Mayor describes situation as ‘very serious’

Mayor of the coastal town of Kyrenia, Murat Senkul, says the situation is “very serious”.

In a post on Facebook, he says 270 passengers and crew were aboard when the ship sank off the coast of northern Cyprus.

We’ve seen an update from Turkey’s Interior Ministry which reports 267 people were on board.

Senkul says coastal security is taking part in numerous small boat rescue operations alongside Akgunlerin Express.

Passengers rescued after boat capsizes

Rescued passengers are shown being taken ashore after the boat capsized off Kyrenia, in northern Cyprus.

A helicopter and ambulance are also pictured at the port.

‘There has been loss of life and there are injuries’ – statement

There has been casualties after the ship capsized seven kilometres (4 miles) off the coast of Kyrenia Harbour, Ünal Üstel, the prime minister of the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus says.

In a statement at the scene he says: “We are deeply saddened. There has been loss of life and there are injuries.

“We are on the ground with all our resources.”

The self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which is controlled by and only recognised by Turkey.

Search and rescue operation under way – Turkish Interior Ministry

The Turkish Interior Ministry says a passenger ship, carrying 259 passengers and eight crew members, began taking taking on water and “was in danger of sinking at a location 4 nautical miles off Kyrenia Port”.

A search and rescue operation initiated, it adds in a statement.

The statement adds: “As part of these operations, four marine vessels belonging to the TRNC Coast Guard Command and the passenger ship AKGÜNLER 3 were deployed to the scene, while the Coast Guard Command dispatched an additional five marine vessels and two Coast Guard helicopters to the area.

“Furthermore, six naval vessels were assigned by the Naval Forces Command to support the operations being conducted in the region.

“Search and rescue efforts are being carried out meticulously and in co-ordination among the relevant units.”

A boat with some 270 passengers on board capsizes off northern Cyprus

A passenger boat with some 270 people on board has capsized off northern Cyprus, with a search and rescue under way, local media report.

Murat Senkul, the mayor of the coastal town of Kyrenia, told broadcaster CNN Turk that 159 of those aboard had been reached.

“The situation is very serious,” he said.

For more updates from the GRACYNEWS, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Last Updated on August 30, 2026 by Grace Simon

Nigeria and several other African countries feature prominently among the world’s 60 poorest countries in a 2026 ranking by Global Finance magazine, based on GDP per capita at purchasing power parity.

Burundi ranked as the country with the lowest GDP per capita in the ranking, at $994.23, followed by the Central African Republic with $1,437.72 and South Sudan with $1,467.19.

The figures are based on GDP per capita at purchasing power parity, a measure that adjusts for differences in the cost of living and inflation across countries.

Nine of the 10 countries at the bottom of the ranking are in Africa, with Yemen the only non-African country among them.

The 10 lowest-ranked countries were Burundi, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Yemen, Mozambique, Malawi, Somalia, Liberia, Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Nigeria ranked 56th, with a GDP per capita of $9,532.92, compared with 44th position in the 2025 ranking.

Niger ranked 11th with $2,108.46, followed by Sudan at 13th with $2,427.43 and Burkina Faso at 16th with $3,060.34.

Lesotho ranked 17th with $3,211.83, while Chad and Guinea-Bissau occupied the 18th and 19th positions with $3,284.18 and $3,304.84 respectively.

Mali ranked 20th with $3,480.41, followed by Togo at 21st with $3,563.31, The Gambia at 22nd with $3,664.60 and Sierra Leone at 23rd with $3,709.84.

Uganda ranked 26th with $3,923.83, while Vanuatu, Comoros, Rwanda and Tanzania occupied the 27th, 28th, 29th and 30th positions respectively.

Last Updated on August 26, 2026 by Grace Simon

Lando Norris beat championship leader Kimi Antonelli to claim his second win in a row with victoy at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Reigning world champion Norris moved up to fourth in the drivers’ standings, 83 points adrift of Mercedes’ Antonelli.

Four-time world champion Max Verstappen suffered heartbreak at his final home race when he crashed out heavily in the opening stages.

F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your questions after round 12 of the campaign in Zandvoort.

Is it fair to say the dominance of Mercedes is over? They haven’t won a race since Spa-Francorchamps, and even then that victory wasn’t consecutive. Are they focusing more now on scoring points than they are winning races?

There has been a very obvious shift in competitiveness at the front as the Formula 1 season has progressed.

Mercedes won the first six races of the season, but have won only two of the subsequent six.

Mercedes took 10 consecutive poles in the first 10 races, but have been beaten by McLaren’s Lando Norris at the past two grands prix. And the fastest Mercedes was lower than second for the first time in Hungary, where Red Bull’s Max Verstappen also lined up ahead of Kimi Antonelli.

Over the season as a whole so far, the Mercedes is the fastest car in qualifying by an average of 0.316 seconds over Ferrari, with McLaren a further 0.041secs adrift.

But what happens when you split that into the first six races and the next six?

Until the Canadian Grand Prix in late May, Mercedes were 0.453secs a lap faster than the next fastest team, which was McLaren at the time, and 0.489secs quicker than Ferrari.

Since Monaco, that gap has come down to 0.163secs over Ferrari and 0.270secs over McLaren. Red Bull’s gap over the past six races is 0.353secs, whereas it was 0.813secs up to Canada.

There is a very obvious reason for this – Mercedes have upgraded their car less than their rivals. To a quite stark degree.

Each race, governing body the FIA issues a sheet showing the declared upgrades each team has brought to that race.

It’s not a definitive list – teams don’t have to put all the changes on that sheet, only the ones that are visible. But it gives an idea.

Since the start of the season, Mercedes have fitted a total of 24 new parts to their cars, compared with 37 for Red Bull, 38 for McLaren and 40 by Ferrari.

This is not a direct representation of relative spend, as some parts are more expensive than others.

But it’s striking, for example, that Mercedes have also deployed fewer upgrades than Aston Martin, Alpine, Racing Bulls, Audi and Cadillac.

Even Haas, the team with the smallest budget on the grid, have had more upgrades than Mercedes, who have the equal lowest number with Williams.

This is all in the context of the budget cap, which is set at $215m (£170m) for all teams.

The question, obviously, is what is going on here?

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says: “We haven’t got the money to put developments on the car.

“We are trying to evenly split that through the season, based on our calculations of when we can bring the biggest updates and optimising the championship points. But we just can do what we can do.”

Asked why McLaren and Ferrari appeared to have the money and Mercedes did not, Wolff said: “Well, you will see how towards the end of the season (whether) they are going to be able to deploy as much stuff on to the car as they do now.

“Someone might have a different strategy in spending more at the beginning and in the middle of the year than towards the end.”

The obvious conclusion is that Mercedes either spent more money in the design and build process of this year’s car than their rivals – which would make sense, given how competitive it was at the start of the season – or they have saved money to spend on their next upgrade, and/or next year’s car.

That is due at the so-called Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia at the start of October, when there are either eight or nine grands prix remaining, depending on the situation in the Middle East.

On top of that, Antonelli will take a grid penalty at the next race in Italy for exceeding the permitted number of engine parts, and George Russell will also have one at a subsequent race, most likely Azerbaijan.

How did the alleged improvements go on the Aston Martin? Is there any sign of improved performance? – Chris

Honda gave a debut to its long-awaited ‘spec two’ engine at the Dutch Grand Prix, while Aston Martin added a new front wing and diffuser to the pretty much all-new car that was introduced at the previous race in Hungary.

Within the team, they were hoping that the Honda engine would reduce lap times by somewhere in the region of 0.3-0.5secs.

The weekend painted a confusing picture.

On the one hand, Fernando Alonso looked more competitive than ever before at various points.

But he qualified further away from pole in both positional and percentage terms than he had in Hungary.

There were, however, extenuating circumstances, in that he was 12th fastest before failing to improve on a messy final lap hindered by a sub-optimal ‘prep’ lap which left his tyres out of the ‘window’. Without that, he probably would have progressed beyond the first session.

Nevertheless, that suggests the new Honda was little better than the old one. On the other hand, the new engine’s drivability was definitely worse, which may have skewed the picture.

But then Alonso drove an outstanding race on a one-stop strategy to take ninth place, looking after tyres and measuring his pace with all the expertise and skill he has shown throughout his career to hold off two faster cars in Pierre Gasly’s Alpine and Yuki Tsunoda’s Racing Bull in the final stint.

Those are the first points Aston Martin have scored on merit all season.

As Alonso put it: “We scored one point in Monaco with nine DNFs (retirements). Today we scored two points with Max (Verstappen) DNF. It was well deserved.”

Alonso said after the race that the team were planning a two-stop but changed during the race because they were stuck behind other cars.

“We are in traffic,” he said. “We cannot use our potential. We are faster in the corners than the people in front of us and we are slower on the straights. We’re stuck behind.

“So as soon as we have free track in front of us, we try to use it. Even if it’s not the optimal performance and the optimal strategy, and it’s what we did today.”

On the car and engine upgrades, Alonso said: “Another step forward, especially on the chassis side.

“We brought four or five components here. Also the Budapest package was understood in the (summer) break. With all the data available after the race, we fine-tuned a little bit the set-up around that new spec. Plus the new parts. I think now we are optimising the chassis side and we are able to extract the maximum.

“The engine is more difficult. I don’t think we can be black and white if we have more power or not.

“On the driver side of things, you change circuits one month after the other race. The drivability has been a difficult weekend. We struggled with the downshift again. We struggled with the engine braking corner to corner. It was a challenging weekend in that regard.”

These engines are highly complex and it takes time for teams to dial into them so they are working at their optimum. So it may be a few more races before the new Honda can be judged fairly.

Did Charles Leclerc cost Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton a podium position by holding Hamilton up when he refused to pit when instructed to, and what will Ferrari do to ensure he follows team orders in the future? – Mike

Mid-race in Zandvoort, Lewis Hamilton came up behind Charles Leclerc on fresher tyres, their strategies offset, and asked to be let by to optimise his race.

The way the television broadcast was played out, it sounded as if Ferrari decided to pit Leclerc for fresh tyres to get him out of the way. He initially resisted that and did not come in, but then came in at the next call.

Team boss Frederic Vasseur addressed this after the race, in comments that were a little unclear.

First, he said, at that point, Ferrari were thinking of running Hamilton to the end, so they did not want him to push hard – but had not told him that was the case, because they wanted to keep the plan secret from their rivals.

As for Leclerc, Vasseur said they were “expecting him to pit” but then realised he was in danger of coming out in traffic.

Vasseur said: “Charles was supposed to pit, we extended one lap, and it was a kind of confusion, but I’m not worried about this. Everybody will be back in the briefing, they will have a clear picture about the race.”

Some will inevitably say this was another example of Ferrari messing up their strategy, an accusation that is levelled at them quite often.

Vasseur said: “It’s not so easy, but, if I look at the race now, my issue is that we didn’t tell Lewis that we were expecting him to go to the end, and it was not a matter of (him) pushing (at that point).”

Did the delay cost Hamilton third? Hamilton thought so, but it’s impossible to know whether he would have passed George Russell if he had had a lap or two more to try.

Did Leclerc cost Hamilton podium?

With Isack Hadjar hurting his wrist during the summer break, do teams not ask drivers to stay away from high impact or dangerous sports and activity during their time off to keep them ready for their return? – Dave

F1 drivers’ contracts usually have clauses in them forbidding them from doing ‘dangerous sports’, such as skiing or scuba diving, although not every driver’s contract is the same.

In Hadjar’s case, the Frenchman suffered what Red Bull describe as a “minor fracture” while doing a boxing exercise which is part of his normal gym routine.

There is no suggestion of him doing anything that could have been outside the terms of his contract.

Red Bull are targeting for him to return for the next race, the Italian Grand Prix, but it remains to be seen whether that will be possible.

For more updates from the GRACYNEWS, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Last Updated on August 26, 2026 by Grace Simon