YEMEN: A boat carrying refugees sank off the coast on Monday, killing at least 49 people and leaving another 140 missing, the UN agency said today.

The boat was carrying about 260 Somalis and Ethiopians from the northern coast of Somalia on the 200-mile journey across the Gulf of Aden when it sank.

Seventy-one people have been rescued, and the search is ongoing, the group said, noting that 31 women and six children are among the dead.

ICELAND: Reykjavik said today that it has issued a licence to the nation’s last fin whaling company to hunt and kill 128 fin whales this year.

Animal rights groups say that while the number is significantly lower than in previous years, the decision to allow the practice to continue is inhumane and disappointing.

The quota was half that of 2023 when the Icelandic government allowed for the hunting of 264 fin whales, according to the non-profit organisation International Fund for Animal Welfare.

NETHERLANDS: The four parties negotiating to form a coalition government have reached agreement on a new team of Cabinet ministers, far-right leader Geert Wilders said today.

“There is a deal, you’ll hear more in the coming hours, days,” Mr Wilders told reporters in The Hague.

The team of ministers will be made up of members of the four parties in the coalition and outside experts — a so-called technocratic administration.

CHINA: The police have detained a suspect in a stabbing attack on four US lecturers who were teaching at a Chinese university in the north-east city of Jilin, officials said today.

Jilin city police said a 55-year-old man was walking in a public park on Monday when he bumped into a foreigner. He stabbed the lecturers and also stabbed a Chinese person who approached in an attempt to intervene, police said.