News in Brief-(2023-09-20)

FE Team | Published: September 19, 2023 23:26:35

Heaviest rains in century bring floods to Caspian Sea coast
TEHRAN, Sept 19: Flash floods have injured 20 people in northern Iran, after what officials described as the region's heaviest rains in a century, Iranian media reported. The rains have battered the cities of Astara and Talesh, on the Caspian Sea coast near the border with Azerbaijan since Sunday, the reports said. "Heavy rains ... have fallen over Astara which have not been seen in 100 years," Gilan province's head of crisis management Amir Moradi told the ISNA news agency on Monday. Twenty people have been injured, the Mehr news agency reported. State news agency IRNA quoted officials as saying that more flooding was expected on Tuesday in Gilan province and western districts of neighbouring Mazandaran. —AFP
Assad to visit China Thursday
DAMASCUS, Sept 19: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will visit China from Thursday, his office said, his first trip to the allied country since before the Syrian civil war broke out more than 12 years ago. China will be the third non-Arab country Assad visits since before the conflict, which has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country's infrastructure and industry. "In response to an official invitation" from Chinese President Xi Jinping, Assad and his wife "will visit China starting Thursday", the presidency said in a statement. —AFP
Airstrike on Kurdish region kills 3 people
IRBIL, Sept 19: An airstrike on a military airport in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region killed three people Monday, local officials said. The region's counter-terrorism service said in a statement that the attack on the Arbat Airport, 28 kilometers southeast of the city of Suleimaniyah killed three of its personnel and injured three members of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces. -- AP
Debris found from missing US F-35 jet
CAROLINA, Sept 19: Military officials have found the debris of an F-35 military jet that went missing after the pilot ejected over South Carolina. The wreckage of the $100m (£80m) plane - which disappeared on Sunday afternoon - was discovered in rural Williamsburg County, said authorities. The pilot ejected from the cockpit and parachuted to safety in a North Charleston neighbourhood. The public had been asked to help find the jet. —BBC