Boat capsizes on a lake in eastern Congo, killing at least 50 people, witnesses say

LONDON (AP) — The British government agreed Thursday to hand sovereignty of the long-contested Chagos Islands, an archipelago of more than 60 islands in the Indian Ocean, to Mauritius, in a deal that secures the future of a strategically important U.K.-U.S. military base there.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the agreement will secure the future of the base at Diego Garcia, the largest in the chain of remote islands off the tip of India. The base, which is home to around 2,500 personnel, mainly Americans, has been involved in military operations including the 2003 war in Iraq and the long-running war in Afghanistan.

Britain’s Labour government said without the deal the secure operation of the military base would be under threat, with contested sovereignty and legal challenges, including through various international courts and tribunals.

“It will strengthen our role in safeguarding global security, shut down any possibility of the Indian Ocean being used as a dangerous illegal migration route to the U.K., as well as guaranteeing our long-term relationship with Mauritius, a close Commonwealth partner,” Lammy said.

As part of the deal, the U.K. will retain sovereignty of Diego Garcia for an initial period of 99 years, and will pay Mauritius an undisclosed rent. It will also create a “resettlement” fund for displaced Chagossians aimed at letting them move back to the islands other than Diego Garcia.

The Chagos Islands, which conjure up images of paradise with their lush vegetation and long stretches of white sandy beaches, have been at the heart of what Britain has called the British Indian Ocean Territory since 1965 when they were siphoned away from Mauritius, a former U.K. colony that gained independence three years later. Mauritius, which lies east of Madagascar in southern Africa, is around 2,100 kilometers (1,250 miles) southwest of the Chagos Islands.

Following a lease agreement with Britain, the U.S. built the naval base at Diego Garcia for defense purposes in the 1970s. The U.S. has described the base as “an all but indispensable platform” for security operations in the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa.

The agreement will have to be signed off in a treaty and is dependent on legal processes being finalized. Both sides have committed to complete this as quickly as possible. A spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he spoke to his Mauritius counterpart, Pravind Jugnauth, on Thursday morning, welcoming the agreement after two years of negotiations that began under the previous Conservative government.

“56 years after our independence, the decolonization is finally complete,” Jugnauth said in a televised address to the nation later Thursday.

Around 1,500 inhabitants from the Chagos Islands were displaced to make way for the U.S. base, in what Human Rights Watch said last year amounted to “crimes against humanity committed by a colonial power against an indigenous people.”

The Mauritius government said that the treaty will aim to resolve all outstanding issues related to the islands, including “its former inhabitants,” as well as addressing “the wrongs of the past.”

It laid out the hope that those displaced who are still alive and their descendants, who are mainly living in the U.K., Mauritius and the Seychelles, will have a right to return, as it is now “free” to implement a resettlement program on the islands except Diego Garcia.

It added that the U.K. will financially support the Chagossians, who have fought a long-running legal battle about their displacement, most recently in 2016 when they lost out in a Supreme Court ruling in the U.K. At the time, the previous Conservative government refused their right to return but voiced its “deep regret” for the way the Chagossian community had been mistreated in the 1960s and 1970s.

Over the years, the Chagossians and Mauritius have garnered increasing international support, notably among African nations and within the United Nations. In 2019, in an advisory option that was non-binding, the International Court of Justice ruled that the U.K. had unlawfully carved up Mauritius when it agreed to end colonial rule in the late 1960s.

In a statement, the White House said President Joe Biden applauded the “historic agreement” on the status of the Chagos Islands.

“The agreement secures the effective operation of the joint facility on Diego Garcia into the next century,” the statement said. “This agreement affirms Mauritian sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago, while granting the United Kingdom the authority to exercise the sovereign rights of Mauritius with respect to Diego Garcia.”

However, Conservative lawmakers standing to be leader of Britain’s opposition party expressed dismay at the decision to hand over sovereignty of all but one of the islands. They were criticized for the comments, given that the previous Conservative government started the negotiations.

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Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa, contributed to this report.

LAN SAK, Thailand (AP) — At a Buddhist temple in central Thailand, Wichan Seubsaichan recalled his 9-year-old son as a well-mannered boy who loved school and sports, and enjoyed participating in many activities since he was a toddler.

The boy, Reutthawat, had been asking him for a new pair of soccer shoes.

On Thursday, Wichan laid a brand-new pair of shoes, a soccer ball, and colorful sporting t-shirts along with a tray of food and beverages on top of a silver and blue patterned coffin, in front of which stood a portrait of a beaming wide-eyed boy in a white tunic with a purple brocade sash running across his chest.

Reutthawat was one of 23 students and teachers from the town of Lan Sak in Uthai Thani province who died in a horrific bus fire while on a school field trip earlier this week. Funeral rites began on Thursday at the Buddhist temple compound in the students’ hometown that also housed their school, and their royal-sponsored cremation will be held next week.

Among the mourners attending the ceremony, marked by the chanting of prayers by Buddhist monks, was Surayud Chulanont, former prime minister and head of King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s Privy Council, who presented a wreath on behalf of the monarch.

The tragedy has prompted outrage and sadness across Thailand over the lack of enforcement of vehicular and road safety standards that contributes to thousands of deaths each year.

Thailand is infamous for having one of the highest rates of traffic fatalities in the world. More than 2,600 children aged 10-19 are killed every year in road crashes, according to the Ministry of Public Health.

Six teachers and 39 elementary and junior high school students were on the bus that caught fire Tuesday on a highway in suburban Bangkok. It spread so quickly that only 22 passengers were able to escape. Three girls remain hospitalized, one with serious burns on her face who risks losing her sight.

Wichan said when he heard news of the accident, he immediately made the six-hour drive back to his hometown from northern Phrae province, where he works as a driver. Reutthawat was not listed as being on the bus that caught fire, and that gave him hope.

“Yesterday, I was told that he had not been identified, so I was still hopeful that my son survived,” he said haltingly before bursting into tears. He learned the truth after having traveled onward to Bangkok where relatives of the victims gave DNA samples to help identify the badly burned bodies.

It was a double tragedy for Wichan, who lost not only his son, but also his own 8-year-old half-brother Natthapong Chamkrasae, who had never traveled far from home before.

Police are investigating whether the fire was caused by negligence have already filed initial charges against the bus driver, including reckless driving and failing to stop to help others.

The driver claimed a front tire had malfunctioned, making the bus bump into a car before skidding along a concrete highway barrier. Sparks from the friction might have set off highly flammable natural gas canisters that fueled the bus, police said.

The bus had 11 gas canisters installed, but a permit to hold only six, according to police. Many Thai vehicles run on compressed natural gas to save money. The bus, which was more than 50 years old, had been modified to run on CNG, said the Department of Land Transport.

“I can’t stress enough about the safety of vehicles,” Wichan said with a firm voice, his eyes red and brimming with tears. “I want them to stop using all natural gas-fueled vehicles … They’re cost-effective for the operators, but they’re not safe at all.”

Oy Kaewprasert, who was also working in another province when her 6-year-old son Theerapong Pienkasiwit perished, described him as a cheerful boy who loved to travel, and who was becoming adept at reading Thai, his favorite subject.

Speaking at the temple with tears rolling down her face, she called for better safety inspections of vehicles. “They shouldn’t be negligent like this,” she said.

The bus company owner has insisted that he followed safety regulations. While he has not been charged, the police have said they are seeking negligence charges against all responsible, and his company’s operating license has been suspended.

The Department of Land Transport is implementing urgent inspections of all natural gas-fueled buses. The department will also upgrade its safety guidelines to require crisis management training for drivers and safety inspections when such vehicles are to be used by schools, said Seksom Akraphand, the agency’s deputy director-general.

On social media, parents have expressed apprehension about sending their children on school field trips, and some even called for such activities to be canceled altogether.

Despite the tragedy he has suffered, Wichan feels otherwise.

“Both my son and my brother died. My brother had never had a chance to go anywhere. This was the first time, and he died,” he said. “For children that do not have an opportunity, to be able to travel for just one time to learn things, it is a very valuable experience for them.”

An Israeli airstrike on an apartment in central Beirut has killed nine people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Israel has been pounding areas of the country where the Hezbollah militant group has a strong presence since late September, but has rarely struck in the heart of the capital.

There was no warning before the strike late Wednesday, which hit an apartment in central Beirut not far from the United Nations headquarters, the prime minister’s office and parliament. Hezbollah’s civil defense unit said seven of its members were killed.

The strike came as Israel was pursuing a ground incursion into Lebanon against Hezbollah, while also conducting strikes in Gaza that killed dozens, including children. The Israeli military said eight soldiers have died in the conflict in southern Lebanon.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. Israel declared war on the militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.

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Here is the latest:

Biden says he does not expect Israel to retaliate against Iran on Thursday

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden says he doesn’t expect Israel to retaliate immediately against Iran and rejects the suggestion the U.S. would grant permission for such an attack.

Biden was speaking to reporters Thursday, two days after Tehran bombarded Israel with almost 200 ballistic missiles. Israel says it intercepted many of them, while Iran says most of its missiles hit their targets.

The barrage has raised concerns about the escalating conflict in the Middle East and the role of the U.S. in Israel’s defense.

“First of all, we don’t ‘allow’ Israel, we advise Israel,” Biden said. “And nothing’s going to happen today.”

Israel says one of its Gaza airstrikes killed a Palestinian convicted in the killing soldiers

JERUSALEM — Israel says one of its airstrikes in Gaza killed a Palestinian who was convicted in the killing of two Israeli soldiers by an angry crowd in the West Bank at the start of the 2000 uprising.

Abdel-Aziz Salha was in a mob that stormed a Palestinian police station in the West Bank city of Ramallah and killed two Israeli reservists. The two had been detained after accidentally entering an area administered by the Palestinian Authority.

Salha waved his blood-stained hands from the window of the police station in what became one of the defining images of the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule.

The killing of the reservists marked a major escalation in Israeli-Palestinian tensions as the peace process of the 1990s collapsed.

The military said Thursday that Salha was killed in an overnight strike on the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah. The military identified him as a Hamas militant.

Salha was arrested by Israeli forces shortly after the killing of the two reservists, convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

He was among more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners released in 2011 in exchange for an Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas in Gaza. One of the other released prisoners, Yahya Sinwar, was one of the masterminds of the Oct. 7 attack and is now the top leader of Hamas.

Lebanon says all border crossings with Syria function under state supervision

BEIRUT —Lebanon’s minister of public works and transport says all the country’s border crossing with Syria function under the supervision of state institutions.

Ali Hamie spoke to reporters hours after the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman posted on X that Lebanon’s Hezbollah group is trying to transport military equipment through the Masnaa border crossing with Syria.

“All border crossings, the first among them the Masnaa border crossing” are under the monitoring of state institutions including the transport ministry, customs authorities, the General Security Directorate and the Lebanese army.

Israeli military spokesperson, Avchay Adraee, called on Lebanese authorities earlier Thursday to conduct inspections on trucks crossing its eastern border and to turn back any vehicle found to be containing combat equipment.

“The Lebanese State is responsible for its official border crossings and is able to prevent Hezbollah from passing through these crossings,” Adraee said on X.

In the same post, Adraee said Israeli forces bombed a truck on Sunday packed with weapons that Hezbollah was trying to smuggle into Lebanon. No further details about this airstrike were made public.

In recent weeks, the Israeli air force has struck hundreds of targets across Lebanon, including the eastern border area and the Bekaa valley, areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

Analysts have long accused the Iran-backed group of transporting weapons across the porous Lebanese-Syrian border.

Lebanese official says Israeli strikes hitting health facilities violate international law

BERUIT — Lebanese Health Ministry Firas Abiad said Thursday that Israeli strikes that have hit health facilities and workers are in “violation of international law and treaties.”

“This is a war crime, there is no doubt about that,” Abiad said, speaking to journalists Thursday, after an overnight Israeli strike on an apartment building in Beirut hit a Hezbollah health center and killed seven civilian first responders affiliated with the group and after a separate strike wounded Red Cross paramedics evacuating wounded people in southern Lebanon.

“The argument that some vehicles or hospitals had weapons or something else in them, these are old false arguments and lies we heard before in Gaza,” Abiad said. “International laws are clear in protecting these people – I mean, paramedics. Who gave Israel the right to be the judge and the executioner at the same time?”

Israeli airstrike hits Hezbollah’s media building

BEIRUT — An Israeli airstrike on a Beirut southern suburb struck Thursday the building housing the media office of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group.

The airstrike destroyed the building housing the Media Relations office of Hezbollah in the Mawad neighborhood on the southern edge of Beirut.

Hezbollah official told The Associated Press that employees of the group’s media office are fine and no one was hurt.

In southern Lebanon, Israeli fire at a Lebanese army post in the town of Bint Jbeil killed a Lebanese soldier, raising to two the number of members of the Lebanese military killed on Thursday.

The Lebanese army said in a statement that troops “open fire at the source of” the attack. It did not elaborate.

A Lebanese security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of regulations said that the army post was hit by artillery fire.

Belgian broadcaster VTM says its crew attacked in central Beirut

BRUSSELS — Belgium’s VTM broadcaster says that one of its television reporters and a cameraman have been attacked in central Beirut while reporting on the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

VTM said that correspondent Robin Ramaekers and cameraman Stijn De Smet were working on a report on Wednesday evening about a bombing in the Lebanese capital when they were attacked in unclear circumstances.

“Stijn is currently in a hospital in Beirut where he is being treated for a leg wound. Robin is also still being cared for, in another hospital, for some fractures to the face,” a statement said. It underlined that the cause of the attack is not yet known.

VTM said the two men have worked in conflict zones for more than a decade. Lebanon’s Information Minister Ziad Makary said only that he is “following” the situation

Spain sends two planes to Beirut to evacuate its civilians

MADRID — Spain’s defense ministry says its two planes sent to Beirut to evacuate Spanish civilians have taken off and are heading to an airbase near Madrid.

Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said that between 400 and 500 of the around 1,000 Spaniards registered as living in Lebanon are being airlifted out. The government has urged all Spaniards to leave and is offering to assist those who say they want to be evacuated.

Robles said that a third plane could be sent if needed.

Spain also has 676 soldiers in Lebanon deployed under a United Nations peacekeeping mission. Robles said that the troops are staying put until otherwise ordered by the U.N. command.

Hundreds of people arrive in Turkey from Lebanon

ISTANBUL — Hundreds of people leaving Lebanon arrived in southern Turkey Thursday.

A ship carrying over 300 passengers who boarded the vessel in the Lebanese city of Tripoli docked at a port in Mersin on the country’s Mediterranean coast, according to Turkish news agency IHA.

IHA said the Med Lines ship transporting foreign nationals was the third to arrive at the Mersin port in recent days.

The passengers then travel onward to their home countries, IHA reported.

The increasing violence in Lebanon is a significant escalation in the war in the Middle East, this time between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Lebanese Red Cross says 4 paramedics wounded and a soldier killed in an Israeli strike in the south

BEIRUT —The Lebanese Red Cross says an Israeli strike killed four of its paramedics and a Lebanese army soldier as they were evacuating wounded people from the south. It says the convoy near the village of Taybeh, which was accompanied by Lebanese troops, was targeted Thursday despite coordinating its movements with U.N. peacekeepers.

Israel extends evacuation warnings north of UN buffer zone in Lebanon

BEIRUT — The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of villages and towns in southern Lebanon that are north of a United Nations-declared buffer zone established after the 2006 war. The warning issued Thursday signaled a possible broadening of Israel’s incursion into southern Lebanon, which until now has been confined to areas close to the border.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry says at least 9 people killed in an Israeli strike in central Beirut

BEIRUT —Lebanon’s Health Ministry Thursday said that at least nine people were killed in an Israeli strike in central Beirut, as it is also running DNA tests on remains they have obtained to identify others.

Hezbollah said that seven paramedics and rescue workers from its medical arm the Islamic Health Committee were killed in the strike that hit its office in Bashoura. The Health Ministry said 14 others were wounded in the strike early Thursday.

Prior to the attack, the ministry said that 55 people were killed and 156 others were wounded in Israeli strikes over Lebanon on Wednesday.

The frequent strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs as well as occasional strikes in central Beirut have exacerbated Lebanon’s displacement crisis. The government estimated days ago that some one million people are currently displaced in the cash-strapped country.

Environment Minister Nasser Yassin, who is spearheading the government’s response efforts to the war, told local media that some 167,000 Syrians left Lebanon over the past 24 hours alone. The Associated Press could not independently confirm.

Israel says it killed a senior Hamas leader in an airstrike in Gaza three months ago

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Thursday that it killed a senior Hamas leader in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip around three months ago.

It said that a strike on an underground compound in northern Gaza killed Rawhi Mushtaha and two other Hamas commanders, Sameh Siraj and Sameh Oudeh.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas.

The military said the three commanders had taken refuge in a fortified underground compound in northern Gaza that served as a command and control center.

It said Mushtaha was a close associate of Yahya Sinwar, the top leader of Hamas who helped mastermind the Oct. 7 attack into Israel that triggered the war.

Sinwar is believed to be alive and in hiding inside Gaza.

UK plans more evacuation flights

NICOSIA, Cyprus — The British government chartered more flights to help U.K. nationals leave Lebanon, a day after an evacuation flight left Beirut.

The government said in a statement that the flights will continue as “long as the security situation allows” and that it’s working to increase capacity on commercial flights for British nationals.

U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey on Wednesday visited a British military base on Cyprus where around 700 troops, Foreign Office staff and Border Force officers have been deployed to a British military base in Cyprus to help with evacuation plans.

British nationals and their spouses, partners and children under the age of 18 are eligible. Dependents who aren’t British nationals will need a valid visa granting a maximum six-month stay in the U.K.

Strike in Beirut suburb killed seven health and rescue workers

BEIRUT — An Israeli strike in the Lebanese capital Beirut killed seven health and rescue workers, an Islamic health organization said.

The airstrike in the residential Bashoura district targeted an apartment in a multi-story building that houses an office of the Health Society, a group of civilian first responders affiliated to Hezbollah.

It was the closest strike to the central downtown district of Beirut, where the United Nations and government offices are located.

It was the second airstrike to hit central Beirut this week and the second to directly target the Health Society in 24 hours. No Israeli warning was issued to the area before it was hit. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strike in central Beirut or the allegations it used phorphorous bombs.

Israel has mostly concentrated its airstrikes in south and eastern Lebanon, as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut where Hezbollah has a strong presence, but its attacks have spanned the entire country and killed many civilians.

Beirut’s southern suburbs also saw heavy bombardment overnight in areas where the Israeli army had earlier issued a warning online for residents to evacuate.

Japan readies military jets for evacuations

TOKYO — Japan on Thursday dispatched two Self Defense Force planes to prepare for a possible airlift of Japanese citizens from Lebanon.

Two C-2 transport aircraft are expected to arrive in Jordan and Greece on Friday, Japan NHK national television reported.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters that there has been no report of injury involving the about 50 Japanese nationals in Lebanon.

Japan dispatched SDF aircraft in October and November 2023 to evacuate more than 100 Japanese and South Korean citizens from Israel.

Australia plans evacuation flights from Lebanon

SYDNEY — Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Thursday her government had booked 500 seats on commercial aircraft for Australian citizens, permanent residents and their families to leave Lebanon on Saturday.

The seats are available to 1,700 Australians and their families known to be in Lebanon on two flights from Beirut to Cyprus, Wong said.

“What I would say to Australians who wish to leave, please take whatever option is available to you,” Wong told reporters in Geelong, Australia.

“Please do not wait for your preferred route,” she added.