The Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has risen to 40,939, Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement on Saturday.

During the past 48 hours, the Israeli military killed 61 people and wounded 162 others, bringing the total death toll to 40,939 and injuries to 94,616 since the Palestinian-Israeli conflict broke out last October, it added.

On Saturday, eight people were killed and 15 others injured in the Israeli targeting of the Halima al-Sa'diyya school in the Jabalia area of Gaza

China's top economic planner said on Saturday that 200 million yuan (approximately $28.2 million) has been allocated from the Central budget to support disaster relief and recovery efforts in Hainan and Guangdong provinces.

According to the National Development and Reform Commission, the funds will be used to urgently repair damaged infrastructure, including roads, bridges, water conservancy facilities, schools and hospitals, and to facilitate the swift restoration of normal living and working conditions,

Super Typhoon Yagi, the 11th typhoon this year, made two landfalls in China on Friday, first striking Hainan and later Guangdong.

China's Ministry of Water Resources conducted a comprehensive assessment on Saturday focusing on the safety of small and medium-sized reservoirs and the risks of potential floods in small and medium-sized rivers and mountain torrents in the affected areas.

The Ministry has dispatched four working teams to guide flood prevention efforts in Hainan, Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan.

More than 30,000 Afghan refugees have returned to their homeland from Pakistan, Iran and Turkey over the past week, said an official from the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation.

"Among them, around 2,500 are from Pakistan, about 190 from Turkey, and the remaining from Iran," Abdul Mutalib Haqqani, spokesperson for the ministry, said on Friday.

According to the ministry, moreover, a total of 1.78 million Afghan refugees have returned from abroad over the past year, reports Xinhua news agency, quoting local media outlet TOLOnews.

The Afghan caretaker government has been repeatedly calling upon Afghan refugees to end living abroad as refugees and return home to contribute to the rebuilding of their war-torn homeland.

Last month, the ministry announced that a total of 1,779,603 Afghan refugees have returned to their homeland from Pakistan, Iran, and other countries over the past 12 months.

Floods in August have inflicted 33.46 billion taka (US$280 million) in damage to agriculture in Bangladesh's eastern area.

According to the latest data from the agriculture ministry, more than 200,000 hectares of cropland have been damaged out of a total of 372,733 hectares of land affected by floods in the country,

The deluge, as a result of upstream mountain runoff and heavy rainfall, began on August 20 and quickly spread to many districts, including Feni, Cumilla, Chattogram and Noakhali in southeastern Bangladesh.

Mohammad Zakir Hossain, the agriculture ministry's senior information officer, said over 1.4 million farmers have been affected by the floods. The ministry has planned a recovery program to support the affected farmers.

According to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief, the death toll has risen to 71 across 11 districts, with 29 fatalities reported in Feni alone. Over 5 million people have been affected by the recent floods in the South Asian country.

Suspected rebels killed one soldier and wounded another during an ambush in Sorsogon, the southernmost province on the Philippines' Luzon island, the military said Saturday.

In a report, the military said the army corporal and another soldier were travelling on a motorcycle in Bulan town when the New People's Army (NPA) rebels fired at them around 11 a.m. local time on Friday,news agency reported.

The military added that the soldiers were out for community work when the ambush occurred.

NPA rebels have been fighting the government troops since 1969.

The successor to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will likely be selected during an extraordinary Diet session expected to be convened on October 1, Japanese media reported on Saturday.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will choose its next president on September 27. With both houses of parliament controlled by the LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito, it is a formality the winner will be the next prime minister, reported news agency.

The government is arranging the schedule, which will be finalised by Kishida's Cabinet late September.

If the next premier decides to dissolve the powerful House of Representatives soon after he or she is elected, the earliest date for a snap election will be October 27 and if the new leader demands time another possible date is November 10, reported.

Fumio Kishida is stepping down at the end of his three-year term later this month after a slush funds scandal hurt voter confidence in the ruling party. Seven or more candidates are expected to run in the LDP leadership election.

Cyprus' Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) has launched a social media campaign to prevent investment scams following a spade of complaints by people who had been defrauded by scammers.

CySEC said in a press release on Friday that the campaign is aimed at protecting investors against the rising trend of online scams and follows the discovery of fraudulent websites that are falsely claiming to be associated with CySEC, news agency reported.

In a separate move, the Cyprus Police issued a warning to the public, calling on people to avoid any investments offering unusually high returns.

The Electronic Crime Division of the police said it has identified several videos on social media platforms featuring public figures urging viewers to invest in opportunities that are actually non-existent.

Australia is failing to protect its native plants and animals from extinction, a report has found.

The Australian branch of the WWF on Saturday released its second Threatened Species Report Card to coincide with National Threatened Species Day, news agency reported.

The updated report scored Australia an 'F' for funding, recovery planning and improving the threat status of species at risk of extinction.

It said that 163 species have been added to the federal government's threatened species list since the first report card was released in 2022.

The UK government has announced that the new national Queen Elizabeth II Memorial will be located in St James's Park, London.

The memorial will be situated near The Mall at Marlborough Gate, encompassing the surrounding land and the pathway leading to the lake, including the Blue Bridge, the government said in a statement.

Chosen for its proximity to significant historical landmarks, including the Buckingham Palace and the Commonwealth headquarters, the site also holds a personal connection to the late Queen.

The world marked the fifth annual International Day of Clean Air for blue skies on Saturday, with calls for investment in clean air solutions as air pollution is increasingly causing public health, environmental, and economic problems.

More than 99 per cent of humanity is now breathing polluted air, leading to more than eight million annual deaths, including more than 700,000 children under five.

Dirty air disproportionately affects more vulnerable populations such as women, children and older people.

Air pollution has become the second leading risk factor for early death globally, overtaking tobacco for adults and second only to malnutrition for children under five. Yet despite the already high and still rising economic, environmental and existential impact of air pollution, which each year costs the world $8.1 trillion in health damages alone, less than one per cent of international development funding is dedicated to tackling it.