The ongoing floods in Pakistan could have been largely prevented, writes ABDUL RAHMAN

THOUGH the European border agency tells the Star it is NOT its policy to ignore charity ships, MSF humanitarian affairs adviser Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui finds a number of contradictions to this claim.
THE Osprey 3, a reconnaissance plane chartered by Frontex, the European Border and Coastguard Agency, alerted an NGO refugee rescue ship to a rubber boat in distress carrying 118 people in international waters off the coast of Libya on November 11.
Almost all of the activists involved in the NGO refugee rescue missions that I have spoken to this year and last have told me that Frontex’s planes do not alert them to refugee distress cases in the central Mediterranean.

Fan group The 1873 issues scathing response to owners’ statement saying the club will not close

Israeli media awash with leaks and rumours of Netanyahu’s plans to seize Gaza. Meanwhile, the unrelenting siege of Gaza continues unabated

Mr Smalls and 13 other Freedom Flotilla Coalition activists who tried to break Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza aboard the Handala ship remain in detention and on hunger strike