More than half of UK citizens would vote to rejoin the EU if a new referendum were held, a nationwide survey has shown. The poll comes eight years after the Brexit vote led to Britain leaving the bloc.

According to the YouGov poll, which surveyed over 2,000 British citizens late last month and was published on Tuesday, as many as 59% of respondents said they would vote for a return to the EU in a hypothetical new referendum. In contrast, 41% said they would be against rejoining the bloc.

Over 60% of voters said they would support closer relations with Brussels that would not involve formally rejoining the bloc or its single market or customs union. This was opposed by only 17% of respondents, while another 20% were unsure.

YouGov also reported that among British voters, as many as 55% believe that the UK’s decision to leave the European Union was the wrong move, while 34% stand by the decision.

Sweden's public health agency has recorded what it says is the first case of a more dangerous type of mpox outside the African continent.

The person became infected during a stay in an area of Africa where there is currently a major outbreak of mpox Clade 1, the agency said.

The news comes just hours after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the outbreak of mpox in parts of Africa was now a public health emergency of international concern.

At least 450 people died during an initial outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the disease has since spread to areas of Central and East Africa.

According to Olivia Wigzell, the acting head of the Swedish public health agency, the infected person had sought care in the Stockholm area and the fact that they were receiving treatment in Sweden did not mean there was a risk to the broader population.

"The affected person has also been infected during a stay in an area of Africa where there is a large outbreak of mpox Clade 1," she told a news conference.

Mpox, which was previously known as monkeypox, is transmitted through close contact, such as sex, skin-to-skin contact and talking or breathing close to another person.

The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) may soon be allowed to secretly enter and search homes, according to a draft reform proposal seen by Der Spiegel and RND.

According to the document, police would also have the power to install spyware on suspects’ computers or smartphones, in addition to conducting covert searches of their homes. These powers would supposedly only be used in exceptional circumstances.

The Interior Ministry has defended the initiative, claiming that the BKA plays a central role in countering international terrorism threats. A spokesperson refused to discuss details of the proposal, which is still at a very early stage, but told Der Spiegel on Wednesday that security agencies must have the necessary powers to effectively counter evolving threats.

Critics have voiced concerns that such far-reaching interventions could undermine the rule of law, as the inviolability of the home is enshrined in Article 13 of the German constitution. Unless there is an “imminent threat,” the current process for searches requires a warrant from the prosecutor's office, while police must inform the person of specific suspicions and the purpose of the search.

Calls to denounce “die hard" Taiwanese secessionists, a tipline to report them and punishments that could include the death penalty for “ringleaders” – Beijing’s familiar rhetoric against Taiwan is turning dangerously real.

The democratically-governed island has grown used to China’s claims. Even the planes and ships that test its defences have become a routine provocation. But the recent moves to criminalise support for it are unnerving Taiwanese who live and work in China, and those back home.

“I am currently planning to speed up my departure,” a Taiwanese businesswoman based in China said – this was soon after the Supreme Court ushered in changes allowing life imprisonment and even the death penalty for those guilty of advocating for Taiwanese independence.

“I don’t think that is making a mountain out of a molehill. The line is now very unclear,” says Prof Yu Jie, a legal scholar at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office was quick to assure the 23 million Taiwanese that this is not targeted at them, but at an “extremely small number of hard-line independence activists”. The “vast majority of Taiwanese compatriots have nothing to fear,” the office said.

Ukraine’s advance into Russia’s Kursk Region appears to have weakened the front in the Donetsk People’s Republic, where Russian forces have advanced on the key junction of Pokrovsk, Politico has reported.

Kiev sent several thousand troops across the Russian border last week, intending to force Moscow to pull reserves from elsewhere. Instead, Russia has continued to hammer Ukrainian positions in Donbass.

“I would say things have become worse in our part of the front,” Ivan Sekach, spokesman for Ukraine’s 110th Mechanized Brigade, told Politico. “We have been getting even less ammo than before and Russians are pushing.”

The 110th is currently deployed on the Pokrovsk portion of the front, where Russian forces have made significant gains in the past 24 hours. The Ukrainian military would not confirm any details to Politico, saying only that it was reinforcing the area.

Pokrovsk is the key road and rail hub for supplying Ukrainian forces in Donbass. By taking the town, Russian forces would turn the flank of the Ukrainians still holding on to Chasov Yar, Konstantinovka, and Toretsk.

Ukrainian soldiers and officials have told Western media that the incursion in Kursk was intended to seize some territory that could be used as a bargaining chip in talks with Russia, as well as forcing Moscow to divert troops from Donbass.

The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor says out of nearly 17,000 Palestinian children Israel has killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, virtually 2,100 were babies under the age of two.

“The number of Palestinian children – whether infants or children in general – killed by the Israeli army is horrifying, and the rate of their killing is unprecedented in the history of modern wars,” it said.

“It also represents a dangerous trend based on the dehumanization of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel’s military targets Palestinians and their children daily, methodically, and widely in the most heinous and brutal ways possible, and virtually without pause for 10 consecutive months.”

August Hanning has claimed that there appears to have been a secret arrangement between Kiev and Warsaw

Poland was likely involved in the underwater explosions that ruptured the Nord Stream underwater gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea in September 2022, the former president of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency has claimed. August Hanning also alleged that Warsaw has intentionally obstructed Berlin’s investigation into the incident.

No one has so far claimed responsibility for the blasts, which brought an end to the supply of Russian gas to Germany via Nord Stream 1 and damaged the parallel Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which had never entered operation due to EU bureaucratic setbacks.

In an interview with Die Welt on Thursday, Hanning said: “The way it seems is that it was a Ukrainian team that, as per the findings of the investigation, operated there.” However, he added, “this was of course only possible with support from the land.”

“When we look at the map… pretty evidently, the Polish agencies were engaged here, and I think not only agencies …I think that this was an arrangement between [people] at the top level in Ukraine and in Poland,” the former intelligence chief conjectured.

He alleged that Warsaw might have provided logistical support to the suspected Ukrainian saboteurs.

According to Hanning, “these are decisions that were made at the highest political level. And I think that there was an arrangement between [Ukrainian] President [Vladimir] Zelensky and [Polish] President [Andrzej] Duda to carry out this attack.”

He claimed that Polish authorities let one of the suspects leave the country even though Germany had already reached out to Warsaw, requesting assistance in his capture.

From RT.

It's actually really amazing footage - he totally headbutts the drone and he survives..! He walks away very normally and goes to hide in some trees.

This makes some sense - a high quality helmet can stop a direct .776 bullet to the head one time.

None of the shrapnel in one of these drones likely has that kind of force.

I imagine that he has big wounds from shrapnel on his shoulders, but I really don't know. Who knows, really... It depends on so much and there's just no information.

Truly, amazing footage.

I hope we can get the full story someday.

Thai tourists appear to be acting on the grassroots social media hashtag "Ban Korea," with the boycott campaign appearing to have manifested a travel preference for Japan and China over South Korea.

From the Thai perspective, problems with South Korea's strict immigration checks have festered since last year. After landing in the country, some Thais with electronic preapproval are being turned back by immigration agents, costing the would-be tourists hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

South Korea blames the trouble on illegal workers showing up from Thailand.

"I was rejected by the immigration and was sent back to Bangkok immediately last year," said Eve Khokesuwan, a 42-year-old housekeeper from the northeastern town of Kalasin. As she could not speak fluent English, she had no choice but to obey the Korean authority.

"I don't want to go to Korea anymore because it was the most stressful trip ever. I felt a very bad impression [of South Korea]," she said.

The Thai hashtag began spreading on X in the final quarter of last year. Then, in the first four months of this year the number of Thais visiting South Korea fell 21% from the year-earlier trimester, to 119,000, according to the Korea Tourism Organization.

In 2019, before COVID shut down global travel, 572,000 Thai tourists made it through South Korean immigration.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday Russia’s leadership was “hyper rational” and that Ukraine would never be able to fulfil its hopes of becoming a member of the European Union or NATO.

Orban, a nationalist in power since 2010, made the comments during a speech in which he forecast a shift in global power away from the “irrational” West towards Asia and Russia.

“In the next long decades, maybe centuries, Asia will be the dominant centre of the world,” Orban said, mentioning China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia as the world’s future big powers.

“And we Westerners pushed the Russians into this bloc as well,” he said in the televised speech before ethnic Hungarians at a festival in the town of Baile Tusnad in neighbouring Romania.

A Labour councillor has been suspended after he was seen saying far-right rioters should have their throats cut.

Ricky Jones, who sits on Dartford Borough Council, was seen riling up the crowd in Walthamstow last night as he railed against 'disgusting nasty fascists'.

Speaking to the crowd of hundreds of people Jones, who is an organiser for the TSSA union, accused members of the far-right of putting National Front stickers with razor blades hidden behind them on trains.

He then launched into an inflammatory speech, saying: 'They are disgusting nasty fascists and we need to cut all their throats and get rid of them all.'

This drew some cheers and sporadic applause from people stood around him, with some people looking shocked at his reference to cutting throats, before he leads the crowd in a chant of 'Free Palestine'.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — The man who is considered the heir apparent to the powerful Rajapaksa family in Sri Lanka will contest the presidential election in September, his political party said Wednesday, in an apparent bid to regain his family’s lost power after a humiliating setback two years ago during an unprecedented economic crisis in the Indian ocean island nation.

The Sri Lanka People’s Front said the 38-year-old lawyer Namal Rajapaksa, the eldest son of former strongman president Mahinda Rajapaksa, will be its candidate in the Sept. 21 election, the first since the nation plunged into its worst economic crisis.

The election is seen as key to Sri Lanka’s efforts to conclude a critical debt restructuring program and completing the financial reforms agreed to under a bailout program by the International Monetary Fund.

The nominations for polling will be accepted on Aug. 15.

The law now bans the "propaganda, promotion or incitement in any way, directly or indirectly, in the education system of ideas and views related to non-traditional sexual orientation and/or gender identity other than the biological one." In 2021, Hungary also passed a similar law, banning LGBTQ+ "promotion" to minors

In a video posted on Twitter/X, CEO Linda Yaccarino announced an antitrust lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) over what she calls a "systemic illegal boycott" of the platform.

She cites a July report from the \House Judiciary Committee titled, "GARM's (Global Alliance for Responsible Media) Harm," which alleges that "through GARM, large corporations, advertising agencies, and industry associations participated in boycotts and other coordinated action to demonetize platforms, podcasts, news outlets, and other content deemed disfavored by GARM and its members."

In an open letter to advertisers, Yaccarino further explains: "The report disclosed that their investigation had found evidence of an illegal boycott against many companies, including X."

The report found: "Evidence obtained by the Committee shows that GARM and its members directly organized boycotts and used other indirect tactics to target disfavored platforms, content creators, and news organizations in an effort to demonetize and, in effect, limit certain choices for consumers."

"The consequence - perhaps the intent - of this boycott was to seek to deprive X’s users, be they sports fans, gamers, journalists, activists, parents or political and corporate leaders, of the Global Town Square," Yaccarino wrote.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said “it may be just and moral” to starve 2 million Gaza residents until Israeli hostages are returned, but “no one in the world would let us.”

In a speech on Monday at the Katif Conference for National Responsibility in the town of Yad Binyamin, the far-right minister said Israel should take control of distributing aid inside Gaza and claimed that Hamas was in control of distribution channels within the strip.

“It is impossible in today’s global reality to wage war – no one in the world would let us starve and thirst two million citizens, even though it may be just and moral until they return our hostages,” he said, adding that if Israel controlled aid distribution instead of Hamas, the war would have ended by now and the hostages would have returned.

“You cannot fight Hamas with one hand and give them aid with the other. It’s his (Hamas’) money, it’s his fuel, it’s his civilian control of the Gaza Strip. It just doesn’t work,” he said.

An online row has broken out between British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Tesla CEO Elon Musk over anti-immigration riots in the UK.

More than a dozen cities and towns have been gripped by chaotic protests, triggered by a deadly knife attack in Southport, England.

Musk claimed that “civil war was inevitable,” commenting a video on X (formerly Twitter) that showed the street clashes. The video was posted by a user that suggested the root cause was mass immigration to the UK and open-border policies.

Downing Street hit back against the statement. “There is no justification for comments like that,” Starmer’s spokesperson told reporters, calling the riots “organized, illegal thuggery which has no place on our streets or online.”

The prime minister slammed the actions of troublemakers, and pledged to field a “standing army of public duty officers” in response.

“The criminal law applies online as well as offline, and I’m assured that is the approach that is being taken,” Starmer said in a statement released on X. “Whatever the apparent motivation, this is not protest. It is pure violence, and we will not tolerate attacks on mosques or our Muslim communities,” he stressed.

Hamas has named Yahya Sinwar as the new head of its political bureau, elevating the hardline militant to the group’s top post after the assassination in Teheran of its previous political leader.

Sinwar’s appointment was announced in a brief statement by Hamas on Tuesday that was aired on pro-Hamas Iranian state media channels.

Sinwar, the Hamas military leader who is seen as the mastermind behind the 7 October attack against Israel, is believed to be hiding in the series of tunnels underneath Gaza. He is the group’s chief decision-maker in Gaza, and is believed to hold control over the estimated 120 Israeli hostages who are still in Hamas’s custody.

As Kyiv Post reported earlier, Russia has allegedly transferred Iskander and Murmansk-BN ballistic missile systems to Tehran after Iran threatened to strike Israel in retaliation for the killing of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

Iran, which has supplied Russia with military aid including hundreds of Shahed kamikaze drones for Moscow’s war on Ukraine, has now asked for support from the Kremlin. According to the New York Times Tehran took the opportunity presented by this week’s visit of Sergei Shoigu, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, to provide much needed advanced air defense systems as the likelihood of war with Israel escalates.

Shoigu met with newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian, Secretary of Iran’s National Security Council Ali Akbar Ahmadian, as well as Chief of the General Staff Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, who is believed to be in charge of plans for attacks on Israel.

Following the meetings, Shoigu said that Russia is “ready for full cooperation with Iran on regional issues,” while Bagheri said relations between the countries were “deep, long-term and strategic,” adding that they will only expand under Iran’s new leadership.

According to the NYT, citing two Iranian officials familiar with military planning, including a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Russia has already begun to supply modern radars and air defense systems. This despite the historically close economic and cultural ties with Israel resulting from its large of Russian Jewish population. Analysts believe Moscow could not reject Tehran's appeals as it is increasingly relying on Iranian along with North Korean military support for its war against Ukraine.

An estimated 800,000 Ukrainian men have gone “underground” due to the threat of military mobilization amid the conflict with Russia, a senior MP in Kiev, Dmitry Natalukha, has told the Financial Times. The lawmaker stated the case for economic-driven exemptions from the draft.

Kiev introduced a harsh new system for military conscription earlier this year, which was intended to discourage draft avoidance through the threat of serious punishment. One consequence was that businesses operating legally in Ukraine are now at a disadvantage compared to those in the ‘shadow economy,’ the FT explained. Draft-dodgers change their addresses and prefer to be paid in cash to stay under the radar, it added.

“We are working at the limit,” the HR director of a large steel mill told the newspaper, explaining the issues his company faces due to workforce shortages. The FT reported on Sunday how Ukrainian MPs plan to tackle the problem by revamping the system for draft exemptions.

One proposal penned by Natalukha, the chair of the Economic Development Committee, would allow businesses to shield up to 50% of their employees from mobilization by paying a fixed fee of about $490 per month. A competing bill would protect anyone with a wage over a threshold of $890, who are presumably of greater value to the war effort when contributing to the economy than they would be if sent to fight.

Natalukha told the FT that his proposal would keep around 895,000 men from military service and generate roughly $4.9 billion for Kiev’s war chest.

A group of 16 Ukrainian draft dodgers, as well as two foreigners who are now accused of smuggling, have been caught by law enforcement while attempting to leave the country in a refrigerator truck, Odessa police announced on Monday.

The military-age men were found hiding inside the truck behind a haul of large pieces of beef. The meat truck was heading for Moldova and was operated by the two foreigners, the police have said, without elaborating on the nationality of the suspected smugglers.

Each of the would-be dodgers paid between $6,000 and $8,000 to the smugglers for the trip, according to the police. The smugglers had allegedly offered additional ‘services’ to their clients, namely promising to get their documents properly stamped as if they had entered Moldova legally and charging an additional €2,000 (some $2,200) for this.

Media reports, however, suggested the figure was at least three times as high, with significant numbers seeking to leave Ukraine actually succeeding in their endeavor.

Israeli forces have abducted more than 2,000 bodies exhumed from various cemeteries across the Gaza strip, with reports from the Gaza government media office saying some corpses have been returned after Israeli forces "desecrated the bodies" of the deceased.

Gaza’s Government Media Office in a statement on Monday said that Israel has stolen 2,000 Palestinian bodies since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza on October 7 and returned some in an inhumane manner.

“Over the course of 304 days of the genocide, the occupation has kidnapped more than 2,000 bodies of martyrs from dozens of cemeteries in the governorates of the Gaza Strip, which the occupation bulldozed with bulldozers and military vehicles and turned their graves over, in a scene that violates humanity and human feelings,” the statement reads.

The statement added that “the Israeli occupation army desecrates the dignity of the bodies of 89 martyrs, handing them over as skeletons and decomposed corpses.”

Meanwhile, director of the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, Yamen Abu Suleiman, said on Monday they had "received 80 bodies inside 15 bags, with more than four martyrs in each bag, each wrapped in a single shroud.”

Abu Suleiman added that Israeli forces did not provide any information about the bodies, including their names or where they were found or taken from, which he said is “a war crime, a crime against humanity.”

"We do not know if they are martyrs (killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip) or detainees who had been tortured and killed in (Israeli) jails", he said, adding that the bodies will be screened and examined in an attempt to identify them and determine the causes of death.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has resigned after weeks of deadly anti-government protests, putting an end to her more than two decades dominating the country's politics.

Ms Hasina, 76, fled the country, reportedly landing in India on Monday.

Jubilant crowds took to the streets to celebrate the news, with some storming the prime ministerial palace, reportedly looting and vandalising parts of her former residence. Hours after Ms Hasina's resignation, President Mohammed Shahabuddin ordered the release of jailed former prime minister Khaleda Zia and all students detained during recent protests against a quota system for government jobs.

President Shahabuddin said he had chaired a meeting of army chiefs and political representatives.

He said an interim government would be formed, new elections called and a national curfew lifted.

In Dhaka on Monday, police and other government buildings were attacked and set on fire. Protesters attempted to tear down a statue of independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Ms Hasina's father.

Army and police units were deployed across the city. Mobile phone service was reportedly cut off for several hours before being restored.

On Monday, protesters were seen carrying out furniture from the prime minister's residence.