AFP, Ankara
Turkey has dismissed over 900 public sector officials in the latest wave of the purge that has followed last year’s failed coup, according to an emergency decree published in the official gazette Friday. Over 140,000 people have been sacked or suspended from their jobs since July 2016 over alleged links to US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused of ordering the attempted coup. Gulen denies the charges.
Death toll from South Asia flood tops 1,200
Reuters, Bhubaneswar
The death toll from floods in India, Bangladesh and Nepal has climbed above 1,200, officials said on Friday, as rescue workers scramble to provide aid to millions of people stranded by the worst such disaster in years.
All three countries suffer frequent flooding during the June-September monsoon season, but international aid agencies say things are worse this year with thousands of villages cut off and people deprived of food and clean water for days.
Poland isolating itself in Europe: Macron
Reuters, Varna
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said Poland was isolating itself in Europe and that Polish citizens “deserved better” than their government’s refusal to seek compromise on European rules on the employment of labor from low-pay nations.
Macron said Warsaw was moving in the opposite direction to Europe on a number of issues and would not be able to determine the path of Europe’s future.
Taliban attack kills 4 Afghan troops
AP, Kandahar
An Afghan official says the Taliban have attacked a security outpost in southern Kandahar province, the insurgents former heartland, killing 4 troops.
Provincial police chief’s spokesman, Zia Durrani, says the security forces repulsed the Taliban attack with the help of air support from the Afghan air force.
Durrani says the Friday morning attack also left seven policemen wounded.
