ROME (AP) – More than a thousand migrants arrived in Italy within a few hours while hundreds of others, rescued by humanitarian vessels, were waiting for a port to receive them, NGOs and authorities said Sunday. Between January 1 and July 22, 34,000 people arrived in Italy by sea compared with 25,500 during the same period in 2021 and 10,900 in 2020, Italy’s interior ministry said. More than 600 people attempting to cross the Mediterranean on board a drifting fishing vessel were rescued on Saturday by a merchant vessel and coastguards off Calabria, at the southern tip of Italy.  They were landed in several ports in Sicily.  The authorities also recovered five bodies of migrants who had died in so far undetermined circumstances. On the island of Lampedusa, some 522 people from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia, among others, arrived from the late hours of Saturday in 15 different boats from Tunisia and Libya. According to the Italian media, the island’s reception center has been overwhelmed. With a capacity of 250-300 people, it currently hosts 1,200, according to the Ansa news agency. 

 

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Manila (AFP) – Three people were killed Sunday in a rare shooting at a university in the Philippine capital Manila, officials said, in what appears to have been a targeted assassination. The incident happened at Ateneo de Manila University as law students and their families arrived for a graduation ceremony that was to be attended by the Supreme Court chief justice. Rose Furigay, a former city mayor in the restive southern province of Basilan and whose daughter was among the graduates, was killed, authorities said. Furigay’s executive assistant and a university security guard were also killed. Her daughter was wounded and is in a “stable condition” in hospital, police said. “We are quite distraught and bereaved by this occurrence,” Joy Belmonte, the mayor of a local government unit where the shooting happened, told AFP. The alleged gunman fled the scene by forcing a driver out of their vehicle, before abandoning it and continuing his getaway in a jeepney, police said. He was eventually detained near a church.

 

 

TOKYO (AFP) – Dozens of people were urged to evacuate their homes after a fiery volcanic eruption in southern Japan on Sunday as the national weather agency issued its top-level alert for the mountain. Television footage showed lava and dark plumes of ash exploding from Sakurajima in Kagoshima, which erupted just after 8 pm (1100 GMT). The volcano frequently spits out smoke and ash, and is a major tourist attraction. Sunday’s blast propelled large cinders about 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the crater, the Japan Meteorological Agency said in a statement. The agency raised its alert for Sakurajima to level five, the top level, which urges evacuations. Before the eruption it was at level three, which bans entry to the mountain.

“Residential areas of Arimura town and Furusato town within three kilometers of the summit crater... of Sakurajima should be on high alert,” the JMA said. According to Kagoshima City, there are 77 residents in the two towns. There were no immediate reports of damage, according to public broadcaster NHK.

 

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ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece on Sunday battled three ferocious wildfires across the country which forced hundreds to evacuate, as higher temperatures raised concern over more blazes. The country is in the grip of a heatwave that began on Saturday and is expected to last 10 days. Temperatures were set to rise to 42 degrees Celsius (107 degrees Fahrenheit) in some regions. Experts blame climate change for the soaring temperatures -- and warned that worse is yet to come. Fires raged in the north, east and south of Greece including on the island of Lesbos. The blaze raged on Sunday on Lesbos after it broke out a day earlier, causing the evacuation of hundreds of tourists and residents from the beachside village of Vatera. At least four houses were destroyed, state TV ERT reported, and fires damaged an unknown number of shops, hotels and beach bars in the village. Dozens of firefighters on Sunday morning clamored to control the blaze, with four water-dropping planes and two helicopters in operation.

 

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LONDON (The Daily Mail) – Households might have to turn down their thermostats and switch off lights to avoid blackouts under emergency plans. Government measures to tackle the energy crisis this winter would include appeals to the public to cut down on energy use in the event of an electricity or gas supply shortage,. A document of contingency plans by the National Grid seen by The Telegraph showed ministers would use the option if the energy crisis worsened even further. The news comes as EU countries were told to cut their usage by 15 percent from next month over concerns they will not be able to store enough for winter after Russia reduced its supply of gas on the NordStream pipeline. Countries such as Germany, France and Austria have already appealed for their citizens to cut down on energy use by turning off lights, turning down thermostats and taking shorter showers.