Global News Highlights: Tragedies, Tensions, and Turmoil

This summary covers significant world news, including a deadly fire at a lithium battery plant in South Korea, escalating tensions between China and Japan, deadly attacks in Russia's Dagestan, a contentious Gaza conflict, and various political events from the UK, Iran, and France. Economic and humanitarian crises in Gaza are also highlighted.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Blaze at South Korea lithium battery plant kills 22 workers

A lithium battery factory in South Korea was set on fire after multiple batteries exploded on Monday, killing 22 workers, most of them Chinese nationals, fire officials said. The fire and a series of explosions ripped through the factory run by primary battery manufacturer Aricell in Hwaseong, an industrial cluster southwest of the capital Seoul.

China coastguard says it 'drove away' Japanese boats near disputed islands

China's coastguard said on Monday it took "necessary control measures" against and "drove away" four Japanese fishing vessels and several patrol boats which entered the "territorial waters" of Diaoyu Islands between June 20-24. The waters around the islands are disputed and claimed by both China and Japan, which calls them the Senkaku Islands. The two sides have faced off in the waters, deploying patrol boats and urging the other to leave the area.

Death toll rises to 20 after gunmen attack Russia's Dagestan

The death toll from a series of brazen attacks on churches and synagogues in Russia's mainly Muslim region of Dagestan rose to 20 on Monday after gunmen went on the rampage in coordinated attacks in two of the republic's most important cities. Gunmen with automatic weapons burst into an Orthodox church and a synagogue in the ancient city of Derbent on Sunday evening, setting fire to an icon at the church and killing a 66-year-old Orthodox priest, Nikolai Kotelnikov.

Israel kills senior Gaza health official, tanks push deeper into Rafah

An Israeli air strike at a medical clinic in Gaza City killed the director of Gaza's Ambulance and Emergency Department, the enclave's health ministry said, while Israel's military said the strike had killed a senior Hamas armed commander. The health ministry said the killing of Hani al-Jaafarawi brought the number of medical staff killed by Israeli fire since Oct 7 to 500. At least 300 others have so far been detained.

Convicted UK nurse Lucy Letby says she never harmed any babies

Former nurse Lucy Letby, convicted last year of murdering seven babies and trying to kill six others, told an English court on Monday that she had never harmed or intended to harm a child in her care. Letby, 34, was found guilty last August of the multiple murders while she was working as a nurse in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, northern England, between June 2015 and June 2016.

For Iran's youth, legacy of 2022 clashes shapes presidential race

Atousa joined angry protests against Iran's rulers in 2022 that loyalists like Reza helped crush. Two years on, the two young Iranians' political views remain at odds, reflecting a rift that will shape the outcome of presidential elections this week. Now 22, Atousa says she will abstain from voting in Friday's ballot to choose a successor to Ebrahim Raisi after his death in a helicopter crash, regarding the exercise with derision.

Russia vows retaliation against US for Ukraine's ATACMS missile attack on Crimea

The Kremlin on Monday directly blamed the United States for an attack on Crimea with U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles that killed at least four people and injured 151, and Moscow formally warned the U.S. ambassador that retaliation would follow. The war in Ukraine has triggered the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and Russian officials have said that the conflict is entering the most dangerous escalatory phase to date.

UNRWA chief urges pushback against efforts to disband Palestinian agency

The head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) on Monday called on partners to fight back against efforts by Israel to have the organisation disbanded as it provides humanitarian assistance to Gaza and across the region. "Israel has long been critical of the agency's mandate. But it now seeks to end UNRWA's operations, dismissing the agency's status as a United Nations entity supported by an overwhelming majority of member states," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said at a meeting of the agency's advisory commission in Geneva.

Macron's ministers say a polarising French election risks stoking unrest

France could face civil disorder and violence connected to a snap parliamentary election in which the far-right looks poised to win the largest share of the vote, two ministers from President Emmanuel Macron's centrist government said on Monday. Marine Le Pen's nationalist, anti-immigrant Rassemblement National (RN) came first in European Union elections two weeks ago, prompting Macron to dissolve parliament and call an election that will take place just before the start of the Paris Olympics on July 26.

Gaza faces the threat of famine. How children starve.

Nearly 166 million people worldwide are estimated to need urgent action against hunger, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global partnership which measures food insecurity. That includes nearly everyone in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military launched an offensive in October following an attack on Israel by Hamas militants. More than one million of Gaza's inhabitants face the most extreme form of malnutrition – classified by the IPC as 'Catastrophe or Famine.'

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)