The European Union sent help to Turkey on Monday and volunteers joined firefighters in battling a week of violent blazes that have killed eight people and put pressure on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The wildfires tearing through the resort regions of Turkey's Mediterranean and Aegean coasts have destroyed huge swathes of pristine forest and forced the evacuation of panicked tourists from their hotels.

Huan Huan, a giant panda on loan to France, gave birth to twin cubs very early Monday, according to the Beauval zoo. 

The twins, born around 1 am, are Huan Huan and her partner Yuan Zi's third cubs after the first panda ever born in France, Yuan Meng, in 2017.

Greenland's ice sheet has experienced a "massive melting event" during a heatwave that has seen temperatures more than 10 degrees above seasonal norms, according to Danish researchers. 

Dozens of villages were evacuated in tourist hotspots in southern Turkey on Sunday as wildfires that have claimed six lives raged for the fifth day, while Greece, Italy and Spain were also hit by blazes.

Two Sumatran tigers were recovering at a Jakarta zoo after being infected with coronavirus, Indonesian officials said Sunday, as they probed how the critically endangered animals got sick.

Lebanon battled rapidly spreading wildfires for a third straight day Friday after they destroyed pine forests and threatened homes in northern areas.

The blaze that started Wednesday in Lebanon's remote Akkar region "is spreading quickly over large areas," Agriculture Minister Abbas Mortada told AFP.

At least 40 people have been killed with 150 more missing in northern Afghanistan after flash floods ravaged an area northeast of the capital Kabul, officials said on Thursday.

Lebanese firefighters struggled for the second day on Thursday to contain wildfires in the country's north that have spread across the border into Syria, civil defense officials in both countries said.

The fires killed at least one person, a 15-year-old boy, who was helping firefighting efforts in Lebanon.

An 8.2 magnitude earthquake struck off the Alaskan peninsula late Wednesday, the United States Geological Survey said, generating small waves but no major tsunami before all warnings were canceled.

A wildfire raged in a forested area of mountainous northern Lebanon on Wednesday, reaching just outside some residential homes and killing a 15-year old who was helping firefighters put out the blaze, the civil defense and state news agency said.

Firefighters, military helicopters and civilians battled the wildfire near the village of Qobayat in Akkar province that burned for hours and spread to nearby areas, the civil defense said.