Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has promised to save the country’s shores from “sea snot” building up in its waters. A thick, slimy layer of the mucus-like matter is spreading along the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul, damaging marine life and the fishing industry. Experts blame pollution and climate change. “Hopefully, we will save our seas from this mucilage calamity,” President Erdogan said. “Sea snot”, or marine mucilage, is a naturally-occurring green sludge that forms when algae is overloaded with nutrients as a result of hot weather and water pollution. It was first found in Turkey in 2007 but has also been discovered in the Aegean Sea near Greece.(BBC)…[+]

Nigeria will prosecute anyone found to have breached the country’s ban on the social media firm Twitter, a government spokesperson has told the BBC. The government announced on Friday it was suspending Twitter’s operations in the country. Mobile phone networks blocked access after being ordered to do so, but some users are getting around the ban. The move comes after Twitter deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari for breaching the site’s rules. Some users saw his post, which referred to Nigeria’s civil war four decades ago, as a veiled threat towards a secessionist movement in the south-east of the country. His government said on Saturday the tweet’s removal was “disappointing”, but not the only reason for the “temporary” suspension.(BBC)…[+]

El Salvador’s president says he will make the Bitcoin cryptocurrency legal tender in the country. If his plan is backed by congress, the Central American country would be first in the world to formally adopt the digital currency. It would be used alongside the US dollar, El Salvador’s official currency.  President Nayib Bukele says Bitcoin will make it easier for Salvadorans living abroad to send payments home. “In the short term, this will generate jobs and help provide financial inclusion to thousands outside the formal economy,” Mr Bukele told a Bitcoin conference in Florida, adding that it could also boost investment to the country.(BBC)…[+]

A fire at a juvenile detention centre in Egypt has killed at least six teenagers and injured 20 others, officials say. The blaze broke out on Thursday at the facility in the Al-Marg district of the capital, Cairo. The head of the facility was detained as prosecutors investigated the fire. It was not immediately clear what caused the blaze, but an initial investigation blamed an electric short-circuit, according to local media. The fire followed a fight between two children inside the facility, officials told the Associated Press news agency. Masrawy, an Arabic-Egyptian news portal, said the blaze was confined to one wing of the facility. It said fire trucks and ambulances were dispatched to the scene, where the blaze was brought under control by civil-defence workers.(BBC)…[+]

An Australian woman who spoke out about her alleged rape in parliament – triggering #MeToo protests nationwide – is receiving care in hospital for her mental wellbeing. Brittany Higgins, 26, entered hospital last Thursday her partner said. David Sharaz told news outlets she was taking time to recover after “months of unrelenting political pressure”. Ms Higgins’s case has sparked anger over a culture of sexism and misogyny in Australian politics. Since speaking out in February, she has called for reform to parliament culture and inspired other Australian women to report their allegations of sexual assault. In March, it led to tens of thousands of people around the country joining protests against the sexual abuse and discrimination of women.(BBC)…[+]

Germany’s top Roman Catholic cleric, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, has offered his resignation to the Pope over the Church’s child sexual abuse scandals. “It is important to me to share the responsibility for the catastrophe of the sexual abuse by Church officials over the past decades,” he said in a letter to Pope Francis. He is the Archbishop of Munich. The Pope is still considering his offer. Pope Francis has sent two bishops to Cologne to investigate abuse cases. In 2018, a study commissioned by the Church itself found that more than 3,600 children in Germany had been sexually assaulted by Roman Catholic priests between 1946 and 2014.Only 38% of the alleged perpetrators were prosecuted, with most facing only minor disciplinary procedures. About one in six cases involved rape. Most of the victims were boys, and more than half were aged 13 or younger.(BBC)…[+]

A Pakistani court has overturned a death sentence handed down to a Christian couple for blasphemy, citing a lack of evidence. Shagufta Kausar and her husband Shafqat Emmanuel were convicted in 2014 for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. But on Thursday, the couple’s lawyer Saif ul Malook said the Lahore High Court had acquitted them. A prosecution lawyer told the Reuters news agency that the latest ruling would be challenged. Blasphemy is punishable by death in Pakistan, and though no-one has ever been executed for it, dozens have been killed by mobs after being accused.(BBC)…[+]

The French health minister has said it is too soon to say whether a number of reported deaths were the result of a network outage that disrupted the number for the emergency services. The outage on Wednesday left people unable to reach help for hours. Health minister Olivier Véran said three or four deaths had been registered nationwide, but added that it was “too soon to draw conclusions”. He promised a “full report on the human consequences” of the outage. Stéphane Richard, CEO of Orange, said he had met with government officials and the situation was “now stabilised”. “The Orange group apologises to those who have been affected in recent hours,” he tweeted. French government sources posted alternative emergency numbers online after the problems began.(BBC)…[+]

A cruise ship has arrived in Venice for the first time since the Covid pandemic began, despite a ban on such vessels entering the city’s historic centre. The MSC Orchestra is due to pick-up about 650 passengers on Saturday for a Mediterranean voyage. All of them must produce negative Covid tests before they are allowed to board. But environmental protesters are planning a rally, saying cruise ships are eroding the foundations of the historic Italian city. A rival demonstration is also expected on Saturday in support of the resumption of the tourist season. In a separate development, celebrities and cultural figures – including Mick Jagger and Francis Ford Coppola – have signed an open letter calling for a complete ban on large vessels docking in Venice. In the letter to the Italian government, which was compiled by the Venetian Heritage Foundation, the celebrities said the city risked being “swept away” by cruise ships. The MSC Orchestra’s arrival in Venice comes two years after another cruise ship, MSC Opera, crashed into one of Venice’s docks. There were no major injuries in the incident.(BBC)…[+]

Florida has become the latest US state to ban transgender girls and women from participating in female sports at public schools and colleges. The state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis signed the measure into law on Tuesday. The law says women and girls must play on the teams of the biological sex on their birth certificate. LGBT activists have denounced the move as “discriminatory”, with one group vowing to launch a legal challenge. “We believe that is very important that the integrity of these competitions are preserved,” Mr DeSantis said as he signed the law at a Christian school in Jacksonville city. “We’re gonna go based on biology, not based on ideology when we’re doing sports.” The move comes as Republican-led states push back against pro-LGBT policies supported by the administration of Democratic US President Joe Biden.(BBC)…[+]