World in brief: Rain, flash floods kill 20 in Istanbul

Istanbul, Turkey – The heaviest rainfall in at least eight decades sent flash floods barreling across a major highway and into busy business districts in Turkey’s largest city on Wednesday, trapping factory workers and truck drivers in their vehicles and drowning at least 20 people.

Waters six feet high in some places flooded hundreds of homes and offices and cut off the TEM highway, which connects central Istanbul to the sprawling city’s main airport and goes on to Greece and Bulgaria.

Rescue crews in helicopters pulled people off rooftops in Ikitelli, a district of media offices and corporate headquarters about 13 miles from the Bosporus strait, which divides the European and Asian parts of Turkey.

The surging water flipped trucks, cars and buses, crushing many into piles of debris.

Turkey’s meteorology institute said about 5.2 inches of rain fell in the area.

Israel confirms new construction

Jerusalem – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given the green light for hundreds of new homes in a Palestinian-claimed area of Jerusalem, officials confirmed Wednesday, part of a gamble to mollify his restive coalition without sparking a major confrontation with the U.S.

Whether this balancing act can succeed could become clearer this week with the arrival of U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell.

The settlements are a core issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nearly 500,000 Israelis now live in towns and neighborhoods built in the West Bank and east Jerusalem – lands captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and claimed by the Palestinians.

Netanyahu granted approval to build hundreds of new homes in recent days. On Wednesday, officials confirmed the government has chosen developers to build nearly 500 new apartments in Pisgat Zeev, a sprawling neighborhood built for Jews in east Jerusalem.