Five people were killed and 44 others injured in a forest fire in southeastern Turkey, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Friday.

A stubble fire broke out on Thursday night in the cultivated areas between the Cinar district of the Diyarbakir province and the Mazidagi district of the Mardin province, Yerlikaya said on social media platform X.

The fire was fueled by wind and quickly spread over a wide area, but it has been taken under control following firefighters’ interventions, reports Xinhua news agency, citing Yerlikaya.

Local authorities have issued warnings about the high risk of forest fires due to the forecasted extreme heat and dry weather conditions during the week.

Turkey is often subjected to forest fires in summer, especially in its western and southern regions. AGENCIES

Torrential rains have killed nine people in two places in south China’s Guangdong province, local authorities said.As of 4 p.m. Thursday, heavy rains left four people dead and four others missing in the Meixian district of the city of Meizhou, and another five dead and two others missing in Jiaoling County of Meizhou.

In Meixian, the rains have affected 32,083 people and more than 1,586 hectares of crops, causing direct economic losses of about 1.06 billion yuan ($146.4 million), Xinhua news agency reported.

In Jiaoling, a total of 64,947 people have been affected, with direct economic losses of about 3.65 billion yuan.

Rescue and disaster relief efforts are underway in the two places. AGENCIES

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has unveiled the federal government’s policy to deliver the National School Food Program across the country.

With an investment of 1 billion Canadian dollars ($730 million) over five years, the programme will provide meals to up to 400,000 more kids every year, beyond those served by existing school food programmes, according to a news statement from the Prime Minister’s website.

On average, the programme is expected to save participating families with two kids up to 800 Canadian dollars ($584) a year in grocery bills, the statement said as quoted by Xinhua news agency report.

The programme includes investments that will support school food programming for First Nations, Inuit, and Metis communities as well as Self-Governing and Modern Treaty partners, many of whom have some of the highest rates of food insecurity in Canada, the statement added.

According to Statistics Canada estimates, in 2022, 22.3 per cent of families and more than 2.1 million children under the age of 18 in Canada reported experiencing some level of food insecurity over the past 12 months. AGENCIES

Australian police revealed on Friday that a woman was charged after wielding a knife and was injured during a police shooting in Victoria.

According to a report from Victoria Police, the 51-year-old woman has been charged with two counts of threats to assault police, two counts of assaulting police, two counts of common law assault, and reckless conduct causing serious injury.

On Sunday, emergency services were called to Penders Park near Collins Street in Thornbury at about 2:50 p.m. local time following reports of a woman armed with a kitchen knife, reports Xinhua news agency.

The involved venue is located approximately 8 km north of Melbourne’s central business district.

Despite officers’ negotiations with the woman to drop the knife, she refused to do so, and pepper spray was deployed afterward.

“The woman then allegedly ran at officers while holding the knife before one shot was fired by police. She was conveyed to hospital in a stable condition to be treated for a gunshot wound to her thigh,” said Victoria Police.Local authorities have launched an investigation into the incident under the oversight of Professional Standards Command, which is standard protocol when a police firearm is discharged. AGENCIES

Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said Thursday that 28 deaths were confirmed among the 50,752 officially registered Egyptian pilgrims during Hajj in Saudi Arabia’s Mecca.

Madbouly said in a cabinet statement that he was tasked by the president to lead an interdepartmental crisis unit to “provide support and assistance to the families of the deceased and to study the reasons for what had happened and work to prevent its recurrence.”

The unit will also probe into violations  those unregistered pilgrims, he said, adding that since some Egyptian pilgrims were not registered in the official Hajj database, it was difficult for the Egyptian medical team in Mecca to follow their conditions and provide necessary services.

Egyptian consular work teams were currently confirming the identity and number of hospitalized Egyptian pilgrims, including those receiving treatment and the deceased, according to the cabinet’s statement.

Meanwhile, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi highlighted “the need for immediate coordination with the Saudi authorities to facilitate receiving the bodies of the deceased and streamline the process in this regard,” said the Egyptian presidency in a statement.

On Wednesday Ahmed Abu Zeid said the ministry extended sincere condolences to the families of the deceased pilgrims, stressing its efforts around the clock until all Egyptian pilgrims return home safely.

Egyptian citizens who have lost contact with families in Mecca, Medina, or at holy pilgrimage sites are advised to contact the ministry or call the 24-hour emergency consular services in Jeddah.

Hajj, a key pillar of Islam, is annually performed in Mecca by pilgrims coming from all over the world. The number of pilgrims has exceeded 1.8 million this year, according to Saudi authorities.

The Hajj season coincided this year with a heatwave that led to hundreds of deaths among crowds of pilgrims. The temperatures in Mecca sometimes exceeded 51 degrees Celsius in recent days. AGENCIES

A shooting during a Juneteenth celebration at Lake Merritt in Oakland, US state of California, left 15 people injured, the police said.The crowds were peaceful until around 8:15 p.m. local time on Wednesday when an illegal sideshow involving vehicles and motorbikes occurred near Grand Avenue and Bellevue Avenue, Oakland Police Department said on Thursday in a press statement.

During the sideshow, someone walked onto the hood of a car, which led to the occupants getting out and assaulting that person. Then came the gunfire, Oakland Police Department Chief Floyd Mitchell said at a press conference on Thursday noon as reported by Xinhua news agency.

The Oakland Fire Department said it transported at least four gunshot victims to a local hospital.

Police also took some victims to nearby hospitals. Other victims were self-transported. AGENCIES

A 5.7-magnitude earthquake jolted off Indonesia’s eastern Highland Papua province on Friday morning without generating large waves, the country’s meteorology, climatology and geophysics agency said.

The tremors occurred at 7:11 a.m. local time, with the epicentre located 68 km northeast of Yalimo Regency and at a depth of 78 km beneath the earth’s surface, according to the agency.

No tsunami warning was issued, as the quake’s tremors were not anticipated to generate large waves, reports Xinhua news agency.

Officials have not received any initial reports of damage or casualties from the areas affected by the tremor, said Caroline, a senior official with the provincial meteorology agency, to Xinhua.

Indonesia, an archipelago, is situated on the seismically active “Pacific Ring of Fire,” rendering it susceptible to earthquakes. AGENCIES

Three people were killed and two civilians injured in Israeli air strikes targeting several areas in southern Lebanon, Lebanese military sources told the media.The sources, who spoke anonymously, said on Thursday that an Israeli warplane fired six air-to-surface missiles at the southeast village of Khiam, killing a Hezbollah member and wounding two civilians, Xinhua news agency reported.

In a separate incident, an Israeli drone fired four air-to-surface missiles at a car in the Tyre district of southwest Lebanon, killing a Hezbollah official, Abbas Ibrahim Hamza Hamada, who was a commander in the western region of the border area.

The sources added that an Israeli drone raided a civilian car in the village of Houmine in the Nabatieh district, killing its driver, Hadi Jumaa, whose father was reportedly close to Hezbollah.

Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on October 8, 2023, following a barrage of rockets launched by Hezbollah toward Israel in solidarity with Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7.

Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon. AGENCIES

 A Ukrainian drone crashed into the Ilsky oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region, injuring two people and causing a fire, regional authorities said on Friday.

The incident occurred at approximately 4 a.m. on Friday, the Emergency Department of the Seversky district reported. The crash caused damage to utility structures within the refinery. A fire covering an area of 50 square metres was extinguished, Xinhua news agency reported.

“Preliminary reports indicate that two people were injured,” the department said.

Krasnodar Governor Veniamin Kondratyev confirmed that administrative buildings at the refinery were damaged.

A boiler house near the Yuzhny bus station in Krasnodar was also affected.

“Regrettably, there are injured workers at these sites. They are receiving all necessary medical assistance,” Kondratyev said on his Telegram channel.

Earlier reports from the Krasnodar regional operational headquarters indicated that several municipalities in the region experienced a mass attack by Ukrainian armed forces early Friday.

The operational headquarters also reported that falling debris from a drone caused injuries to four people in Krasnodar. AGENCIES

There has been a massive 200 times increase in the number of space startups in the last two years owing to the major policy decision taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to open up the space sector, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, Jitendra Singh, has said.

According to the minister, the move also allowed public-private participation in a big way, adding that the share of India in the global space economy by 2030 is going to rise four times in comparison to 2021.

Chairing a high-level meeting to review the 100-day action plan of the Department of Space, the minister took stock of the present status, the opportunities and future space missions of India’s space sector.

ISRO Chairman S. Somanath, his team and senior officials were present in the meeting.

“Space startups have increased from 1 in 2022 to nearly 200 in 2024, witnessing an unprecedented rise of 200 times in these years,” said Minister Singh.

In 2023, nearly Rs 1,000 crore was invested in the space sector of India in just about eight months.

Further, the industry caters to nearly 450 MSMEs affirming the PM’s vision of “Sabka Prayas” during the Amrit kaal period.

Giving further insights into the space sector, Dr Jitendra Singh said the share of India in the global space economy by 2030 is going to rise four times in comparison to 2021.

In 2021, the Indian space industry contributed 2 per cent to the global share. This is expected to rise to 8 per cent by 2030 and further to 15 per cent by the year 2047. AGENCIES