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BBC News with Roisin Hastie.
More than 2,000 international rescue workers are continuing to search the rubble after Venezuela's twin earthquakes as hopes of finding survivors fades. More than 30 people were saved over the weekend, but tens of thousands remain missing. The BBC's Orla Guerin is in one of the hardest hit areas, Catia La Mar. She says there's a shocking contrast between the scale of the destruction and the lack of any government-organized rescue efforts. "As one Venezuelan man put it to me, look, in this country, if a few dozen students want to go out to protest, the authorities can get two tanks out on the streets very quickly. But they have not mobilized all the resources of the state to support the victims of the earthquake. I haven't met anybody who has said the government is doing its best. Some are still cautious about expressing criticism, but increasingly there is an openness that people are willing to say out loud things which they wouldn't have said before, such as the desperation." Turkey has slammed Israel's decision to recognize the massacre of Armenians during and after the First World War's genocide. Ankara said it was Israel's attempt to deflect from its own crimes in Gaza and persecution of the Palestinian people. Israel rejects the allegations. Here's our global affairs reporter, Anbarasan Ethirajan. The row follows a rapid deterioration of relations between Turkey and Israel since the war in Gaza began. It is estimated that in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire, more than a million ethnic Armenians were killed, sent on death marches or forcibly Islamized. Despite Turkey's objections, the killings have been recognized as genocide by more than 30 countries, including the U.S., France and Germany. Israel said its decision to the same was historic. Israel says it has destroyed underground infrastructure in southern Lebanon used by the militant group Hezbollah. A statement by the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister said the military had hit a 200-meter tunnel in the town of Majdal Zoun containing hundreds of weapons. Mr. Netanyahu again insisted the Israel military would remain in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has rejected a U.S.-sponsored agreement between Israel and Lebanon. President Putin has acknowledged that Russia is suffering fuel shortages as a result of Ukrainian attacks on energy infrastructure, but said the situation was not critical. In an interview released by the Kremlin, he said the main task was to increase air defenses and ensure fuel supplies, especially to Crimea. "We are going through a difficult period, difficult stage, but it's taught us a lot. It's allowed us to feel the very essence of what it means to be a citizen of Russia." Mr. Putin added that he expected the U.S. to resume its mediation efforts once it was less busy with Iran. World news from the BBC. Pakistan says it's carried out an intelligence-based ground operation followed by airstrikes against Islamist militants along the border with Afghanistan. The information minister said the attacks targeted what he called "militant safe havens," killing 29 fighters. The world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Hadron Collider, is shutting down for a four-year update. Scientists hope that intensifying the machine's ability to accelerate and smash particles will provide 100 times more data to hunt for dark matter. Sasha Schlichter reports. The LHC was most famously used to prove the existence of the Higgs boson, dubbed the "God Particle." From today, activity will stop as the extraordinary device undergoes upgrades to further increase the precision and intensity of particle collisions. It's thought the CERN lab upgrade will cost $1.5 billion. Once the upgrade is completed, CERN hopes to dramatically expand its understanding of how the God Particle works, with the new accelerator expected to produce around 380 million Higgs bosons over its lifetime. Germany has set a new temperature record of 41.7 degrees Celsius as the extreme hot weather moves eastwards in continental Europe. Across the border, Poland broke its heat record at 40.5 degrees, while the temperature in the Czech Republic exceeded 41. The World Health Organization says more than 1,300 excess deaths have been recorded in Europe in connection with the heat wave. Co-hosts Canada have defeated South Africa one goal to nil in the first match of the knockout stage of the World Cup. The midfielder Stephen Eustáquio scored Canada's only goal in stoppage time, just minutes before the final whistle to take his side into the last 16. That's the latest BBC News. |