As Greece was hit by wave after wave of wildfires this week, asylum-seekers found themselves at the receiving end of several allegations they started fires, leading to an anti-migrant frenzy online.

At least two news reports implicating migrants were soon denied.

The verbal assault intensified after a group of 13 Pakistani and Syrian men were accused by locals of being caught red-handed trying to light a fire outside the city of Alexandroupoli, in the Evros region bordering Turkey.

BRICS leaders announced on Thursday the "historic" admission of six new countries, as the bloc seeks to reshape the Western-led global order and expand its influence in an era of strategic competition.

BRICS -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- agreed at their annual summit to make Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates full members from January 1.

"This membership expansion is historic," said Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose nation is the most powerful in the group of large and populous economies.

Three members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were killed Thursday in a Turkish drone strike in Iraq's Kurdistan region, authorities said, as Ankara's top diplomat visited the northern region.

"A Turkish army drone struck a PKK vehicle, killing an official and two fighters" of the group -- considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey and Western countries -- in the Sidakan district, the Kurdish counter-terrorism services said.

An ex-headmistress who sexually abused two sisters at an Australian Jewish school and spent years fighting extradition from Israel was sentenced to 15 years in jail Thursday.

Handing down the sentence, Melbourne judge Mark Gamble denounced Malka Leifer for abusing her position within the city's ultra-orthodox community and said her "insidious offending" had scarred the sisters for life.

The sentence came after Leifer was found guilty of 18 charges of sexual assault against sisters Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper, and ends the sisters' decade-long quest for justice.

The vintage beige Mercedes would be eye-catching anywhere in the world, but it is especially so on the streets of impoverished Gaza City.

Munir al-Shandi, 42, is among a handful of vintage car enthusiasts in the Gaza Strip, defying a punishing Israeli siege imposed on the Palestinian coastal enclave to pursue a passionate hobby.

As he drives a 1929 Mercedes-Benz Gazelle, which he restored, through Gaza's cratered roads, young children run after him in excitement, reaching out to touch the car's pristine bodywork.

Denmark's spy agencies went on trial on Thursday in a unique lawsuit brought by a Dane who claims he was an undercover informant for Denmark in Syria but wound up in prison over alleged IS group ties.

In a case that has proven embarrassing for the intelligence services and politicians, Samsam, a Danish national of Syrian origin, claims he was working for Danish intelligence in Syria in 2013 and 2014, spying on foreign jihadist fighters.

A high-ranking civil servant buried Wednesday in Israel is the latest victim of a crime wave that has killed almost 160 members of Israel's Arab minority this year.

Abdelrahman Kashua, who held the post of director-general in Tira city, just north of Tel Aviv, was gunned down at a gas station on Monday, police said.

Mourners carrying black flags gathered outside a police station in protest as part of the funeral procession.

Kashua is among 156 Arab-Israelis killed so far this year, according to the Abraham Initiatives which promotes coexistence between Arabs and Jews.

Fierce storms closed schools Wednesday in Saudi Arabia's Mecca region, home to Islam's holiest site, the Grand Mosque, which was lashed by heavy rains and wind overnight, witnesses said.

As pilgrims tried to circumambulate the Kaaba, the giant black cube towards which all Muslims pray, a bolt of lightning struck the iconic Fairmont Makkah Clock Royal Tower hotel, illuminating the night sky late Tuesday.

The storm brought gale force winds exceeding 80 kilometres (50 miles) per hour, Hussein al-Qahtani, spokesman for the National Centre for Meteorology, told AFP.

Straddling the frontier between Lebanon and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, the picturesque village of Ghajar has become a lightning rod for tensions between the hostile forces on either side.

The latest tit-for-tat exchange saw Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and the chief of Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, vow to send the other's country "back to the Stone Age" if the other escalates violence.

On the sleepy streets of Ghajar, home to manicured flower beds and ice cream trucks, an invisible boundary is intended to keep the two sides apart.

The daughter of a German citizen of Iranian descent who was sentenced to death by Tehran pleaded Tuesday for the United States and Germany to act urgently to save him.

Jamshid Sharmahd's daughter met in Washington with US officials after holding a sit-in outside of the State Department, on the heels of a deal by President Joe Biden's administration to free five American citizens who were imprisoned in Iran.