CAIRO: Egyptians delivering incorrect weather forecasts through media channels or providing weather information without a license could face fines of up to 5 million Egyptian pounds ($205,000) under a new draft law.

The law approved by the Egyptian Cabinet sets out to regulate the Egyptian Meteorological Authority, and imposes penalties starting at 100,000 Egyptian pounds on anyone who issues meteorological data, information or studies and falsely attributes them to the EMA.

DOHA: Qatar is to provide $2.6 million to aid almost 100,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon with food, medicine, and shelter.

The Qatar Fund for Development agreed to the disbursement through the UN Refugee Agency, the UNHCR, in the early winter months to more than 13,500 Syrians in Jordan and nearly 82,400 in Lebanon. 

“QFFD spares no effort in responding to the ever-growing humanitarian needs around the world,” said Director General Khalifa Al-Kuwari. “The onset of winter makes our efforts more crucial to support those in urgent need of assistance.

PARIS: The Kurds are a non-Arab ethnic group of between 25 and 35 million people whose dreams of an independent homeland were brutally quashed throughout the 20th century.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has blamed Kurdish militants for a deadly bombing in Istanbul earlier this month, an accusation they have strongly rejected.

In retaliation, Turkiye has hit nearly 500 Kurdish targets across Iraq and Syria as part of a campaign of air strikes in recent days, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Wednesday.

CHIBAYISH, Iraq: Abbas Hashem fixed his worried gaze on the horizon — the day was almost gone and still, there was no sign of the last of his water buffaloes. He knows that when his animals don’t come back from roaming the marshes of this part of Iraq, they must be dead.

The dry earth is cracked beneath his feet and thick layers of salt coat shriveled reeds in the Chibayish wetlands amid this year’s dire shortages in freshwater flows from the Tigris River.

LONDON: On Sept. 13, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, was arrested in Tehran for violating the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women. In the custody of the Gasht-e Ershad — the “Guidance Patrol,” or morality police — she suffered a catastrophic head injury and, after three days in a coma, died in hospital.