TURKEY: Human Rights Watch said today that Turkey bears responsibility for some of the abuses and possible war crimes committed in Syria, mostly against Kurdish residents in the country’s north.

The New York-based watchdog said the abuses had been committed by Turkish forces and also armed factions backed by Ankara in areas they control in northern Syria.

There was no immediate response from Turkey.

ITALY: The police use of batons against secondary school students demonstrating in Pisa last week was a “defeat,” Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi acknowledged today.

Italians have expressed outrage at police violence against two pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the Tuscan cities of Florence and Pisa last Friday. The Pisa protest included high school students, at least 11 of whom suffered bruises when police responded with batons.

NORWAY: A helicopter flying between an offshore oil platform and the mainland crashed into the North Sea, killing one person and injuring five others, two of them seriously, authorities said today.

The Sikorsky S-92 helicopter was on a training mission for state-owned oil and gas company Equinor ASA when it went down on Wednesday night off Bergen, Norwegian news agency NTB said. 

There were six people on board. Police declined to release their identities.

SENEGAL: At least two dozen people died off the northern coast and many others were injured when their boat capsized, officials said, underscoring the danger of the route used by an increasing number of migrants seeking to reach Spain from west Africa.

The boat was bound for Europe and capsized near the town of Saint-Louis, where bodies washed ashore on Wednesday afternoon.