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By Olivia Le Poidevin
GENEVA, June 9 () – Israeli authorities are directly involved in settler attacks that ⁠have ⁠killed, injured and displaced Palestinians in the occupied West ⁠Bank, while Israeli security forces provide protection to settlers, a U.N. inquiry said on Tuesday.
The report by the Commission of ​Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory found that Israeli authorities have enabled settler attacks through financial and military support, in a climate of impunity fostered by judicial and law-enforcement bodies.
It said attacks ‌on Palestinian villages and agricultural land have surged since ‌2023, rising by 130%, including incidents involving groups of masked assailants. Israeli security forces have routinely accompanied settlers and acted as a shield for the violence, the report said.
The Israeli ⁠Prime Minister Office and ⁠military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israel rejects charges that its troops shield settlers ​during attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, saying such actions are rogue incidents that violate military protocol and are investigated. Israeli and Palestinian rights groups say such investigations rarely lead to punishment.
Hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers live among millions of Palestinians on land Israel ctured in a 1967 war, where Palestinians hope to build a state. Most countries and the U.N.’s top court consider such ​settlements a violation of international law, which Israel disputes citing historical and biblical ties to the land.
At least seven Palestinians were killed and 832 injured last ⁠year, ⁠with violence continuing into 2026 in the ⁠form of near-daily attacks, according to ​the United Nations.
The increasing participation of Israeli security forces in settler attacks amounts to a de facto collse of the distinction between settlers and soldiers, ​the report found.
It said such violence has been ⁠used to advance state policy, including the unlawful occupation, displacement of Palestinians and the annexation of Palestinian territory.
The Commission documented cases of assaults, abductions and abuse of Palestinian children by settlers. In one incident on ril 19, 2025, a 12-year-old girl and her 3-year-old brother were abducted at knifepoint, dragged to an olive grove and tied to a tree with plastic restraints until their family intervened.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice issued a non-binding advisory opinion that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and its settlements there are illegal and should be ⁠withdrawn as soon as possible, in its strongest findings to date on the conflict.
The Commission also said settlers committed or threatened ⁠sexual violence to instil fear and harassed Palestinian women.
The relentless, daily assaults by Israeli settlers against Palestinians are intolerable — and must end, said the commission’s head, S. Muralidhar, an Indian former senior judge. He urged the international community to pressure Israel to dismantle settlements and outposts and curb the violence.
Despite periodic condemnations and the dismantling of some unauthorized outposts, Israeli authorities have not taken sustained measures to stop the attacks, the report said.
HAMAS VIOLATIONS
The report said it was also gravely alarmed by serious abuses it documented in the Gaza Strip, another Palestinian territory, by the militant group Hamas which controls it.
The commission found that Hamas-affiliated forces were involved in at least 60 of 249 documented cases of executions and severe physical violence in 2024 to 2025, including beatings with metal pipes and bone-breaking as punishment for alleged collaboration with Israel or looting aid.
In two instances, 11 men were publicly executed. The Commission said these acts amount to ⁠war crimes and violations of international law.
The Commission found that October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas and other armed groups, which killed 1,200 people and involved hostage-taking and destruction of property, amounted to war crimes. The attacks precipitated an Israeli assault on Gaza which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and destroyed much of the territory.
A previous report by the Commission found that Israel had committed genocide during its military offensive in Gaza, and ​that senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had incited these acts. Israel rejected those allegations as “scandalous”.
(Reporting by Olivia Le PoidevinAdditional ​reporting by Rami Ayyub in Jerusalem and Nidal Mughrabi in CairoEditing by Peter Graff)
Copyright 2026 Thomson .

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TAIPEI, June 9 () – Chinese coast guard ships ⁠operating ⁠around Taiwan in recent days ⁠have been “harassing” commercial shipping by asking them information about their ​point of origin and destination and claiming jurisdiction, Taiwan’s coast guard said on Tuesday.
China, which ‌views democratically governed Taiwan as ‌its own territory, was angered after Jan and the Philippines said last ⁠month they ⁠would begin formal talks on their maritime boundaries, viewing that as ​involving waters off Taiwan.
Late on Saturday, Chinese state media reported ships had been sent to carry out a “special maritime traffic law-enforcement operation” in the waters east of Taiwan in response ​to the Janese and Philippine announcement.
In a statement, Taiwan’s coast guard said that ⁠since ⁠Sunday the Chinese ships ⁠had broadcast ​messages to three passing commercial ships asking for information such as their ports of ​departure and destination.
Taiwan’s own ⁠ships broadcast back that these were Taiwanese waters in which China had no jurisdiction and the Chinese vessels should “not harass ships,” the coast guard said.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Beijing recognises no claims ⁠of sovereignty by Taiwan’s government.
Taiwan’s coast guard said it also broadcast to ⁠the passing merchant ships that they should pay no heed to the inquiries of the Chinese vessels.
The coast guard said ships passing through Taiwan’s waters maintained normal navigation and were not boarded, inspected, proached, or interfered with by the Chinese government vessels.
Responding to the stepped up Chinese coast guard activity, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said in a statement that the U.S. expected differences between China and Taiwan to be resolved by ⁠peaceful means and “free from coercion”.
“We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with the elected leadership,” the spokesperson added.
Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims. Beijing refuses to ​speak with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, saying he is a “separatist”.
(Reporting ​by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
Copyright 2026 Thomson .

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Student Mide Awosika pays thousands for a flat rental deposit – and discovers many others also did.

I thought I’d got my dream flat – so did 23 others
Last summer, 20-year-old Mide Awosika thought she had secured her dream flat ahead of starting a new term at Queen Mary University in London.
She and two flatmates together paid a £12,000 deposit to rent a four-bedroom property in Poplar, east London. But when they arrived on moving day, there were no keys – and they found nine other people also trying to move into the same flat.
The property had been advertised on major rental websites Zoopla and OpenRent. After a viewing in July, Awosika said the letting agent, who identified himself as Derrick Fringe, told them there was stiff competition and they needed to pay immediately to secure it. She said they handed over three months’ rent upfront, plus holding and security deposits.
She told us that just before the scheduled August move-in date, Fringe told them the existing tenants had refused to leave and bailiffs were needed. Then contact stopped.
When Awosika went to the building the following day, she realised the scale of the problem and described how group after group arrived, all expecting to collect keys for the same property.
She decided to set up a Whatsp group to keep track of and share information amongst those affected.
Neither Fringe nor the landlord who owns the property responded to the BBC’s questions.
Since then, Awosika said, 23 people have contacted her claiming to have been targeted in the same way, all linked to the same flat and the same agent.
Figures from Report Fraud indicated the cost of rental fraud was a growing issue with reported losses almost doubling in the past five years.
In 2021, there were 4,642 rental fraud cases reported leaving those affected £7.2m out of pocket.
In 2025, 4,178 cases were reported in England and Wales and Northern Ireland – costing victims £14.5m.
Among those who joined Awosika’s Whatsp group were Freazy Warr, 24, Nirrhit Pal, 23, and three other flatmates, who between them transferred £7,200 to secure the same property. They never received the keys either.
“As the moving van was pulling into the road, we were told by a friend to cancel immediately because two other groups were already waiting,” Warr said.
“My lease was ending and I was terrified I’d have nowhere to live.”
He said the pressure of London’s rental market had left them feeling vulnerable.
“There are so few affordable properties,” he said. “Students and people without a lot of money are pushed online, where it’s harder to know who to trust.”
Two young professionals working in nearby Canary Wharf paid a £9,460 deposit to rent the flat.
Satchit Warade and another tenant, who asked for her name to be withheld, said they were rushed into the viewing with the agent saying they had 45 minutes to get there.
On their moving-in day, the 23-year-olds told us they called Fringe between 20 and 30 times before he called them back to say the existing tenants would not move out and claimed he was going to evict them.
The next day they could not reach Fringe so reported the matter to the police.
Warade said the experience was “harrowing”.
“Especially in cases like these where a false sense of urgency is created, it becomes all the more stressful.
“It has definitely made me super cautious and I think I will forever be on my toes now every time I’m renting in London.
“There’s something about just the trauma of having to go through something that makes me lose the trust in the market and how it works.”
The flat was listed on both OpenRent and Zoopla.
Open Rent said it offered its “sympathies” to those “affected by fraudulent activities” but claimed it had “a comprehensive vetting system in place to verify the legitimacy of landlords and properties listed on our platform”.
“Upon receiving this report we acted promptly, removing the listing and suspending the account pending the outcome of any investigation,” a spokesperson said.
“When users choose to pay off-platform against our explicit guidance, which pears to be the case here, unfortunately we cannot guarantee the safety of funds.
“Our ability to help recover funds is more limited when direct bank transfers have been made to a private individual off-platform.”
Zoopla did not respond to the BBC.
Its website used to describe it as a “leading UK real estate agency” with “eight branches” and “170 staff”. That website pears to have been taken down.
However, only two staff members were named online. The agent also claimed to be a member of the industry body Arla Propertymark. Arla said it had no record of the name.
An address listed for complaints links, on Companies House, went to an unrelated firm with a similar name.
A spokesperson for that company told the BBC it was unaware its details were being used without its knowledge or consent, had nothing to do with the flat, and said it was a “victim of corporate identity theft”.
Using tenancy documents given to us by Satchit Warade, the BBC traced an email address linked to the person listed as the landlord, Edward Robinson, who peared to have bought the property in March 2025. The email was connected to the same email account used by the letting agent.
Awosika said her group emailed Robinson when she could not access the flat but never received a reply.
Another prospective tenant claimed building managers flagged to him the issue on the day of the failed move-in. The BBC contacted both men. The person known as Fringe did not respond while Robinson declined to answer questions and ended the call.
Another student, Samyek, told how he was part of a group that transferred more than £26,000 to a different person named as landlord on their contract. Tenants were given different landlord names and bank details, but all linked to the same address, the BBC found.
The organisation’s chief policy advisor said prospective tenants should:
Try to verify that the letting agent is legitimate, such as ensuring they are members of one of the reputable membership bodies for example SafeAgent or PropertyMark
If they have a high street presence, insist on going to one of their offices
Try not to be pressured into doing something that you might not do if you had more time to consider
Avoid deals that pear too good to be true and step back if you’re being put under too much pressure to act quickly. Say you’ll take away the contract and the perwork and you’ll review it that evening
As for Awosika, she said the experience had left her far more cautious.
“It was such an elaborate scam,” she said. “It felt real. Telling my mum was awful.
“It was a huge amount of money – and it was just gone.”
Additional reporting by Thomas Spencer and Paul Myers.

Source: BBC

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The datacentre, which is located more than 10km (6 miles) off the coast Shanghai, is submerged at a depth of 10 metres and is powered by an offshore wind farm. According to the Chinese Government, the datacentre reduces energy consumption by more than a fifth compared to land-based datacentres.

The natural cooling effect of being submerged in the seawater reduces its overall energy demand.

In a traditional datacentre on land, between 25 and 40 percent of the total energy demand is due to the need to pipe cold water around the servers in order to prevent them overheating.

Water consumption in traditional datacentres has also been a subject of scrutiny. Datacentres located in the ocean reduce the need for freshwater.

The United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health has warned this week that the water footprint from datacentres may reach 9.3tn. litres in 2030, enough to meet the domestic water needs for all 1.3 billion people living in sub-Saharan Africa.

HiCloud launched in 2023 the first commercial underwater datacentre on Hainan Island, a tropical island located in southern China. Shanghai’s launch is the world’s first offshore wind powered project. The farm is visible just off the coast of Lingang in eastern Shanghai, a hi tech, free trade zone that also houses a Tesla gigafactory.

China is not the first to experiment with building underwater datacentres to make them more efficient. Microsoft conducted a pilot project in the waters surrounding Orkney, Scotland in 2018. The company reported promising results two years later but the progress has since stagnated.

“Microsoft proved the concept earlier, but China has moved further in commercial deployment, because it was able bring together market demands, industrial cability, maritime engineering and policy support faster into a commercial project,” Dr Hanjiang Dong from Hong Kong Polytechnic University said.

China has made AI support a central pillar in its economic and growth strategy. It released an AI Action Plan last year that called for the rid construction of datacentres. The government has also promised that clean energy supply for AI infrastructure will “significantly increase” by 2030.

According to the Chinese government, the Shanghai Lingang datacentre has received 1.6bn Yuan (PS177m) in investment.

Underwater datacentres can also pose some risks to marine ecosystems by disrupting sediments or heating seawater. Experts said that these risks are manageable, but will require more monitoring.

Prof Rick Stafford, marine biologist from Bournemouth University said: “An undersea datacentre would be a good idea.” While cooling with seawater may result in some localised temperatures being elevated, this will not be widespread.

Original article by The Guardian

“A campaign against Nithya Raman, who allows encampments near schools and cuts the police force, is one Mayor Bass looks forward to winning,” said Bass campaign strategist Douglas Herman.

Raman gained votes on Pratt in every vote update since Election Day as Los Angeles continued to process additional mail ballots and release results. Raman moved past Pratt and into second place on Sunday and extended her lead over Pratt on Monday to nearly 22,000 votes.

The mayoral race was technically nonpartisan, so the candidates peared on the ballot without party identification next to their names.

The election was not a vote of confidence in Bass, who according to incomplete returns received under 35% of the vote, a vulnerable position for an incumbent.