Spain remains deeply shaken by the deadly flash floods that have left 205 people confirmed dead and wrecked havoc across the regions of Valencia, Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia in the east and southeast parts of the country.

With the ground too dry to absorb the intense rainfall, which exceeded 400 litres per square metre in many areas and reached up to 600 litres in some, the torrential overnight downpours on Tuesday led to devastating flash floods, news agency reported.

Videos posted on social media have shown torrents up to three meters high sweeping cars down the streets to pile them up as if they were toys. Bridges were swept away, railway tunnels collapsed and fields were swamped as people climbed onto roofs of their homes and cars to seek refuge, but not all survived.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered the deployment of additional ballistic missile defence destroyers, fighter squadron and tanker aircraft, and several B-52 long-range strike bombers to the Middle East region.

Pentagon Press Secretary Major General Pat Ryder said in a statement on Friday that the deployments are in line with the US' commitments to the protection of its citizens and forces in the Middle East, the defence of Israel, and de-escalation through "deterrence and diplomacy".

The forces will begin to arrive in the region in the coming months to replace the departing USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, he said.

"These deployments build on the recent decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defence system to Israel as well as DoD (Department of Defense)'s sustained Amphibious Ready Group Marine Expeditionary Unit (ARG/MEU) posture in the Eastern Mediterranean," he said, adding that these movements demonstrate the "flexible nature of US global defence posture and US capability to deploy world-wide on short notice to meet evolving national security threats".

At least five children, a passerby and a police official were killed in a deadly blast targetted at a police vehicle in Balochisan’s Mastung city, on Friday. The casualties are expected to rise further with more than 30 people critically injured in the explosion.

As per initial reports, an IED (improvised explosive device) attached to a motorcycle was detonated near a police mobile as it neared the Girls High School at the Civil Hospital Chowk, killing at least five school children, one police personnel and a passerby on the spot.

The injured were rushed to two hospitals, Nawab Ghous Bakhsh Raisani Memorial Hospital and Mastung District Headquarters Hospital. Later, three critically-injured persons were shifted to Quetta’s Trauma Centre.

Four people, including three school children and a policeman, were killed and 15 others injured when a bomb went off in Pakistan's southwest Balochistan province on Friday morning, official sources said.

The incident happened in the Mastung district of the province, where a police vehicle was targeted by a bomb explosion, the sources told on condition of anonymity.

"The primary target of the terrorists was the police vehicle, but as the explosion happened near a school, a school van which was passing by the police vehicle also got hit by the bomb," the sources added.

The Egyptian armed forces refuted claims circulating on social media that they were involved in supporting Israel's military operations.

The army said in a post on the platform X that "there is no form of cooperation with Israel."

The statement followed earlier remarks from Egypt's Press Center citing a high-level source, which dismissed media reports alleging that Alexandria Port had received a shipment of military supplies for Israel, news agency reported.

The reports claimed that a German vessel, the MV Kathrin, had docked with eight containers holding approximately 150,000 kg of RDX explosives intended for Israeli Military Industries, part of Israel's largest defence company, Elbit Systems.

At least 321 people have been killed and over 740,000 others displaced in Nigeria so far this year due to the floods that ravaged most parts of the country, authorities said.

In addition, some 2,854 people have been injured in the flooding, caused mainly by prolonged rainfall across the most populous African country, Chukwuma Soludo, Governor of the southeastern state of Anambra, told reporters in the capital of Abuja, after a monthly National Economic Council meeting presided over by Vice President Kashim Shettima, news agency reported.

"The country is facing a national emergency concerning flooding and the reports so far identify a major national disaster," as the rains have led to widespread displacement, loss of lives, and destruction of homes and livelihoods, Soludo said, citing briefings at the Economic Council meeting.

South Korea's national space agency on Friday said it plans to send a solar coronagraph jointly developed with the US to the International Space Station (ISS) to study the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, and solar wind.

According to KASA, the Coronal Diagnostic Experiment (CODEX), a collaboration between the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) and the NASA, will be delivered to the ISS onboard Space X's Falcon 9 rocket Monday (US time) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, news agency reported.

As part of a bilateral solar research project, the coronagraph will be docked with the express logistics carrier on the ISS to observe the corona for up to 55 minutes per 90-minute Earth orbit.

Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi and his Algerian counterpart, Ahmed Attaf, called for effective efforts to stop Israel's "genocide in Gaza and aggression against Lebanon."

During a phone call on Thursday, both parties discussed the latest developments in the region, as stated by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, news agency reported.

The situation in the region has become precarious due to the ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza and Lebanon, underscoring the necessity for the international community to engage in effective and coordinated efforts, particularly within the framework of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, to stop the attacks, said the statement.

East China's Fujian Province on Thursday issued the second highest-level emergency response to Typhoon Kong-rey, the 21st typhoon of this year.

In anticipation of the storm's impact, railway and maritime authorities have suspended several train services and halted 71 coastal passenger ferry routes affecting 190 vessels. Meanwhile, 115 coastal construction projects have been stopped until further notice.

Specialized rescue forces, including rescue ships, helicopters, and patrol boats, have been deployed on standby to respond to potential emergencies, according to the Fujian maritime authorities.

There remains a possibility that Kong-rey could make landfall along the coasts of Fujian or Zhejiang provinces on its northeastward path, according to the National Meteorological Centre, news agency reported.

South Korea will foster the bio-industry as a new growth engine for the country's exports by offering trade financing and other tailored support, the industry minister said on Thursday.

Industry Minister Ahn Duk-geun made the remark during his visit to Samsung Biologics's production facility in Incheon, west of Seoul, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, news agency reported.

"South Korea's bio-industry experienced a slight setback following the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the sector is on track to post record exports this year at $15 billion," Ahn was quoted as saying.

South Korea's combined outbound shipments of bio-related products, including medical instruments, totaled $11.2 billion through September this year.

"Amid the escalating global competition, South Korean bio companies have been securing permits for biosimilar production, as well as contract manufacturing organisation agreements," the minister added.