Druzhba Holiday Center is a massive cylindrical building which serves as a resort and it is located in the touristic town of Yalta, on the Black Sea, in the Republic of Ukraine.

Overlooking a popular beach, this interesting structure was built in 1984 by the design of the Ukrainian architect Igor Vasilevsku, as a joint venture by the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia.

This concrete building has been built with earthquake-resistant construction, and every single room has a complete privacy from the guests staying in the room next to them.

All of the windows have panoramic views of the Black Sea, and having in fact that one terrace is behind another one, the guests will not have to fear whether the “neighbor” spies on them. To enter the building from the main entrance, one has to cross a catwalk bridge which is encased in glass tube that descends into the building.

The whole building is supported by giant cement legs, a series of staircases and elevators that connect the public spaces and accommodations.

Even though Yalta was a very exclusive resort town in Soviet time, today, the legacy which was left from that time will continue to draw people who are very fond of Brutalist architecture, where a fine example is the Druzhba Holiday Center.

Tunisia’s blisteringly hot summer has hit Tunisia’s small wine industry, damaging or destroying grapes and leaving farmers and vintners to fear for their future as extreme weather brings hotter, drier weather to North Africa.

Estimates of how far wine output has fallen vary, from a roughly 20% drop according to the Agriculture Ministry’s Kilani Belhaj, to a reduction of 40-50% according to Vineyard Producers’ Syndicate head Salim Chaouch.

Winemakers in France and elsewhere in southern Europe have also warned of lower wine output this year due to the heat.

Farmer Wajdi Graya said his own production had fallen by between two fifths and three fifths this year after July temperature highs of between 38-48 Celsius as the heat reduced sugar levels in his grapes.

In ancient times Tunisia was a major wine producer under the Carthaginian and Roman empires and commercial-scale output began again under French colonialism, though it has not become a significant exporter.

However, Tunisian supermarkets stock a wide selection of locally made wines, many of them from the fertile northern hills near the base of the Cap Bon peninsula.

The grapes are picked early in the morning and driven to a modern processing facility at Takelsa in central Tunisia to be turned into wine.

At Coteaux Takelsa company, which produces wine from grapes grown by Graya and about 160 other farmers, director Hammadi Brik said he was rescheduling farmers’ debts and altering grape specifications to help them manage.

Germany’s wind power expansion is facing an unexpected roadblock: builders need permits to transport the heavy turbines down the country’s roads, and they are waiting months to get them.

With a backlog of more than 15,000 applications for approvals, companies say their projects are heavily delayed, with the costs of prolonged warehousing for steel tower segments, generators and blades running into the millions.

“Assuming nothing changes, it could cost 115 million euros extra by the end of the year,” Felix Rehwald, a spokesperson for wind turbine manufacturer Enercon, said.

Transport permits are needed to drive heavy loads over bridges and highways. Sometimes structures and road signs need dismantling, and police escorts are needed for some loads, while others can only be sent at night.

“It is currently one of the most pressing challenges for us and our competitors,” Rehwald added.

Delays in securing permits were costing the company thousands of euros per day, Rehwald said, adding that bottlenecks could only get tighter as wind construction ramps up towards the middle of next year.

Germany aims to obtain 80% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, 115 gigawatts of which should come from onshore wind, but a lack of transport permits endanger that goal.

Nordex, a global leader in wind turbine manufacturing, told Reuters that parking spots for its lorries are too scarce and that the cost of permits has risen as much as tenfold, with a spokesperson talking of “massive delays and significant costs.”

The cost of applications had jumped to more than 1,000 euros per permit in 2021 from 100 euros, Nordex said. But permits were so rigid in their scope that companies often made multiple applications to cover for different eventualities.

“I can’t apply for a transport permit and tomorrow say: ‘I’ll drive the green truck instead of the red’, because a new permit is needed,” Kai Westphal, a regional head of transport at Wind turbine maker Vestas, told Reuters.

Some 150 permits are needed on average for transporting a wind turbine, 100 to 120 for cranes, and 60 for turbine components, a study by engineering association VDMA published last year showed.

Without a single law regulating heavy load transport, each federal state requires different documents, the study added.

Singapore launched a research facility on Thursday to find long-term solutions to protect it from the rise in sea levels that could put the country’s low-lying land at risk of inundation.

Singapore’s new Coastal Protection and Flood Resilience Institute (CFI Singapore) aims to bring in expertise and innovation to head off what government officials describe as the “existential threat” posed by rising sea levels, now increasing at a rate of around 3-4 millimetres a year.

Average sea levels are forecast to rise by 1 metre (3.3 feet) by the end of the century, but experts say the effects could be exacerbated by changing rainfall patterns, higher tides and more intense storm surges.

“If we don’t do this well, our lives are at stake,” Grace Fu, Singapore’s environment minister, said during an opening ceremony.

Nearly a third of the Southeast Asian Island nation’s territory is only 5 metres or less above sea level, and with average annual rainfall at around 2,500 millimetres, it is already vulnerable to flooding.

Singapore has invested heavily to improve drainage and has built flood prevention infrastructure, including seawalls, tidal gates, and revetments to protect against erosion.

It also launched a S$5 billion ($3.66 billion) coastal and flood protection fund in 2020.

CFI Singapore, a joint initiative by PUB, Singapore’s water agency, and the National University of Singapore, has already launched research projects looking at new engineering possibilities like flexible seawalls as well as nature-based solutions using mangroves or seagrass to protect coastlines.

Experts said the bottom line for Singapore is to ensure that none of the country’s land would be lost to rising sea levels. Future land reclamation projects would also be designed to protect against sea encroachment.

Fu said better protection against rising sea levels could also help “land-scarce” Singapore reclaim more territory.

The remnants of Typhoon Haikui drenched southern China for a third day since making landfall, and airports in Guangdong province cancelled hundreds of flights due to stormy weather on Thursday though winds had weakened.

Although storm clouds moved westward towards Guangdong, one of the country’s richest provinces, more downpours were still forecast for the southeastern province of Fujian, where state media reported economic losses had reached 5.054 billion yuan ($690.81 million) since the typhoon made landfall on Tuesday.

In Guangdong’s capital Guangzhou, Baiyun Airport, one of the busiest in China, cancelled 316 flights and delayed 271, according to flight tracking app Flight Master. Shenzhen’s Baoan Airport cancelled 176 flights and delayed half of its flights while Zhuhai’s Jinwan Airport cancelled 91 and delayed 74.

Torrential rain reportedly led to rivers overflowing in the Guangdong town Tangxi, and some villages suffered severe waterlogging. Over 350 people, including elderly, women and children were relocated from low-lying areas, according to state media.

The China Meteorological Administration forecast rainstorms in central and eastern Guangdong, the southern part of Jiangxi province, southern areas in Hunan province, the northeastern areas of the Guangxi region, and the central part of the island of Hainan, while northern parts of Guangdong and the southeastern coast of the province were expected to be hit harder.

Later this week, the storms are expected to continue in Guangxi bringing the southwestern region extreme rainfall on Friday and Saturday before potentially dissipating on Sunday. Authorities issued warnings of mountain torrents and geological disasters for the cities of Guilin, Laibin, Guigang and Wuzhou.

Flooding in parts of Fujian province during the past two days forced the evacuation of nearly 300,000 people and damaged more than 2,500 homes.

Almost 10,000 hectares (24, 710 acres) of crops in Fujian were inundated.

Intense rains in the city of Fuzhou shattered 12-year-old rainfall records, surpassing the amount brought by Typhoon Doksuri late July.

At least four people have died and more than six were still missing on Thursday after storm Daniel swept across central Greece, triggering landslides, destroying roads and bridges and carrying away dozens of cars.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis postponed an annual economic speech scheduled for this weekend and will instead visit areas hit since Monday by torrential rain that has flooded homes and destroyed key infrastructure, including power poles.

“The state mechanism’s absolute priority right now is the rescue and evacuation of people from the areas affected,” government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis told a press briefing.

“Our country is facing for the third day a phenomenon unlike any other we have seen in the past,” Marinakis said, before announcing that the recently re-elected leader’s main economic policy speech would be held in the middle of next week instead of Saturday.

The mainland port city of Volos, the surrounding mountainous Pelion area and the cities of Karditsa and Trikala were among the worst-hit areas.

Heavy rainfall, which came days after a two-week deadly wildfire died out in the north and authorities said was the most extreme on record, has turned many villages in the low-lying area of Karditsa, in the mainland Thessaly plain, into a lake.

Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias said during a press briefing on Thursday that six people had been reported missing in the area of Karditsa.

A senior fire brigade official told Reuters that the body of a man was found in the town of Domokos. The bodies of two men and a woman were found on Wednesday across the region.

Britain recorded its hottest day of the year so far on Thursday, the country’s national weather service said, with provisional data showing a high of 32.6 degrees Celsius (90.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in south east England.

This year’s previous high was 32.2 C, which was reached twice in June, the Met Office said, helping make that month the hottest June on record in Britain.

Met Office Chief Meteorologist Steven Ramsdale said temperatures were “well above average for the time of year” due to high pressure to the south east of the country.

“Heatwave conditions have already been met for much of England and Wales, with parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland also likely to continue to see some unseasonably high temperatures,” he added.

The Met Office said last week that Britain had experienced its eighth warmest summer since 1884.