Ten migrants drowned in a flooded river near Panama’s coastal community of Carreto while crossing the Darién Gap, Panama’s National Border Service (Senafront) said Wednesday.

Senafront did not specify the nationalities of the migrants or when they drowned.

The agency said the case is still under investigation but suspects that transnational organized criminals and local collaborators led the migrants through unauthorized border crossings, putting their lives at risk.

The Darién Gap is a mountainous rainforest region connecting Colombia in South America to Panama in Central America that is a crucial passage for migrants hoping to reach the United States and Canada.

There has recently been an increase in the number of migrants willing to risk their lives and safety on the 66-mile (106-kilometer) hike required to cross it and the United States and Panama signed an agreement earlier this month aimed at closing “the passage of illegal immigrants” through it.

Since the beginning of July, Panama’s new government, led by President José Raúl Mulino, has placed barbed wire across several routes in the Darién Gap, so that migrants who enter illegally through the border with Colombia are forced to use a single authorized entrance, according to the country’s Ministry of Public Security.

“I will not allow Panama to be a path open to thousands of people who enter our country illegally supported by an entire international organization related to drug and human trafficking,” Mulino said at his swearing-in ceremony.

Senafront said the only authorized migration corridor is one that leads to Cañas Blancas, “where specialized patrols are available for their protection and humanitarian assistance.”

This is a developing story. More to come.

At least 15 people have died and more than 195 are missing after a boat carrying migrants capsized near Mauritania’s capital Nouakchott, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Wednesday.

The Mauritanian coastguard has rescued 120 people since the boat capsized Monday, including unaccompanied and separated children, according to IOM.

“We are deeply saddened by the death of 15 migrants and the estimated disappearance at sea of 195-plus people after a boat capsized in Nouakchott,” IOM’s West and Central Africa office said on X.

Rescue efforts are underway to locate the missing.

A statement released by the IOM noted the tragedy took place amid increasing migration through what it referred to as the West Atlantic Route. It said that so far in 2024 alone, more than 19,700 migrants had arrived irregularly in the Canary Islands using this route, compared to just 7,590 during the same period in 2023.

It said its Missing Migrants Project had recorded more than 4,500 deaths and disappearances on this route since 2014, including over 1,950 deaths last year, the second deadliest on record.

Since June 2024, more than 76 boats with around 6,130 surviving migrants have disembarked in Mauritania, with at least 190 dead and missing migrants, it said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Alyoshina said she is now “ashamed” of posts she made earlier this year announcing the move.

“I wrote and said this out of fear because gender reassignment and the non-existent LGBTQ+ movement are prohibited in the Russian Federation,” she said, adding: “I was born a woman in a man’s body.”

Then, in May, Alyoshina changed her Telegram channel back to her pre-transition name and uploaded a pre-transition profile photo, saying she had decided to revert to her birth gender during Orthodox Lent, citing “spiritual anguish.”

When the court responded that it doesn’t provide explanations on current laws, she said she felt terrified that “the state repressive machine could turn on.”

“I began sleeping poorly and waking up early, by springtime my anxiety and depression worsened,” Alyoshina said. The politician also feared that she might never achieve her life’s dream of undergoing gender reassignment surgery due to the new regulations.

She also remains vocal about the challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community in present-day Russia, saying their rights are discriminated against and violated. “I hope my post will provide moral support to transgender people,” she said adding that it is currently impossible for a transgender person to change the documents even after an official medical diagnosis confirming their gender identity.

President Vladimir Putin signed a widely criticized law in July 2023 prohibiting nearly all medical help for transgender people including gender reassignment surgery, except for treating “birth anomalies” in children.

The legislation also bars transgender individuals from adopting children and allows authorities to annul their marriages.

This move, along with stringent laws passed in December 2022 targeting so-called “LGBTQ propaganda,” is viewed as part of Russia’s broader policy to enforce what it refers to as “traditional values” and suppress LGBTQ+ rights. These policies have been widely criticized by human rights organizations and have significantly impacted the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals in the country, leading to increased fears, marginalization and a climate of oppression.

In October 2022, when the State Duma passed the first reading of the anti-LGBTQ+ bill, Alyoshina decided to resign as regional head of the centrist, liberal-democratic Civic Initiative party and end her political career.

“I have no idea how to continue to conduct public political activity as an openly transgender woman,” she said in a Telegram post at the time. However, in 2023, Alyoshina returned and announced her plans to run for governor in the Altai region of Siberia, before later dropping that campaign.

When asked what Alyoshina was hoping to achieve for other transgender people in Russia by coming forward with this statement, she replied: “I would like to convey the message: Don’t give up, keep fighting. As long as we keep fighting, we are alive.”

It’s been well over a decade since millions of Syrians flooded into Turkey en masse, seeking refuge from the civil war at home. But today, there are increasing signs the refugees may have worn out their welcome.

This month, anti-Syrian riots took place in several cities across the country. In the capital Ankara, opposition parties are calling for mass deportations, and the government is calling on the Syrian regime it once sought to topple to help resolve the problem.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now publicly seeking a meeting with President Bashar al-Assad, the man he once labeled a terrorist, to reset relations. Before the Syrian civil war, the two leaders vacationed together, but years later, after the Syrian regime brutally crushed a public revolt, Erdogan sought to oust him from office and backed local forces fighting against him.

“We believe that it is beneficial to open clenched fists,” Erdogan said this month. “We want disputes to be resolved through mutual dialogue at the negotiation table.”

Turkey is hosting an estimated 3.1 million Syrian refugees – more than any other country. Unofficial estimates are much higher, given that undocumented refugees aren’t counted.

But overcoming a bitter, years-long personal feud and extremely complex relations between Ankara and Damascus will be no small feat. Turkish troops remain in control of a swath of Syrian territory along the Turkish border where Syrian opposition groups are sheltering.

A political matter for Erdogan

For Erdogan, “immigration and refugees are the main concern,” said Bilal Bagis, an analyst at the government-leaning SETA think tank in Ankara. “It’s becoming a political argument against the incumbent government in Turkey… and it definitely has turned into something that needs to be resolved.”

Assad has long made clear that there will only be a meeting when Turkey withdraws troops from Syria, although he indicated this week that he would meet if the topic was at least on the agenda.

“If the meeting leads to results, or if there’s a hug, a scolding, or even cheek-kissing that serves the country’s interest, I will do it,” Assad said. “The problem is not in the meeting itself but in the content of the meeting.”

While there are no signs that Turkey would withdraw from Syria or drop its support for the Syrian opposition, the olive branch from Ankara indicates the pressure Erdogan is under to deal with the discontent at home.

This month, reports of a Syrian man sexually abusing his seven-year-old Syrian cousin sparked riots and violence in the central Anatolian city of Kayseri, with Turks targeting Syrian-owned businesses and cars.

The government blamed social media for fueling the unrest, which quickly spread to other cities. In Antalya, a teenager was killed and in Istanbul, an Arab man was threatened with a knife at a restaurant in an upscale part of the city. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said hundreds of people were arrested in the aftermath.

The riots exposed long-simmering tensions between Syrians and Turks that have been made worse by the economic pressures brought by Turkey’s sky-high inflation.

Unlike European nations, where Syrian refugees are being permanently resettled, most Syrians in Turkey are treated as “guests” with temporary protection and are subject to a number of restrictions.

Most Syrians cannot travel freely within the country. Fewer than 10% of Syrian adults have work permits, with the rest being limited to informal, under-the-table jobs. Untold numbers of Syrian children are not in school, either because they work or face difficulty enrolling due to rules requiring them to attend schools in the areas where they were initially registered. Only a small proportion of Syrians have been granted citizenship in the country of 85 million.

‘No acceptance of Syrians’ in Turkish society

Many Turks complain that Syrians have failed to integrate, but Syrians argue their host country hasn’t made it easy.

“Integration depends on two things: effort on the part of migrants, and for citizens of the country to accept them as part of society… but right now there is no acceptance of Syrians in Turkey,” said Ebubekir Hussamoglu, a Syrian who arrived in the country just before war broke out at home, forcing him to stay. He’s now a legal consultant and a Turkish citizen. His biography bears little resemblance to the average Syrian in Turkey, who is often at the low end of the economic and social ladder.

“These people have been working in Turkey for about ten years and are receiving lower wages and they are not getting their social rights, social security. This doesn’t make them feel secure here in the long run,” he said.

Recent deportee Mohammad Shbeeb says his existence in Turkey was anything but secure. He first arrived at the border in 2018, and says he was promptly detained and sent back. He says he was threatened with indefinite detention if he didn’t sign a document agreeing to voluntarily return. Many other Syrians have similar stories.

Abdullah Resul Demir, president of International Refugee Rights Association, a volunteer-led NGO helping Syrians navigate the legalities of immigration, says some people have had to leave their families behind in Turkey when they’re deported. “We have faced many examples like that,” he said.

The Turkish interior ministry said such claims are unfounded and unacceptable.

For Shbeeb, two weeks after being returned, he smuggled himself back into Turkey, but was never able to get papers to officially stay. Earlier this month, he said he was picked up by immigration authorities on his way home from work in the city of Gaziantep, and promptly deported once again. All of his belongings are still in his Turkish apartment. He is now staying with a friend in Azaz, northwestern Syria. Ankara says the city is in a safe zone controlled by Turkish troops. But Shbeeb says it’s far from safe.

“There is bombing, sometimes from (US-backed Syrian opposition forces) or from even the (Assad) regime…. so no, it’s not a safe area at all,” he said.

Shbeeb says it wasn’t easy to integrate in Turkey, but he tried anyway. He had a well-paying job in Gaziantep (he now works remotely for the same company), he learned Turkish and made Turkish friends.

“Turkish people didn’t accept the integration of Syrians in their society. I think they suffer from fear of others – Arabs, Europeans, anyone who is not a Turk,” he said. “In six years, I didn’t feel like this society could accept me.”

Living in ‘ghettos’

Integration of Syrians has been a failure, according to Cenk Ozatici, deputy chairman of the secular, nationalist opposition Iyi (Good) Party. The party advocated the creation of conditions inside Syria that are safe enough to send back all Syrian asylum-seekers. Ozatici says the government never really planned for Syrians to stay long term, and the sheer volume of people meant integration was always impossible.

“It’s impossible because of cultural differences and historical issues. It’s even impossible sometimes, because of the difference in the interpretation of Islam. I know that many Western powers sometimes just think ‘you are Muslim, they are Muslim, so what’s the problem?’, but it’s not like that,” he said.

Ozatici believes that because many Syrians end up living in what he describes as “ghettos,” and because Turkish birth rates are so low, and asylum-seeker birth rates so high, “the demographic structure and identity of Turkish society is under threat.”

He is critical of a 2016 deal Turkey signed with the European Union that saw Ankara agree to take back migrants who crossed into Europe. He’s not alone. To varying degrees, most mainstream political parties in Turkey believe the solution lies in returning asylum-seekers to Syria.

“The solution should be found in Syria, by negotiating with the regime in Syria,” he said. “I care about Syrian women and children here, because ultimately they are humans. But I also care about my country and my city.”

A surfer’s leg that was severed by a shark attack on Tuesday later washed up on an Australian beach, where a police officer retrieved it and put on ice.

McKenzie tried to fight off the shark, which severed his right leg, and was able to ride a wave back to the beach, bleeding heavily, before the quick thinking of a retired police officer on a dog walk saved his life, 7News reported an official as saying.

“He used the lead from the dog as a tourniquet to wrap around the young man’s leg and essentially saved his life until paramedics got there,” said NSW Ambulance Service Hastings South duty manager Kirran Mowbray.

McKenzie underwent surgery at the John Hunter Hospital in the nearby city of Newcastle, where he remains in stable condition, according to a GoFund Me set up a neighbor of his family.

The severed leg was also taken to the hospital in case doctors were able to reattach it, 7News reported.

McKenzie was just returning to the waves after breaking his back last year, surfwear brand Rage, which sponsors him, said on Instagram.

“Sending love to … the toughest person that we know,” the company said. “He has been through a lot breaking his back last year, he never once complained always just got on with doing what he loved as soon as possible. He is an inspiring person.”

A long stretch of the beaches in Port Macquarie was closed for 24 hours after the shark attack, according to the town’s lifeguards, before they reopened on Wednesday afternoon.

Authorities are trying to track and identify the shark, NSW Police Chief Inspector Stuart Campbell said, according to 7News, using drones and SMART drumlines – a type of trap that can move sharks without killing them.

There are several shark monitoring devices on the coastline at Port Macquarie. These detected two white sharks in the area on Tuesday morning before the attack.

At least 18 people were killed after a small plane skidded off the runway in Nepal’s capital on Wednesday, according to local officials.

One person survived the Saurya Airlines crash, the Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement. All aboard – 18 Nepalis and a Yemeni citizen – were employees of the carrier, according to police.

Images from Nepal police showed thick smoke billowing from the burning aircraft on the the airport runway.

The plane was en route for technical maintenance, he added.

“Rescue efforts were started immediately and the situation was brought under control,” the aviation authority said.

The crash once again highlights the dangers of air travel in Nepal, a country often referred to as one of the riskiest places to fly due to multiple factors including its mountainous terrain.

The Himalayan country, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains including Everest, has a record of air accidents. Its weather can change suddenly, and airstrips are typically sited in difficult-to-reach, mountainous areas.

Aircraft with 19 seats or fewer are more likely to have accidents due to these difficulties, according to a 2019 safety report from the Civil Aviation Authority.

While the country has made improvements in safety standards in recent years, challenges remain, and a lack of investment in aging aircraft only adds to the risks of flying.

Last year, Nepal saw its worst plane crash in more than 30 years when at least 68 people died when a Yeti Airlines flight went down near Pokhara.

In May 2022, a Tara Air flight departing from Pokhara crashed into a mountain, killing 22 people.

In early 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines flight from Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka to Kathmandu crashed on landing and caught fire, killing 51 people.

And in 2016, a Tara Air flight crashed while flying the same route as the 2023 crash.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon expressed regret on Wednesday after a public enquiry found some 200,000 children, young people and vulnerable adults were abused in state and religious care over the last 70 years.

Nearly one in three children and vulnerable adults in care from 1950 to 2019 experienced some form of abuse, the report found, a finding that could leave the government facing billions of dollars in fresh compensation claims.

“This is a dark and sorrowful day in New Zealand’s history as a society and as a state, we should have done better, and I am determined that we will do so,” Luxon told a news conference.

An official apology will follow on November 12, he added.

The report by Royal Commission of Inquiry spoke to over 2,300 survivors of abuse in New Zealand, which has a population of 5.3 million. The inquiry detailed a litany of abuses in state and faith-based care, including rape, sterilisation and electric shocks, which peaked in the 1970s.

Those from the Indigenous Maori community were especially vulnerable to abuse, the report found, as well as those with mental or physical disabilities.

Civil and faith leaders fought to cover up abuse by moving abusers to other locations and denying culpability, with many victims dying before seeing justice, the report added.

“It is a national disgrace that hundreds of thousands of children, young people and adults were abused and neglected in the care of the State and faith-based institutions,” the report said.

It made 138 recommendations, including calling for public apologies from New Zealand’s government, as well as the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury, heads of the Catholic and Anglican churches respectively, who have previously condemned child abuse.

It also called for the government to set up a Care Safe Agency responsible for overseeing the industry, as well new legislation including mandatory reporting of suspected abuse, including admissions made during religious confession.

The report estimated the average lifetime cost to an abuse survivor, that is what New Zealanders would consider normal, day-to-day activities, was estimated in 2020 to be approximately NZ$857,000 ($511,200.50) per person, though the report did not make clear the amount of compensation available for survivors.

Luxon said he believed the total compensation due to survivors could run into billions of dollars.

“We’re opening up the redress conversations and we’re going through that work with survivor groups,” he said.

The inquiry also recommended payments to families who have been cared for by survivors of abuse due to the intergenerational trauma they suffered, as well as review of compensation paid in previous child abuse cases including at the state-run Lake Alice adolescent unit.

“The most important element is to recognise and acknowledge the survivors for the reality and the truth of their lives,” said Tracey McIntosh, a sociologist at the University of Auckland.

Trash-laden North Korean balloons were found on the grounds of South Korea’s presidential office compound, officials said Wednesday, the latest in a series of incidents that have raised tensions and rhetoric on the Korean Peninsula.

More than 3,000 North Korean balloons, often filled with garbage such as cigarette butts, discarded batteries and even manure have fallen in the South since May, according to South Korean officials – who have responded by resuming loudspeaker broadcasts of propaganda and entertainment like K-pop songs along the demilitarized zone (DMZ).

The discovery at the presidential office Wednesday came after South Korean authorities warned the public to beware of falling objects as suspected North Korean trash balloons moved south toward the northern area of Gyeonggi province.

“While monitoring trash balloons sent by North Korea in cooperation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff today, we identified trash that fell in the presidential office area in Yongsan,” the presidential security service said later in a statement.

“No harmful or contaminating substances were found from an analysis by the response team.”

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) has advised people not to touch fallen balloons and to report any found to authorities.

“North Korea’s actions clearly violate international law and seriously threaten the safety of our citizens,” JCS said in a statement after an earlier balloon incident. “All responsibility arising from the North Korean balloons lies entirely with North Korea, and we sternly warn North Korea to immediately stop its inhumane and low-level actions.”

Pyongyang has previously said it sent balloons south in response to a civilian campaign in South Korea to float balloons carrying anti-North Korean propaganda in the opposite direction.

For many years, South Korean activists and North Korean defectors have sent balloons to the North, loaded with material criticizing dictator Kim Jong Un and USB sticks filled with K-pop songs and South Korean television shows – all strictly prohibited in the impoverished, highly isolated nation.

In a statement carried by North Korean state media earlier this month, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of the North Korean leader, said dozens of balloons, “dirty leaflets” and other material sent from South Korea were again found in her country and near the border.

Despite repeated North Korean warnings, the South Korean activists were “not stopping this crude and dirty play” she said.

“It seems that the situation we cannot overlook is coming,” Kim Yo Jong said in a “stern warning” published by North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), adding there would be “a gruesome and dear price” to pay that could change the South’s “mode of counteraction” with the North.

While the balloons have been going across the border, North Korea has kept up a stream of criticism against military drills by the United States and South Korea on the peninsula, the latest of those being the deployment of US Marine Corps F/A-18 and F-35B fighter jets to Suwon Air Base for joint aerial training this week.

The South Korean Defense Ministry said the US planes will join with South Korean F-15, F-16 and FA-50 fighters in exercises that will end August 8.

A US Defense Department release said the Marine Corps jets were dispatched “to enhance their standard of readiness and lethality with our South Korean allies and joint forces.”

But a KCNA commentary claimed the joint maneuvers were an example of Washington “running high fever in its move to expand the overall structure of confrontation against” North Korea.

North and South Korea have been divided since 1953, when an armistice ended the Korean War three years after the North invaded the South. But a peace treaty has never been signed, so the two technically remain at war.

Authorities in the city of Moscow are offering a record signing-on bonus for new recruits to fight in Ukraine, in the latest sign of a scramble to boost Russian troop numbers.

The financial sweetener comes as President Vladimir Putin struggles to recruit soldiers for his army as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine grinds on in its third year.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin introduced the one-time signing bonus of 1.9 million rubles (about $22,000) for city residents who join the military, according to a statement on Tuesday.

Anyone taking up the offer would earn as much as 5.2 million rubles ($59,600) in their first year of service, the statement added.

Those willing to join the fight in Ukraine can also receive one-time cash payments of about $5,690-$11,390 for injuries, “depending on the severity,” and the family of a soldier killed in action could be paid $34,150.

While Russia’s casualty numbers remain shrouded in secrecy, estimates say the death toll among troops is high. More than 70,000 soldiers were likely killed or wounded in May and June alone, the UK defense ministry said in an update on July 12, as the Russian army faced high losses on a new front in the Kharkiv region.

Social media is filled with video footage taken by drones of Russian troops being killed or left with life-changing injuries in what soldiers grimly call “meat grinder” battles against Ukrainian defenders. Ukrainian soldiers have often spoken of how their outnumbered forced face so-called human wave assaults from an enemy whose commanders appear happy to tolerate brutal attrition rates.

As personnel deaths mount, the Kremlin is looking all over the place to find fighters to send to the front.

Putin has ordered the country’s military to increase troop numbers by 170,000, which would take the overall number of Russian military personnel to more than 2.2 million, including 1.32 million troops, according to a decree published by the Kremlin in December.

That equates to boosting the Russian army’s size by 15% and marks the second such expansion of the army since Putin launched its invasion.

Putin initially ordered an immediate “partial mobilization” of Russian citizens in September 2022 following a string of defeats that caused recriminations in Moscow. The mobilization meant citizens who were military reservists could be called up and that those with military experience were subject to conscription.

The conscription campaign led to fierce demonstrations – particularly in Russia’s ethnic minority regions where mobilization efforts were concentrated – and has sparked an exodus of military-age men fleeing the country to avoid joining the war.

Although the mobilization campaign was suspended in November 2022 after officials said the target of recruiting 300,000 personnel had been met, Russia has been recruiting fighters beyond its borders to fight in Ukraine.

A reality show contestant who killed and ate a protected bird has been let off with a warning after New Zealand wildlife officials said cast members were tired, hungry and placed in a “unique” situation.

The weka, named on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list of threatened species, is protected in mainland New Zealand, where the penalty for killing one is a prison sentence of up to two years or a fine of nearly $60,000.

“Race to Survive” pits nine teams of two contestants in a 150-mile race across New Zealand’s harsh terrain, in which they must find their own food and water to compete for a $500,000 prize, according to USA Network, which airs the show.

In a clip from the show, Jones apologizes and says he knew eating the weka was against the law, but he was desperate and hungry, RNZ reported.

Jones and his teammate Oliver Dev were disqualified after the incident.

New Zealand’s Department of Conservation said following an investigation it had issued written warnings to Jones and the show’s producers – but stopped short of tougher action.

“The unique set of circumstances – cast members were fatigued and suffering from significant hunger, in an unusual group dynamic situation – meant we felt a warning letter was prudent,” said Dylan Swain, the department’s team lead for investigations.

“Nonetheless, killing and eating a native protected species in this matter is unacceptable and the company is ‘on notice’ about the need for its program participants to adhere to conservation legislation.”

The weka has a “famously feisty and curious” personality, according to the department, and is known for its loud “coo-et” call, which is presented as a duet, with the male taking on the lower, slower part.

“Weka are usually heard, not seen,” the department says on its website.

Once widespread, its populations now fluctuate depending on food conditions, which had led to the bird’s legal protection in mainland New Zealand. The harvest of weka is legal on some of the country’s surrounding islands.

Swain said the producers of “Race to Survive” had a permit to film on public conservation land and were aware that protected species and plants could not be harvested or eaten.

In a statement, “Race to Survive” production said it alerted authorities as soon as they became aware of the weka incident.

“Contestants were all thoroughly briefed ahead of time, and reminded throughout the competition, of all of New Zealand’s wildlife rules and guidelines,” its statement said.

“It was determined that a contestant did in fact violate a rule, so appropriate action was taken, and the team was disqualified from the competition.”

Jones and Dev were favored to win before they were pulled off the course, according to USA Network.

New Zealand has a plethora of unique flora and fauna due to its long geological isolation from the supercontinent Gondwana, according to independent conservation organization Forest and Bird.

This long isolation and the absence of mammalian predators means many native species are defenseless against attack – including flightless birds like the weka.