Deadly storm hits Philippines

Flash floods and landslides caused by Tropical Storm Jangmi leave at least 31 people dead and seven missing.

Source: aljazeera.com

Flash floods and landslides triggered by Tropical Storm Jangmi have left at least 31 people dead and seven missing in the Philippines, including in areas still recovering from last year’s Typhoon Haiyan, officials have said.

Jangmi, packing winds of 65 kilometres per hour and gusts of 80 kph, had dumped heavy rains on southern Mindanao Island.

Floods destroyed bridges and highways, sending thousands of residents to evacuation centres.

The storm then pushed its way through eastern and central islands, where most of the deaths occurred on Tuesday.

The government weather bureau said that as of late Tuesday afternoon, the eye of the storm was 140 kilometres southwest of central Iloilo City, moving west at 19kph towards western Palawan Island.

Turkey builds ‘upgraded’ Syria refugee camp

Most of the 180,000 refugees from Kobane are currently living in makeshift shelters

Source: aljazeera.com

Turkey has begun building a new and upgraded refugee camp in the country’s southeast to accommodate tens of thousands of Syrians who escaped the conflict in the Kurdish city of Kobane in northern Syria.

The new camp will open in mid-January and house 32,500 people, the provincial head of Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, or AFAD, reported on Sunday.

The camp will offer educational institutions, from middle school to high school, along with a fully functioning hospital, said Mahmut Sonmez who is in charge of AFAD’s operations for the southeastern province of Sanliurfa.

ABANDONED PRIPYAT, UKRAINE (IMAGE)

 Pripyat is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, near the border with Belarus. Named for the nearby Pripyat River, Pripyat was founded on 4 February 1970, the ninth nuclear city in the Soviet Union, for theChernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It was officially proclaimed a city in 1979, and had grown to a population of 49,360 before being evacuated a few days after the 26 April 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Though Pripyat is located within the administrative district of Ivankiv Raion, the abandoned city now has a special status within the largerKiev Oblast (province), being administered directly from Kiev. Pripyat is also supervised by Ukraine’s Ministry of Emergencies, which manages activities for the entire Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Deadly earthquake hits southern China

Officials say at least one person dead and 38 others injured, eight of them critically, in mountainous Yunnan province.

Source: aljazeera.com

An earthquake has struck southwest China’s mountainous Yunnan province, killing at least one person and injuring dozens of others.

The 6.0-magnitude struck on Tuesday at a shallow depth of 10km at 9.49 pm (13:49 GMT), the US Geological Survey (USGS) said, in a region that lies close to China’s borders with Myanmar and Laos.

21 Of The Best Nature Photo Entries To The 2014 National Geographic Photo Contest

Source: photography.nationalgeographic.com

Arctic Hi-Five (Svalbard, Nature Category)

“Two Polar bear cubs full of adrenaline on iceflow in Svalbard. The mother was just trying to have a quiet stroll but the cubs were not having any of that.This was the male cub and he just was so entertaining to watch.” (Photo credits: Colin Mackenzie)

Iraq army claims fresh gains against ISIL

Iraqi ministry of defence says military recaptures 30 villages close to Baghdad from ISIL fighters.

Source: aljazeera.com

Iraqi military forces backed by Shia volunteer fighters have recaptured 30 villages from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group east of Baghdad, the ministry of defence has said.

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said that the army was trying to build “offensive chains” in Diyala province.

China’s biggest gold mine found in Muslim majority province of Xinjiang

Source: http://www.5pillarz.com/

Geologists have discovered China’s largest gold mine in the Muslim majority province of Xinjiang, according to the state news agency Xinhau.

The new find, close to the border with Kyrgzstan, has proven gold reserves of 127 tonnes, Xinhua said. If the estimates are correct, the reserves could be worth around 40 billion yuan ($6.5bn, £3.8bn, €4.8bn.)

It the biggest gold mine discovered in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region to date.

Scores dead in China factory explosion

At least 68 people killed and more than 180 injured in blast at factory making car wheels in eastern Jiangsu province.

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/

An explosion has killed 68 people and injured 187 at a Chinese factory that makes wheels for US carmakers, including General Motors, state media said.

The blast happened in Kunshan, a city in the eastern Jiangsu province, on Saturday morning.

Documentary: Syria – so near, so far (Video)

Five Syrian refugees in Turkey reveal their hopes, fears and why their homeland feels like a world away.

 Syria’s civil war has been raging for three years, leaving hundreds of thousands displaced, injured or dead. Two-hundred-and-forty thousand Syrians have sought refuge in Turkey in the past three years. Fifteen thousand of them have come to a camp at Öncüpinar in Kilis province, right next to the Syrian border.

Syria: So near, so far follows the daily lives of five Syrians in Öncüpinar, struggling to come to terms with life in exile, in an alien environment, cheek-by-jowl with thousands of others. It is about their concern for their own and their families’ futures – and what Syria means to them as their country continues to be torn apart.

Filmmaker: Ahmet Yurtkul