Brazil will begin imposing restrictions on the entry of some foreign citizens from Asia who are seeking refuge in the South American nation as a means to migrate to the United States and Canada, the justice ministry’s press office said Wednesday.

The move, which will start on Monday, will affect Asian migrants who require visas to remain in Brazil.

A Federal Police investigation has shown these migrants often buy flights with layovers in Sao Paulo’s international airport, en route to other destinations, but stay in Brazil as a place from where they then begin their journey north, according to official documents provided to The Associated Press.

More than 70% of requests for refuge at the airport come from people with either Indian, Nepalese or Vietnamese nationalities, one of the documents says.

Starting next week, travelers without visas will either have to continue their journey by plane or return to their country of origin, the ministry said.

A report signed by federal police investigator Marinho da Silva Rezende Júnior informs the justice ministry that since the beginning of last year there has been “great turmoil” due to the influx of migrants at the airport in Guarulhos, the second most populous city in the state of Sao Paulo.

“Evidence suggests that those migrants, in their majority, are making use of the known — and extremely dangerous — route that goes from Sao Paulo to the western state of Acre, so they can access Peru and go toward Central America and then, finally, reach the US from its southern border,” one of the documents says.

An AP investigation in July found migrants passing through the Amazon, including some from Vietnam and India. Many returned to Acre, on the border with Peru, as US border policies triggered a wait-and-see attitude among them.

Brazil’s justice ministry said that the new guidelines will not apply to 484 migrants currently staying at Sao Paulo’s international airport.

Earlier on Wednesday, Brazil’s federal prosecutors’ office said in a statement that Sao Paulo’s international airport “is once again counting a high number of foreigners who arrive on flights of the airline LATAM and do not exit quickly due to the overload on the Brazilian migration system.”

The prosecutors’ office added that it will put pressure on airlines to give migrants some basic supplies as they wait for their concession of refuge. The term refers to an application for refugee status, regardless of the reason.

LATAM did not immediately respond a request for comment from the AP.

“It is important that we quickly decide on these refuge requests so that the growing arrival of foreigners does not impact the operation of the airport itself,” federal prosecutor Guilherme Rocha Göpfert said after a meeting at Sao Paulo’s international airport on Wednesday.

One of the documents says Brazil’s federal police received 9,082 requests for refuge this year through July 15. That is more than double the amount for the whole 2023, and the most in over a decade, according to the figures.

Brazil has historically welcomed refugees, particularly Afghans in recent years, regardless of ideological leanings of the Latin American country’s leaders.

But reports of migrants seeking refugee status as a means to use Brazil as a waystation has caused frustration in the government, particularly at a time when the system is burdened by many people from Haiti, Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine seeking humanitarian visas.

Brazil granted 11,248 humanitarian visas to Afghans alone between between Sept. 2021 and April 2024, government figures show.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva decided in January 2023, in the early days of his administration, to bring his country back to the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, an intergovernmental agreement.

His administration has kept humanitarian visas, but guidelines for the concession of those has become more restrictive under his administration.

People were walking or on donkey carts as they left areas east of Deir al-Balah. Some were in private cars, loaded with their belongings, including mattresses and blankets, water and gas bottles. The streets appear littered with leaflets dropped by the IDF reiterating the order to evacuate.

It now amounts to 39 square kilometers, just over 10 percent of Gaza’s total area.

Amid the latest evacuation, people swarmed onto a UN truck carrying food aid, carrying off small bags of aid.

A woman named Um Alaa, sitting on a cart, said it was the fourth time she has had to evacuate since October last year. “We don’t know where to go. We are going to look for a spot away from this dangerous place. The whole of Gaza has become dangerous.”

There was panic among some as to what might come next.

An elderly man said: “There are no longer places to go. There was only Deir al-Balah, and now they are asking us to evacuate Deir al-Balah. I am afraid that tomorrow they will confine all of us on the seashore of Deir al-Balah, then exterminate all of us.”

“After so many displacements, we no longer have the strength to evacuate yet another time.”

Um Ismail, a woman with small children, said people were defenseless.

“Why are they fighting us? We are not Hamas, we are simply people staying put in our homes. They displaced us not once, but 10 times. Why? What have we done?”

A woman in the back seat of a car exclaimed: “Do you want to know what’s happening – ask Hamas and the Israelis if you want to know what’s happening to us.”

Her family said it was their second displacement. For a very few, it was the first time since the conflict began that they’d had to move.

One man was crying as he drove a car packed with women and children. “I have no idea where we are heading to. Anywhere we can stay. God help us. This is the first time I am being displaced.”

But for Umm Said it was the seventh move in as many months.

“I don’t know where I am heading to. They said leave, we left. We have no idea…Every time we find a place and settle down, they say go back. And here we are. I have taken some flour for the children, what else can I take with me!”

Abu Muhammad Hajjaj, a resident of Gaza City, had been displaced from the Shujaiya neighborhood.

“People are crying and complaining of everything: disease, hunger, poverty, lack of hygiene, lack of medicine. You search in all of Gaza for paracetamol for a headache and you can’t find it.”

Hajjaj added: “Find us a solution. This is not a way to live. Where are the international organisations, where is the Security Council, where is the UN.”

“We don’t have money. We don’t have tents. We have nothing. We are not living in our own homes. We are on the street. They cannot keep on telling us to evacuate from here and there. This is not a way to live.”

Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Authority arrested a man on Tuesday who it claimed had spread disinformation thought to have enflamed the recent unrest in the UK.

According to the FIA statement the “article contained a false claim about the arrest of a Muslim asylum seeker by police in the stabbing incident in a dance party in Southport on July 29, 2024.”

The FIA confirmed that the man has not been charged.

Police in Lahore have identified the man, arrested by the FIA, as Farhan Asif, and that he was questioned about the article on Monday.

It’s unclear if Asif has an attorney.

Asif told police he would earn close to a thousand dollars a month by doing this, according to the official.

After a statement from UK police, after the riots, Asif claims he deleted the story and issued an immediate apology.

The UK faced its worst disorder in more than a decade, after outbreaks of far-right, anti-immigrant violence swept the country. Protests first broke out late last month, after an anti-immigrant misinformation campaign stoked outrage over a stabbing attack that left three children dead in Southport, northern England.

The family of Alain Delon, who died at the weekend aged 88, has denied the actor’s request for his dog to euthanized and buried alongside him following outcry in France.

Delon, an icon of French cinema known for his starring roles in “The Leopard” and “Our Story,” died on Sunday.

The French actor had clearly expressed his wish to have his beloved Belgian Shepherd dog, Loubo, buried alongside him when he passed.

He disclosed the unusual request during an interview with Paris Match magazine in 2018,  describing Loubo as his “end-of-life” dog who he loved “like a child.”

“I’ve had 50 dogs in my life, but I have a special relationship with this one,” Delon told the magazine. “If I die before him, I’ll ask the vet to take us away together. He’ll put him to sleep in my arms.”

Following criticism from animal welfare groups in France, Delon’s family confirmed on Tuesday that they would not be granting the actor’s controversial dying wish.

French animal charity, the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, said in a post on X Tuesday that Delon’s relatives had confirmed that the dog “has his home and his family” and will not be euthanized.

Delon’s request had been strongly criticized in recent days.

France’s main animal protection organization, the Society for the Protection of Animals (SPA), had criticized the request, stressing on social media on Monday that “the life of an animal should not be conditional on that of a human being.”

The organization had offered instead to rehome the dog if needed.

Fellow animal welfare organization, 30 Million Friends, also strongly urged Delon’s request be denied.

In an article published Monday, which also paid tribute to Delon’s legacy as a “fervent supporter of the animal cause,” the charity expressed its hope that his dog wouldn’t be put down whilst “in good health.”

They also offered to help find “someone trustworthy” to take in Loubo if needed.

Three staff members of a high school in the western Bosnian town of Sanski Most were killed on Wednesday when a school employee shot them and then tried to take his own life, police said.

Police were notified at 10:15 a.m.that a man had opened fire at the school with an automatic rifle, the police spokesman for Una-sana canton, Adnan Beganovic, said.

The shooter killed the school dean, the secretary and a teacher, then tried to take his own life and was “gravely injured,” Beganovic said.

Beganovic added that the suspect was transferred for emergency treatment in the nearby town of Banja Luka.

An investigation is underway, he said.

The school had not yet reopened from the summer holidays so no children were involved.

N1 TV, citing witnesses, said that a janitor who had a history of disagreements with the management and was under disciplinary proceedings, sought out specific people and shot them. Reuters could not immediately verify that report.

Mass shootings are comparatively rare in the Western Balkans which is awash with weapons that remained in private hands from wars in the 1990s.

In July, a war veteran in neighboring Croatia shot five people including his mother in a nursing home and wounded six others.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Security camera footage showing the moments before a tornado sank a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily has emerged, as rescue workers face tough conditions in the ongoing search for six missing people.

The black-and-white footage appears to show the British-flagged yacht, called the “Bayesian,” being battered by a violent storm on Monday. As rain lashes down on the port, the grainy video shows the boat rocking violently from side to side before capsizing.

The vessel sank early Monday – killing at least one of 22 people on board – after its mast, one of the world’s tallest, broke in half during the storm. Fifteen people have been rescued.

The body that was recovered from the vessel was identified as the onboard chef Ricardo Thomas, an Antiguan citizen, Reuters reported.

Among the missing is British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, Morgan Stanley International director Jonathan Bloomer, and Chris Movillo, a prominent American lawyer, according to Sicily’s Civil Protection.

Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter was also named missing. His wife, Angela Barcares, survived. Speaking to the Italian daily La Repubblica while sitting in a wheelchair in a Sicilian hospital, Bacares said she was woken at 4 a.m. local time as the boat tilted.

She said she and her husband were initially not concerned, but became worried when the windows of the yacht shattered.

The yacht sank after a small waterspout – a type of tornado – spun over the Mediterranean island, likely capsizing the boat, which was anchored about a half a mile from the port of Porticello. Eyewitnesses described furious gales and hurricane winds that left a mountain of debris near the pier.

One witness, the owner of a villa looking out to where the Bayesian was anchored, said that after news of the sinking yacht emerged, he watched back his CCTV footage, where the boat could be seen sinking.

“In just 60 seconds, you can see the ship disappear,” he told Italian outlet ANSA. “You can see clearly what’s happening. There was nothing that could be done for the vessel. It disappeared in a very short time.”

Emergency crews resumed their search for missing people on Wednesday, with an underwater and surface operation ongoing. Italy’s fire brigade have warned that divers only have up to 12 minutes at the wreck site – thought to be around 50 meters underwater (approximately 150 feet) – before having to resurface.

Divers were able to access the inside of the wreck on Tuesday, the brigade said, including some of the rooms under the yacht’s control bridge. But the operations are “complex” due to numerous obstacles and narrow passages inside the ship, they said, adding that Wednesday’s operation would attempt to open some of those passages.

Three days on from the wreck, investigators are still at a loss as to how the ship sank so quickly. Matthew Schanck, chair of the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, said Tuesday that such events are exceedingly rare.

“Looking at the extreme weather, if it was a water spout, which it appears to be, it’s what I would class as a black swan event,” he said, referring to a rare, unpredictable occurence. “Even outside of the maritime industry, all industries struggle with the black swan events,” he added.

And while Sicily isn’t “renowned” for tornadoes or water spouts, “there is a risk” they can happen – just not every day, Schanck said.

“I think it’s important to see what comes out that may suggest changes to vessel construction, vessel stability, potentially,” he said, stressing that shipbuilding regulations “are all designed with safety in mind.”

Russian authorities have urged people in the border regions to stop using dating apps and limit their use of social media to prevent Ukrainian forces from gathering intelligence as it presses on with its incursion into the Kursk region.

Russia’s interior ministry issued the plea on Tuesday, telling residents of Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod regions as well as military and police personnel stationed in the area territories to refrain from using “online dating services” and be mindful of streaming videos from sensitive locations.

“The enemy actively uses such resources for information gathering,” the ministry said in a post on its official Telegram channel.

As Ukrainian troops continued their advances through Russian territory, the ministry issued a long list of recommendations, advising people not to open any hyperlinks in messages received from strangers and not to stream videos from roads where military vehicles were present.

Authorities also warned citizens that Ukrainian forces were connecting to “unprotected CCTV cameras remotely, viewing everything – from private yards to roads and highways of strategic importance.”

Troops and police officers were advised to remove all geo-tagging on their social media, as “the enemy monitors social networks in real time by these tags and reveals the actual location of military and security forces.”

Ukriane’s offensive into the Kursk region has left Russia struggling to shore up its own territory. On Tuesday, Ukrainian military chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Ukrainian troops had advanced up to 35 kilometers (21.7 miles) through Russian defenses since the start of their surprise assault last week, capturing 93 settlements.

More than 121,000 Kursk residents have been evacuated, Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations wrote on Telegram Monday.

Ukraine’s operations also targeted the Bryansk and Belgorod regions.

Apps reveal sensitive information

The security risk stemming from social media use is not hypothetical — there is a history of soldiers inadvertently revealing sensitive information by using their phones in conflict zones.

The United States and its “Five Eyes” intelligence allies – Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom – warned last year that Russian military hackers had been targeting Ukrainian soldiers’ mobile devices in a bid to steal battlefield information.

And when a high-profile Russian submarine commander was shot dead while jogging in 2023, Russian media reported he may have been targeted by an assailant tracking him on Strava, a popular running app.

The officer, Stanislav Rzhitsky, was using a public profile under his own name to track his running and cycling routes. He was killed while out jogging on one of his regular circuits.

And after a Ukrainian strike that killed nearly 100 Russian troops in the occupied Ukrainian city of Makiivka on New Year’s Day last year, Russia’s defense ministry said the “main cause” of the strike was the widespread use of cell phones by Russian soldiers, although some officials questioned that assessment.

Last month, Russian state media TASS reported that the country’s lower house of parliament proposed punishing Russian soldiers caught using smartphones while fighting in Ukraine.

The lawmakers suggested that carrying internet-connected cell phones that can help identify Russian troops or the location of forces should be classified as a “gross disciplinary offense” and be punishable by up to 10 days’ imprisonment. Multiple offenses could lead to up to 15 days in prison.

The law would also prohibit the use of other electronic devices meant for “household purposes” that allow for video and audio recording and the transmission of geolocation data.

It’s not just Russia and Ukraine though. The US Department of Defense banned military personnel from using geolocation features in 2018 after it emerged that Strava and other fitness tracking apps could pose security risks for forces around the world.

The app created an interactive heat map that displayed 1 billion activity data points made public by users, inadvertently revealing the locations of US bases in countries around the world.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang is set to meet with Russian leaders in Moscow Wednesday during a four-day trip to Russia and its ally Belarus as Beijing shrugs off Western criticism of its robust Kremlin ties amid the war in Ukraine.

Li, China’s No. 2 official under leader Xi Jinping, will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and hold talks on China-Russia cooperation and strategic ties with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Russian state-run news agency Tass reported Wednesday.

Li hailed the two countries’ relations after his arrival at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport Tuesday, where he was greeted by Russian officials and an honor guard.

“China-Russia relations in the new era have shown new vigor and vitality, with stronger mutual political trust, fruitful cooperation in various fields, deeply rooted friendship, and close and effective international coordination,” Li said in a statement released upon his arrival, adding the visit was aimed at “deepening mutually beneficial cooperation.”

The premier’s visit – for a longstanding annual meeting with the Russian prime minister – is the first to Russia by a high-level Chinese official since a surprise military incursion by Ukrainian forces into the Russian border region of Kursk two weeks ago.

Russia has been scrambling to repel that assault, which marks the first time foreign troops entered Russian territory since World War II and comes amid mounting pressure for a conclusion to the war in Ukraine, which began in 2022 with Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

Last week, in response to a media inquiry on the situation, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry called on “all parties” not to expand the battlefield, escalate fighting and “fuel the flame,” saying China would continue to work for a “political settlement of the crisis.”

Beijing has faced mounting scrutiny and pressure from the West to curtail the export of dual-use goods such as aerospace, manufacturing and technology equipment to Russia, which Western leaders and Kyiv have alleged are propping up the Russian war effort.

Chinese officials have sought to present the country as a neutral, aspiring peace broker in the war, but have had limited high-level contact with Kyiv while continuing to deepen relations with Moscow across trade, diplomacy and security.

China last month hosted a top Ukrainian official for the first time since Russia’s invasion of the country nearly two and half years ago.

Wednesday’s meeting between Li and Mishustin is part of annual talks held since 1996, which are seen as a means to implement practical cooperation in the direction set by Xi and Putin. The two officials are expected to discuss the countries’ “comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction,” including in trade and economy, according to Tass.

Trade between China and Russia hit record highs last year, surpassing a target of $240 billion ahead of schedule. Russia has grown hugely reliant on China’s market, goods and investment since it was slapped with broad international sanctions following its Ukraine invasion.

Bilateral trade increased by more than a quarter year-on-year in 2023 from 2022, but has only grown about 1.6% between January and July this year over the same period last year, according to China’s customs data.

Li is expected to end his four-day trip in Belarus, where he will meet Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko for an “in-depth exchange of views on bilateral relations and cooperation in various fields,” China’s Foreign Ministry said Monday.

Ukraine launched one of the largest ever drone attacks on Moscow on Wednesday, the city’s mayor said, with Russian air defense units destroying at least 10 drones flying towards the capital.

Some of the drones were destroyed over the city of Podolsk, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. The city in the Moscow region is some 38 kilometers (24 miles) south of the Kremlin.

“The air defense systems of the defense ministry continue to repel enemy UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) attacks,” Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging app at 4:43 a.m.

“This is one of the largest attempts to attack Moscow using drones ever. We continue to monitor the situation.”

He said that according to preliminary information, there were no injuries or damage in the aftermath of the attacks.

Ukraine has often launched one or two drones targeting Moscow in recent months, causing no substantial damage.

Kyiv has stepped up its air attacks on Russian territory over the past few months, saying its aim is to destroy infrastructure key to Moscow’s war efforts. It says that its attacks are in response to Russia’s continued strikes on Ukrainian territory.

The Wednesday attack seems larger than a May 2023 attack, when at least eight drones were destroyed over the capital in an action President Vladimir Putin said was Kyiv’s attempt to scare and provoke Russia.

Russian officials rarely disclose the full size of the attacks, reporting only drones that its air defense units destroy.

Both Ukraine and Russia also rarely disclose the full extent of the damage their attacks inflict, unless residential or civilian infrastructure is damaged, or civilians die.

The Wednesday attack on Moscow was part of a broader Ukraine drone attack on Russia with air defense systems also destroying 18 drones over the border Bryansk region and separate drones and missiles over other regions, Russian officials said.

There were no casualties or damage reported in the aftermath of the attack on the border Bryansk region in Russia’s southwest, Alexander Bogomaz, the governor of the region wrote on Telegram.

Russia’s state news agency RIA also reported that two drones were destroyed over the Tula region, which borders the Moscow region.

Separately, Vasily Golubev, governor of the Rostov region in Russia’s southwest, said air defense forces destroyed a Ukraine-launched missile over the region, with no injuries reported.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

In recent months, Kyiv has stepped up its air attacks on Russian territory, saying its aim is to destroy infrastructure key to Moscow’s war efforts. It says that its attacks are in response to Russia’s continued strikes on Ukrainian territory.

Officials in Trinidad and Tobago are redrawing the island’s coat of arms for the first time since its creation in 1962 to remove references to European colonization in a move that many are celebrating.

Christopher Columbus’ three ships – the Pinta, the Niña and the Santa María – will be replaced with the steelpan, a popular percussion instrument that originated in the eastern Caribbean island.

Prime Minister Keith Rowley made the announcement on Sunday to a standing ovation, saying the coat of arms would be reconfigured before late September.

“That should signal that we are on our way to removing the colonial vestiges that we have in our constitution,” he said.

The current coat of arms also features hummingbirds, a palm tree and a scarlet ibis, Trinidad’s national bird.

Rowley’s announcement comes roughly a week before Trinidad and Tobago is scheduled to hold a public hearing on whether certain statues, signs and monuments should be removed.

The upcoming change is part of a worldwide movement that aims to eradicate symbols of the colonial era, with statues of Columbus removed or toppled across the US in recent years.

Columbus arrived in Trinidad and Tobago in 1498.