UK’s Revolut gets French bank licence in European expansion drive
Britain’s Revolut announced it had secured a French banking licence, marking a significant step in the fintech’s European expansion plans and a development its CEO Nik Storonsky has previously said could help it gain a U.S. licence.
London-based Revolut, which plans to make Paris its “Western Europe HQ” and shift customers away from its Lithuanian entity, has emerged as the largest and most successful of the European challengers to traditional banks which sprang up in the 2010s.
In France, where its licence was granted by the ACPR banking regulator and the European Central Bank, it competes with the digital arms of the country’s biggest banks, including Societe Generale’s BoursoBank.
Revolut can already offer banking services in the European Union by “passporting” its Lithuanian licence, but being regulated in France would also allow it to offer services tailored to local customers including loans and regulated savings products, the company told Reuters in April.
Revolut declined to comment on a Bloomberg report last month which said its French hub would likely face restrictions on new products, including mortgages, after the ECB reportedly imposed these measures on its Lithuanian entity last year.
“The licence enables us to operate as a bank across the EU. We do not comment on our regulatory arrangements,” a spokesperson said by email.
FRANCE EXPANSION
Revolut, which received a British banking licence in March, has already pledged to spend $1.1 billion on expanding in France, hired former SocGen CEO Frederic Oudea as its Western Europe chairman and signed a 10-year lease in Paris.
It said on Monday it plans to hire more than 600 people across Western Europe, of which 400 will be in France.
Customers in France will be transferred to the French entity first, followed by Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, said Revolut, which has more than 75 million customers but no physical branches.
It has started a share sale at a $115 billion valuation, a source said in July, which would make it worth more than banks like SocGen and Britain’s Barclays .
King Charles Turns to ‘Healer’ Chickens Amid Cancer Battle
King Charles has an unusual source of comfort as he continues his cancer battle — a flock of rescued chickens living inside a royal coop cheekily nicknamed “Cluckingham Palace.”
The 77-year-old monarch is said to be spending time among the hens, gardens and orchards at his beloved Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire, where insiders claim nature has taken on a deeply personal role during his health struggles.
Charles, who revealed his cancer diagnosis in 2024, has long championed organic gardening, conservation and living in harmony with the natural world. But sources say those beliefs have become even more important since his diagnosis.
“The King has always believed strongly in the healing power of nature, but that belief has become more meaningful during his cancer journey,” a royal source told RadarOnline.
“He genuinely feels that being among the gardens, the trees and his chickens has the power to help him heal.”
The insider added that while the royal chickens may sound amusing to outsiders, Charles reportedly finds caring for them surprisingly therapeutic.
“The hens might make people smile, but for him there is something deeply calming and restorative about caring for them,” the source said.
Highgrove has been Charles’ country retreat since 1980, and over the decades he has transformed the sprawling property into a showcase for his environmental philosophy.
During warmer weather, the estate’s rescue hens are allowed to roam through parts of the orchards, scratching through the grass and wandering around as visitors pass by.
Scott Simpson, retail director for The King’s Foundation, said the chickens have become a major part of everyday life at Highgrove.
“They’re central to Highgrove life, and it’s always lovely to see them happily roaming around, pecking away,” Simpson said.
He explained that Charles’ entire approach to the estate revolves around “living with nature and nature’s creatures.”
And then there is the chickens’ very royal residence.
The Highgrove coop has long been nicknamed “Cluckingham Palace,” a play on Buckingham Palace that has reportedly become a favorite joke among staff and visitors.
Charles was even shown visiting the coop and collecting eggs in the Amazon Prime documentary Finding Harmony: A King’s Vision.
“It’s been known as that for as long as I’ve been there,” Simpson said. “I’m not sure how that name came up, but it’s rather fitting — and it makes everyone chuckle.”
But Charles apparently does more than simply admire his feathered residents.
Whenever he is staying at Highgrove, the King reportedly makes a point of personally checking on the birds and collecting their eggs.
“It’s something he will always do when in residence at Highgrove, going to collect the eggs himself,” Simpson said.
Those eggs are then used by the royal household, with some also sold at the estate.
Charles’ flock includes breeds such as Burford Browns, Marans and Welsummers, with many of the chickens rescued and given a second chance at royal life.
One particularly famous hen is Henrietta, who became the one-millionth chicken rehomed by the British Hen Welfare Trust.
Charles and Queen Camilla adopted Henrietta along with 30 other rescued hens in 2024.
For the King, insiders say the daily ritual offers something difficult to find in royal life — a quiet escape from constant public attention, medical concerns and the responsibilities of the Crown.
“There is no suggestion that the King sees nature as a replacement for medical treatment,” another insider said.
“But he believes wellbeing is about more than medicine alone. Highgrove gives him peace, and the chickens are part of that.”
Highgrove has also remained at the center of Charles’ environmental work despite his health battle.
The King recently welcomed soccer legend Sir David Beckham to the estate as the pair worked on plans for a joint garden connected to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Simpson, who keeps rescue chickens himself, said there is something uniquely soothing about the birds.
“They’re the most marvelous animals,” he said. “They’re so friendly, and it’s so calming to collect eggs.”
And for chickens that once needed rescuing, Simpson said there may be no better place to start over.
“With rescued hens, there’s something really lovely about giving them a second chance,” he said, “and what better home than at Highgrove?”
Secret ICE Agent Tried to “Entice” Minneapolis Activists Into Confrontational Tactics
Organizers in Minneapolis long suspected they were being surveilled by the federal government during the height of the winter protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It was not until a court filing on Thursday, however, that the youth-led Sunrise Movement and other groups learned the depths of infiltration.
The Sunrise Movement has long preached nonviolence even as it pursues aggressive tactics, such as making a racket outside of the hotels where ICE agents sleep.
But the group’s public commitment to peaceful protest did not spare it from a months-long, aggressive campaign of government snooping that included ICE agents attending its meetings and protests undercover, subpoenas of its financial records, and at least one apparent attempt to entice an organizer into backing more confrontational tactics.
Sunrise Movement Executive Director Aru Shiney-Ajay said in an interview Thursday that the government’s tactics are a sign that the Trump administration is losing the battle for public opinion.
“What this is meant to do is scare protesters and scare people away from joining protest groups,” she said. “It is very essential that we remember that actually what we are doing is incredibly normal, it is incredibly popular, and we cannot let ourselves be scared out of organizing.”
Operation Puppet Master
The revelations about the tactics ICE used against Sunrise, along with a wide variety of labor unions and protest groups, came in a court filing from a defense attorney for one of 15 Minnesota activists charged in June for trying to stop the federal government’s immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities.
Shortly after federal agents killed Alex Pretti on January 24, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations opened two investigations it called “Operation Puppet Master” and “Project Whipple Shield,” the latter a reference to the federal building that was the site of many ICE protests.
Supposedly, those probes would focus on a network supporting “violent opportunists and agitators.” In reality, the investigative reports that the federal government has turned over to defense attorneys show that undercover ICE agents secretly recorded at churches, libraries, and schools even when organizers stressed the importance of nonviolence.
In the case of Sunrise, undercover agents were already targeting the group before the killings of Pretti and Renee Good.
Sunrise is a national organization with a Twin Cities chapter. Long known for its aggressive climate advocacy, the youth-led group pivoted just before the start of the federal government’s crackdown on immigrants in Minnesota to fighting the Trump administration’s authoritarianism.
One of the group’s most famous early acts was occupying then-Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office in support of the Green New Deal. It brought that same energy to the protests in Minneapolis, playing a key role in the nighttime noise protests targeting hotels in the Twin Cities that were allegedly hosting ICE agents. But it has always counseled its supporters to remain peaceful, Shiney-Ajay said.
“We are a strictly nonviolent movement. We make that very clear in almost every training we run, in all the meetings we run,” she said.
Yet almost as soon as Operation Metro Surge started, ICE agents were attending Sunrise trainings on the sly.
Undercover agents attended a “How to stop ICE” training that Sunrise hosted at a church on December 13. By December 22, an undercover agent had been added to the Signal group for planning one of Sunrise’s hotel protests. On January 9, two undercover agents attended a noise demonstration outside a Hilton Hotel, noting that a member of the crowd set off fireworks at one point.
The killing of Pretti — and the ensuing nationwide backlash against ICE — appears to have done nothing to slow the investigation. One week after Pretti’s slaying, two undercover agents attended a Sunrise Movement Twin Cities training on “resistance skills” hosted at a public library.
The meeting included primers on deescalation at protests, and the ICE agent noted that it was “made clear that the Sunrise Movement organization focused on ‘peaceful’ protests.”
That did not stop the undercover agent from making a private approach to one of the organizers, according to a report the agent produced. The agent told the organizer that he worked in construction and “could build items that might assist other groups with more ‘direct-action’ protests.” When the undercover agent declared that “going to jail did not bother him,” the organizer “acknowledged” the agent’s comments and took down his phone number, according to the report.
Kevin Riach, the attorney representing one of the defendants in the indictment targeting Minneapolis activists, said in a court filing this week that that report was one of several showing that ICE’s undercover agents “actively participated in organizing and directing the groups they were surveilling, at times working to entice people into discussing or committing crimes.”
By the start of March, the federal government had scaled down its immigration crackdown in Minneapolis — but it was continuing to investigate groups such as Sunrise.
On March 9, ICE sent a subpoena to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for the nonprofit’s wire transactions dating back to January 1, 2023, long before Trump was even elected to his second term. That same date, ICE also sent a subpoena to the Clearing House, a private wire transfer company, for years of financial records from Sunrise and several labor unions.
The Sunrise Movement was never given notice of those subpoenas or an opportunity to contest them, Shiney-Ajay said.
Training for This Moment
None of the activists who were eventually charged in a June 16 indictment were members of the Sunrise Movement, Shiney-Ajay said.
ICE declined to offer an explanation for why it investigated Sunrise and the other groups.
“HSI investigates individuals and organizations when there is just and legal cause to do so and within the scope of its legal authorities. To preserve the integrity of our work and protect law enforcement sensitivities, we do not comment on ongoing investigations, investigative tactics, or procedures,” an agency spokesperson said.
“It will likely make many Americans think twice before joining a protest, attending a meeting, donating to an advocacy organization, or speaking out at all.”
While it had never been confirmed that ICE was closely studying the Sunrise Movement before this week, Shiney-Ajay said it had long been treated as a possibility. The group was specifically concerned that federal agents might act as provocateurs at protests.
“We put a lot of work into training de-escalation and safety leads at all of our protests,” she said. “I certainly think that that was a worthwhile investment, reading these things now.”
She said it was “telling” that the investigation was led by the Department of Homeland Security rather than the FBI, which might be constrained by more “rules and regulations.”
The revelation of the widespread ICE probe has already sparked another backlash.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which has received funding from conservative and libertarian donors, said it found the investigation disturbing.
“Some activists have violated federal law, and the government is entirely justified in investigating and prosecuting them. But criminal conduct by some members of a movement does not justify government surveillance and investigation of anyone who shares their broader political goals. That type of aggressive scrutiny chills protected speech and association. It will likely make many Americans think twice before joining a protest, attending a meeting, donating to an advocacy organization, or speaking out at all,” said Aaron Terr, the group’s director of public advocacy.
On Thursday, a coalition of dozens of Minnesota groups promised that that they would not be cowed.
“We know the truth, and we will not be intimidated,” the groups said. “When self-serving politicians are losing, they lie and attempt political repression, trying to silence the voices of those who bravely stand up to them. Minnesotans will not be intimidated or divided by sham accusations or investigations of some of the countless groups and community members who organized, acted, and stood up together to protect their neighbors during Operation Metro Surge.”
Israeli attacks kill Palestinian, injure several others in Gaza despite ceasefire
One Palestinian was killed and several others were injured in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, marking further violations of a ceasefire agreement in effect since Oct. 10, 2025, medical sources said.
A Palestinian was killed and six others were injured when an Israeli drone struck a tent sheltering displaced people near Al-Aqsa University in the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis, a medical source told Anadolu Agency.
In central Gaza, several Palestinians were injured when an Israeli strike targeted the roof of a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, according to the material provided, another medical source said.
READ: Egypt’s Sisi meets Kushner for talks on Gaza ceasefire
A child was also shot and injured by an Israeli quadcopter drone east of the Bureij refugee camp.
The attacks came as mediators continued efforts to complete the implementation of the ceasefire agreement.
The Israeli army launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip in October 2023 that has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians and wounded over 174,000 others, according to the material.
Despite the ceasefire, the Israeli army has continued attacks in the Palestinian enclave, killing at least 1,262 Palestinians and injuring more than 4,100 others since Oct. 10, 2025, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
READ: 8 countries condemn Israel’s rejection of roadmap to end Gaza war
8 Muslim Nations Fault Israel Over Gaza Plan as Kushner Presses Hamas on Weapons, Governance
The foreign ministers of eight Muslim countries on Sunday accused Israel of obstructing US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan by rejecting a roadmap for its implementation, while US envoy Jared Kushner pressed Hamas in Cairo to curb its armed presence and transfer governing authority in the Strip.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Turkey, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates called Israel’s rejection a “direct repudiation” of the peace plan that “jeopardizes its implementation, and fundamentally undermines the collective efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace.”
“Such rejection confirms that Israel now bears responsibility for obstructing the efforts to bring peace in Gaza” and the rest of the Palestinian territory, the foreign ministers said.
Hamas has accepted the roadmap, which requires the terror group to disarm. Israel objects to provisions allowing Hamas to relinquish its weapons gradually while Israeli forces withdraw from Gaza.
Israeli officials have also raised concerns over verification by mediators they distrust and provisions allowing surrendered weapons to be stored or decommissioned inside Gaza rather than removed or destroyed. Israeli leaders remain skeptical that Hamas will fully surrender its military capabilities.
A Hamas delegation led by Khalil al-Hayya met Kushner in Cairo on Sunday to discuss implementing the framework. Board of Peace senior envoys Nickolay Mladenov and Tony Blair joined Kushner, along with senior diplomats from Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey.
Al-Hayya told Kushner that Hamas remained committed to the plan but would implement it only if Israel agreed to withdraw its forces, citing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public rejection of the proposal, the Arab diplomat said.
Netanyahu has maintained that Israel will not withdraw until Hamas is fully disarmed, although a Board of Peace source told The Times of Israel that he has privately demonstrated greater flexibility.
Kushner sought to assure al-Hayya that the US-controlled Board of Peace would press Israel to halt strikes and gradually withdraw once Hamas begins surrendering its weapons.
At the same time, Kushner pressed Hamas to end displays of armed force across Gaza, including deploying uniformed, armed members in the streets, the Arab diplomat said. He also urged al-Hayya’s delegation to facilitate the transfer of governing authority to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, the new Palestinian technocratic government overseen by the Board of Peace.
Oil drops on lower demand forecasts despite deadlock in US-Iran talks
Oil prices fell more than $1 on Thursday as forecasters lowered global oil demand projections for 2026 because of the disruptions from the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, though the supply constraints from the conflict provided a floor for the market.
Brent futures dropped $1.29, or 1.5%, at $87.69 a barrel by 0100 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell $1.30, or 1.6%, to $81.97.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries lowered its world oil demand growth forecast for 2026 to 580,000 barrels per day in its monthly oil market report on Wednesday.
On the same day, the International Energy Agency said it expects a 1.6 million bpd contraction in consumption this year, down from a forecast of 1 million bpd last month, because of restricted fuel supplies and higher prices from the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran that have curtailed demand.
Oil prices were also under pressure from a surprise build in U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, which posted their largest weekly gain since January 2023 last week as exports slumped, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.
Crude inventories rose by 17.4 million barrels to 424.4 million barrels in the week ended August 7, their highest since June 5, the EIA said, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.4 million-barrel draw.
Still, the deadlocked talks between Iran and the U.S. to end the war in the Gulf have kept prices elevated.
A senior Iranian source said on Wednesday that there had been no progress in talks to revive the interim deal agreed in June and define a time frame to implement it.
Attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Tuesday, two crucial export routes for Middle Eastern oil and gas, highlight the risks that remain for crude supply from the region.
“The safety situation for navigation in these waters has further deteriorated, forcing vessels to turn off their signals, which reduces transparency in shipping and makes it more difficult for the market to track and assess actual supply levels,” analysts at Haitong Futures said in a note.
Trump administration pulls support for annual Arctic environmental report
This story was originally published by The Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
The Trump administration has pulled its support for an annual report on the environmental changes across the Arctic, a region that is already heating up four times faster than the global average due to the climate crisis.
On Tuesday, Kim Doster, the communications director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the federal agency was withdrawing its support for the Arctic Report Card, which has provided environmental updates on the region to scientists and the public since 2006.
Without explaining why the government stopped its support, Doster told The New York Times: “Coordination of the 2026 Arctic Report Card will not be facilitated through NOAA. … All data historically contributed by NOAA to the product will continue to be collected and will remain publicly available.”
Doster told the outlet that other NOAA programs would continue to support research in the region that contributes to “national security, weather prediction, safety of navigation and the economic vitality of coastal communities.”
The Guardian has approached NOAA for additional comment.
Over the last 20 years, the peer-reviewed report has tracked crucial changes across the Arctic’s atmosphere, oceans, cryosphere and tundra. The climate crisis has made the Arctic the world’s fastest-warming region. In recent years, the region has experienced severe sea ice decline, carbon sink reversals and ecosystem upheavals.
In the 2025 Arctic Report Card, scientists found that surface temperatures across the Arctic from October 2024 through September 2025 were the warmest recorded since 1900. It also found that in March 2025, Arctic winter sea ice reached the lowest annual maximum extent in the 47-year satellite record.
Meanwhile, on land, the report noted that ongoing glacier loss contributes to steadily rising global sea levels, threatening Arctic communities’ water supplies, driving destructive floods, and increasing landslide and tsunami hazards.
It also found that in more than 200 Arctic Alaska watersheds — large land areas where rain and melted snow drain northward into the Arctic Ocean — iron and other elements released by thawing permafrost have turned rivers and streams orange in the last 10 years. The “rusting rivers” have in turn increased acidity while elevated levels of toxic metals have degraded water quality, in turn affecting aquatic habits, rural drinking water supplies and subsistence fishing.
Rick Thoman, the lead editor for this year’s report, said: “We are scrambling to pull the pieces together. I am optimistic that we can find a path forward for 2027 and beyond. Given the late date, whether we can pull it together for 2026 is an open question, but we’re trying to make it happen.”
Meanwhile, Twila Moon, one of the report’s editors and a scientist at the Colorado-based National Snow and Ice Data Center, said: “The U.S. is an Arctic nation. It’s not just a distant place. It’s also our national place. So many of the changes there have impacts that reach down into our mid-latitudes, even farther south.”
Moon added: “Even if we’re able to move the Arctic Report Card forward in a way that brings information to people, there’s still a real loss in this not being a U.S. federal effort. That’s a real stepping back of U.S. leadership in the science arena, in the environmental intelligence arena, and that kind of has a whole other flavor of harm as well.”
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Rick Spinrad, the former NOAA administrator under Joe Biden, called the decision “really unconscionable.”
“It provides the baseline of what’s happening in the Arctic,” Spinrad said, referring to the report. “Then in terms of value for future planning, you can imagine anybody who’s dependent on Alaskan infrastructure — for example, like the oil pipeline, or the fishing community, or local communities that are worried about changes in weather conditions that are going to affect frost heaves on their roads,” he added, highlighting municipalities like Anchorage and Fairbanks.
“Now we will not have that tool, and it will be up to them to try to ferret out where the data are, and then to find somebody who can do the analysis to tell them what the trends have been and what they can expect in the future.
“It’s not clear to me why the administration made this decision. I can only infer that it’s tied to their aversion to anything associated with having a better understanding of climate change,” Spinrad added.
The funding cancellation is the Trump administration’s latest move to impede government-led studies on the climate crisis and its global effects.
Other federally led environmental rollbacks include NOAA’s decision to stop tracking the costs of climate crisis-fueled disasters, as well as the dismissal of all contributors to the U.S. government’s flagship report on climate crisis preparedness.
Courtney Love ‘Almost Died’ During Terrifying Health Battle
Courtney Love is opening up about a terrifying health crisis she kept hidden for years — revealing doctors warned her she could die after her weight plunged to around 100 pounds and she lost all of her hair.
The 62-year-old rocker said the frightening ordeal began after she moved to England in 2019, when her health suddenly took a dramatic turn for the worse.
“I went to England in 2019 and when I went there, you know, my body just exploded,” Love revealed in an Instagram video shared Friday. “It just exploded, and I was in hospitals a lot. I almost died.”
The Hole frontwoman said her condition became so severe that doctors delivered a grim warning.
“I lost all my hair. I was about 100 pounds, and they told me I was going to die, and I didn’t believe them,” she said.
Love did not reveal exactly what illness or medical condition caused the frightening health battle, but said she spent much of the period going in and out of hospitals.
Despite what doctors were telling her, Love said she refused to accept that she was dying.
She explained that her reaction was tied to a mindset she has carried since childhood — trusting her own instincts even when people around her were telling her something different.
Love described it using an unusual analogy about being told that “red was blue,” saying she learned early on not to automatically believe what others insisted was true.
“So when they said you’re gonna die, I just didn’t believe them,” she said.
Against the odds, Love said her condition eventually improved.
“And somehow, I got better,” she revealed. “I’m healthy, which is amazing.”
The singer said she intentionally kept the frightening ordeal away from the public while it was happening.
“I just wasn’t public about being sick,” Love said. “I don’t want to be public about being sick. You know, I’m fine now.”
She added that things in her life are currently going well and promised fans she plans to return to the spotlight.
“I will be back,” she said.
Love also revealed that while she was battling for her health, she was quietly working on new music — at times believing the album could be the last record she ever made.
“When I made it, I believed this was my last record so I made the record I always wanted to make,” she wrote alongside the video.
Love said she spent most of the period hospitalized, but whenever she was well enough to leave, she threw herself into writing and recording.
“I was in the hospital mostly but when I wasn’t all I did was write & record it,” she wrote.
Now, with her health apparently back on track, Love said one of her biggest goals is getting back onstage.
“I want to tour more than anything,” she said. “& I want to sing.”
The rocker ended her emotional message by thanking fans for giving her time to figure out how she wants to return to public life.
“Thank you for giving me the grace I need to prepare how to enter the world again,” she wrote.
Spain rejects discussing sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla with Morocco
The status of the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla as Spanish territories is not up for discussion, Spanish officials said , after Morocco’s justice minister reiterated Rabat’s sovereignty claims over the cities.
Tuesday’s remarks by Abdellatif Ouahbi to Asharq TV marked the first time Rabat has publicly raised the contentious issue since Ceuta’s border crisis in late July, during which an estimated 72,000 migrants briefly crossed into the enclave. At least 96 people died in the mass border rush.
Ouahbi said his country always raised the issue of the cities’ status in negotiations with Spain, with a long-term goal of achieving a resolution through dialogue.
Since its independence in 1956, Morocco has regarded Ceuta and Melilla as occupied by Spain, arguing sovereignty over them should ultimately be transferred to Rabat. Madrid considers them integral parts of its territory since the 17th and 15th centuries, respectively.
“Ceuta and Melilla aren’t just Spanish; they’re super-Spanish and cannot be touched,” Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles told reporters in Ceuta when asked about Ouahbi’s comments.
“Any attack on Ceuta and Melilla is an attack on Spain as a whole. It must never happen again,” she added, referring to the border crisis.
The Spanish government has largely praised Moroccan authorities for their cooperation in repatriating the migrants, blaming the crisis on people-smuggling mafias.
In a separate statement, Spain’s Foreign Ministry said Spain’s territorial integrity “has not been, and will never be, discussed with anyone”.
Separately, Morocco’s Interior Ministry said on Wednesday it had stepped up security near the borders with Ceuta and Melilla over online calls for another mass crossing attempt on August 15, warning it would prosecute organisers and participants.
“The ministry calls on everyone to remain vigilant and responsible and not to be drawn into such suspicious and misleading calls, given the risks they may pose to people’s lives,” it said in a statement, also urging Spain to accelerate the return of unaccompanied Moroccan minors in Ceuta.
Last week, Spanish Youth Minister Sira Rego said Madrid would evaluate Morocco’s offer to repatriate the children on a case-by-case basis.
Pope renews call to end violence against Palestinians in occupied West Bank
Pope Leo XIV on Sunday renewed his call for an end to violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and urged the international community to advance efforts toward a two-state solution, Anadolu reports.
Speaking after the weekly Angelus prayer, Leo called for an end “to the repeated acts of violence against the Palestinian population of the West Bank,” according to Vatican News.
He also issued an urgent appeal to the international community “to ensure that progress is made toward a two-state solution, for a just and lasting peace.”
READ: Pope Leo voices concern over ‘tragic’ situation in Sudan
The Vatican has consistently maintained that a two-state solution based on secure and internationally recognized borders is the only viable and equitable path toward lasting peace between Palestine and Israel.
The pope also marked the start of the Mediterranean Games in the southern Italian city of Taranto, expressing hope that the sporting event would serve as “a prophetic sign of peace and fraternity among the peoples of this region and of the whole world.”
Athletes from countries in Africa, Asia and Europe bordering the Mediterranean are taking part in the event.
READ: Pope Leo warns ‘winds of war’ again blowing across Middle East, Ukraine
