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Hello, I'm Chris Barrow with the BBC News.
More than 50,000 people have marched through the streets of the eastern Spanish city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of the devastating flash floods last year. The protesters also demanded the resignation of the regional leader, Carlos Mazón, over his handling of Spain's worst natural disaster in decades. Guy Hedgecoe is in Valencia. There were family members of people who died who were taking part in this protest. And this was, the organizers had told us before, in part a tribute to the 229 people who died. But there was also a very angry atmosphere as well. And that's something we've seen in all these protests. There have been many protests held demanding the resignation of the head of the regional government. This is just the latest one. People who don't understand why Carlos Mazón has not resigned, how he could still be there after all this time, after what happened. Tropical Storm Melissa has strengthened to a hurricane as it bears down on Jamaica in the Caribbean. It's also expected to bring flash flooding and landslides to parts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Here's Will Grant. It is expected when the storm makes landfall in Jamaica later this week, it will be the most powerful storm to strike the island in potentially 35 years. Cuba and Haiti are already in the grip of very serious crises already. In the case of Cuba, there are already rolling blackouts on the island and food shortages. And of course, in the case of Haiti, there is a very serious security and humanitarian crisis going on. So in essence, this storm comes at the very, very worst time. President Trump says he'll sign a peace accord between Thailand and Cambodia when he arrives in Malaysia on Sunday. He's also set to sign a trade deal with Malaysia and attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit, ASEAN. Amid tensions with Beijing over trade, he's also going to hold talks with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea. The Sudan Doctors Network is calling for the reopening of aid corridors in the besieged city of el-Fasher in North Darfur. It says the humanitarian situation is worsening after the Rapid Support Forces surrounded the city with makeshift barriers, cutting off all entry and exit points. Richard Kagoe reports. Doctors describe the situation in el-Fasher as catastrophic beyond comprehension. They report at least three children dying every day from malnutrition, disease and lack of medicine. They say hospitals have collapsed and the city has run out of fuel and food. Four United Nations agencies, including UNICEF and the World Food Programme, warned earlier this week that thousands more children could die if aid is not allowed in. They say the city's population is surviving on dwindling food stocks and unsafe water. World news from the BBC. A new report has warned that half of the world's uncontacted indigenous peoples could be wiped out in the next decade if governments don't provide greater protection. The BBC's population correspondent, Stephanie Hegarty, traveled to the Peruvian Amazon, where the Mashco Piro live, one of the largest of these isolated groups. The Mashco Piro people are nomadic hunter-gatherers who have avoided the outside world for over a century. And while some of their territory in the Peruvian Amazon is protected, in the area we visited, logging companies are allowed to operate and local villagers say the Mashco Piro are increasingly coming out of the forest. The NGO, Survival International, has found that logging, mining or drilling for oil threaten almost every uncontacted group in the world, all of whom may be extremely vulnerable to commonplace diseases, such as colds and flu. Police in Britain have issued a direct appeal to an asylum seeker who was mistakenly released from a prison on Friday to hand himself in. Detectives say Hadush Kebatu, an Ethiopian who arrived in the U.K. on a small boat from France, has been seen in London. He was jailed last month for the sexual assault of a woman and a 14-year-old girl in the south-eastern county of Essex. A member of the British Parliament for the Reform Party has apologized for criticizing adverts she said were "full of black people, full of Asian people." Sarah Pochin said she'd poorly phrased her claim that the average white family outside London was no longer represented by what she called the "woke liberati." The governing Labour Party said her comments were "completely unacceptable." Lithuania has again been forced to close its airports in the capital Vilnius and the city of Kaunas because of weather balloons flying over the border from Belarus. Earlier on Saturday, Lithuania's foreign ministry delivered a strong protest to Belarus about the violations of its airspace, saying the repeated irresponsible actions were "unacceptable." BBC News. |