UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – Heavy rain has been battering Gulf states, causing flash floods that have killed 20 people and disrupted flights at the world’s second-busiest airport.
Dubai Airport said it was facing “very challenging conditions” yesterday. It advised passengers not to turn up as runways were inundated with water.
Further north, a man died when his car was caught in flash floods.
In Oman, rescuers found the body of a girl in Saham, bringing the death toll in the country to 19 since Sunday.
Authorities also warned that more thunderstorms, heavy rain and strong winds were forecast, with many low-lying areas still under water.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman’s northern neighbour, experienced on Tuesday its largest rainfall event since records began 75 years ago.
The National Centre of Meteorology announced that 254.8mm (9.7in) had fallen on Khatm al-Shakla, in the emirate of al-Ain, over less than 24 hours.
The country averages 140-200 mm of rainfall per year, while Dubai typically receives only 97mm. The monthly average for April is only about 8mm.
Footage from the centre of Dubai showed dozens of submerged vehicles on a flooded part of Sheikh Zayed Road, as well as long traffic jams elsewhere on the 12-lane highway.
British tourist Caroline Seubert, 29, from Leyland in Lancashire, told the BBC that she and her husband were currently stranded at a shopping centre in Dubai.
Ms Seubert, who is 22 weeks pregnant, said they were headed to Dubai Malll ast Tuesday morning because they had booked tickets for its aquarium and had not been warned by their hotel that it could be unsafe because of the storm.
“The mall was flooded, ceilings were collapsing, the place shut at 7.30pm. We were told to leave, but the metro was shut and the taxis were not running or picking up in the area,” she said. “We were stranded, had to sleep in the mall lobby overnight.”
They managed to catch a taxi in the morning, but it could not reach their hotel and dropped them off at another mall on the way, she said.
“We still can’t get taxis to agree to take us to our hotel 15 minutes down the road, and our hotel refused to put their usual mall shuttle bus in in order to help people,” she said.
Another British citizen who lives in Dubai, Ross Moore, told the BBC the storm was “an incredible sight to see”.
“I have never seen anything like it in the UAE and I’ve been here since 2017,” said the 35-year-old. “The thunder and lightning was incredible, the noise was something I’ll never forget.”
He said his home was in an area on higher ground, so a little water came in but they have managed with sandbags and towels against the door.
“I went out with my son yesterday afternoon, just within our community, and everything was flooded, all the roads. Last night trucks came in and collected all the water.”
No deaths were reported in Dubai, but an elderly man was killed when his vehicle was swept away in a flash flood in Ras al-Khaimah.
Although the rain had eased by last Tuesday evening, Dubai International Airport warned yesterday morning that “recovery will take some time”.
The intense storm that began last Tuesday morning and continued through most of the day forced the airport to suspend operations for 25 minutes, divert several inbound planes and cancel a number of inbound and outbound flights.
Videos posted on social media showed aircraft ploughing through several inches of water that completely covered the airport’s apron and taxiways.
“We are currently experiencing significant disruption due to the weather and are continuously working with our emergency response teams and service partners to restore normal operations as quickly as possible,” it said on X, formerly Twitter.
Emirates, one of the UAE’s two flag carriers and the world’s largest international airline, meanwhile told customers that check-in had been suspended at the airport for all flights until midnight (20:00 GMT).
FlyDubai, Emirates’ low-cost sister airline, said some outbound flights would operate from one terminal after 20:00.
Its chief executive, Paul Griffiths, told local radio station Dubai Eye: “In living memory, I don’t think anyone has ever seen conditions like it.” (BBC)…[+]

ISRAEL – Benjamin Netanyahu has told UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron that Israel would “make its own decisions” over how to respond to an Iranian attack.
He said his government would “do everything necessary to defend itself” during talks the British government had hoped would help prevent escalation.
Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed to retaliate to the unprecedented missile and drone assault at the weekend.
Lord Cameron told him any response should be “smart” and limited.
Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem after the meeting with Mr Netanyahu, Lord Cameron said he was there to “demonstrate our solidarity” after Iran’s “appalling” attack.
He continued: “We hope that anything Israel does is as limited and as targeted and as smart as possible.
“It’s in no one’s interest that we see escalation and that is what we said very clearly to all the people I’ve been speaking to here in Israel.”
After the meeting, the Israeli prime minister said: “I want to make it clear – we will make our own decisions, and the State of Israel will do everything necessary to defend itself.”
Mr Netanyahu’s remarks will reinforce the belief in western capitals that Israel is set to take action against Iran and there is a limit to how often they can call for restraint.
Israel is more than aware of concerns in Europe and the United States about the war escalating in the region.
However, western leaders may take comfort from the fact that Israeli leaders are trying to exploit the diplomatic support they have gained after Iran’s attacks.
It is likely Mr Netanyahu will not want to destroy that strategic alliance with an escalatory act of retaliation that plunges the region into a full scale war.
Lord Cameron is one of several Western foreign ministers who are expected to visit Israel in the coming days as part of a diplomatic drive to prevent that from happening.
Before meeting Mr Netanyahu, Lord Cameron held talks with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Israel Katz.
The UK foreign secretary also plans to visit the Occupied Palestinian Territories to meet Mohammad Mustafa, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority.
Later, Lord Cameron will travel to a gathering of G7 ministers in Italy, where he will push for coordinated sanctions on Iran.
Earlier, he accused Tehran of being “behind so much of the malign activity” in the Middle East and called for other countries to adopt measures designed to restrict Iran’s influence.
The US and European Union are considering further sanctions, and Israel is calling on its allies to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – a major military, political and economic force in Iran – as a terrorist organisation.
The Israeli government has repeatedly vowed to retaliate after Iran sent more than 300 drones and missiles towards Israel in an unprecedented direct attack overnight last Saturday.
Almost all the projectiles were intercepted by Israel’s air defense systems, with the help of the UK, US, France, and Jordan.
Iran’s direct attack on Israel was carried out in response to a strike in Syria on 1 April which killed senior Iranian military figures. Israel has not publicly confirmed it was behind the attack, but is widely believed to have been.
Last Tuesday evening, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke to Mr Netanyahu and warned that “significant escalation will only deepen instability in the region”, adding: “This is a moment for calm heads to prevail.”
Lord Cameron will seek to reinforce Mr Sunak’s call for restraint during his visit to Israel, and put more pressure on its leaders to do more to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza – but he is walking a delicate diplomatic line.
The foreign secretary will not want to appear to be hectoring an ally which has just been subject to an unprecedented attack on its soil.
That is why Lord Cameron is also talking about the need for Hamas to release hostages and the importance of western powers imposing yet more sanctions on Iran.
His presence in Jerusalem is a show of support and solidarity – but also an attempt to warn Israeli leaders that any significant escalation would be against their interests and the world’s. (BBC)…[+]

HONDURAS – Honduras is recalling its senior diplomat in Ecuador, the Central American country’s foreign minister announced, in the latest action taken in response to Ecuador’s shocking raid this month on the Mexican embassy in Quito.
Foreign Minister Enrique Reina said the Honduran business manager, Clarivel Vallecillo, who has been stationed at the embassy, will return to Tegucigalpa for consultations, stressing that Honduras backs Mexico’s recently-filed case against Ecuador in the U.N.’s International Court of Justice.
The April 5 raid on the Mexican embassy to arrest former Ecuadorean Vice President Jorge Glas triggered an abrupt break in relations between Mexico City and Quito, as well as wave of condemnation for the decision by Ecuador’s government to force its way into the facility.
Glas, twice convicted of corruption and now facing fresh charges, had sought refuge in the embassy since late last year.
The government of Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa has argued that Mexican officials had illegally granted Glas protection at their embassy.
Late last week, a court in Ecuador ruled that the dramatic arrest of Glas was illegal, but added he must remain in jail due to his previous convictions. Glas’ lawyer pledged to appeal the ruling. (Reuters)…[+]

FRANCE – More than 5,500 years ago, two women were tied up and probably buried alive in a ritual sacrifice, using a form of torture associated today with the Italian Mafia, according to an analysis of skeletons discovered at an archaeological site in southwest France.
Researchers investigated the unusual position of three female skeletons found in 1985 at the site in the town of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, and concluded that two of the women probably died from a form of torture known as “incaprettamento,” which involves tying a person’s throat and ankles so that they eventually strangle themselves due to the position of their legs.
The researchers also reviewed skeletons found at other archaeological sites across Europe and identified 20 other probable instances of similar sacrificial killings. The practice may have been relatively widespread in Neolithic, or late Stone Age, Europe, according to the study, published in the journal Science Advances last week.
The third woman found at the site was in a normal burial position and “we don’t know how she died,” Éric Crubézy, one of the paper’s lead authors and a biological anthropologist at Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, told CNN. “But we can say that they put the three women in the grave at the same time.”
The women’s burial place was aligned with the sunrise at summer solstice and sunset at winter solstice, leading the study’s authors to hypothesize that this site acted as somewhere people gathered to mark the turning of the seasons, which may have involved human sacrifices.
“There is always this idea that somebody is dying and that the crops will grow,” Crubézy added, referencing that belief appearing in other cultures such as the Inca practice of human sacrifice in South America.
Crubézy was part of the original team that excavated the site in 1985 but it wasn’t until the break caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that he and his colleagues set about researching other instances of such sacrifices.
By reviewing the existing literature, researchers pinpointed 20 other probable examples of people being sacrificed in the same way over 2,000 years in the Neolithic period. The study said the actual number was probably higher but there was insufficient information about skeletons at other archaeological sites to draw firm conclusions.
“In different parts of Europe, it was the same type of sacrifice,” Crubezy said. “And this sacrifice is very particular because it’s a cruel one … and you have no blood and no people who killed another, the people killed themselves.”
Though it is impossible to prove definitively that the women in the grave at Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux died in situ, their position “stacked atop each other and entwined with fragments of grindstones” implies that they were placed there forcefully and deliberately, “strongly suggesting that their demise likely occurred” in the grave, the study said.
The study can state with “95% certainty that the three individuals were women,” after precisely measuring various characteristics of the pelvic bone, co-author Ameline Alcouffe, a doctoral student at Paul Sabatier University, told CNN in an email.
At the other sites across Europe, men and children as well as women were also found sacrificed in this way, the study said.
In the future, Crubézy says, the researchers intend to analyze the familial relationship between the three women at Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux and investigate unusual death rites observed in other graves around the site. (CNN)…[+]