Tehran: A helicopter carrying Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi experienced a “crash upon landing”  due to poor weather conditions as confirmed by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on Sunday.

The incident occurred in the Jofa region of East Azerbaijan province, with state television reporting ongoing rescue efforts. The difficult weather conditions, including heavy fog, have hindered the rescue teams' access to the crash site.

President Raisi was traveling in the mountainous forest area of Dizmar near Varzaghan in East Azerbaijan province. Alongside Raisi, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of East Azerbaijan province, and other officials were also on board, as reported by the IRNA news agency.

The convoy included three helicopters, with the other two helicopters landing safely at their destinations, according to Tasnim news agency. The reformist Shargh daily also confirmed that while Raisi's helicopter crashed, the other two landed without incident.

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi later stated that one helicopter "made a hard landing due to bad weather conditions," adding that communication with the aircraft was challenging.

Earlier that day, Raisi had been in Azerbaijan to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. This dam is the third constructed by the two countries on the Aras River.

Iran operates a variety of helicopters, but international sanctions complicate the acquisition of parts for maintenance. Much of its military air fleet dates back to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Ebrahim Raisi, born in 1960 in Mashhad, northeast Iran, quickly rose to high office following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. At just 20 years old, he was appointed prosecutor-general of Karaj, near Tehran. He served as Tehran’s prosecutor-general from 1989 to 1994, deputy chief of the Judicial Authority for a decade from 2004, and national prosecutor-general in 2014.

Karachi:  In an important development for the college students, the Intermediate examination has been postponed till May 27 in Sindh due to heatwave alert.

The intermediate examinations originally were due on May 22 but the authorities changed the schedule due to the threat of heatwave.  The Sindh government also issued a notification in this regard.

HEATWAVE:

The heatwave alert has been issued by the Pakistan Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) for the citizens.

The heatwave is likely to hit the different parts of the country from May 21 to May 27.

Heatwave is a period of unusually hot weather that typically lasts two or more days.

WHAT ARE CAUSES OF HEATWAVE?

Climate change, de-forestation and urbanization are the main causes of heatwaves in any part of the world. The situation in Pakistan is adverse as all three factors including climate change, de-forestation and urbanization exist here.

Heatwaves form when a high-pressure area in the upper atmosphere strengthens and remains over a region.

EFFECTS 

The heatwave badly affect the animals and birds, agriculture and it brings draught. The heatwave also badly impacts human health. Heat stress, heat exhaustion and heat stroke may be the major effects.

PRECAUTIONS

The health experts say that staying hydrated and covered and wearing light-color clothes can be very helpful during the heatwaves. The use of hats and umbrellas are also strongly advised during this period for safety. Suspension of outdoor activities is also important to avoid bad impact of heatwaves.

Bahawalpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan, and Multan are likely to experience particularly severe conditions.  The temperatures may go up to 46 degrees Celsius during the upcoming week.

The local administrations have been directed to establish heatwave counters in hospitals and ensure the availability of necessary medications for treating heatstroke patients.

Cannes, France (AFP): A Donald Trump biopic and the latest dark creation by David Cronenberg premiere in Cannes on Monday as the world-famous film festival reaches its midway point.

‘Emilia Perez’, a musical about a narco boss having a sex change, is the audacious frontrunner so far, after 11 of the 22 entries for the top prize Palme d’Or have been seen.

The festival – considered the film industry’s foremost get-together – concludes with its award ceremony on Saturday, with ‘Barbie’ director Greta Gerwig heading the jury. But two more buzzy entries arrive on Monday.

‘The Apprentice’ is a biopic of Trump’s formative years from Iranian-born director Ali Abbasi – bound to stir up controversy in an election year for the United States.

It stars Sebastian Stan, best-known for playing the Winter Soldier in Marvel films, though he also won best actor at this year’s Berlin Film Festival and widespread acclaim for his part as rocker Tommy Lee in series “Pam and Tommy”.

Later, Cronenberg – director of many body-horror classics like ‘The Fly’, ‘Crash’ and ‘Videodrome’ – returns to the Cote d’Azur festival with ‘The Shrouds’.

Billed as his most personal film yet, it tells the story of a widowed businessman (Vincent Cassell) who invents a machine to monitor the dead in their graves.

It was partly inspired by the death in 2017 of Cronenberg’s wife of 43 years. “I don’t really think of art as therapy,” the Canadian director told Variety. “Grief is forever, as far as I’m concerned. It doesn’t go away. You can have some distance from it, but I didn’t experience any catharsis making the movie.”

Among entries to score well with critics during the first week was “Bird”, a gritty but sweet and fantastical tale about a young girl in working-class England from director Andrea Arnold.

‘Kinds of Kindness’, the latest bizarro team-up between Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos, featured some ultra-dark comedy moments, including a thumb-and-cauliflower dinner.

‘Megalopolis’, the decades-in-the-making epic from Francis Ford Coppola, has perhaps been the most divisive entry, with some reviewers finding it a profound end-of-life work of philosophy, and others a barely comprehensible mess.

But the one to beat so far is ‘Emilia Perez’, which has won a lot of acclaim for stars Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez and trans actor Karla Sofia Gascon in the title role, as well as its risk-taking French director, Jacques Audiard, who already has a Palme d’Or under his belt.

Sagas

The festival has also seen glitzy out-of-competition launches for two Hollywood blockbusters that fancy themselves as “sagas”.

The action-packed ‘Furiosa: a Mad Max Saga’ received largely strong reviews, while Kevin Costner returned to his favourite Western genre with the three-hour ‘Horizon: An American Saga’, just the first of four mooted chapters.

Like Coppola, Costner put millions of his own fortune into the decades-long passion project.

Hollywood icons Costner and Demi Moore make Cannes comeback“At a certain moment I just said OK, I’m going to do this myself. And so I mortgaged property, I raised the money,” he told AFP at the festival.

The early reviews were decidedly mixed, with The Hollywood Reporter deriding it as a “clumsy slog”.

But Costner says he is unconcerned about losing his money.

“If they take it away from me, I still have my movie. I still have my integrity. I still listened to my heart,” he said.