# Monday 31st August 2026. Iceland EU referendum result. Cyprus ferry. Switzerland shooting. Norway Harald. Ukraine depot. Nepal hero teacher.

An episode of [Simple English News Daily](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1505603790), 30 Aug 2026, 7:52.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/op3.dev/e/adbarker.com/stream/K1GF85x83ZWP88Cz18NfA8bx/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74759283/31_08_26.mp3

Become a supporter at send7.supercast.com for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, transcripts, vocabulary lists, worksheets, quizzes and more... The price will go up in September, so lock in your lower price today! World news in 7 minutes. Monday 31st August 2026. Today: Iceland EU referendum result. Cyprus ferry. Switzerland shooting. Ukraine depot strike. Norway Harald. Nepal hero teacher. Palestine journalists attacked. Canada Ontario says no. Ecuador Moreno sentenced. Niger coup attempt. Sudan curfew lifted. Netherlands redheads. With Stephen Devincenzi Become a SEND7 supporter! • Ad-free listening • Bonus quiz episode every Friday • Daily transcripts (written by us, not AI!) • Vocabulary lists • Wednesday worksheets • Ask questions in Ask Me Anything episodes • 10% of our profit goes to Effective Altruism charities. You can become a supporter at send7.supercast.com Sign up for the free newsletter at send7.org/newsletter For more information about SEND7 visit send7.org/contact or send an email to podcast@send7.org

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Starting in Europe today. In Iceland, a referendum has rejected
[0:05] Speaker 1: further talks about joining the European Union, Almost 53% of
[0:32] Speaker 1: votes were for not continuing the talks. Prime Minister Christiane
[0:38] Speaker 1: Frostedottir campaigned for continuing the talks. However, she said that
[0:43] Speaker 1: her government would respect the results of the referendum.
[0:47] Speaker 2: This government is not going forward with the accession talks
[0:51] Speaker 2: this term. And I mean, it's my point of view
[0:54] Speaker 2: that you can't have a referendum like this every one
[0:58] Speaker 2: or two years. It's a huge matter to do. I'm
[1:00] Speaker 2: not going to say things might not change in the future,
[1:02] Speaker 2: but our promise was to ask, get a result, respect it.
[1:06] Speaker 2: This government will continue with the EEA agreement, but we
[1:09] Speaker 2: will not go further with accession talks.
[1:13] Speaker 1: In North Cyprus, at least eight people have died and
[1:16] Speaker 1: 23 are missing after a ferry capsized yesterday. There were
[1:21] Speaker 1: around 270 people on board and most of them were rescued.
[1:27] Speaker 1: North Cyprus is a Turkish-speaking country. de facto state on
[1:31] Speaker 1: the island of Cyprus, which has been effectively separate from
[1:34] Speaker 1: the country of Cyprus since 1974. In Switzerland, an Italian
[1:41] Speaker 1: woman has died in a shooting at a rave party
[1:45] Speaker 1: in the town of Aarau and five other people were injured.
[1:49] Speaker 1: No attacker has been caught and the police say that
[1:52] Speaker 1: they don't know if there is more than one attacker
[1:55] Speaker 1: or what the motive was. The police also said that
[1:59] Speaker 1: because the attacker appears to have fired into the crowd
[2:03] Speaker 1: of people, the motive may be terrorism. In Ukraine, a
[2:08] Speaker 1: Russian strike on an ammunition depot has killed at least
[2:12] Speaker 1: 37 people. President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that the Russian attack
[2:18] Speaker 1: in the Bucha district of Kiev hit a storage place
[2:22] Speaker 1: of Ukrainian weapons and he said that the site shouldn't
[2:26] Speaker 1: have been there. Ukrainian prosecutors have opened an investigation into
[2:30] Speaker 1: why the explosives were being stored close to residential buildings.
[2:36] Speaker 1: In Norway, King Harald V died on Friday, aged 89.
[2:43] Speaker 1: His son, Harkon, is now King of Norway, and will
[2:47] Speaker 1: be known as Harkon VIII. There were memorial services yesterday,
[2:52] Speaker 1: however funeral details have not yet been released. Asia. In Nepal,
[3:00] Speaker 1: a headteacher has been praised for saving the lives of
[3:04] Speaker 1: over 1,600 children by evacuating them from his school before
[3:10] Speaker 1: the avalanche and floods last week. At 9.20 on Wednesday morning,
[3:16] Speaker 1: headteacher Rajendra Dadabi received a phone call from a friend
[3:21] Speaker 1: who lived in a village higher up in the Trishuli Valley.
[3:25] Speaker 1: which had just been hit by the avalanche. Dadaabe immediately
[3:29] Speaker 1: made the decision to evacuate the school, ordering pupils to
[3:33] Speaker 1: walk to higher ground. Minutes later, the school was completely destroyed.
[3:39] Speaker 1: Only one teacher is presumed to have died, and all 1,643
[3:44] Speaker 1: children escaped. In Nepal and China's Tibet region, rescue operations
[3:50] Speaker 1: are continuing. Yesterday, the official death toll in Nepal was 794. However,
[3:57] Speaker 1: the true number of deaths is expected to be in
[4:00] Speaker 1: the thousands, as around 3,000 people are missing. In Tibet,
[4:05] Speaker 1: the official death toll is 16, with 546 missing, according
[4:10] Speaker 1: to Chinese state media. Nepalese authorities have said that there
[4:14] Speaker 1: could be more floods. In Palestine's West Bank, a news
[4:19] Speaker 1: team for NBC News was attacked while they were interviewing
[4:24] Speaker 1: a Palestinian woman. A video recorded by NBC News appears
[4:29] Speaker 1: to show Israeli settlers with their faces covered attacking the
[4:33] Speaker 1: crew with large sticks. America's... In Canada, Premier of the
[4:41] Speaker 1: province of Ontario, Doug Ford, has unveiled a giant sign
[4:45] Speaker 1: on Lake Ontario which says, Lake Ontario, now and always,
[4:50] Speaker 1: in English and French. This is after US President Donald
[4:54] Speaker 1: Trump signed an executive order to change the name of
[4:57] Speaker 1: the lake to Lake America a few days ago.
[5:01] Speaker 3: President Trump can call it whatever he wants, but I
[5:04] Speaker 3: can tell you the rest of the world will always
[5:06] Speaker 3: call it Lake Ontario. I received numerous calls from governors.
[5:10] Speaker 3: They're saying, you know, we're always going to call it
[5:13] Speaker 3: Lake Ontario. And obviously Canada is always going to call
[5:16] Speaker 3: it Lake Ontario. So that's our message to President Trump.
[5:21] Speaker 3: We're resilient and we're strong Canadians. We're always going to
[5:26] Speaker 3: protect our sovereignty, always. And we'll never, ever back down
[5:29] Speaker 3: from a bully, ever.
[5:31] Speaker 1: Indigenous American groups have also complained about the change of
[5:35] Speaker 1: the name as the name Ontario is believed to have
[5:39] Speaker 1: come from the indigenous Wayandot language in which Ontario means
[5:44] Speaker 1: Great Lake. In Ecuador, former President Lenin Moreno has been
[5:50] Speaker 1: sentenced to five years in prison for accepting bribes from
[5:54] Speaker 1: a Chinese company for the construction of a hydroelectric power plant.
[5:59] Speaker 1: Moreno denies any wrongdoing. Africa Niger's military government has said
[6:08] Speaker 1: that it stopped an attempted coup d'etat on Saturday by
[6:12] Speaker 1: members of the army. Russia said that its forces had
[6:16] Speaker 1: helped the Nigerian government to suppress the rebellion. In Sudan's
[6:22] Speaker 1: capital city, Khartoum, the military-led government has removed a curfew
[6:27] Speaker 1: which has been in place for more than two years.
[6:30] Speaker 1: Last year, the army took back control of Khartoum. after
[6:34] Speaker 1: continuous fighting in the capital since the start of the
[6:38] Speaker 1: war with the paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, in 2023.
[6:43] Speaker 1: The International Organisation for Migration says that about 2 million
[6:47] Speaker 1: people have returned to Khartoum over the last year, out
[6:51] Speaker 1: of about 5 million who left. And in the Netherlands,
[6:56] Speaker 1: the city of Tilburg celebrated the annual gathering of redheads
[7:01] Speaker 1: this weekend. only about 1 or 2% of the world's
[7:06] Speaker 1: population has red hair. A big thank you to our
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[7:45] Speaker 1: the link in the episode description. Tomorrow you will be
[7:48] Speaker 1: with Julia Martin. Have a great day.

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