Spain’s maritime rescue service has saved 334 migrants and recovered four bodies from boats it intercepted trying to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

The rescue service says its patrol craft reached nine different boats carrying migrants that had left from African shores throughout Saturday and early Sunday.

One boat found Sunday was carrying four dead bodies along with 49 migrants. The rescue service said the cause of death has yet to be determined.

Driven by violent conflicts and extreme poverty, tens of thousands of migrants attempt to reach southern Europe each year by crossing the Mediterranean in smugglers’ boats. Most of the boats are unfit for open water, and thousands drown annually.

The U.N. says at least 785 migrants have died crossing the Mediterranean so far this year. Through the first five months of 2018, a total of 27,482 migrants reached European shores, with 7,614 of them arriving in Spain.

Further to the east, Libya’s coast guard intercepted 152 migrants, including women and children, in the Mediterranean Sea, from two boats stopped Saturday off the coast of the western Zuwara district and the capital, Tripoli.

The migrants were taken to a naval base in Tripoli.

Libya was plunged into chaos following a 2011 uprising and is now split between rival governments in the east and west. The lawless in Libya has made it a popular place to head off to Europe for migrants fleeing poverty and conflict.

Source: Associated Press

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Voters in the Swiss region of Valais have voted against a bid to host the 2026 Winter OIympics in the town of Sion.

The dpa news agency reported that voters refused to pledge financial support by a vote of 54 percent.

Sion Mayor Philippe Varone said the vote Sunday was the end of the bid. He says “there is no Plan B.”

Sion offered what the bidders termed a sustainable Olympics relying on already existing jumps and ski courses. Voters rejected assurances from the International Olympic Committee and bid supporters that expensive new construction would not be needed.

Sites that are still in the running include Turin and Milan in Italy; Graz in Austria; Stockholm; Turkey’s Erzurum; Calgary, Canada; and Sapporo, Japan.

The decision will be made in fall 2019.

Source: Associated Press

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Italy’s economy minister says the new populist government isn’t discussing any proposal to leave the eurozone.

Minister Giovanni Tria, in an interview in Sunday’s Corriere della Sera newspaper, said “not only do we not want to exit” the 19-member shared currency union, but the coalition is determined to act so conditions don’t occur to “put our presence in the euro(zone) up for discussion.”

He called the week-old Italian government’s position on the euro “clear and unanimous.”

Tria, an economics policy professor, was a last-minute choice to replace the coalition’s preferred pick for the post, an economist who has advocated having a backup plan to abandon the euro. Italy’s president refused to approve hiring that economist, citing fears that championing such a plan would further roil the financial markets.

Source: Associated Press

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For Iran, the so-called “Axis of Evil” has boiled down to a party of one, as President Donald Trump prepares for direct talks with North Korea.

With Saddam Hussein overthrown and Kim Jong Un now preparing for a planned meeting in Singapore with Trump, Iran remains the last renegade among former President George W. Bush’s grouping of nations opposed to the U.S.

For those in Tehran, whether hard-liners, reformists or people simply trying to get by in Iran’s worsening economy, it’s head-spinning, especially after seeing Trump pull America out of the nuclear deal with world powers.

“I am buying my insulin shots at double the price only because of Trump’s decision,” fumed Najmeh Songhori, a 35-year-old diabetic mother of two standing in front of a pharmacy in central Tehran. “Meanwhile he is trying to reach a deal with North Korea. Who is going to trust him?”

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Excited crowds flooded the streets after the 2015 nuclear deal that Iran struck with world powers, including the U.S. under President Barack Obama.

The deal saw Iran agree to limit uranium enrichment in its nuclear program, which the West feared could be used to build a nuclear weapon. For Iran, which long has maintained its atomic program was for peaceful purposes, the deal took the shackles of sanctions off its economy and opened up its oil sales abroad.

No one believed it would bring massive change to Iran, which remains a Shiite theocracy overseen by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But many hoped it would encourage further negotiations and normalize Iran’s…

Thousands of women turned British cities into rivers of green, white and violet Sunday to mark 100 years since the first women won the right to vote in the U.K.

Part artwork, part parade, “Processions” saw women march through London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast wearing scarves in the colors of the suffragette movement that fought for the female franchise.

The London march flowed in bands of color through the heart of the city, along Piccadilly and around Trafalgar Square before heading to Parliament, the seat of British political power.

In 1918, Parliament enacted the Representation of the People Act, which granted property-owning British women over 30 the right to vote. It would be another decade before women won the same voting rights as men.

Sunday’s celebration was organized by arts group Artichoke, which specializes in large-scale, participatory events. It asked 100 artists to work with women’s groups around the country on banners inspired by the bold designs of the suffragettes, who led a decades-long campaign of protest and civil disobedience to get votes for women.

The London march featured banners from Brownie packs and arts groups, an organization for female ex-prisoners and the Worshipful Company of Upholders, an upholsterers’ guild. Some participants dressed as Edwardian suffragettes or wore sashes in green, white or violet.

One woman had knitted a pendant with the suffragette slogan “Deeds not words.” Another came with a banner evoking the modern-day women’s movement: “Nevertheless she persisted.”

Women came from across England and even further…

With all the international attention focused on Singapore and the historic summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Pyongyang must be buzzing with excitement, right?

Well, it might be, if anyone knew what was going on.

Instead, it’s like the center of the storm.

With few sources of information other than the state-run media, gossip and word of mouth, most North Koreans are still largely in the dark about the momentous — and potentially life-changing — events that are about to take place outside of their isolated nation.

The official media has reported that the two leaders plan to meet, but has offered few specifics, including where and when. There was no official word that Kim had left the country Sunday and arrived in Singapore, hours before Trump.

The top news lately has instead been tremendously mundane, all things considered — a visit by Kim to a seafood restaurant in Pyongyang.

Word does get around, however, and it is quite likely that the prospect of a meeting between Kim and Trump is on the public’s radar. The meeting could have a major and direct impact on their daily lives, so it is only natural that people would want to know. But without a robust and independent media, accurate news is less likely and exaggeration and gossip probably abound.

If it follows the usual routine, state media will probably wait until the event is over before it puts out its first reports. News that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited North Korea was front page news with a big photo of him shaking Kim’s hand the following day in the ruling…