Day News Recap: Earthquake toll rises in Indonesia as Middle East tensions and wildfires deepen

Indonesia is facing the worst of the day’s developments after a powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake off Flores Island killed at least 38 people, injured many more and caused widespread damage, with aftershocks continuing across eastern Indonesia.  🔗

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In the Middle East, Lebanese officials said Israeli air strikes killed nine people in the south, while Yemen’s internationally recognised government said a Houthi strike on the Red Sea port city of al Makha killed at least four.  🔗  🔗

Lebanon’s political and security tensions also sharpened as the prime minister pressed for a clear timetable for Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanese territory, even as Hezbollah attacks complicated the talks.  🔗

Iran kept up its pressure over the Strait of Hormuz, saying the waterway would remain under its control and that it had not yet decided whether to resume talks with the United States, while also working with Oman on a temporary shipping route.  🔗  🔗

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Elsewhere in the region, the United Nations warned that more than half of women’s aid organisations still operating in Afghanistan could shut within a year because of funding shortfalls, as the Taliban marked five years in power and other countries deepened contacts with the movement.  🔗  🔗  🔗

In East Asia, South Korea’s president renewed his call for direct talks with North Korea to formally end the Korean War, while Taiwan passed its delayed 93 billion dollar defence budget and kept funding for a key drone programme.  🔗  🔗

Japan drew criticism from China and South Korea after defence minister Shinjiro Koizumi visited Yasukuni Shrine, and the United States separately backed Japan’s sovereignty claim over disputed islands in its row with Russia.  🔗  🔗

Australia and the UK both faced domestic security and emergency issues, with New South Wales set to begin a gun buyback scheme after the Bondi Beach attack and a national wildfire alert issued in England and Wales after fires destroyed 19 homes in Stourbridge.  🔗  🔗

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Croatia also battled a fast moving wildfire near Omiš that left one person dead and around 40 injured, while in the occupied West Bank activists said an attempt to deliver food and water to trapped Palestinian families in Qusra was blocked because the area remained a military zone.  🔗  🔗

In other developments, the UK rejected Benjamin Netanyahu’s description of Britain as the “Islamic republic of Britain”, Donald Trump dismissed concerns over conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, and Iran said it had intercepted 3,663 kilogrammes of methamphetamine headed for Europe and the Persian Gulf.  🔗  🔗  🔗

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