ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday declared a national day of mourning for citizens who died when the fishing trawler packed with migrants they were in sank off the Greek coast.

As many as 750 men, women and children from Syria, Egypt, the Palestinian territories and Pakistan were on board the vessel, trying to reach relatives in Europe. The Greek coast guard has defended its response to the tragedy that left more than 500 migrants presumed drowned. The vessel sank on Wednesday.

17 June 2023; MEMO: Spanish charity Open Arms said it rescued 117 migrants on Saturday crowded onto a precarious wooden boat from Libya in the latest such perilous crossing over the Mediterranean sea, Reuters reports.

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — For nearly three years, a harsh crackdown on dissent in Belarus by its authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko has filled the country’s penal colonies with thousands of political prisoners, with new arrests reported daily.

At the same time, a government campaign has gotten rid of many independent lawyers, making it increasingly difficult for the detainees to mount any kind of legal defense.

June 18 (Reuters) - Russia reported fierce fighting on Sunday on three sections of the front line in Ukraine, a day after hosting an African peace mission that failed to spark enthusiasm from either Moscow or Kyiv.

A Russian-installed official said Ukraine had recaptured Piatykhatky, a village in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, and were entrenching themselves there while coming under fire from Russian artillery.

"The enemy's 'wave-like' offensives yielded results, despite enormous losses," the official, Vladimir Rogov, said on the Telegram messaging app.

TEHRAN, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Iran's border guards smashed a group of armed terrorists in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Sunday.

The terrorists sought to enter Iran through its southeastern border, but were ambushed by Iranian border guards, Mehr quoted Reza Shojaei, commander of Sistan and Baluchestan's border police, as saying, without detailing their affiliation.

One terrorist was killed and a number of them were injured in the operation that involved an exchange of fire between the two sides, he said.

MAIDAN SHAR, Afghanistan, Jun 18 (NNN-ANA) – One person was killed, as a mine left over from past wars, went off, in Afghanistan’s eastern Wardak province yesterday, a provincial police officer said, today.

Yesterday afternoon, an Afghan street worker was collecting garbage, on the streets of Maidan Shar city, capital of Wardak province, when an explosive device hidden among the trash exploded, killing the man on the spot, the official said.

A similar accident claimed the life of a child and injured two others in Afghanistan’s western Ghor province, last Monday.

Patna, Jun 18 (PTI) The Congress in Bihar would extend a "historic" welcome to Rahul Gandhi when he visits the state later this week, for the first time since making waves with 'Bharat Jodo Yatra', the party's state president Akhilesh Prasad Singh said on Sunday.

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — A bereaved Ugandan border town on Sunday began burying the victims of a brutal attack on a school by suspected extremist rebels that left 42 people dead, most of them students, as security forces stepped up patrols along the frontier with volatile eastern Congo.

One of eight people wounded in Friday night’s attack, in which 38 students were killed, died overnight, said Selevest Mapoze, mayor of the town of Mpondwe-Lhubiriha.

“Most of the relatives have come to take their bodies” from the morgue, he said.

LOD, Israel (AP) — A relentless wave of violent crime within Israel’s Palestinian minority is turning cities and towns into bloody battlefields, exasperating a community feeling increasingly forsaken by Israeli authorities.

Anger over the mounting insecurity is directed at Israel’s government and its ultranationalist minister in charge of police, Itamar Ben-Gvir. Critics say that with his history of anti-Arab rhetoric, he cannot be trusted to combat the rising scourge.

June 18 (Reuters) - Evidence suggests this month's destruction of the huge Kakhovka dam in a Russian-controlled area of Ukraine resulted from an inside explosion set off by Russia, the New York Times said.

Citing engineers and explosive experts, the newspaper said on Friday that its investigation found evidence suggesting an explosive charge in a passageway running through the dam's concrete base detonated, destroying the structure on June 6.

"The evidence clearly suggests the dam was crippled by an explosion set off by the side that controls it: Russia," the Times said.

ST. PETERSBURG, June 18. /TASS/: Russia will continue developing relations with Arab states and Persian Gulf states in particular, including in energy area, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview for RT.

"Russia will continue its cooperation with many states of the Arab world - first and foremost, Persian Gulf states - in the efforts on ensuring fair prices for energy, mainly oil. I am talking about the OPEC+ format. And we are, in general, are very satisfied with how our relations develop, and we will continue doing that," the spokesman said.

NEW DELHI, June 18 (Xinhua) -- The death toll in India's northern state Uttar Pradesh and its adjoining state Bihar due to the prevailing extreme heatwave conditions rose to 98 over the past three days, local officials said Sunday.

While 54 people have died in Uttar Pradesh, 44 people died in Bihar due to the hot weather. Most patients were aged above 60 years, according to the officials.