Body of missing man found on melting glacier after 28 years. Khaplu, Pakistan -- The family of a missing man whose body was discovered on a melting glacier in Pakistan after 28 years said Thursday its recovery had brought them some relief.

The body of 31-year-old Nasiruddin was spotted by locals near the edge of the shrinking Lady Meadows glacier in the Kohistan region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

His family said he and his brother had fled to the mountains after a dispute in their village in 1997 when he fell into a crevasse. His brother survived.

“Our family left no stone unturned to trace him over the years,” Malik Ubaid, the nephew of the deceased, told AFP over the phone.

“Our uncles and cousins visited the glacier several times to see if his body could be retrieved, but they eventually gave up as it wasn’t possible.”

Nasiruddin, who went by one name, was a husband and father of two children.

His well-preserved body, still carrying an identity card, was found on July 31 by a local shepherd and buried on Wednesday.

“Finally, we have got some relief after the recovery of his dead body,” Ubaid said.

Kohistan is a mountainous region where the outer reaches of the Himalayas stretch.

Pakistan is home to more than 13,000 glaciers, more than anywhere else on Earth outside the poles.

Rising global temperatures linked to human-driven climate change, however, are causing the glaciers to rapidly melt.

AFP

#WORLD: #News. White House says #Trump could meet with #Putin, #Zelenskyy next week

The U.S. is auctioning a seized US$325M #Russian yacht with 8 state rooms, a helipad, a gym and a spa.

The auction, which closes Sept. 10, comes as U.S. President Donald #Trump seeks to increase pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war. The U.S. has said it’s working with allies to put pressure on Russian oligarchs, some of whom are close to Putin and have had their yachts seized, to try to compel him to stop the war.

The 348-foot-long (106-metre-long) yacht, seized three years ago and currently docked in San Diego, was custom built by the German company Lürssen in 2017. Designed by François Zuretti, the yacht features an interior with extensive marble work, eight state rooms, a beauty salon, a spa, a gym, a helipad, a swimming pool and an elevator. It accommodates 16 guests and 36 crew members.

Determining the real ownership of the Amadea has been an issue of contention because of an opaque trail of trusts and shell companies. The yacht is registered in the Cayman Islands and is owned by Millemarin Investments Ltd., also based in the Cayman Islands.

The U.S. contends that Suleiman Kerimov, an economist and former Russian politician, who was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018 for alleged money laundering, owns the yacht. Meanwhile, Eduard Khudainatov, a former chairman and chief executive of the state-controlled Russian oil and gas company Rosneft, who has not been sanctioned, claims to own it.

U.S. prosecutors say Khudainatov is a straw owner of the yacht, intended to conceal the yacht’s true owner, Kerimov. Litigation over the true ownership of the yacht is ongoing.

A representative of Khudainatov said in an emailed statement Wednesday that the planned sale of the yacht is “improper and premature” since Khudainatov is appealing a forfeiture ruling.

“We doubt it will attract any rational buyer at fair market price, because ownership can, and will, be challenged in courts outside the United States, exposing purchasers to years of costly, uncertain litigation,” said the representative, Adam Ford.

The yacht has been virtually untouched since the National Maritime Services took custody of it in 2022. To submit a sealed bid on it, bidders must put in a 10 million euro deposit, the equivalent of roughly $11.6 million, to be considered.

Ford said Khudainatov would go after any proceeds from the sale of the yacht, estimated to be worth $325 million.

“Should the government press ahead simply to staunch the mounting costs it is imposing on the American taxpayer, we will pursue the sale proceeds, and any shortfall from fair market value, once we prevail in court,” Ford said.

A U.S. aid package for Ukraine signed into law in May 2024 gave the U.S. the ability to seize Russian state assets located in the U.S. and use them for the benefit of Kyiv, which was attacked by Russia in February 2022.

Fatima Hussein, The Associated Press

The Western Cape High Court is currently mediating discussions between the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Cape Union Mart to determine how to proceed with the retailer’s court application against ongoing protests at its stores.

Prince Harry cleared of ‘bullying’ in African charity row. The charity Sentebale was at the centre of an explosive boardroom dispute in late March and April when its chairperson Sophie Chandauka publicly accused Harry, the youngest son of the U.K.’s King Charles III, of “bullying”.

Days earlier, Harry and co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho had announced they were resigning from the charity they established in 2006, after the trustees quit when Chandauka refused their demand to step down.

Harry, also known as the Duke of Sussex, launched the charity in honour of his mother, Princess Diana, to help young people with HIV and AIDS in Lesotho and later Botswana.

After its months-long inquiry, the U.K.-based Charity Commission “found no evidence of widespread or systemic bullying or harassment, including misogyny or misogynoir at the charity,” it said in its conclusions published Wednesday.

But it “criticised all parties to the dispute for allowing it to play out publicly” saying the “damaging internal dispute” then “severely impacted the charity’s reputation”.

It added there was “a lack of clarity in delegations” and added this led to “mismanagement in the administration of the charity”.

It has issued the charity with a plan to “address governance weaknesses”.

Harry said in an April statement that the events had “been heartbreaking to witness, especially when such blatant lies hurt those who have invested decades in this shared goal”.

Chandauka had accused Harry of trying to force her out through “bullying (and) harassment” in an interview with Sky News.

In one example, Chandauka, who was appointed to the voluntary post in 2023, criticised Harry for his decision to bring a Netflix camera crew to the charity’s polo fundraiser last year, as well as an unplanned appearance by his wife Meghan at the event.

The accusations were a fresh blow for the prince, who kept up only a handful of his private patronages including with Sentebale after a dramatic split with the British royal family in 2020, leaving the U.K. to live in North America with his wife and children.

“Moving forward I urge all parties not to lose sight of those who rely on the charity’s services,” said the commission’s chief executive David Holdsworth, adding improvements should now be made.

Harry chose the name Sentebale as a tribute to Diana, who died in a Paris car crash in 1997 when the prince was just 12. It means “forget me not” in the Sesotho language and is also used to say goodbye.

#Mystery deepens after police ID body of boy found under bridge in 1972.

A 4-year-old boy who was found dead in Lorton, Va., more than 50 years ago, and whose name has remained a mystery, has finally been identified after a flood of tips, a series of DNA tests and decades of twists and turns.

Fairfax County police Chief Kevin Davis announced the breakthrough Monday, saying the child’s identification has led police to two people who are believed to have been involved in his killing, and another missing boy whose body has never been discovered.

The case of the boy, identified as 4-year-old Carl Matthew Bryant, confounded police and the public for decades. According to Assistant Chief Brooke Wright, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received more tips on Bryant’s case than any other in the state of Virginia.

Bryant’s body was found under the Old Colchester Road Bridge in Lorton on June 13, 1972, by a boy who was biking home from school. Bryant was killed by blunt force trauma and remained unidentified, as there were no matching missing person reports.

In 2003, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children put out a computer-generated sketch of the boy that led to numerous tips, but no answer.

Police then turned to the smallest clippings of hair, which one of the original case detectives saved during the child’s autopsy. The hair was barely visible — no more than specks resembling razor stubble — but the FBI was able to extract some DNA from the hair in 2004.

“Why he collected hair back in 1972? He certainly wasn’t forecasting, I believe, that science would be available down the road, but maybe it was just the hair color. Who knows why he did it, but thank God he did do it,” Davis said.

Still though, initially no match was found, and the case stalled.

“There was no match, so I want to say 2016, they tried to get more DNA, so we thought to try to exhume Carl’s body from Coleman Cemetery in Alexandria, but unfortunately his tombstone had been washed away from the derecho that happened in 2012,” cold case detective Melissa Wallace said.

Then, recently, a breakthrough. A forensics company called Astrea was able to use genetic genealogy to trace the boy’s DNA to his mother, a woman named Vera Bryant, who had died in 1980.

She lived in Philadelphia, and relatives told police that on June 13, 1972 — the day Carl Bryant was found dead — she had driven from Philadelphia to Middlesex County, Va., with her boyfriend James Hedgepeth and her son Carl Bryant. But there was another passenger police hadn’t known about, 6-month-old James Bryant, Vera’s second son.

When James Hedgepeth and Vera arrived in Middlesex to meet with Hedgepeth’s family, the couple had no children with them, according to Assistant Chief Wright. On Thanksgiving that same year, Vera’s children were not with her, and she told her family her boys were with Hedgepeth in Virginia.

It was a disturbing twist in the case. After speaking with Vera’s relatives, police discovered it wasn’t just Carl who was gone, but baby James Bryant, whose body still hasn’t been found.

Vera Bryant and James Hedgepeth are both now dead, leaving police with unanswered questions as to what happened on that trip from Philadelphia to Virginia, and how 6-month-old James Bryant could disappear without a trace.

Authorities did extract DNA from Vera’s remains and confirm her as the mother of Carl Bryant, bringing a decades-old mystery to a close while unearthing entirely new ones.

According to Wright, police believe both boys were killed on that road trip down the East Coast, and that 6-month-old James Bryant’s body was also discarded along the way. Upon discovering Carl Bryant’s body, police had searched the area in Lorton for days, but did not find any other remains, nor did they know there was a second child they should have been looking for.

“We ask the public’s help in filling in the missing information,” Wright said. “Perhaps somebody witnessed something along that route that day, or maybe Vera or James confided in someone before they had died. Maybe another jurisdiction had recovered a 6-month-old baby’s remains, and didn’t have any way to tie it to this case.”

Chief Davis said police want to know much more about James Hedgepeth, but what they do know is that he was previously convicted of murder in 1962 and had served time in prison. He met Vera after that prison stint, according to police, and was not the father of either of her boys.

“In the event that he shared any information with family or friends since 1972, even though he’s now deceased, we’d like to know about that,” Davis said. “Our plea is for people to come forward, even if they think they know him but they’re not sure what information about him would be helpful, call us anyway.”

With baby James’ body missing and Carl’s tombstone swept away by a storm, police have also talked about a way to memorialize the case with a bench in Coleman Cemetery.

“This case was always important to me,” detective Wallace said. “To see the extent of that boy’s injuries and what he had suffered through, I’m happy to be here today announcing that at least we’ve identified him. He can have his name, we can get him his name back on his gravestone, and the family can have some semblance of closure.”

By Thomas Robertson.

New Zealand’s former deputy police commissioner lost the right to anonymity Monday after he was charged with possessing child sexual exploitation and bestiality material.

Woman dies on bus near #Brazilian restaurant with 26 iPhones glued to her body

More Gazans die seeking aid and from hunger; burial shrouds in short supply.

CAIRO/GAZA - At least 40 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire and airstrikes on Gaza on Monday, including 10 seeking aid, health authorities said, adding another five had died of starvation in what humanitarian agencies say may be an unfolding famine.

The 10 died in two separate incidents near aid sites belonging to the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in central and southern Gaza, local medics said. The United Nations says more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in the enclave since the GHF began operating in May 2025, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites.

The GHF said there were no incidents at or near their sites on Monday. Reuters was unable to verify where the incidents took place.

Bilal Thari, 40, was among mourners at Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital on Monday who had gathered to collect the bodies of Palestinians killed a day earlier by Israeli fire as they sought aid, Gaza health officials said.

“Everyone who goes there, comes back either with a bag of flour or carried back (on a wooden stretcher) as a martyr, or injured. No one comes back safe,” Thari said.

At least 13 Palestinians were killed on Sunday while waiting for the arrival of UN aid trucks at the Zikim crossing on the Israeli border with the northern Gaza Strip, the officials said.

At the hospital, some bodies were wrapped in thick patterned blankets because white shrouds, which hold special significance in Islamic burials, were in short supply due to continued Israeli border restrictions and the mounting number of daily deaths, Palestinians said.

“We don’t want war, we want peace, we want this misery to end. We are out on the streets, we all are hungry, we are all in bad shape, women are out there on the streets, we have nothing available for us to live a normal life like all human beings, there’s no life,” Thari said.

There was no immediate comment by Israel on Sunday’s incident.

The Israeli military said in a statement to Reuters that it had not fired earlier on Monday in the vicinity of the aid distribution center in the southern Gaza Strip. It did not elaborate further.

Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it is taking steps for more aid to reach its population, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas, allowing airdrops and announcing protected routes for aid convoys.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he would convene his security cabinet this week to discuss how the military should proceed in Gaza to meet all his government’s war goals, which include defeating Hamas and releasing the hostages.
Deaths from hunger

Meanwhile, five more people died of starvation or malnutrition over the last 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said on Monday. The new deaths raised the toll of those dying from hunger to 180, including 93 children, since the war began.

UN agencies have said that airdrops of food are insufficient and that Israel must let in far more aid by land and quickly ease access to it.

COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, said that during the last week, over 23,000 tons of humanitarian aid in 1,200 trucks had entered Gaza but that hundreds of the trucks had yet to be driven to aid distribution hubs by UN and other international organizations.

Israel’s military later said 120 aid packages containing food had been dropped into Gaza “over the past few hours” by six different countries in collaboration with COGAT.

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said on Sunday that more than 600 aid trucks had arrived since Israel eased restrictions in late July. However, witnesses and Hamas sources said many of those trucks have been looted by desperate displaced people and armed gangs.

Palestinian and UN officials said Gaza needs around 600 aid trucks to enter per day to meet the humanitarian requirements - the number Israel used to allow into Gaza before the war.

The Gaza war began when Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Israeli figures. Israel’s offensive has since killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials who do not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants.

According to Israeli officials, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Mahmoud Issa; Additional reporting by Steve Scheer in Jerusalem; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Gareth Jones)

Nidal al-Mughrabi and Mahmoud Issa, Reuters

Research projects affected by US funding cuts will be first in line to benefit from additional funding announced by the Department of Health, says the SA Medical Research Council.