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The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the hantavirus outbreak on the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius is not the next COVID, confirming five cases and three deaths while warning more infections could emerge given a six-week incubation period. WHO experts explained transmission differs from coronaviruses and human-to-human spread remains extremely rare. Dutch authorities reported passengers disembarked at St Helena whilst three suspected cases have been evacuated to the Netherlands. Spain has said 14 nationals face up to 45 days quarantine in Madrid’s high-level isolation unit, and EU officials have kept public risk low.
Sweden has announced plans to use electronic bracelets to monitor children at risk of gang recruitment, assigning devices to youths aged 13 and over to enforce social services curfews and monitoring some 50 to 100 cases, Swedish Social Services Minister Camilla Waltersson Gronvall has said, noting 173 children under 15 are suspected of involvement in murders or plots; the measure follows a law lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 13 for serious offences from 1 July, and it has drawn criticism from children’s rights groups, the National Council for Crime Prevention and UNICEF.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has called for ending the EU unanimity rule and replacing it with qualified majority voting to break decision-making standstills, saying twelve member states have backed the initiative and repeated obstruction by Hungary under Viktor Orbán has fuelled reform demands. He argued the change would preserve unanimity as an ideal while allowing a smaller group to act when all 27 cannot agree, and he urged sweeping reforms to EU funding conditionality, bureaucratic cuts, and a phased approach to enlargement.
