World

Jerusalem (AFP) – Hamas led other Palestinian armed groups in committing hundreds of war crimes in the surprise October 7 attack on Israel that set off the Gaza war, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Wednesday.

Hamas reacted with fury to one of the most in-depth international studies on the unprecedented incursion into southern Israel, demanding that HRW withdraw the report and "apologise".

Tel Aviv (AFP) – The families of five Israeli women soldiers held hostage in Gaza since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Tuesday pleaded with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make an accord for their release before he goes to Washington next week.

Facing mounting international and domestic criticism, Netanyahu is set to speak to a joint meeting of the US Congress on July 24 and to meet President Joe Biden. The families released new pictures of the detainees to increase pressure on Netanyahu.

A leading rights group on Tuesday called for loggers to be "thrown out" of a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon following recent sightings of people belonging to what is believed to be the world's largest uncontacted Indigenous tribe.

London-based Survival International published video and photos of dozens of Mashco-Piro people taken near the village of Monte Salvado in southeastern Peru near the Brazilian border. The group said that in recent days, more than 50 Mashco-Piro have appeared near the village, which is inhabited by the related Yine people. A group of 17 Mashco-Piro were also recently sighted near the neighboring village of Puerto Nuevo.

Sayuri Moreno found out while pregnant that her body was contaminated with arsenic, but could not afford doctors' advice to avoid breastfeeding and leave her home in a mining area in northern Peru.

The 37-year-old is one of 120 residents of the Huarmey slums in the Ancash department who were found to have high levels of arsenic in their blood when 140 people were tested last year, according to the Ministry of Health.

The mayor of the French capital Anne Hidalgo is set to take a long-awaited dip in the Seine on Wednesday to demonstrate the river is clean enough to host the outdoor swimming events at the Paris Olympics, her office said.

Despite an investment of 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) to prevent sewage leaks into the waterway, the Seine has been causing suspense in the run-up to the opening of Paris Games next week after repeatedly failing water quality tests.

Simone Biles is headed to Paris poised to cement her legacy as gymnastics' Greatest of All Time, an Olympic icon who transcends her sport in both triumph and defeat.

The diminutive dynamo dazzled at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, winning gold in all-around, vault, floor exercise and team events.

The body of a spade-toothed whale -- a species so rare it has never been seen alive -- appears to have washed up on a New Zealand beach, scientists say.

The remains of the obscure, five-metre (16.4 foot) long, beaked creature were found near a river mouth in southern Otago province on July 4, government researchers said.

High in the icy Indian Himalayas, a long-isolated people recall origin myths of millennia-old migrations from afar -- an identity in disputed lands twisted today by politics.

The Brokpa people of Ladakh have no written language, practice a culture of polygamy, and have their own calendar.

The Kremlin on Saturday warned that the deployment of US missiles in Germany could make European capitals targets for Russian missiles in a repeat of Cold War-style confrontation.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov spoke of a "paradox" in which "Europe is a target for our missiles, our country is a target for US missiles in Europe".

President Emmanuel Macron inspected French and allied units which took part in France's World War II liberation 80 years ago.

And Paris welcomed the Olympic flame to the city, less than two weeks before it hosts the Summer Games.

Zurich, Geneva, Basel, plus Bern in conjunction with Nemo's hometown Biel, are the four declared candidates to stage the 69th Eurovision Song Contest.

The winner should be announced by the end of August, with the kitsch annual spectacle set for mid-May 2025.

Frankfurt (Germany) (AFP) – A proposal to create Germany's biggest motorway has sparked a backlash, with critics fearful the "monstrosity" will increase climate-damaging emissions, worsen noise pollution and harm biodiverse habitats.

The recommendation suggests widening a section of the A5 outside the western city of Frankfurt to 10 lanes at an estimated cost of 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion).

Gaza Strip (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – A Hamas official on Sunday said the group is pulling out of Gaza truce talks, following an Israeli strike that targeted the militants' commander Mohammed Deif, who was "fine" despite the attack according to another Hamas figure.

"Commander Mohammed Deif is well and directly overseeing" the operations of the Hamas military wing, the official told AFP. Israel staged a huge bombing raid on a camp for displaced people in southern Gaza on Saturday that it said was an attempt to kill Deif.