latest controversial immigration policy.

The first migrants to be housed at the site arrived in early August but all 39 were evacuated days later following the discovery of Legionella bacteria in the water supply.

Around 30 protesters on Thursday gathered at the gates to Portland Port holding banners reading “Scrap the prison barge! Refugees welcome”.

“I think the barge is a horrible idea, it feels very oppressive, it feels like a prison,” said one protester who gave her name as Annika, of the Portland Global Friendship Group.

A Home Office spokeswoman said that tests for Legionella bacteria, as well as improved fire safety protocols, had been completed ahead of the return of the occupants to the barge.

The barge is intended to house up to 500 young male migrants.

But rights advocates have hit out at the policy, saying the vessel is unfit for the purpose.

MAIQUETÍA, VENEZUELA — Some 130 Venezuelan migrants arrived back home on Wednesday on a chartered plane from the United States on the first such deportation flight following an agreement between the two non-friendly governments.

The flight from Texas arrived at the Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas, bearing adult men and women travelling alone, no families.

“The individuals on this flight... range from those who have just entered our borders unlawfully to those that have been in the country a while and committed criminal acts,” US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official Corey Price told reporters before the flight’s departure from Texas.

“This flight to Venezuela is the first I’ve seen in my career of an entire charter flight of Venezuelans going back to their country, and we plan on having several more of these in the coming days and weeks.”

Until the agreement this month between the White House and President Nicolas Maduro — whose 2018 reelection Washington does not recognise — Venezuelan migrants were deported on commercial flights, small numbers at a time mixed in with ordinary passengers.

This was the first plane since the deal that was chartered for the sole purpose of returning a large group of migrants to Venezuela.

The agreement provides for the “orderly, safe and legal repatriation” of undocumented Venezuelan migrants.

The dozens on Wednesday’s first flight climbed the steps to the plane one by one, with chains on their ankles and wrists that were removed once on board. All wore face masks, their meager belongings packed into white and orange plastic bags.

They had been earmarked for “expedited removal”, after the deal with Venezuela, and were being “removed within a matter of days and weeks, as opposed to years like you’ve seen in the past”, said Price.

One passenger fell ill during boarding and was evacuated by ambulance, officials said, to be repatriated at a later date.

‘Just the beginning’ 

President Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate for reelection in 2024, is under pressure from Republicans, and some in his own party, over the problem of illegal migration to the United States, mainly from Latin American countries.

The problem has persisted despite the barbed wire fence erected by Texas on its border with Mexico, and the soldiers deployed there.

The administration recently offered protection from deportation to 472,000 Venezuelans to allow them to obtain residence and work permits within 18 months — although this would apply only to those who arrived before July 31 this year.

GENEVA — The World Health Organisation (WHO) called on Thursday for a daily flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip beyond the first convoy readying near the border, including fuel to keep hospitals running.

Egypt's state-linked television Al Qahera News reported that the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the war-torn Palestinian enclave would open on Friday, and that Israel had agreed to allow an initial 20 trucks carrying relief goods to pass through.

"We welcome Israel's announcement yesterday that it will not block the entry of water, food and medicines into Gaza from Egypt," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

"Fuel is also needed for hospital generators, ambulances and desalination plants, and we urge Israel to add fuel to the life-saving supplies allowed to enter Gaza," he told journalists.

WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said Gazan hospitals had actually run out of fuel "days ago".

"The fuel is gone. What's left are tiny amounts of fuel that are being repurposed within the UN and NGO system to desperately try to provide a couple of days' extra fuel, where that can be done," he said.

"We passed the cliff edge long ago."

Tedros said the trucks in Egypt bearing WHO medical supplies were "loaded and ready to go".

"We urge those who can do it to please, please make this happen, to avoid the tragedy in front of us," he said of the need to get aid into the Gaza Strip.

Ryan said that efforts to get aid across the Egyptian border — the only route into or out of Gaza not controlled by Israel — needed to go beyond the "gesture" of the first convoy.

"We need to make sure the corridor is a corridor. Humanitarian assistance needs to move every day. Twenty trucks is a drop in the ocean of need right now in Gaza," he said.

"It shouldn't be 20 trucks: it should be 2,000 trucks.

"Hopefully this trickle will turn into a river of aid that will flow in the coming days."

GENEVA — The United Nations warned Israel on Tuesday against the “forcible transfer of civilians” in the Gaza Strip, which could be in breach of international law.

The UN human rights office said that a legal temporary evacuation of civilians came with obligations on Israel, which, the Geneva-based agency said, it appears to have made no attempt to fulfil.

Israel has demanded that residents of north Gaza leave for the south, hoping to clear the area of civilians in preparation for a perilous urban ground assault.

“We have grave fears about the toll on civilians in the coming days. Military operations show no signs of abating,” UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a media briefing.

“International law requires that any lawful temporary evacuation by Israel, as the occupying power, of an area on the basis of the security of the population or imperative military reasons must be accompanied by the provision of proper accommodation for all evacuees, undertaken under satisfactory conditions of hygiene, health, safety and nutrition.

“There appears to have been no attempt by Israel to ensure this for the 1.1 million civilians ordered to move.

“We are concerned that this order combined with the imposition of a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza may not be considered as lawful temporary evacuation and would therefore amount to a forcible transfer of civilians, in breach of international law.”