World news in brief
Flash floods kill 12 in Turkey earthquake area
At least a dozen have died after floods caused by torrential rain hit two Turkish border provinces already devastated by last month’s earthquake. Floodwater carried away cars and debris and inundated the basement and ground floors of some buildings, turning roads into rivers in central Sanliurfa.
Rescuers found the bodies of five Syrian nationals inside a flooded basement, and heavy rain also flooded the intensive care unit at Sanliurfa’s Eyyubiye Training and Research Hospital. Schools were closed due to the rain, which is expected to
continue. In Adiyaman province, where surging waters swept away a converted shipping container sheltering a family of earthquake survivors.
The provinces were hit by earthquakes last month that killed more than 52,000 people – the vast majority in Turkey and the remainder across the border in Syria. Thousands of survivors have been living in tents and container houses awaiting help from authorities.
‘Prison-like’ detention in UAE for thousands of Afghans
Thousands of Afghan nationals who fled their home country to escape the Taliban are being kept in arbitrary detention in UAE, according to a damning report by Human Rights Watch (HRW). More than 2,000 have been stuck in extremely poor quality and cramped living conditions for more than 15 months in the “Emirates Humanitarian City”, a months-long investigation by the rights group has found.
A former Afghan supreme court judge died in the camp, HRW found, while another refugee attempted suicide. The difficult living conditions include an alleged deprivation of legal assistance and denial of permissions to leave the premises. “The camp is exactly like a prison,” one Afghanistan national inside the camp, roughly midway between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, told the international human rights watchdog.
Mystery over sub found with cocaine and dead bodies inside
A semi-submersible craft carrying $87m worth of cocaine, along with two dead bodies and two surviving crew members, was intercepted off the coast of Columbia on Sunday. “There was an accident inside the semi-submersible vessel due to the generation of toxic gases from fuel,” the Colombian navy wrote in a statement. According to Colombian officials, the cocaine inside was bound for Central America.
Photos and videos from the operation show officials pulling alongside a sleek, dagger-shaped sub, and loading off black
bundles of shrink-wrapped cocaine, as other first responders carry a man on a stretcher. On the same day as the submarine was discovered, Colombian officials also encountered three semi-subs believed to belong to a splinter faction of the Farc, a guerilla group that has long fought with the Colombian government.
YouTuber booted from Japan parliament
A YouTuber-turned-lawmaker has become Japan’s first MP to be expelled from parliament for the first time for not turning up. Yoshikazu Higashitani, known by his online name GaaSyy, was ordered to apologise earlier this month for his prolonged absence. The 51-year-old, one of the two elected members of the fringe Seijika Joshi 48 party, had not set foot in the House of Councillors since his July 2022 election, despite attendance being mandatory for lawmakers.
“GaaSyy doesn’t understand the foundations of democracy, which is based on laws and rules,” Muneo Suzuki, head of the committee, was quoted by The Japan Times as saying. The committee had summoned Mr Higashitani to deliver an inperson apology to the Upper House for his absence. He failed to show up at the session and instead announced on his YouTube channel that he was going to Turkey.
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