AFP, Iran
Iran has killed hundreds of thousands of birds in recent weeks as avian flu spreads across seven provinces of the country, officials have reported.
More than 1,000 wild birds, mostly geese, have been found dead in the Mighan wetland in central Iran, the environmental protection organisation told state news agency IRNA on Monday.
Typhoon leaves three dead in Philippines
AFP, Philippines
A powerful typhoon left three dead and threatened to bring heavy rains and winds to the heavily-populated Philippine capital as it dragged its way across the archipelago on Monday, spoiling the Christmas holidays.
Typhoon Nock-Ten, which made landfall on the eastern island province of Catanduanes on Sunday, is forecast to move westward towards the country’s heartland, packing winds of 215 kilometres (134 miles) per hour.
1,682 more arrested in Turkey
Reuters, Istanbul
Turkish authorities last week detained 1,682 people for questioning over suspected links to militant organizations and arrested another 516, the interior ministry said on Monday.
People suspected of links to the Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara says orchestrated an attempted coup in July, made up the biggest number of both the detained, 1,096, and the arrested, 426.
Two die as police building collapses in Lagos
Reuters, Lagos
Two people were killed when part of a two-storey building in a police training college collapsed in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos on Sunday, the police and the emergency agency said.
The collapse happened at about 04:00 a.m. (0300 GMT) in the densely populated Ikeja district of the city, an official from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said.
