Iran and US hit tankers in biggest wave of attacks on shipping since war began

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By Enas Alashray, Idrees Ali and Jana Choukeir Reuters Iran said on Wednesday it had attacked 10 ships near the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S. sank five Iranian oil tankers, in the biggest wave of attacks on shipping by both sides since the start of the six-month-old war. The attacks sent the price of ‌oil surging, with benchmark Brent crude futures breaching $100 a barrel for the first time since July. At least one seafarer aboard a tanker was reported killed and another listed as missing. The ‌incidents follow a month of relative calm, during which the U.S. has sought to pressure Iran through economic means. Iran said it had fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. military base in Jordan. Jordan said it intercepted 18 missiles, with the remaining two ​falling harmlessly in unpopulated areas. A U.S. official said all American troops were accounted for. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it would sharply escalate its response to any further attacks, and said I...
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One Salvadoran goes missing each day under security crackdown, NGOs say

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El Salvador, a small Central American nation whose government has spearheaded a brutal crackdown on criminal gangs, is seeing one person go missing each day, according to a group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) citing prosecutors’ data.

The attorney general’s office counted 366 people who went missing in the 12 months to May 31 this year, the Working Group for Missing Persons in El Salvador, an association of nine NGOs, reported on Wednesday.

El Salvador’s government, meanwhile, reports more than 650 days without any homicides since President Nayib Bukele came to power in June of 2019.

Bukele launched a so-called state-of-exception in March 2022, under which certain civil rights are suspended, suspects have been sent to mass trials and a “mega-prison” has been built.

He has won widespread popularity for improving security, securing re-election with a landslide 85% of the vote this February, but human rights groups have reported dozens of deaths in custody and said children have been arbitrarily detained, tortured and beaten.

Bukele has affirmed that El Salvador is the “safest country in the Western Hemisphere.”

Idalia Zepeda, a member of the NGO association, said the 366 missing people reported in the last year would mark an almost 10% increase compared to United Nations and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) estimates for the previous year.

The NGOs launched a portal for citizens to register missing people online, in order to better measure the figures and support victims’ families.

Representatives for the NGOs said this registry should not replace the work of government in providing accurate information to the public.

They also criticized government human rights commissioner Andres Guzman for lack of transparency on El Salvador’s missing people.

Neither Guzman’s office nor the attorney general’s office immediately responded to a request for comment.

SOURCE: REUTERS AND AGENCIES



from The Times Of Earth https://ift.tt/qbH3O0z

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