LONDON (Middle East Eye ) - The British coastguard denied assistance to a UK lifeboat trying to rescue 86 migrants in the Mediterranean in May, citing a potential “political fallout” over getting “too involved”, the i paper has found. Communication logs from the night of 29 May show that Aurora, a lifeboat owned by UK charity Search and Rescue Relief, responded to a distress call from migrants off the North African coast, after their boat began to sink. There were 20 children on board. As Aurora set off to rescue the migrant boat, which was about to capsize, the UK coastguard communicated that getting “too involved” in the rescue presented a “potential risk to rep” for the coastguard.

 

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ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria’s military will use maximum firepower to uproot the armed groups that are behind mounting insecurity in the country, the airforce said on Wednesday, amid concerns that the situation, if unchecked, could impact a general election in February. Attacks by Takfirir insurgents in the northeast and kidnappings for ransom and killings of villagers in the northwest have become an almost daily occurrence in Nigeria. But the militants have carried a number of attacks outside their northeastern enclave, raising fears that their networks may be spreading to other parts of the country. Nigerian Air Force (NAF) head Air Marshal Oladayo Amao told commanders during a Tuesday meeting that the security situation “remains fluid and uncertain” with armed groups moving between northern states, a statement released by NAF on Wednesday said.

 

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 MOSCOW (AP) — A massive fire engulfed a warehouse outside Moscow on Wednesday, killing at least one person, injuring 13 others and leaving two missing, officials said. The fire, at a warehouse belonging to Russia’s leading online retailer, Ozon, affected an area of 50,000 square meters (540,000 square feet). Emergencies officials said that one person died in the fire, and Moscow region Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said that two people are unaccounted-for. Officials said that two of the injured were hospitalized. Huge plumes of black smoke rose into the skies over the area near the town of Istra northwest of Moscow.

 

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AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch government on Wednesday declared a water shortage, following an unusually dry summer with no rain forecast for the coming two weeks. Brutal heatwaves gripped large parts of Europe and the United States last month, bringing about calls for more efforts to tackle global warming, which scientists say makes spells of extremely hot weather more frequent and deadly.  With two-thirds of the Dutch population living below sea level, droughts can quickly become an acute problem in the Netherlands, leading to rivers silting up and hampering water traffic.

 

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ATHENS (Reuters) - The head of Greek intelligence told a parliamentary committee his agency had spied on a journalist, two sources present said, in a disclosure that coincides with growing pressure on the government to shed light on the use of surveillance malware. The committee’s closed-door hearing last week was called after the leader of the socialist opposition PASOK party lodged a complaint with top court prosecutors over an attempted bugging of his mobile phone with surveillance software.