Nature

Desperately-needed aid flowed into a stretch of Indonesia's tsunami-struck coastline Tuesday, but humanitarian workers warned that clean water and medicine supplies were dwindling as thousands crammed makeshift evacuation centres.

Turkey's Agriculture and Forestry Ministry banned the use of three dangerous chemicals utilized in the agriculture sector with a decree coded "urgent" on Dec. 22 after daily Hürriyet reported that the pesticides were killing hundreds of thousands of bees. 

At least 281 people died and more than 1,000 were injured when the waves washed ashore along western Java and southern Sumatra islands Dec. 22 night following a volcanic eruption. Hundreds of homes and other buildings were "heavily damaged" when the tsunami struck, almost without warning. Click through for the photos that show the devastating impact of the tsunami.

Today in the morning hours cloudiness will be significant in some places, mainly in the northern and eastern parts of Bulgaria and rainfalls are expected there - conditions for icing. Before noon from the west the clouds will tear down and decrease in most areas to mostly sunny. Atmospheric pressure is and will remain higher than the average for the month.

 A major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 struck off Russia's sparsely populated far east on Thursday, but officials said the threat of a tsunami had passed and no damage was reported.

 Today it will be mostly cloudy with fog in the morning in some places in the lowlands and valleys. Decreasing clouds in the afternoon from west. In East Bulgaria, light wind from southwest.

 In the morning, there will be low clouds or fog in the lowlands and valleys. In the other regions, mostly sunshine during the day with high broken clouds. It will be almost quiet. Along the Danube and in some places in East Bulgaria, the fog and low clouds will persist and day temperatures there will remain lower, between minus 3°C and minus 1°C.

The European Commission said on Tuesday it had approved discounts granted to energy-intensive companies on a surcharge used to support renewable electricity production in Greece.

Athens imposes a surcharge on electricity consumers based on consumption to support both renewable electricity and high-efficiency cogeneration.

Today it will be mostly cloudy with precipitations, snow in West and North Bulgaria, mostly rain in some places of the Upper Thracian Plain and in the eastern regions. Light to moderate wind from north-northwest will bring cold air. Decreasing temperatures, with rain in most areas turning into snow this evening and night, but from west the precipitations will be tapering off.

Athenians hoping for a white Christmas are unlikely to see their wishes come true, as the Greek capital - or most of the country for that matter - rarely see snow in December, data from the Athens Observatory show.