At least four people have died and dozens are missingafter a ferry sank off Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali, rescuers said.
The boat was carrying 53 passengers and 12 crew members when it sank at 23:20 local time (15:35 GMT) on Wednesday while on its way to Bali from Banyuwangi on the eastern coast of Java island, the Surabaya office of the National Search and Rescue Agency said.
Thirty-one survivors have been rescued, the agency says, as the search continues.
Authorities are investigating the cause of the sinking. The ferry operator had reported engine trouble shortly before it sank, while an official said the cause was “bad weather”, according to local media.
Many of the survivors are residents of the coastal town of Banyuwangi while others came from more inland areas of Java, according to a list released by authorities.
President Prabowo Subianto has ordered an immediate emergency response from Saudi Arabia, where he is on an official visit.
The vessel’s route – one of Indonesia’s busiest – is often used by locals going between the islands of Java and Bali.
Photos published by Antara news agency showed ambulances on standby and residents waiting for updates by the roadside.
Marine accidents are frequent in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of around 17,000 islands, where uneven enforcement of safety regulations is a longstanding concern.
In March, an Australian woman died after a boat with 16 people on board capsized off Bali.
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party announced on Wednesday it would hold a nationwide movement against the government after the Islamic month of Muharram, days after Pakistan’s top court denied the party reserved seats for minorities and women in parliament.
The announcement followed a meeting of the PTI’s parliamentarians in Islamabad. The party’s lawmakers discussed several issues such as the political situation after the Supreme Court’s verdict last week which denied the party reserved seats in parliament, launching a movement to demand the release of Khan and PTI supporters from prison.
The Supreme Court’s constitutional bench on June 27 ruled that former prime minister Imran Khan’s PTI is not entitled to reserved seats in the national and provincial assemblies, upholding an earlier verdict by the Peshawar High Court. The dispute arose after PTI lost its electoral symbol ahead of the February 8 national polls and its candidates contested as independents.
Despite its candidates winning the most general seats, the PTI was denied reserved seats for women and minorities, which are allocated to parties based on proportional representation, by the ECP. The government lost its two-thirds majority in parliament in July 2024 when the top court reversed the ECP’s decision, terming it unconstitutional and ordering the reserved seats to be allocated to PTI. The ECP and the political parties had filed a review petition, which were accepted by the top court last week.
“We [Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf] are starting a movement after Muharram,” Ali Amin Gandapur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister and a senior PTI leader, told reporters after the party’s meeting.
“This will be a Pakistan-wide movement, god willing. We will protest peacefully, politically, like we always do. We will proceed and take it forward but if they [government] fire bullets, we will plan for that as well.”
The government rejects the PTI’s allegations that the February 2024 polls were rigged, accusing Khan’s party of disrupting its efforts of ensuring the sustainable economic growth.
RULING COALITION GETS TWO-THIRDS MAJORITY
The ECP’s latest notification granting parties other than the PTI reserved seats for women and minorities means the ruling coalition government now has two-thirds majority in parliament. The electoral authority also withdrew its earlier notifications of July 24 and July 29, 2024 on Wednesday, which declared the successful candidates on general seats in the national and provincial assemblies as PTI-returned candidates.
Sixteen reserved seats for women and three for minorities in the National Assembly were allocated to various parties, with the lion’s share going to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the PTI’s chief rival. The PML-N were allocated 13 seats, while four were allocated to the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) and two to the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Pakistan (JUI-F).
In this file photo, taken and released by Pakistan’s Press Information Department on October 21, 2024, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (left) shakes hands with Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, key coalition partner and former foreign minister, at the National Assembly in Islamabad. (PID/File)
With this development, the ruling coalition has crossed the two-thirds majority mark, securing 233 seats in the 336-member National Assembly, the lower house of parliament. A political party or a coalition government needs 224 seats to reach the threshold.
As per the notification, 21 reserved seats for women were reinstated in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly, with eight allocated to the JUI-F, six to the PML-N and five to the PPPP. One seat each was also allotted to the PTI Parliamentarians and the Awami National Party (ANP).
Meanwhile, out of the four reserved seats for minorities in KP Assembly, two were given to the JUI-F and one each to the PML-N and the PPPP.
The ECP restored 24 reserved seats for women in the Punjab Assembly, of which the PML-N received 21, while one seat each was allocated to the PPPP, the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q).
Additionally, three minority seats were allocated–two to the PML-N and one to the PPPP.
Two reserved seats for women and one for minorities were reinstated in the Sindh Assembly, with two allotted to the PPP and one to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P).
‘GRAVE INJUSTICE’
Political analysts noted the development would further weaken the PTI’s position at the center.
“This move is likely to further undermine democracy in Pakistan and encourage horse-trading, as the ruling coalition may try to woo legislators particularly in KP,” Mazhar Abbas, a political analyst and journalist, told Arab News.
The PTI has a large support base in KP, where it has been emerging as the largest party since the 2013 polls.
Zahid Hussain, another political analyst, said the move has given the ruling coalition government the much-desired two-thirds majority, enabling them to make constitutional changes as per their will.
“The government and [military] establishment appear intent on securing a two-thirds majority to push through legislation and constitutional amendments of their choosing,” he noted.
Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, president of the Islamabad-based think tank Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) said the move would further strengthen the ruling PML-N as it would reduce the party’s reliance on the PPP.
“In National Assembly, PML-N-led coalition has come closer to having a simple majority without the PPP,” Mehboob said.
He added that after securing the reserved seats, the PML-N-led coalition needed only 11 seats to secure a simple majority on its own.
Authorities say at least four people dead and 32 missing after vessel sinks off resort island.
At least four people are dead and dozens of others are missing after a ferry carrying 65 people sank off Indonesia’s resort island of Bali, authorities have said.
Rescuers are searching for 32 people after the KMP Tunu Pratama Jaya sank shortly after leaving East Java’s Banyuwangi port, Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, BASARNAS, said on Thursday.
Twenty-nine survivors have been rescued as part of the rescue operations, which include nine vessels, according to officials.
Sea and weather conditions were reportedly improving during the morning, aiding the search for survivors.
Banyuwangi police chief, Rama Samtama Putra, said many of the survivors were initially unconscious after spending hours drifting in the ocean.
Panicked family members rushed to the departure port, some crying, as they sought information about their loved ones and hoped they were among the survivors.
A passenger’s relative weeps after a ferry carrying dozens of passengers sank near the resort island of Bali, at Ketapang Port in Bayuwangi, East Java, Indonesia, Thursday, July 3, 2025 [Andur/AP]
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who is visiting Saudi Arabia, ordered an immediate emergency response, Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said in a statement, adding that the cause of the accident was “bad weather”.
Maritime disasters are a common occurrence in Indonesia, an archipelago of about 17,000 islands, where lax safety standards often allow vessels to be overloaded without adequate life-saving equipment.
In March, a boat carrying 16 people capsized in rough waters off Bali, killing an Australian woman and injuring at least one other person.
In 2018, more than 150 people drowned when a ferry sank in one of the world’s deepest lakes on Sumatra island.
When the 12-day war against Iran was launched, Israel said it was because the Islamic Republic was on the verge of developing a nuclear bomb. US intelligence reports from earlier in the year told a different story. Now the war is over and confusion remains – has Iran’s nuclear programme been destroyed?
The Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, tells Michael Safi what we know – and why we don’t know more – about what the conflict actually achieved. While Rouzbeh Parsi, a historian who studies Iran’s nuclear programme explains why the ambiguity around Iran’s intentions are partly a deliberate strategy. Yet, he says, it is one that has been a dangerous gamble for the country – and one which seems to have cost them dearly. What will the Iranian regime do next? Could it abandon its programme or will it decide to race towards making a bomb?
• Trump says Israel has agreed to necessary conditions for 60-day truce • Firing, strikes by Israeli forces claim lives of 139 Palestinians in 24 hours
CAIRO: After US President Donald Trump announced that Israel had agreed to the “necessary conditions” to finalise a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, Hamas said on Wednesday it was studying the so-called “final ceasefire proposal”.
But while the group wants Israel to completely pull out of the enclave, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has set his sights on the elimination of Hamas.
A day earlier, Trump had said that after a “long and productive” meeting between his representatives and Israeli officials, Tel Aviv had agreed to the conditions needed to finalise a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas said it was studying new ceasefire offers it received from the mediators Egypt and Qatar, but stressed it aimed to reach an agreement that would ensure an end to the war and an Israeli pullout from Gaza.
In a statement, Hamas said it was “conducting national consultations to discuss what we received from the proposals of the… mediators.”
It added that it sought “to reach an agreement that guarantees ending the aggression, achieving the withdrawal (of Israel from Gaza) and urgently aiding our people in the Gaza Strip”.
Qatar and Egypt have been mediating efforts to end the conflict.
A Palestinian source familiar with the negotiations said, “There are no fundamental changes in the new proposal” under discussion compared to previous terms presented by the United States.
The source said the new proposal “includes a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release half of the (22) living” Israeli prisoners in the Gaza Strip, in exchange for Israel releasing a number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
“There will not be a Hamas. There will not be a Hamastan. We’re not going back to that. It’s over,” Netanyahu claimed at a meeting hosted by the Trans-Israel pipeline.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said a majority within the coalition government would back an agreement that would see the release of the remaining Israeli prisoners held by Hamas in Gaza.
Of the 50 Israeli prisoners yet to be released, at least 20 are believed to be still alive.
Deaths in Gaza
Meanwhile, Gaza health authorities said Israeli gunfire and military strikes killed at least 139 Palestinians in separate attacks in north and southern areas over the past 24 hours.
Among those killed on Wednesday was Marwan Al-Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, who perished in an airstrike that also claimed the lives of his wife and five children, medics say.
For Palestinians, who have fled multiple times and face daily struggles to find food 21 months into Israel’s military campaign, there was a glimmer of hope but many worried that any ceasefire would only be temporary.
“We want a complete end to the war on Gaza, not like every time — a partial agreement and ceasefire that lasts a month or two, then the war returns,” said Samir Al-Masri in Khan Yunis.
At the end of May, Hamas had said it was seeking amendments to a US-backed ceasefire proposal, which Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said was “totally unacceptable”.
That proposal had involved a 60-day ceasefire and the release of half the Israeli prisoners held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and the remains of other Palestinians; Hamas would release the remaining Israeli prisoners as part of a deal that guarantees the end of the war.
A source close to Hamas said that Hamas leaders were expected to debate the proposal and seek clarifications from mediators before giving an official response.
Meanwhile, the Hamas-run interior ministry has accused Yasser Abu Shabab, a Bedouin clan leader, of treason and ordered him to surrender and face trial.
Shabab, who does not recognise the authority of Hamas and accuses the group of hurting the interests of Gaza, had 10 days to surrender, the ministry said.
The Abu Shabab group described the Hamas order as a “sitcom that doesn’t frighten us, nor does it frighten any free man who loves his homeland and its dignity”, in a post on the Facebook page that usually carried the group’s announcements.
Israel also claimed to back some of Gaza’s clans against Hamas, but has not said which.
TEHRAN: Iran on Wednesday officially suspended its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, a move triggered by the unprecedented Israeli and US strikes on its nuclear facilities.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian formally enacted the suspension on Wednesday.
Last month’s 12-day conflict between Iran and Israel has sharply escalated tensions between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
On June 25, a day after a ceasefire took hold, Iranian lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to suspend cooperation with the Vienna-based IAEA.
The law aims to “ensure full support for the inherent rights of the Islamic Republic of Iran” under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, with a particular focus on uranium enrichment, according to Iranian media.
Pezeshkian gives the final nod a week after Iranian lawmakers voted to suspend cooperation with IAEA; US calls move ‘unacceptable’
While IAEA inspectors have had access to Iran’s declared nuclear sites, their current status is uncertain amid the suspension. On Wednesday, US intelligence assessments indicated that strikes on Iranian nuclear sites set the country’s atomic programme back by up to two years, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said on Wednesday.
On Sunday, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, said the inspectors’ work had been suspended but denied any threats against them or IAEA chief Rafael Grossi.
He said the “inspectors are in Iran and are safe”, but “their activities have been suspended, and they are not allowed to access our sites”.
The ISNA news agency cited lawmaker Alireza Salimi as saying the inspectors now needed approval from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council to access nuclear sites. Separately, the Mehr news agency cited lawmaker Hamid Reza Haji Babaei as saying Iran would stop allowing IAEA cameras in nuclear facilities.
After parliament passed the bill, it was approved by the Guardian Council and President Masoud Pezeshkian formally enacted the suspension on Wednesday.
US calls move ‘unacceptable’
US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said Iran’s suspension of cooperation with the IAEA is unacceptable.
“We’ll use the word unacceptable, that Iran chose to suspend cooperation with the IAEA at a time when it has a window of opportunity to reverse course and choose a path of peace and prosperity,” Bruce told a briefing in Washington.
Bruce said Iran must cooperate without delay with the IAEA, including by providing “information required to clarify and resolve long-standing questions regarding undeclared nuclear material in Iran, as well as provide unrestricted access to its newly announced enrichment facility”.
“Iran cannot and will not have a nuclear weapon,” she repeated.
Israeli reaction
In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar urged European signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal to trigger the “snapback” mechanism and reinstate all UN sanctions on Iran.
The snapback, set to expire in October, was part of the nuclear accord that collapsed after the United States withdrew in 2018. Iran began scaling back its commitments a year later.
Iranian officials have warned the mechanism could prompt their withdrawal from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Israel, widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, is not an NPT signatory.
Germany’s foreign ministry spokesman Martin Giese said Iran’s move to suspend cooperation with the IAEA was a “disastrous signal”.
Since the Israeli and US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, Tehran has sharply criticised the IAEA for its silence and condemned a June 12 UN resolution accusing Iran of non-compliance, which Iranian officials say provided a pretext for the attacks.
On Wednesday, senior judiciary official Ali Mozaffari accused Grossi of “preparing the groundwork” for Israel’s raids and called for him to be held accountable. Iran has rejected Grossi’s requests to visit bombed sites, accusing him of “malign intent”. Iran’s Kayhan newspaper on Saturday accused Grossi of being an Israeli spy who should be executed.
On Monday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said the parliament vote to halt cooperation reflected the “concern and anger of the Iranian public opinion”.
The 12-day war began when Israel launched a major bombing campaign on Iran and killed Tehran’s top military commanders and nuclear scientists, with Iran responding with waves of missiles and drones launched at Israel. On June 22, the United States launched unprecedented strikes of its own on key Iranian nuclear facilities.
