Hussam al-Aqouli remembers the exact spot along southern Iraq's Lake Sawa where his two daughters once dipped their feet into clear waters. Now he stands there two years on and the barren earth cracks beneath him.

This year, for the first time in its centuries-long history, the lake dried up. A combination of mismanagement by local investors, government neglect and climate change has ground down its azure shores to chunks of salt.

Strong rain, winds and flash floods are expected in northern and central Turkey on Monday, after a weekend of flooding that reportedly killed at least four people.

Bad weather warnings were in place in 42 towns and cities in the north and center, including the capital, Ankara.

A Paris judge has ordered a mediation process to settle a legal dispute pitting environmental groups and representatives of Brazil's Indigenous community against a major French retailer accused of selling beef linked to deforestation and land grabs in the Amazon rainforest.

Several leading Indigenous representatives, including some wearing traditional headdresses, traveled from Brazil to the main Paris courthouse, where they held a demonstration to denounce international threats to their territories and attract public attention to cattle farming practices in the Amazon.

As Spain braces for soaring temperatures this weekend, officials said Friday a wildfire in the south Spain that forced the evacuation of 2,000 people was stabilized and closer to being brought under control.

The fire west of the coastal resort town of Marbella has burned 2,150 hectares (5,000 acres) of mountain terrain since Wednesday. Authorities said intense work overnight by firefighters together with lower temperatures and improved wind and humidity conditions made them optimistic that the fire could be brought under control soon.

An aviation industry group representing most major airlines has criticized the European Union's Parliament for seeking to expand its emissions trading system to all flights departing the bloc.

EU lawmakers voted Wednesday that existing requirements for airlines to buy credits for the greenhouse gas emissions that their flights produce should be extended to include all that leave the 27-nation bloc, Norway and Iceland. Current rules only apply to flights within that area.

The European Parliament has thrown its weight behind a proposed ban on selling new cars with combustion engines in 2035, seeking to step up the fight against climate change through the faster development of electric vehicles.

The European Union assembly voted in Strasbourg, France, to require automakers to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 100% by the middle of the next decade. The mandate would amount to a prohibition on the sale in the 27-nation bloc of new cars powered by gasoline or diesel.

Almost the whole of Portugal was in severe drought at the end of May, the country's weather service said Thursday.

The month of May was the hottest in the southern European country for the last 92 years, weather service IPMA said in its monthly climate report.

Greenpeace has urged the Arab League to drum up funds to rescue a stranded, oil-filled tanker that is rusting off war-torn Yemen, threatening a major environmental disaster.

The environmental group said an urgent meeting was needed for the FSO Safer, after a U.N. pledging conference last month fell far short of its $80 million target.

At least 10 people have been killed and three are missing in flooding in the central Chinese province of Hunan, state media report.

Storms have pummeled the province since the beginning of the month, with some monitoring stations reporting historic levels of rainfall, the Xinhua News Agency said late Wednesday.

The trade group representing the cruise ship industry unsuccessfully pushed international authorities to water down new environmental regulations despite its members' climate commitments, experts in marine air pollution warn. Late last month, the International Maritime Organization rejected a cruise industry effort that would have improved cruise ships' carbon pollution scores. Environmental groups say it also would have led to more air pollution by allowing cruise liners to continue with business as usual.

The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) has membership that accounts for 95% of global cruise trips. Its four biggest members, Carnival Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC Cruises, tout their climate awareness and have all committed to drastically cutting emissions.