• Boat capsizes in Mediterranean Sea off the Libyan coast.
• Rescue teams provide emergency medical care to survivors.
• Ship taking migrants, refugees to Al-Zawiya from Africa.
  

The UN migration agency on Monday said 53 people were dead or missing after a boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off the Libyan coast. Only two survivors were rescued.

The International Organisation for Migration said the boat overturned north of Zuwara on Friday.

“Only two Nigerian women were rescued during a search-and-rescue operation by Libyan authorities,” the IOM said in a statement, adding that one of the survivors said she lost her husband and the other said “she lost her two babies in the tragedy”.

The IOM said its teams provided the two survivors with emergency medical care upon disembarkation.

“According to survivor accounts, the boat, carrying migrants and refugees of African nationalities, departed from Al-Zawiya, Libya, at around 11:00 pm on February 5. Approximately six hours later, it capsized after taking on water,” the agency said.

“IOM mourns the loss of life in yet another deadly incident along the Central Mediterranean route.”

The Geneva-based agency said trafficking and smuggling networks were exploiting migrants along the route from north Africa to southern Europe, profiting from dangerous crossings in unseaworthy boats while exposing people to “severe abuse”.

It called for stronger international cooperation to tackle the networks, alongside safe and regular migration pathways to reduce risks and save lives.

Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie are faced with a crucial challenge ahead as their family dynamics continue to deteriorate in light of the harrowing revelations made in the Epstein files.

The onslaught of the details shared have been taking a toll on the York sisters, who are trying to maintain a semblance of normalcy in their lives, especially having young children of their own.

It is possible that Andrew and Sarah Ferguson’s two daughters are having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that their parents could be involved in such acts. Royal author Robert Jobson, who knows the York family closely, suggests that the girls must be “overwhelmed and aghast by this”.

A friend of Beatrice and Eugenie told Hello! magazine that the girls are “very sympathetic” to their mother, who is worried about her own mental health. However, that all is starting to unravel in their relationship and they would probably never be seen with their mother in public again.

That was a different story for Andrew, Beatrice was seen hanging out with her father last month in Windsor despite the allegations. The friend insists that the sisters are “not abandoning their father”.

However, “everything is obviously very strained and hard”.

There seems to be a stark difference in the approach of both sisters and towards their parents. Eugenie, who is a patron of an Anti-Slavery charity, has not been seen with either one of her parents. Beatrice seems to have made an exception for the disgraced Andrew.

It is possible that the daughters would be upset about being dragged into meeting Jeffrey Epstein when they were young, knowing fully well that he was a convicted paedophile.

Fergie has been heavily criticised for dragging her daughters, whom she used to call her ticket to royal life, to meet a criminal that day he was released from jail. She could be feeling guilty, but the daughters are clearly hurt.

Tech giant Apple is preparing to almost retire old-style text messaging in some of the most significant updates to its Messages app in years, with the upcoming iOS 26.4 this spring.

The new iOS update would expand Apple’s support for RCS (Rich Communication Services) in a move to ditch the limitations of traditional SMS.

The update aims to create a modern, cross-platform messaging experience that aligns with modern communication practices.

RCS is said to be the telecom industry’s long-awaited successor to SMS and MMS, offering features that users expect from modern messaging apps like WhatsApp. It facilitates high-quality media sharing, read receipts, typing indicators, and reliable delivery over Wi-Fi or mobile data.

A noteworthy point for iPhone users is that RCS reduces the gap between Apple’s iMessage ecosystem and Android devices, replacing the unreliable “green bubble” SMS experience with a native chat experience.

“End-to-end encryption is a powerful privacy and security technology that iMessage has supported since the beginning, and now we are pleased to have helped lead a cross-industry effort to bring end-to-end encryption to the RCS Universal Profile,” Apple stated.

This means that encrypted conversations, previously limited to iMessage-to-iMessage chats, will now be converted into iPhone-to-Android texts, with privacy protections ensured across platforms.

iOS 26.4 has been reported to bring a series of functional improvements that were missing in earlier RCS implementations. Features such as inline replies, message editing, unsending, and richer reactions will definitely boost user experience and bring Apple’s RCS offering in line with its competitors.

These developments point to a clear shift in Apple’s approach to cross-platform communication, as internal beta builds indicate active collaboration with mobile networks to support this transition.