Forest fires that may have been started deliberately at separate locations near a famous Turkish holiday resort left hundreds of people homeless and hundreds more fleeing their homes to escape the flames. The fires broke out around noon on July 28 at four different points in the Yenikoy, Evrenseki, Colakli and Kalemler neighborhoods in the district of Manavgat in the southern Turkish province of Antalya, a major center of the local tourist industry. The Manavgat Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into the cause of the fires. The north wind spread the fire, which first broke out in the…
Author: zenger.news
Time-lapse footage by a Turkish drone artist shows views of Mount Nemrut, a World Heritage Site since 1987. The mountain is believed to be a royal tomb from the first century B.C. The 7,001-foot mountain in southeastern Turkey is noted for having large statues around its summit. In 62 B.C., King Antiochus I Theos of Commagene built a tomb-sanctuary on the summit flanked by huge statues of himself, two lions, two eagles and various Greek and Iranian gods. The statues once had the names of each god inscribed on them. The heads were removed from their bodies at some point…
A herd of European bison being reintroduced in Kent woodland will be looked after by the U.K.’s first Bison Ranger team. Kent Wildlife Trust and the Wildwood Trust discovery park near Canterbury unveiled the team, funded by players of People’s Postcode Lottery, ahead of the reintroduction next year of a small herd of bison. Tom Gibbs and Donovan Wright were selected in a competition with over 1,200 applicants from around the world to start patrolling one of the U.K.’s largest areas of ancient woodland ahead of bison arriving there in 2022. They will look after the country’s first conservation herd…
MUMBAI, India — Bollywood superstars Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan, and more from the Bollywood fraternity have heaped praise on one of the most decorated American gymnasts, Simone Biles. She withdrew from an all-around competition on July 29 to focus on her mental well-being. Deepika Padukone, who has been quite vocal about her battle with depression, took to her Instagram handle and gave a shout-out. Sharing the athlete’s news screenshot by a news outlet, her story read, “I hear you…” by adding hashtags: “#mentalhealth,” ‘#mentalhealthmatters.” Alia Bhatt also took to her Instagram story to amplify Biles’ voice. Sharing the news,…
NEW DELHI — On the occasion of International Tiger Day, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the country had achieved the target of doubling the tiger population four years ahead of the schedule of the Saint Petersburg Declaration on Tiger Conservation. The Saint Petersburg declaration on tiger conservation was signed at the Tiger Summit in 2010, with world leaders committed to doubling tiger numbers by 2022. In the meeting, it was decided to celebrate July 29 as Global Tiger Day to raise awareness about the failing number of tigers worldwide. In a series of tweets, Modi extended greetings to wildlife lovers.…
NEW DELHI — An Indian parliamentary panel led by a politician belonging to the opposition party, the Indian National Congress, summoned officials from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Ministry of Home Affairs over the Pegasus spyware issue. Politician Shashi Tharoor has demanded a sitting Supreme Court Judge-led judicial probe into the issue. “We have two agenda items: Citizen’s data privacy and security and cybersecurity,” said Tharoor. “The ‘Pegasus Project’ issues come under these agendas. The standing committee has the right to question the government secretaries. We demand a sitting Supreme Court Judge led the judicial probe.”…
NEW DELHI — A new study by Deloitte, commissioned by the Autodesk Foundation, said that India ranks fifth highest in terms of impact from automation and ninth in the level of preparedness for the automation wave that the world will soon witness. The country faces a greater likelihood of being impacted by automation due to larger employment shares in agriculture, manufacturing, and construction — all identified as high-risk industries by the report titled ‘The Future of Work is Now: Is APAC Ready?‘ “Though India’s construction sector is most likely to be automated, its construction sector is the fifth most vulnerable, ahead of…
DELHI, India — An Indian Court on July 27 granted Twitter the last opportunity to file a “better” affidavit with the details of the person appointed as its chief compliance officer and grievance officer. A bench of the Delhi High Court pulled up Twitter for not complying with the recently amended IT rules of the country and expressed unhappiness with Twitter’s affidavits. “Are you serious about it,” said Justice Rekha Palli and criticized Twitter after taking note of the affidavits filed by the company. “The affidavits clearly show of total non-compliance of rules.” The Court was hearing a petition seeking direction to the Union…
NEW DELHI — “We recognize that every democracy, starting with our own, is a work in progress, and when we discuss these issues, I certainly do it from starting point of humility,” United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said as he concluded his two-day trip to India. Topics like the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccinations, human rights issues, Afghanistan, and terrorism were some issues discussed between the two countries during the visit. The Secretary of State is the third high-ranking Biden administration official to visit India after the new government came to power in the U.S. in January. U.S. Defence Secretary…
WASHINGTON — “The Taliban are not some military outfits, but normal civilians,” Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said in an interview to a news channel on July 27. “How the country is supposed to hunt them down when it has three million Afghan refugees at the border?” Pakistan hosts three million Afghan refugees, of which the majority are Pashtuns, the same ethnic group as the Taliban fighters, said Khan. “Now, there are camps of 500,000 people; there are camps of 100,000 people,” Khan said. “Where are these safe-havens? There are three million refugees in Pakistan who are the same ethnic…