US contractor ordered to pay $42m to Iraqis tortured at Abu Ghraib

ISTANBUL: Six migrants drowned while another 27 were rescued by the coast guard when their boat started sinking off the western coast of Turkiye, the interior minister said on Wednesday.
The incident took place before dawn just south of the seaside resort of Izmir in the waters separating the Turkish coast from the Greek island of Samos, which lies just 15 kilometers (nine miles) away.
“The bodies of six lifeless illegal immigrants were fished out of the water,” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X, adding that the coast guard had rescued 27 others, one of whom was detained on suspicion of smuggling.
Last month, seven migrants drowned in the same stretch of water.
Shipwrecks are very common on the short but perilous route between the Turkish coast and the nearby Greek islands of Samos, Rhodes and Lesbos that serve as entry points to the European Union.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2,333 migrants disappeared or died in the Mediterranean last year.

GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Wednesday that mass polio vaccination would resume in Gaza on Saturday, targeting nearly 600,000 children, after the virus was again detected in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
The United Nations health agency said no more polio cases had been reported since a 10-month-old child was paralyzed in Gaza last August.
But it said that poliovirus had been found again in wastewater samples taken in the Gaza Strip in December and January, “signalling ongoing circulation in the environment, putting children at risk.”
“The presence of the virus still poses a risk to children with low or no immunity, in Gaza and throughout the region.”
A new campaign would therefore take place from February 22 to 26, with the aim of reaching more than 591,000 children with oral polio vaccines, it said.
The aim was to reach all children under 10, including those previously missed, “to close immunity gaps and end the outbreak,” it said, adding that another vaccination round was planned for April.
Poliovirus, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious and potentially fatal.
It can cause deformities and paralysis and mainly affects children under the age of five.
After the August case was reported, brief localized pauses in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza were agreed to allow for two vaccination rounds in the territory in September and October.
Those rounds reached more than 95 percent of the children targeted, WHO said.
But it warned that some areas in the north, including Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, were inaccessible for the second vaccination round.
As a result around 7,000 children had not received their necessary second dose.
The ceasefire in effect since January 19 “means health workers have considerably better access now,” WHO said.
The agency stressed that “pockets of individuals with low or no immunity provide the virus an opportunity to continue spreading and potentially cause disease.”
“The current environment in Gaza, including overcrowding in shelters and severely damaged water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure, which facilitates fecal-oral transmission, create ideal conditions for further spread of poliovirus,” it warned.
It warned that the movement of people after the current ceasefire could help spread the virus.
WHO stressed that there are no risks to vaccinating a child more than once.
“Each dose gives additional protection which is needed during an active polio outbreak.”