User Articles

Concern for hostages as Israeli forces make Gaza push

Israeli tanks have pushed into southern and eastern districts of the Gazan city of Deir al-Balah for the first time, an area where Israeli sources say the military believes some of the remaining hostages may be held. The area is packed with Palestinians displaced during more than 21 months of war in Gaza, hundreds of whom fled west or south after Israel issued an evacuation order, saying it sought to destroy Hamas capabilities and infrastructure.

Reuters

Infrastructure

New regulator plan gives hope for Thames Water

Britain says it will overhaul water regulation to better protect the environment, investors and consumers, after an official report recommended a new structure that could also ease up on pollution fines to prevent companies from collapsing. The privatised water industry in England and Wales has provoked public fury by releasing record levels of sewage into rivers and lakes, prompting the Labour government to promise major reforms when it was elected last year.

Reuters

Syria

20 Jul 2025

Clashes rage in Druze region

Sectarian clashes have escalated in Syria’s predominantly Druze region of Sweida, with machine gun fire and mortar shelling ringing out after days of bloodshed as the Islamist-led government struggled to implement a ceasefire. Reporters heard gunfire from inside the city of Sweida and saw shells land in nearby villages. There were no immediate, confirmed reports of casualties.

Reuters

20 Jul 2025

Middle East

Israel-Syria ceasefire begins

Syria’s Islamist-led government said its internal security forces have begun deploying in Sweida as the presidency called on all parties to respect a ceasefire following bloodshed in the predominantly Druze area that has left hundreds dead. In a statement, the Syrian presidency announced an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire and urged all parties to commit to it and end hostilities in all areas immediately.

Reuters

Mexico

Sniffer dogs help Mexico fight flesh-eating parasite

With tail wagging, tongue out and ears perked, Hummer – a young mixed breed dog with a slick black coat – sits down in front of a sample of screwworm scent, promptly accepting praise and treats from his handler. Trained to detect the smell of screwworm, a flesh-eating pest that has infected Mexico’s cattle herd and disrupted livestock trade with the United States, Hummer and his canine colleagues offer a glimmer of hope in controlling the worm.

Reuters

Syria

Flare-up over ‘misunderstanding’

Syria’s government misread how Israel would respond to its troops deploying to the country’s south this week, encouraged by US messaging that Syria should be governed as a centralised state, eight sources familiar with the matter said. Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops and on Damascus on Wednesday in an escalation that took the Islamist-led leadership by surprise, the sources said, after government forces were accused of killing scores of people in the Druze city of Sweida.

Reuters

Syria

Troops redeploy after new clashes

Syrian government forces prepared to return to a southern region after renewed clashes broke out between Druze armed groups and members of Bedouin clans, leaving tens of thousands of people displaced in a worsening humanitarian crisis. The government forces had withdrawn from Sweida province after a ceasefire agreement announced this week that halted much of the violence that plagued the area earlier in the week, but which ultimately did not stop the fighting. Officials were negotiating with Druze factions on an agreement to re-enter the area to impose stability and protect state institutions, according to two Syrian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly. They said an agreement was reached, but later said the deployment was delayed, without giving an explanation.

Reuters

Russia

Britain sanctions Russian spies

Britain said on Friday it had discovered a sophisticated digital espionage tool and sanctioned more than 20 Russian spies, hackers and agencies over what it called a “sustained campaign of malicious cyber activity” targeting governments and institutions across Europe. Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said novel malware used by spies at Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency had been used to harvest login credentials from online Microsoft products. The foreign ministry said it was sanctioning three units of the GRU and 18 of its officers. These included people it said were involved in targeting strikes against Mariupol during the war in Ukraine, and spying on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia before they were targeted in a Novichok poisoning in Britain in 2018.

Reuters

Infrastructure

Government to set out water reforms

Britain is expected to set out measures to fix its broken water sector on Monday as Thames Water teeters on the brink of failure, saying it needs a “reset” of regulation to have any chance of avoiding nationalisation. The country’s biggest water company has been fighting for its survival for the past 18 months. If it fails the government would have to step in, adding billions of pounds to already stretched public finances.

Reuters

Syria

US condemns violence in Damascus

The United States says it does not support recent Israeli strikes on Syria and has made clear its displeasure, while Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa accused Israel of trying to fracture his country and promised to protect its Druze minority. Israel launched airstrikes in Damascus on Wednesday, while also hitting government forces in the south, demanding they withdraw and saying that Israel aimed to protect Syrian Druze - part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.

Reuters

Politics

Fed chair defends ‘overpriced’ headquarters renovation

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has responded to a Trump administration official’s demands for information about an ‘overpriced’ renovation project at the central bank’s Washington headquarters campus, saying the project was large in scope and involved a number of safety upgrades and hazardous materials removals.

Reuters

Germany

Starmer, Merz sign ‘unprecedented’ treaty

Britain and Germany have signed a wide-ranging friendship treaty, deepening ties in areas ranging from defence to transport, to mark Friedrich Merz’s first trip to London as chancellor, the latest visit to help reset UK ties with the EU. Merz’s day trip follows a three-day state visit to Britain by French President Emmanuel Macron, signalling greater cooperation between Europe’s top three powers at a time of threats to the continent and uncertainty about their US ally.

Reuters

Gaza

16 Jul 2025

Gaza aid distribution ends in tragedy

At least 20 Palestinians have been killed at an aid distribution site in what the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund said was a crowd surge instigated by armed agitators. The GHF said 19 people were trampled in a stampede and one person was fatally stabbed in the violence at a distribution hub in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. ”We have credible reason to believe that elements within the crowd – armed and affiliated with Hamas – deliberately fomented the unrest,“ GHF said in a statement.

Reuters

16 Jul 2025

USA

15 Jul 2025

Trump to meet Starmer in Scotland

President Donald Trump says he expects to meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Aberdeen, Scotland, later this month to refine a US-British trade deal. A White House official said Trump plans to visit his golf properties in Scotland late this month, recreating a trip he made in 2016 during his first run for the presidency.

Reuters

15 Jul 2025

Inquiry

BBC Gaza documentary breached guidelines

A BBC documentary about children’s lives in Gaza narrated by the 13-year-old son of a deputy agriculture minister in the Hamas-run government breached the British public broadcaster’s editorial guidelines on accuracy, an internal review has found.

Reuters

Middle East

Red Sea search ends, 11 still missing

The search for those missing after Yemen’s Houthi rebels sank a ship in the Red Sea has ended, with at least four people presumed dead and 11 others still unaccounted for, the private security firms involved say. The announcement came as satellite photos show long, trailing oil slicks from where the bulk carrier Eternity C sank, as well as another where the sinking of the bulk carrier Magic Seas by the Iranian-backed Houthis took place.

Reuters

Aviation

Air India probe ‘far from over’ after preliminary report

The probe into last month’s crash of an Air India plane in Ahmedabad is “far from over” and it is unwise to jump to any premature conclusions, airline CEO Campbell Wilson has said in an internal mem after the release of a preliminary report by investigators. The memo comes after the report depicted confusion in the cockpit shortly before the crash of the Boeing Dreamliner that killed 260 people. It said the plane’s engine fuel cutoff switches flipped almost simultaneously and starved the engines of fuel.

Reuters