Feed aggregator

Reykjavik, Iceland — Iceland's three-party coalition government collapsed Sunday over disagreements on policy issues, Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson said, with new elections to be held in November. Benediktsson, head of the conservative Independence Party, told reporters that tensions had mounted within the left-right coalition on issues ranging from foreign policy to asylum seekers and energy. The coalition had been made up of the Independence Party, the Left-Green Movement and the center-right Progressive Party. The issues "were less discussed in the last election than need to be discussed now", Benediktsson said, emphasizing "how different the (Left-Green) Movement's vision for the future is, compared to what I want to stand for." "It is best if the government has a common vision," he told the online media site Visir, adding: "It's disappointing when projects run aground or circumstances change." He said he would meet Monday with Iceland's President Halla Tomasdottir to submit a proposal for the dissolution of parliament and parliamentary elections at the end of November. Benediktsson, one of Iceland's most experienced politicians, has previously served as finance minister, foreign minister and prime minister. He said he had strong backing from his party and planned to stand in the November election. A Gallup poll published on October 1 showed that the coalition government had the support of just one-fourth of voters, at 24.6 percent, the lowest score Gallup has recorded for an Icelandic government in 30 years. The three parties combined came in behind the Social Democrats, which were credited with 26.1 percent. Benediktsson took over as prime minister in April 2024 after Katrin Jakobsdottir, of the Left-Green Movement, resigned to run for the presidency, which she failed to win. The three parties were reelected in 2021, winning 38 of the 63 seats in parliament, up from the 33 they had held since the previous election in 2017. But the Left-Green Movement emerged weaker, losing three seats to hold just eight, while its right-wing partners both posted strong showings.  

Stockholm — Sweden wants the European Union to classify Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization after several attacks on Israeli targets in Sweden that Stockholm blames on Iran, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Sunday. The Scandinavian country's intelligence agency, Sapo, has accused Iran of recruiting members of Swedish criminal gangs to commit "acts of violence" against Israeli and other interests in Sweden, a charge Tehran has denied. "We want Sweden to seriously address, together with other EU countries, the incredibly problematic connection between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its destructive role in the (Middle East) region, but also its increasing actions in various European countries, including Sweden," Kristersson told the Expressen daily. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a special branch of the Iranian armed forces whose officers hold key positions within the Iranian government. "The only reasonable option... is that we obtain a common classification of terrorists, so that we can act more broadly than with the sanctions that already exist," he added. Several Israeli interests have been targeted in Sweden in recent months. In early October, the Israeli Embassy was targeted by gunfire, which did not cause any injuries. Other incidents have occurred near the embassy since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip in October 2023. In February, a grenade was found near the building in what the Israeli ambassador called an attempted attack. In May, gunfire was reported outside the building, leading to increased security measures around Israeli interests in Sweden. Two attacks have also targeted an Israeli military technology company in the past six months. In May, the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter cited documents from the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad indicating that the head of the Swedish crime network Foxtrot, Rawa Majid, and his arch-rival Ismail Abdo, head of the Rumba gang, were both recruited by Iran. In early October, Swedish public broadcaster SVT reported that the two recent attacks on the Israeli Embassies in Stockholm and Copenhagen had been ordered by Foxtrot on the orders of Iran.

DAMASAK, Nigeria — When Boko Haram launched an insurgency in northeastern Nigeria in 2010, Abdulhameed Salisu packed his bag and fled from his hometown of Damasak in the country's battered Borno state.  The 45-year-old father of seven came back with his family early last year. They are among thousands of Nigerians taken back from displacement camps to their villages, hometowns or newly built settlements known as “host communities” under a resettlement program that analysts say is being rushed to suggest the conflict with the Islamic militants is nearly over.  Across Borno, dozens of displacement camps have been shut down, with authorities claiming they are no longer needed and that most places from where the displaced fled are now safe.  But many of the displaced say it’s not safe to go back.  Boko Haram — Nigeria’s homegrown jihadis — took up arms in 2009 to fight against Western education and impose their radical version of Islamic law, or Sharia. The conflict, now Africa's longest struggle with militancy, has spilled into Nigeria's northern neighbors.  Some 35,000 civilians have been killed and more than 2 million have been displaced in the northeastern region, according to U.N. numbers. The 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls by Boko Haram in the village of Chibok in Borno state — the epicenter of the conflict — shocked the world.  Borno state alone has nearly 900,000 internally displaced people in displacement camps, with many others absorbed in local communities. So far this year, at least 1,600 civilians have been killed in militant attacks in Borno state, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit.  And in a state where at least 70% of the population depends on agriculture, dozens of farmers have also been killed by the extremists or abducted from their farmland in the last year.  In May, hundreds of hostages, mostly women and children who were held captive for months or years by Boko Haram were rescued from a forest enclave and handed over to authorities, the army said.  In September, at least 100 villagers were killed by suspected Boko Haram militants who opened fire on a market, on worshippers and in people’s homes in the Tarmuwa council area of the neighboring Yobe state, west of Borno.  Analysts say that a forced resettlement could endanger the local population as there is still inadequate security across the hard-hit region.  Salisu says he wastes away his days in a resettlement camp in Damasak, a garrison town in Borno state of about 200,000 residents, close to the border with Niger.  Food is getting increasingly difficult to come by and Salisu depends on handouts from the World Food Program and other aid organizations. He longs to find work.  “We are begging the government to at least find us a means of livelihood instead of staying idle and waiting for whenever food comes,” he said.  On a visit last week to Damasak, Cindy McCain, the WFP chief, pledged the world would not abandon the Nigerian people as she called for more funding to support her agency's aid operations.  “We are going to stay here and do the very best we can to end hunger,” McCain told The Associated Press as she acknowledged the funding shortages. “How do I take food from the hungry and give it to the starving,” she said.  Resettlement usually involves the displaced being taken in military trucks back to their villages or “host communities." The Borno state government has promised to provide returnees with essentials to help them integrate into these areas, supported by aid groups.  The government says the displacement camps are no longer sustainable.  “What we need now is ... durable solutions,” Borno governor Babagana Zulum told McCain during her visit.  As the resettlement got underway, one in five displaced persons stayed back in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, and nearby towns but were left without any support for local integration, the Global Protection Cluster, a network of non-government organizations and U.N. agencies, said last December.  Many others have crossed the border to the north, to settle as refugees in neighboring Niger, Chad or Cameroon. The three countries have registered at least 52,000 Nigerian refugees since January 2023, according to the U.N. refugee agency — nearly twice the number registered in the 22 months before that.  A rushed closure of displacement camps and forced resettlement puts the displaced people at risk again from militants still active in their home areas — or forces them to “cut deals” with jihadis to be able to farm or fish, the International Crisis Group warned in a report earlier this year.  That could make the extremists consolidate their presence in those areas, the group warned. Boko Haram, which in 2016 split into two main factions, continues to ambush security convoys and raid villages.  Abubakar Kawu Monguno, head of the Center for Disaster Risk Management at the University of Maiduguri, said the best option is for government forces to intensify their campaign to eliminate the militants or “push them to surrender.”  After not being able to access their farms because of rampant attacks by militants, some farmers in Damasak and other parts of Mobbar district returned to work their land last year, armed with seedlings provided by the government.  Salisu was one of them.  Then a major flood struck in September, collapsing a key dam and submerging about 40% of Maiduguri's territory. Thirty people were killed and more than a million others were affected, authorities said.  Farms that feed the state were ruined, including Salisu's. His hopes for a good rice harvest were washed away. Now he lines up to get food at a Damasak food hub.  “Since Boko Haram started, everything else stopped here," he said. “There is nothing on the ground and there are no jobs.”  Maryam Abdullahi also lined up at a WFP hub in Damasak with other women, waiting for bags of rice and other food items she desperately needs for her family of eight. Her youngest is 6 years old.  The donations barely last halfway through the month, she said, but she still waited in the scorching heat.  What little money she has she uses to buy yams to fry and sell to sustain her family, but it’s nowhere enough. Her only wish is to be able to get a “proper job” so she and her children would feel safe, she said.  “We either eat in the morning for strength for the rest of the day or ... we eat only at night,” Abdullahi said. 

Quito, Ecuador — Seven people were shot dead in Ecuador while leaving a pool hall in the latest in a series of tit-for-tat gang attacks near the violence-plagued port city of Guayaquil, police said Sunday.  The third shooting in a week in the town of Duran brings the number of people killed to 17 in the flare-up in violence between two notorious local gangs, the Latin Kings and Chone Killers gangs, police said.  The latest shooting took place Saturday night, when gunmen travelling in two cars opened fire on suspected members of the Chone Killers, Duran police chief Roberto Santamaria said.  Traces of blood from the shooting were still visible on the streets Sunday.  Santamaria blamed the attack on the rival Latin Kings gang, saying it appeared to be a revenge attack.  The series of shootings began on Tuesday, when gunmen wearing army-style uniforms took five people from their homes and shot them dead execution-style in an alley in Duran.   Police later blamed that attack on the Chone Killers.  A day later, suspected members of the Chone Killers traveling by car opened fire on a group of people, also killing five.  "There has been a succession of violent acts that began with the death of five members of a gang, they seek retaliation with five other acts (killings) and so on," Santamaria said.  The Latin Kings and Chone Killers have a strong presence in Duran, which is situated just across the Babahoyo River from Guayaquil, the nerve center of a drug war between the government and powerful criminal groups.  Santamaria described the Latin Kings and Chone Killers as having "military-style power" and accused them of drug trafficking, extortion and the recruitment of minors, among other crimes.  Duran is situated in Guayas province, one of six Ecuadoran provinces which is under a state of emergency due to gang violence.   The capital Quito is included in the emergency measures.  Violent crime in Ecuador, a country once seen as a beacon of stability in South America that has become a major drug trafficking hub, has skyrocketed in recent years.  The murder rate went from six in 2018 to 47 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023.   The government says its crackdown on gangs who control the country's prisons is producing results, with murders falling to 4,959 between January and October this year, compared to 6,037 for the same period in 2023. 

VILNIUS/PANEVEZYS, Lithuania — Lithuania's center-left opposition Social Democrats (SD) will attempt to form a majority coalition government together with two other parties following the country's parliamentary election, its leader said Sunday. Early results showed SD ahead in the election, which was dominated by concerns over living costs and potential threats from neighboring Russia. "I think it will be a coalition with two left parties," Vilija Blinkeviciute told reporters, adding the parties in question were the Farmers and Greens and For Lithuania. "I think it will be a good left coalition." With 61% of votes counted, SD had 22% support, making it the largest party ahead of the anti-establishment Nemunas Dawn with 17% and the ruling Homeland Union with 15%. Some 52.1% of the Baltic nation's eligible voters cast a ballot, up from 47.2% four years ago, official data showed. Blinkeviciute said foreign policy would not change and helping Ukraine remained a priority. "I think that our voters, our people said that they want some changes," she said, pointing to earnings, housing, health care and education as key areas of concern. Lithuania's center-right government of Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte saw its popularity eroded by inflation that topped 20% two years ago, as well as by deteriorating public services and a widening gap between the rich and the poor. "I got bored with the old government. I want something new," Hendrikas Varkalis, 75, said after casting his vote in Panevezys, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) northwest of the capital Vilnius. The Baltic state of 2.9 million people has a hybrid voting system in which half of the parliament is elected by popular vote, with a 5% threshold needed to win seats. The other half is chosen on a district basis, a process which favors larger parties. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote in a district, its top two candidates face each other in a run-off on Oct. 27. Domestic issues loomed large in the election campaign, with the SD vowing to tackle increased inequality by raising taxes on wealthier Lithuanians to help fund more spending on health care and social spending. But national security is also a major concern in Lithuania, which is part of the eastern flank of NATO and the European Union and shares a border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad as well as with Belarus, a close Moscow ally. Three-quarters of Lithuanians believe Russia could attack their country soon, a Baltijos Tyrimai/ELTA poll found in May. The main parties strongly support Ukraine in its war with invading Russian forces and back increased defense spending.

Nairobi, Kenya — An extra 600 Kenyan police officers set to join a U.N.-backed mission to try to quell rampant gang violence in Haiti will be ready for deployment in early November, Kenya's police chief said Saturday. President William Ruto had pledged the additional officers Friday following a meeting with Haiti's interim Prime Minister Garry Conille, as the two leaders appealed for the international community to do more. "A contingent of 600 officers will soon join the Kenyan police already stationed in Haiti after completing pre-deployment training." said Kenya's Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja. "Once this training is complete, the officers will be ready for departure early next month," he said at a media briefing alongside Conille in Nairobi. The East African country is leading the multinational mission aimed at tackling spiraling insecurity in the crime-ravaged Caribbean nation and has so far sent 400 police. Addressing concerns about delays in paying the salaries of officers already in Haiti, Kanja said, "The payment issue has been sorted out, and the officers are happy." On Friday, Ruto had urged the international community to "urgently" rally behind the mission, which has been hobbled by a chronic lack of funding. "This is the moment to provide that critical support for us to be able to undertake the exercise at hand," he said in a call echoed by Conille. The Haitian leader's visit to Kenya comes a week after gang members opened fire in the Haitian town of Ponte Sonde, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the capital Port-au-Prince, butchering 109 people and wounding around 40 more. The U.N. Security Council last month extended the policing mission for one year, without transforming it into a U.N. peacekeeping mission as floated by Port-au-Prince. More than 3,600 people have been killed this year in "senseless" gang violence in Haiti, according to the U.N. human rights office.

On Sunday, President Joe Biden visited areas affected by Hurricane Milton in Florida and announced a half-billion dollars in new funding to improve electric grid resilience. But even as relief and recovery efforts continue, officials warn that misinformation is spreading rapidly as Election Day draws near. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has the details, with reporting from Patrick Bresnan in North Carolina.

Karachi, Pakistan — Pakistani police fired tear gas and swung batons at thousands of protesters Sunday in Karachi after the demonstrators tried to break through a security barricade. Around 2,000 supporters of a far-right Islamist party tried to reach the city’s press club to oppose another demonstration staged by civil society groups about the killing of a blasphemy suspect while he was in custody. Supporters of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party hurled rocks at officers and torched a patrol car when police stopped them from reaching the press club. The party said one of its members died in the violence. Police arrested around 20 people from both demonstrations. Provincial Interior Minister Zia Ul Hassan said authorities feared clashes because both the political party and the civil society groups had issued calls for protests on the same day. Ul Hassan condemned the violence, especially given an upcoming security summit in Islamabad and last week’s deadly attack on a convoy of Chinese nationals outside the city's airport. The TLP supports Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws, which call for the death penalty for anyone who insults Islam.

Colombo, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka's police have arrested 198 Chinese men on suspicion of operating a cybercrime ring from the South Asian nation, a police spokesperson said Sunday.  Deputy Inspector-General Nihal Thalduwa said the men were taken into custody at four locations during raids carried out since October 6, with 129 arrested in one location Saturday.  Thalduwa said that a large number of mobile phones and laptop computers were also seized.  "We suspect that they were operating online scams from these locations," Thalduwa told reporters in the capital, Colombo.  "Their victims include people in Sri Lanka as well as those overseas."  He said investigations were moving slowly due to language issues in questioning the suspects, but the authorities have sought help of officials from the Chinese Embassy in Colombo.  Forensic experts were analyzing the electronic devices that were seized, he said.  In June, police arrested another 200 suspects, mainly Indians, who were also accused of operating online financial scams.  Thalduwa said the suspects had entered the island as tourists and, in most cases, were overstaying their visas. 

Paris — Chinese state-owned carmaker GAC is exploring the manufacture of EVs in Europe to avoid EU tariffs, the general manager of its international business told Reuters on Sunday, joining a growing list of Chinese companies planning local production.  The company is among China's largest automakers and is targeting 500,000 overseas sales by 2030. It does not yet sell EVs in Europe but will launch an electric SUV tailored to the European market at the Paris Auto Show, which kicks off Monday.  GAC still viewed Europe as an important market that was "relatively open" despite moves by the European Commission to impose tariffs on EVs made in China, Wei Heigang said, speaking in Paris ahead of the show.  "The tariffs issue definitely has an impact on us. However, all this can be overcome in the long term ... I am positive there is going to be a way to get it all resolved," he said.  "Local production would be one of the ways to resolve this," he added. "We are very actively exploring this possibility."  Discussions were at a very early stage and the company was still considering whether to build a new plant or share — or take over — an existing one, according to Wei.  The compact SUV on display in Paris, a 520-kilometer (323-mile) range vehicle called "Aion V," should launch in some European markets in mid-2025, priced at less than 40,000 euros ($43,748), though the final price has not yet been set, GAC said.  After that launch, the next GAC vehicle due for sale in Europe will be a small electric hatchback, to be released in late 2025. 

Tehran, Iran — Iran condemned Sunday what it called an "illegal and unjustified" expansion of U.S. sanctions targeting its oil industry following Tehran's missile attack on Israel earlier this month.   In a statement, foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei defended Iran's attack on Israel and "strongly condemned" the sanctions, saying they were "illegal and unjustified."   The United States on Friday slapped Iran with a spate of new sanctions on the country's oil and petrochemical industry in response to Tehran's October 1 attack against Israel. Baghaei defended Iran's attack on Israel as being legal and insisted on Iran's right to respond to the new sanctions. The U.S. Treasury Department said it targeted Iran's so-called shadow fleet of ships involved in selling Iranian oil in circumvention of existing sanctions. It said it had designated at least 10 companies and 17 vessels as "blocked property" over their involvement in shipments of Iranian petroleum and petrochemical products.   The State Department also announced it was placing sanctions on six further firms and six ships for "knowingly engaging in a significant transaction for the purchase, acquisition, sale, transport, or marketing of petroleum or petroleum products from Iran". Baghaei said "the policy of threats and maximum pressure" had no impact on "Iran's will to defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity, national interests and citizens against any violation and foreign aggressions." He said the sanctions would enable Israel "to continue killing innocents and pose a threat to the peace and unity of the region and the world". The new wave of sanctions comes as the world awaits Israel's promised response to Tehran's missile attack, with oil prices hitting their highest levels since August. Earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden advised Israel against targeting oil infrastructure in Iran, one of the world's 10 largest producers. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi last Tuesday warned that "any attack against infrastructure in Iran will provoke an even stronger response."

Paris — French President Emmanuel Macron called on Iran's leader Masoud Pezeshkian to support a "general de-escalation" in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon in a telephone conversation Sunday, his office said. Macron stressed "the responsibility of Iran to support a general de-escalation and to use its influence in this direction with the destabilizing actors that enjoy its support." Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters are fighting Israeli troops in Lebanon. The Iranian presidential website said that in his conversation with Macron, Pezeshkian had called for an end to "crimes" in Lebanon and Gaza. They discussed ways to secure a "cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel," a statement on the website said. Pezeshkian "asked the French president to work together with other European countries to force the Zionist regime to stop the genocide and crimes in Gaza and Lebanon," the statement added. The Israeli army is engaged in close combat with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon this Sunday, where it announced for the first time the capture of an enemy fighter. It is also intensifying its airstrikes against the pro-Iranian formation. For its part, the Lebanese Islamist movement said it was fighting Israeli soldiers at the end of the afternoon "with automatic weapons" and "rockets" in at least four villages bordering Israel, with the Israeli army doing “face to face combat.”   After having weakened the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza, Israel moved the front of the war to Lebanon, saying it wanted to allow the return to northern Israel of some 60,000 inhabitants, displaced by the rocket attacks carried out for a year by Hezbollah in support for Hamas.

Tehran, Iran — Iran and Iraq will both stage funerals for Revolutionary Guard General Abbas Nilforushan, killed in an Israeli airstrike alongside Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, the Guards' news agency said Sunday.  Nilforushan, a top commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force foreign operations arm, was killed on September 27 alongside Nasrallah in the strike on south Beirut.  The IRGC said Friday his body had been recovered from the site of the strike on the Lebanese capital's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.  Funeral ceremonies will be held in "Najaf and Karbala" in Iraq on Monday before the body is transferred to Iran's holy city of Mashhad, the Sepah news agency said.  Another ceremony will take place at Tehran's Imam Hossein Square on Tuesday before burial Thursday in the central city of Isfahan, his hometown, Sepah said.  On October 1, Iran fired some 200 missiles at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Nasrallah, Nilforushan and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in late July.  Israel said it carried out the Beirut strike but did not comment on Haniyeh's death in Tehran, where he had attended the inauguration of the Islamic Republic's new president.  Israel has vowed to retaliate for the Iranian missile attack, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying the response would be "deadly, precise, and surprising." 

Seoul, South Korea — North Korea said Sunday its front-line army units are ready to launch strikes on South Korea, ramping up pressure on its rival that it said flew drones and dropped leaflets over its capital Pyongyang.  South Korea has refused to confirm whether it sent drones but warned it would sternly punish North Korea if the safety of its citizens is threatened.  North Korea on Friday accused South Korea of launching drones to drop propaganda leaflets over Pyongyang three times this month and threatened to respond with force if it happened again.  In a statement carried by state media Sunday, the North's Defense Ministry said that the military had issued a preliminary operation order to artillery and other army units near the border with South Korea to "get fully ready to open fire."  An unidentified ministry spokesperson said the North Korea's military ordered relevant units to fully prepare for situations like launching immediate strikes on unspecified enemy targets when South Korea infiltrates drones across the border again, possibly triggering fighting on the Korean Peninsula, according to the statement.  The spokesperson said that "grave touch-and-go military tensions are prevailing on the Korean Peninsula" because of the South Korean drone launches. In a separate statement later Sunday, the spokesperson said that the entire South Korean territory "might turn into piles of ashes" following the North's powerful attack.  Also Sunday, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un described as "suicidal" the South Korean Defense Ministry's reported warning that North Korea would face the end of its regime if it harms South Korean nationals. She warned Saturday that the discovery of a new South Korean drone will "certainly lead to a horrible disaster."  North Korea often issues such fiery, blistering rhetoric in times of elevated animosities with South Korea and the United States.  Ties between the two Koreas remain tense since a U.S.-led diplomacy on ending North Korea's nuclear program fell apart in 2019. North Korea has since pushed hard to expand its nuclear arsenal and repeatedly threatened to attack South Korea and the U.S. with its nuclear weapons. But experts say it's unlikely for North Korea to launch a full-blown attack because its military is outpaced by the combined U.S. and South Korean forces.  Observers predicted North Korea would escalate tensions ahead of next month's U.S. presidential election to boost its leverage in future diplomacy with the Americans.  Since May, North Korea has floated thousands of balloons carrying rubbish toward South Korea in retaliation for South Korean activists flying their own balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets. South Korea's military responded to the North's balloon campaign by restarting border loudspeakers to blare broadcast propaganda and K-pop songs to North Korea.  North Korea is extremely sensitive to any outside criticism of the authoritarian government of Kim Jong Un and his family's dynastic rule. 

Madrid — Thousands protested Sunday in Madrid to demand more affordable housing amid rising anger from Spaniards who feel they are being priced out of the market. Under the slogan "Housing is a right, not a business," residents marched in the Spanish capital to demand lower housing rental prices and better living conditions. Twelve thousand people took to the streets, according to the Spanish government. "Spaniards cannot live in their own cities. They are forcing us out of the cities. The government has to regulate prices, regulate housing," said nurse Blanca Prieto, 33. In July, Spain's government announced a crackdown on short-term and seasonal holiday lettings. It plans to investigate listings on platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com to verify if they have licenses. Spain is struggling to balance promoting tourism, a key driver of its economy, and addressing citizens' concerns over unaffordable high rents due to gentrification and landlords shifting to more lucrative tourist rentals. In a separate demonstration in Barcelona on Sunday against the America's Cup yachting race, protesters blamed the international sporting event for pushing up rental prices and bringing more tourists into an overcrowded city. Residents of the Canary Islands and Malaga have also staged protests this year against the rise in tourist rentals. Seasonal hospitality workers struggle to find accommodation in these tourism hot spots, with many resorting to sleeping in caravans or even their cars. 

Israel’s prime minister is urging U.N. peacekeeping forces to leave war-torn parts of Lebanon as Israel continues targeting Hezbollah. His comments came after news that recent Israeli strikes injured five U.N. peacekeepers. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has this story.