While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, June 7
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Red Cross volunteers evacuate an elderly woman from a flooded area in Ukraine's Kherson, after a major dam breach.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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Ukraine evacuates over 17,000 people after key dam is destroyed
An attack on a major Russian-held dam in southern Ukraine on Tuesday unleashed a torrent of water that flooded two dozen villages and forced the evacuation of 17,000 people, sparking fears of a humanitarian disaster.
Washington warned there would be “likely many deaths” as Moscow and Kyiv traded blame for ripping a gaping hole in the Kakhovka dam, which is located on the front-line and provides cooling water for Europe’s largest nuclear plant.
Kyiv said the destruction of the dam - seized by Russia in the early hours of the war - was an attempt by Moscow to hamper its long-awaited offensive, which Ukraine’s leader stressed would not be affected.
The UN warned that hundreds of thousands could be affected on both sides of the front-line.
Safety of Ukraine nuclear plant at stake after dam damage
While there is “no immediate nuclear safety risk,” the UN nuclear watchdog is exploring options to get water to keep cooling Europe’s biggest atomic plant after a dam in southern Ukraine was damaged on Tuesday.
Moscow and Kyiv have blamed each other for the damage at the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, which has led to thousands of people being evacuated because of flooding.
The Kakhovka dam sits on the Dnipro river, which feeds a reservoir providing cooling water for the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, some 150km away.
Finland expels nine Russian diplomats over ‘intelligence’ work
AFP
Finland will expel nine diplomats at the Russian embassy in Helsinki, accusing them of working on intelligence missions, the Finnish president’s office said on Tuesday.
“Their actions are contrary to the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations,” the president’s office said in a statement, adding that it would inform the Russian ambassador of the expulsions.
The decision was made at a meeting between Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and the country’s ministerial committee on foreign and security policy.
PGA Tour players in dark over LIV merger
Stunned PGA Tour players said they had been left in the dark about the surprise merger with LIV Golf that shocked the world of golf on Tuesday.
Shortly after the unexpected announcement that golf’s bitter battle between the established PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed breakaway LIV Golf was over, players took to social media to react.
And it was clear that PGA Tour players had no idea that a deal was in the offing while LIV players were delighted at the end of the conflict.
Girl From Ipanema singer Astrud Gilberto dies aged 83
Astrud Gilberto, the Brazilian singer whose soft, beguiling voice made The Girl From Ipanema a worldwide sensation in the 1960s and provided a huge boost to the budding bossa nova genre, has died at age 83, her family said.
“I come bearing the sad news that my grandmother became a star today and is next to my grandfather Joao Gilberto,” Sofia Gilberto wrote on social media early on Tuesday.
The singer died at home in Philadelphia, in the United States, where she had lived since the 1960s, according to Brazilian news site G1.
