Reuters World News Summary

The areas under risk include major cities like New York, Boston and Philadelphia. New Zealand PM says Pacific region less secure due to China's assertiveness The Pacific region is becoming more contested and less secure as China becomes more assertive, New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said on Monday, outlining the country’s need to work with like-minded partners while still engaging with Beijing.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

China, Russia to start joint air and sea drill in Sea of Japan

A Chinese naval flotilla set off on Sunday to join Russian naval and air forces in the Sea of Japan in an exercise aimed at "safeguarding the security of strategic waterways", according to China's defence ministry. Codenamed "Northern/Interaction-2023", the drill marks enhanced military cooperation between China and Russia since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and is taking place as Beijing continues to rebuff U.S. calls to resume military communication.

Rescuers retrieve eight bodies from flooded South Korea underpass

The bodies of eight people trapped in a tunnel flooded by heavy rain in central South Korea were retrieved on Sunday, authorities said, with the death toll from days of torrential downpours that have pounded the country rising to 37. Seo Jeong-il, head of the west Cheongju fire station, said an estimated 15 vehicles, including a bus, were submerged in the underpass in the city shortly after a levee of a nearby river was destroyed by the downpours on Saturday.

Netanyahu ejects party activist over Holocaust mockery at judicial protest

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the ejection on Sunday of an activist from his Likud party who mocked the Holocaust while heckling anti-government protesters, in remarks that suggested ethnic tensions beneath a constitutional crisis. Video circulated on social media showed Itzik Zarka cursing and spitting at demonstrators at a traffic junction near the working-class town of Beit Shean on Saturday.

Hamas unable to pay salaries in Gaza after Qatari aid delay, officials say

The Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers have been unable to pay salaries for 50,000 public sector workers, with officials in part blaming a delay in a monthly payroll grant from Qatar, a crucial aid donor to the impoverished Palestinian enclave. The salary crisis has sparked an unusual amount of criticism on social media in Gaza, including by some of Hamas' own employees. A drop in tax revenue and a jump in spending has made the situation even more difficult.

Thousands evacuated as firefighters battle to control La Palma wildfire

Firefighters were trying to contain a wildfire which burned out of control and forced the evacuation of at least 4,000 people on the Spanish island of La Palma, authorities said on Sunday. The fire on La Palma started in the early hours of Saturday in El Pinar de Puntagorda, a wooded area in the north of the island, necessitating the evacuation of people from the villages of Puntagorda and neighbouring Tijarafe.

Flash floods in US northeast, heat warnings for 25% of population

An already rain-soaked New England braced for more downpours, with four people dead from flooding, and the National Weather Service warned of extreme heat for nearly a quarter of the U.S. population. The NWS said parts of New England and the Mid-Atlantic areas will get hit with storms "capable of producing torrential rainfall" ahead of a cold front approaching from the west. The areas under risk include major cities like New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

New Zealand PM says Pacific region less secure due to China's assertiveness

The Pacific region is becoming more contested and less secure as China becomes more assertive, New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said on Monday, outlining the country's need to work with like-minded partners while still engaging with Beijing. China's rise and how it seeks to exert that influence is a major driver of the increasing strategic competition, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, Hipkins said in a speech to the China Business Summit in Auckland.

'Heat storm' stretches into southern Europe, health alerts issued

Italy issued hot weather red alerts for 16 cities on Sunday, with meteorologists warning that temperatures will hit record highs across southern Europe in the coming days. Spain, Italy and Greece have been experiencing scorching temperatures for several days already, damaging agriculture and leaving tourists scurrying for shade.

Putin says Russia has stockpiled cluster bombs and will use them in Ukraine if it has to

President Vladimir Putin said Russia had a "sufficient stockpile" of cluster bombs and reserved the right to use them if such munitions, the use of which he said he regarded as a crime, were deployed against Russian forces in Ukraine. Ukraine said on Thursday it had received cluster bombs from the United States, its biggest military backer, which says the munitions are needed to compensate for shell shortages faced by Kyiv's forces at a time when they are mounting a counteroffensive.

Alzheimer's diagnosis revamp embraces rating scale similar to cancer

Alzheimer's disease experts are revamping the way doctors diagnose patients with the progressive brain disorder - the most common type of dementia - by devising a seven-point rating scale based on cognitive and biological changes in the patient. The proposed guidelines, unveiled by experts on Sunday in a report issued at an Alzheimer's Association conference in Amsterdam, embrace a numerical staging system assessing disease progression similar to the one used in cancer diagnoses. They also eliminate the use of terms like mild, moderate and severe.

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