(LONDON) — Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson “deliberately misled” Parliament about rule-breaking parties during the COVID-19 pandemic, a committee of lawmakers said in a scathing report on Thursday.
Story developing…
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(ATHENS, Greece) — Rescue efforts were underway Wednesday after a fishing vessel carrying migrants capsized and sank in the Mediterranean Sea, about 54 miles off the coast of Pylos, Greece.
At least 104 people have been rescued and 79 have died, the Greek Coast Guard said. Unconfirmed early estimates put hundreds of migrants — perhaps as many as 650 — on board when the boat began to sink at about 2:30 a.m. local time.
The Greek Coast Guard was in charge of the rescue operation, which included six Coast Guard vessels, a Greek Navy frigate, a military transport plane, an Air Force helicopter, several private vessels and a drone from the European Union border protection agency.
Survivors are being brought to a hospital on Kalamata, a city in southern Greece, officials said. Mayan Queen IV, a 300-foot yacht, picked up some survivors.
The Coast Guard had contacted the vessel midday on Tuesday as it traveled through international waters, according to a statement released Wednesday afternoon.
A ship approached the fishing boat with supplies later on Tuesday, but passengers refused further help, saying they wanted to continue on their path toward Italy, the Coast Guard said.
The number of illegal border crossings detected in the Central Mediterranean nearly quadrupled in the first four months of the year from the same year-earlier period, Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, said last month.
More than 42,200 such crossings were recorded from January through April, Frontex said. That amounted to the highest level recorded since Frontex began collecting data in 2009, the agency said.
“Organised crime groups are taking advantage of political volatility in some departure countries to increase the number of migrants they smuggle across EU borders,” Frontex said in a statement in May.
Wednesday’s capsizing was another “tragedy in the Aegean,” the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration said on Twitter.
The group called for comprehensive action including more pathways for legal migration.
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(NEW YORK) — Two Americans were found dead in their luxury hotel room in Baja California Sur, Mexico, on Tuesday, local police told ABC News.
When police and paramedics arrived at the Hotel Rancho Pescadero in El Pescadero, around 9 p.m. Tuesday, the two Americans, a man and a woman, had no vital signs, police said.
The victims have been identified as John Heathco, 41, and Abby Lutz, 22, according to the Baja California Sur Attorney General’s Office. Lutz is from Newport Beach, California, the AG’s office said. Local police initially said both victims were in their mid-30s.
Their cause of death was “intoxication by substance to be determined,” the AG’s office said in a statement Wednesday.
The man and woman had been dead for about 10 or 11 hours when they were found, the attorney general’s office said. There were no signs of violence on their bodies, according to the AG’s office.
Hotel Rancho Pescadero is a luxury hotel and a Hyatt property.
Hyatt didn’t immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
The local attorney general is currently overseeing the investigation.
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines) — Tens of thousands of villagers in the Philippines are facing long-term displacement as the Mayon volcano continues to erupt — and is expected to do so for months.
The volcano, the most active on the archipelago, is wreaking havoc on the island of Luzon. In the past 24 hours, Mount Mayon, located on the northeastern Albay province, has recorded seven volcanic earthquakes and 309 rockfall events, according to a bulletin from the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology released Monday morning.
Mayon is sending ash and continuous plumes of sulfur dioxide emissions into the air, and lava is slowly pouring out of the summit crater, reaching more than half a mile away, officials said. The volcano began to expel lava on Sunday night, and it is estimated that 149 tonnes of sulfur dioxide were emitted on that day alone, researchers said.
A Level 3 alert remained for the Mayon volcano on Monday, signifying a relatively high level of unrest, with magma at the crater and hazardous eruption possible within days. Based on the current wind pattern, ash fall events may most likely occur on the south side of the volcano.
Anyone living within the 6-kilometer permanent danger zone — about a 3.7-mile radius away from the volcano summit — has been ordered to evacuate due to the dangers of lava flows, rockfalls and other volcanic hazards. Albay Gov. Edcel Greco Lagman extended the danger zone by another kilometer, asking residents on the outskirts of that radius to be ready to move at any time.
More than 15,000 people have moved to emergency shelters since last week, and authorities and villagers began moving large numbers of cows and water buffalo away from the evacuation zone on Sunday, The Associated Press reported.
However, thousands of people are still in the danger zone, AP reported, citing local officials.
Residents should also be practicing vigilance against pyroclastic density currents, hot flows of ash and debris that can travel at speeds of hundreds of meters per second, and sediment-laden streamflows, volcano experts said.
Officials raised the alert level for Mayon, a popular tourist destination, on Thursday and issued a state of emergency the next day.
The eruptions could last for months, officials announced on Wednesday.
Of the country’s 24 active volcanoes, Mayon sees the most activity. In 2018, a series of violent eruptions displaced thousands of villagers. When the volcano erupted in 1814, it killed more than 1,000 people, burying entire villages, the AP reported.
If the alert is raised to Level 4, the number of those fleeing their homes could skyrocket to 33,000, Lagman said.
Teresito Bacolcol, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, described Mayon’s activity so far as “a very gentle eruption.”
“Hopefully, it will stay that way,” Bacolcol said.
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(KELOWNA, Canada) — A couple who allegedly harassed and “accosted” a 9-year-old girl and her family at a track meet, claiming the athlete was trans and shouldn’t be playing on the girls team, will be banned from the school district’s events and property, according to school officials.
The incident occurred last week at a track meet for elementary students in Kelowna, British Columbia in Canada, Superintendent of Central Okanagan Public Schools Kevin Kaardal told ABC News.
According to local reports of the incident, a man demanded that the girl show certification of her sex – claiming she’s not a girl, was trans, and should not be competing.
Heidi Starr, the mother of the girl, told news outlets that the man halted the entire event and that the man’s wife began calling her a “genital mutilator” and “pedophile.”
The young athlete is a cisgender girl, born female, with a short haircut, according to her mother.
ABC News has reached out to the man who was allegedly involved in the incident, Josef Tesar, who told CTV News Vancouver that he never berated Starr or her daughter. Instead, he said he privately asked an event official whether it was a co-ed event since he believed she was a boy.
The district confirmed the incident with ABC News and said it is taking steps to ban the people involved from district property and events.
According to Kaardal, the “person(s) who accosted the student and family was not from one of our Central Okanagan Public Schools.”
“The safety of our students and staff is our top priority, which includes protecting human rights and ensuring safe, inclusive places to learn and work,” Kaardal said in a statement. “We expect that adults who are invited to celebrate student success govern their behaviour and conduct themselves with civility and respect.”
David Eby, the premier of British Columbia, denounced the incident on Twitter, saying “This kind of hate is not acceptable or welcome in British Columbia.”
“Let’s keep calling out transphobia when we see it,” he said in the post. “Hate hurts everyone. And let’s stand with this girl and everyone who is targeted just for being themselves.”
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(BRUSSELS) — The European Parliament approved landmark legislation Wednesday that aims to regulate the use of artificial intelligence.
Known as the AI Act, the landmark legislation aims to promote “human-centric and trustworthy AI,” introducing “obligations for providers and those deploying AI systems,” and proposing bans on any intrusive and discriminatory use of the technology.
It is the first of its kind worldwide.
The legislation was voted with an overwhelming majority amongst European Members of Parliament, with 499 voting in favor, 28 voting against, and 93 abstaining from the vote.
Approaching the AI systems based on the level of risk their practices might have, the parliament stated that the legislation is to prohibit AI systems that threaten people’s safety with an “unacceptable” level of risk like those that “are used for social scoring classifying people based on their social behavior or personal characteristics.”
Also, based on the AI Act, generative AI systems like ChatGPT would need to disclose that content was “AI-generated.”
The European Parliament also considers the AI systems used to influence voters in elections to be “high-risk.”
Elaborating on the “intrusive and discriminatory uses” of the AI, the parliament stated it has prohibited practices like “Real-time” remote biometric identification systems in publicly accessible spaces; and “post” remote biometric identification systems. The latter, though, excepted “the law enforcement only after judicial authorization and for the purpose of the prosecution of serious crimes.
Moreover, “emotion recognition systems in law enforcement, border management, the workplace, and educational institutions” would be prohibited. The same treatment is advised for other practices like “untargeted scraping of facial images from the internet or CCTV footage to create facial recognition databases” due to “violating human rights and right to privacy, “biometric categorisation systems using sensitive characteristics” like gender, race, ethnicity, citizenship status, religion, political orientation, and “predictive policing systems” based on profiling, location or past criminal behavior.
This month, new research by Amnesty International revealed that surveillance systems used by EU states posed risk of racist policing and profiling: “With such a persistently inhospitable environment towards people fleeing wars and conflict in search of a better life, it is vital that the European Parliament doesn’t dismiss the harms of AI systems,” Mher Hakobyan, Amnesty’s Advocacy Advisor on AI Regulation, said.
Brando Benifei, an Italian member of the European Parliament, spoke following the vote.
“All eyes are on us today. While Big Tech companies are sounding the alarm over their own creations, Europe has gone ahead and proposed a concrete response to the risks AI is starting to pose,” Benifei said.
“We want AI’s positive potential for creativity and productivity to be harnesses but we will also fight to protect our position and counter dangers to our democracies and freedoms,” Benifei added.
Further negotiations on the finalities of the law are to commence later Wednesday.
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(ATHENS, Greece) — Rescue efforts were underway Wednesday after a fishing vessel carrying migrants capsized and sank in the Mediterranean Sea, about 54 miles off the coast of Pylos, Greece.
At least 104 people have been rescued and 78 have died, the Greek Coast Guard said. Unconfirmed early estimates put hundreds of migrants — perhaps as many as 650 — on board when the boat began to sink at about 2:30 a.m. local time.
The Greek Coast Guard was in charge of the rescue operation, which included six Coast Guard vessels, a Greek Navy frigate, a military transport plane, an Air Force helicopter, several private vessels and a drone from the European Union border protection agency.
Survivors are being brought to a hospital on Kalamata, a city in southern Greece, officials said. Mayan Queen IV, a 300-foot yacht, picked up some survivors.
The Coast Guard had contacted the vessel midday on Tuesday as it traveled through international waters, according to a statement released Wednesday afternoon.
A ship approached the fishing boat with supplies later on Tuesday, but passengers refused further help, saying they wanted to continue on their path toward Italy, the Coast Guard said.
The number of illegal border crossings detected in the Central Mediterranean nearly quadrupled in the first four months of the year from the same year-earlier period, Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, said last month.
More than 42,200 such crossings were recorded from January through April, Frontex said. That amounted to the highest level recorded since Frontex began collecting data in 2009, the agency said.
“Organised crime groups are taking advantage of political volatility in some departure countries to increase the number of migrants they smuggle across EU borders,” Frontex said in a statement in May.
Wednesday’s capsizing was another “tragedy in the Aegean,” the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration said on Twitter.
The group called for comprehensive action including more pathways for legal migration.
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(LONDON) — The death toll from a capsized boat that was carrying wedding guests in Nigeria has risen to more than 100, authorities said Wednesday.
The wooden boat overturned early Monday as it was ferrying about 300 people, including children, across a river to Kwara state from neighboring Niger state after a wedding in the remote village of Egboti, according to Ajayi Okasanmi, spokesperson for the Nigeria Police Force’s Kwara State Command. Authorities weren’t alerted for hours since the incident occurred before dawn in complete darkness, Okasanmi said.
A search and rescue operation continued until Wednesday. Okasanmi told ABC News that 103 people have been confirmed dead.
Many of the passengers were residents of villages within the Patigi district of Kwara state, according to Kwara Gov. Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq’s office, which issued a statement offering “heartfelt condolences” to the victims’ families.
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(ATHENS, Greece) — Rescue efforts were underway Wednesday after a fishing vessel carrying migrants capsized and sank in the Mediterranean Sea, about 54 miles off the coast of Pylos, Greece.
At least 104 people have been rescued and 59 have died, the Greek Coast Guard said. Unconfirmed early estimates put hundreds of migrants — perhaps as many as 650 — on board when the boat began to sink at about 2:30 a.m. local time.
The Greek Coast Guard was in charge of the rescue operation, which included six Coast Guard vessels, a Greek Navy frigate, a military transport plane, an Air Force helicopter, several private vessels and a drone from the European Union border protection agency.
Survivors are being brought to a hospital on Kalamata, a city in southern Greece, officials said. Mayan Queen IV, a 300-foot yacht, picked up some survivors.
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(LONDON) — The global number of children forcibly displaced from their homes reached a record 43.3 million by the end of 2022, fueled by conflicts such as the war in Ukraine, according to estimates released Wednesday by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund.
That figure has doubled in the last decade, UNICEF said, despite efforts to integrate and protect displaced children. Of the 43.3 million children living in forced displacement by the end of last year, 25.8 million — almost 60% — were internally displaced by conflict and violence. Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine forced more than two million Ukrainian children to flee the country and displaced over one million children inside Ukraine, according to the estimates.
Moreover, extreme weather events around the world, including the catastrophic drought in the Horn of Africa and the unprecedented floods in Pakistan, led to another 12 million displacements of children over the course of 2022. The worldwide number of refugee and asylum-seeking children also hit a new high of 17.5 million by the end of last year, according to UNICEF estimates.
“For more than a decade, the number of children forced to flee their homes has risen at an alarming rate, and our global capacity to respond remains under serious strain,” UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement Wednesday. “The increase is in step with the consistent onslaught of conflict, crises and climate disasters around the world. But it also highlights many governments’ underwhelming response to ensure every refugee and internally displaced child can keep learning, stay healthy and develop to their full potential.”
Most of these children will spend their entire childhoods in displacement, according to UNICEF. Refugee and internally displaced children are among the most vulnerable, with many denied access to education and health care.
The estimates came as the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees announced Wednesday that the global number of people living in forced displacement has climbed to a record 110 million, spurred by Sudan’s eight-week-old conflict.
“Greater political will is required to address the drivers of displacement and provide long-term solutions for children on the move,” Russell added. “A record number of refugee, migrant and displaced children — a global population that rivals that of Algeria, Argentina or even Spain — demands a commensurate response.”
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.