weather

Wildfires send nearly 260,000 fleeing in France and Spain

election

Brazil's right-wing party nominates Bolsonaro son to battle Lula

BY FACUNDO FERNáNDEZ BARRIO

  • The senator has struggled to seal alliances with Brazil's influential centrist bloc, with key parties announcing they will remain neutral in the October 4 election.
  • Brazil's right-wing Liberal Party on Saturday formally nominated Flavio Bolsonaro, a 45-year-old senator and son of imprisoned ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, as its candidate in the October presidential election.
  • The senator has struggled to seal alliances with Brazil's influential centrist bloc, with key parties announcing they will remain neutral in the October 4 election.
Brazil's right-wing Liberal Party on Saturday formally nominated Flavio Bolsonaro, a 45-year-old senator and son of imprisoned ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, as its candidate in the October presidential election.
He is set to face off against leftist incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 80, who is seeking a fourth term and has gained momentum in recent weeks as the younger Bolsonaro faced a series of crises.
Far-right firebrand Jair Bolsonaro anointed his eldest son Flavio as his political heir after being sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup following his 2022 election loss to Lula. 
"I may be calmer, more cheerful, more composed and more moderate, but Bolsonaro blood flows here!" Flavio, touching his arm, declared to a cheering crowd in a Sao Paulo warehouse.
He warned that Brazil -- Latin America's largest country in population, area and economy -- "could take giant strides toward a dictatorship" if Lula wins reelection.
That alarmist rhetoric was echoed by Argentina's libertarian President Javier Milei, who joined the convention in person to lend support to Flavio Bolsonaro.
"I firmly believe there is no one else capable of putting an end to the Lula risk hanging over Brazil," Milei said in a typically fiery speech.
Wearing Brazilian national team jerseys, which have become a symbol of the Bolsonaro movement, supporters beat drums and waved flags inside a warehouse next to Sao Paulo's Pacaembu Stadium.
"We would have liked our candidate to be Jair Bolsonaro, but today Flavio is the best choice," Fernando Moeno, a 50-year-old retired military police officer attending the convention, told AFP.
Flavio Bolsonaro teared up as he referenced his father, who appeared in an AI-generated video. Courts have barred the ex-president from making political statements while he serves his sentence under house arrest.
Promising to crack down on crime and inflation, Flavio was neck-and-neck with Lula in the polls until he was hit by a series of scandals: ties to a disgraced banker, a family feud, and new tariffs imposed by ally US President Donald Trump.
Pollster Datafolha published a survey Friday showing that in a runoff election, Lula would win 48 percent of votes to Flavio's 43 percent.

A wave of scandals

Flavio's troubles began in May when an audio recording leaked of him asking banker Daniel Vorcaro -- accused in a multi-million-dollar fraud case -- to finance a film about his father.
Flavio had denied any contact with Vorcaro and, just hours before the recording was published, told a reporter that the accusation was "a lie." He now maintains their relationship was limited to the movie.
On Thursday, a Supreme Court justice ordered an investigation into the financing of the film.
A second crisis hit Flavio's campaign when his stepmother, Michelle Bolsonaro, posted an Instagram video saying he had "disrespected me and mistreated me ... he said I didn't understand anything about politics."
The former first lady is key to the right-wing movement's appeal among Brazil's large female and evangelical electorate.
With divisions growing, Flavio read out a letter on social media from Jair Bolsonaro urging unity -- contravening the terms of his father's house arrest.
A Supreme Court justice then blocked Flavio from visiting his father until after the first round of voting.
In a bid to unite the right before the convention, Flavio this week posted a video apologizing to Michelle, who quickly accepted the gesture of reconciliation.

Tariff troubles

Flavio has cast himself as the more moderate version of his father, but is a hardliner on crime and this week echoed the older Bolsonaro in raising debunked concerns about Brazil's electronic voting system.
A Brazilian diplomatic source said Saturday that visas had been denied to US officials seeking talks with election officials, over concerns of a "risk of political exploitation."
The senator has struggled to seal alliances with Brazil's influential centrist bloc, with key parties announcing they will remain neutral in the October 4 election.
Flavio Bolsonaro has also faced backlash after Trump's administration imposed two new rounds of tariffs on Brazil this month.
The Bolsonaro family had backed earlier tariffs imposed in retaliation for the trial of the former president, prompting Lula to accuse them of treason.
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conflict

Kazakh leader tells Putin war should end, Ukraine launches fresh strikes

  • - 'Young people are dying' - In Siberia's Omsk hours after the strikes, Kazakh leader Kassym-Jomart Tokayev told Putin the Ukraine war should end as the pair met for a Russia-Kazakh summit. 
  • Ukrainian drones struck a Siberian oil refinery in a fresh wave of strikes Saturday, as Kazakhstan's president told Russia's Vladimir Putin the Ukraine war should end during a forum in Siberia's Omsk. 
  • - 'Young people are dying' - In Siberia's Omsk hours after the strikes, Kazakh leader Kassym-Jomart Tokayev told Putin the Ukraine war should end as the pair met for a Russia-Kazakh summit. 
Ukrainian drones struck a Siberian oil refinery in a fresh wave of strikes Saturday, as Kazakhstan's president told Russia's Vladimir Putin the Ukraine war should end during a forum in Siberia's Omsk. 
In occupied Ukraine, Russian-installed authorities said a Ukrainian strike had killed 12 people at a seaside "tourist camp", as well as one more in a Moscow-held town and two in Russian border villages.
Kyiv said Russian attacks had killed five people in eastern and southern Ukraine, and two crew members were missing after a Russian strike on a cargo ship carrying corn.
The deaths come as the UN has warned of civilians dying in larger numbers recently in the almost 4.5-year war. 
Moscow said Ukraine -- which has intensified its retaliatory strikes -- launched more than 300 drones into Russia Saturday, including on far-flung regions. 
The governor of Siberia's Tyumen region said a local oil refinery had been set ablaze. Russia's athletics federation said an all-Russian competition in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg had been halted over drone threats.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed the Siberia strike and said Kyiv had hit a military factory in the Kirov region for a second day in a row, a day after local authorities said an attack there had killed five people. 
Kyiv has said its retaliatory strikes are aimed at damaging Moscow's war effort and forcing the Kremlin to negotiate.

'Young people are dying'

In Siberia's Omsk hours after the strikes, Kazakh leader Kassym-Jomart Tokayev told Putin the Ukraine war should end as the pair met for a Russia-Kazakh summit. 
"It is a shame, young people are dying... All this has to be stopped," Tokayev said sitting next to Putin in televised comments.  
Putin is rarely confronted with officials publicly telling him the fighting should stop. 
Tokayev said the conflict should be "frozen" and suggested a return to Istanbul talks before moving "to a long-awaited peace." 
The Central Asian leader, who is a Moscow ally but who has never condoned Russia's offensive, said the roots of the war are "not understandable".
Putin responded that he would inform Tokayev on "the details" of the war. 
The Russian leader has repeatedly said Moscow intends to take the rest of east Ukraine by force. 
US-led talks to end Europe's worst conflict since WWII have stalled.

12 killed in occupied town

Russian occupational authorities in southern Ukraine said a Ukrainian strike Saturday on the Azov Sea town of Kyrylivka killed 12 people, including four children, accusing Kyiv of having targeted a "tourist camp". 
"The whereabouts of eight people is unknown and rescue operations are ongoing," said Yevgeny Balitsky, the Kremlin-installed head of the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region. 
Another person was killed in the occupied part of the Kherson region, Moscow said. 
Kyiv has not yet commented on the strike, but Ukraine has increased its attacks in the Azov Sea, where it has targeted Russian shipping. 
Zelensky said a Russian strike on the north-eastern town of Sumy had killed three people at a site belonging to the Nova Poshta private courier service.
Two other people were also killed in southern and eastern Ukraine, Kyiv said.
Kyiv's transport minister Mykola Kalashnyk said on Telegram that Russia had twice hit a civilian vessel carrying almost 2,800 tons of corn as it left the port of Odesa Saturday.
The ship caught fire and seven crew members and a Ukrainian pilot had to be rescued, but two other crew members were missing, he added.

Urals, Siberia hit

Far from the battlefield, Ukrainian drones disrupted an all-Russian athletics competition in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.  
Also in Yekaterinburg, Russian online retail giant Wildberries said it had evacuated its staff over a drone threat, but said its facility had not been damaged. 
Wildberries -- Russia's version of Amazon -- has been targeted by Kyiv's drones for a week, attacks that have killed some workers and caused major fires. 
Ukrainian drones have caused nationwide fuel shortages and disrupted ordinary life in Russia more than at any point during more than four years of war.  
Russia said Saturday it would extend a fuel export ban until the end of the year. 
bur/jj/st

weather

Wildfires send nearly 260,000 fleeing in France and Spain

BY LUCAS CROSET WITH MARGAUX BERGEY IN EL ESCORIAL, SPAIN

  • Dozens of firefighters were deployed from Paris to boost the fight.
  • Unchecked wildfires raging Saturday in France's southwest and near Spain's capital Madrid have forced nearly 260,000 people to flee and prompted Paris to deploy its military.
  • Dozens of firefighters were deployed from Paris to boost the fight.
Unchecked wildfires raging Saturday in France's southwest and near Spain's capital Madrid have forced nearly 260,000 people to flee and prompted Paris to deploy its military.
France initially hustled 197,000 people from areas around popular vacation spot Bordeaux -- one of its biggest-ever peacetime evacuations, though 3,000 were later allowed to return.
In Spain, where 60,000 people were evacuated from villages west of Madrid, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the priority was "to save lives" as he visited the fire zone.
In the Spanish town of Brunete, west of Madrid, mayor Mar Nicolas told AFP she was "very worried".
"Every year there are fires, but this one has been tremendous," she said. "It is a catastrophe."
A separate wildfire near the eastern Spanish city of Valencia killed one person before firefighters brought it under control.
Overstretched firefighters in Spain and France battling around the clock for days have been unable to contain the infernos, which also claimed the lives of two French firefighters near Bordeaux earlier this week.
Earlier Saturday, authorities in both countries suggested the intensity of some of the blazes had lessened.
But the battles were far from won. 
The forecasts in France are "turning unfavourable again", Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu warned in a post on X Saturday evening, adding that coming hours "could be difficult".
Spain's Sanchez warned: "We are going to have some complex hours ahead."
Jacqueline Villafranca, a 38-year-old who evacuated to Madrid on Friday, said that when smoke filled her village of Navalagamella "I thought everything was going to burn, the house and everything.
"Here you can breathe normally -- yesterday it was unbearable," she said, sitting in a gymnasium-turned-shelter.

Tinderbox conditions

The fires in Spain and France advanced quickly because of tinderbox conditions worsened by successive heatwaves the two countries have experienced since May.
Scientists say global warming is increasing droughts and causing weather emergencies to become more extreme and more frequent. Europe is the fastest-warming continent due to climate change.
Both countries were receiving EU help in the form of firefighting aircraft from other European countries.
France has deployed 1,500 soldiers and 1,700 security personnel to help firefighters near Bordeaux, and on Saturday an A400M military transport aircraft joined the fleet of smaller planes already dousing flames.
Dozens of firefighters were deployed from Paris to boost the fight. Lecornu said a total of 1,400 firefighters were tackling the blazes.
Local authorities set up emergency shelters in schools and gymnasiums in southwestern France for tourists and residents left wondering what they would return to.
Nuala Kelly, a 75-year-old Irish tourist, said she had never seen anything like this.
"Never, never, never, never, never, and I've travelled all over the world and been in all sorts of situations," she told AFP at Bordeaux's vast exhibition centre now housing thousands of people.
Olivier Stewart, a 38-year-old Frenchman who had to leave the village of Merignac with his wife and young children, said the children were "the most stressed". 
"They think the fire is going to burn down the house, but we're coping," he said.
Sunday's final stage of the Tour de France road cycling race has been shortened after the interior ministry said it would need to redeploy officers mobilised for race security to the fires instead.
Lecornu also said that plans were being made "for pets left behind in homes".

'Record' area burnt

The massive smoke clouds thrown up by the French and Spanish fires were starting to connect in the atmosphere, according to satellite images from Spain's Aemet weather agency.
Fires currently raging across France have burned nearly 98,000 hectares (242,000 acres) -- a "historic record", Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said.
In the southwest alone, the flames have consumed more than 32,000 hectares -- three times the surface area of Paris -- and destroyed at least 100 buildings, authorities said.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the country "will rebuild".
The blazes west of Madrid have burned up to 25,000 hectares, according to Spain's interior ministry.
Two of the three major wildfires there have merged into one, and are threatening to join up to form a massive inferno just kilometres from the capital.
burs-rmb-st/jj

weather

Close to Madrid, those who escaped flames worry what is next

BY MARGAUX BERGEY

  • The volunteers "are taking good care of us; we were given blankets and facilities to shower," Elvira Menendez said.
  • Elvira Menendez slept little last night.
  • The volunteers "are taking good care of us; we were given blankets and facilities to shower," Elvira Menendez said.
Elvira Menendez slept little last night. Her local municipal gym is nothing like home.
"There are dogs here, people snoring," says the resident of the village of Chapineria, evacuated on Friday to escape to the out-of-control fire west of Madrid.
Like some 200 other people, she found refuge in this large gymnasium in Villaviciosa de Odon, 30 kilometres (19 miles) from her home in the capital's suburbs.
Even tens of kilometres away from the blaze ravaging the Madrid countryside, the sky remained hazy with smoke Saturday morning before the winds cleared the air.
The historic El Escorial monastery -- a major tourist attraction -- was shrouded in a grayish, smoke-filled mist.
The fire has "surpassed all possible and imaginable limits," said Mar Nicolas, mayor of the nearby small town of Brunete, which is hosting around a hundred evacuees.
"The priority" was "saving lives," she said, though she made no secret of her concern regarding "the immense natural disaster this is causing".
Inside the Villaviciosa de Odon gymnasium, volunteers tried to keep children occupied with games and colouring activities, while others distributed meals after the evacuees had spent their first night sleeping on cots.
The volunteers "are taking good care of us; we were given blankets and facilities to shower," Elvira Menendez said.
"I'm 80 years old and I've never seen anything like this," she said. As the flames advanced, she was terrified that her "whole life" would go up in smoke.
By Saturday, the fire had already ravaged more than 25,000 hectares, and some 60,000 people had to be evacuated in the Madrid region and the province of Avila.
Victoria Hurtado, a 61-year-old home care worker, had to flee Chapineria with the elderly, sick man she cares for daily.
The two of them only had time to grab a small bag each, containing a few clothes and some medication.
"They welcomed us with open arms," she told AFP, though the uncertainty over when she might be able to return home still worried her.
But she remained optimistic, hopeful that the situation will improve "because firefighters are working night and day to put out the fire".

Undergrowth

The fierce fires ravaging parts of France and Spain are the result of forests and vegetation becoming more flammable because of drought and a series of record-breaking heatwaves that have hit Western Europe since May.
Antonio-Luis Rodriguez spent the night in the Villaviciosa de Odon sports hall with his son.
Having left with only the clothes he stood in, he was consumed with worry for his dog, left behind at his farm on the outskirts of the village of San Martin de Valdeiglesia, which was also evacuated.
Deeply affected by the ordeal and still in shock, the 48-year-old did not mince his words regarding the authorities, who he believes failed to sufficiently clear the undergrowth in the surrounding countryside.
"It rained a lot this winter; the pastures were very overgrown," Rodriguez said. He also lamented the fact that so many farms in Spain have been abandoned. 
As a result, fallow fields are in a "deplorable state, and at the slightest spark, the blaze spreads like wildfire" due to vegetation dried out by the heat.
He put sheep in his fields when the grass was tall so they would clear away the vegetation, he said. Thanks to their grazing, he believed his farm was still standing, even if he knew "the surrounding plots were reduced to ash".
He was convinced that keeping more herds of goats and sheep in the mountains "would really help a lot" in controlling wildfires.
mby/pma/rlp/jj

US

Houthis target Saudi oil as new Middle East front

BY AFP JOURNALISTS IN YEMEN WITH AFP TEAMS IN TEHRAN AND WASHINGTON

  • A surface-to-air battery operated by Greek personnel in Saudi Arabia downed two ballistic missiles and later a drone launched from Yemen targeting Yanbu on Saturday morning, the Greek air force press office said.
  • Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they had launched missile and drone salvos against Saudi Arabia's oil facilities on Saturday, as fighting between regional allies of the United States and Iran intensified on a new front.
  • A surface-to-air battery operated by Greek personnel in Saudi Arabia downed two ballistic missiles and later a drone launched from Yemen targeting Yanbu on Saturday morning, the Greek air force press office said.
Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they had launched missile and drone salvos against Saudi Arabia's oil facilities on Saturday, as fighting between regional allies of the United States and Iran intensified on a new front.
In a video statement, military spokesman Yahya Saree said the rebels targeted sites operated by the Saudi oil giant Aramco in Jizan and Yanbu, threatening to expand the group's response if attacked by the Gulf monarchy.
Earlier, the rebels' media had said a strike on Jizan had sparked fires. A video circulating on social media, and verified by AFP, showed dark clouds rising above a refinery belonging to Aramco in the city.
Saudi Arabia made no direct comment on the attack but the kingdom's civil defence issued warnings for Jizan, on the kingdom's southwestern coast, as well as in Yanbu to the north.
A surface-to-air battery operated by Greek personnel in Saudi Arabia downed two ballistic missiles and later a drone launched from Yemen targeting Yanbu on Saturday morning, the Greek air force press office said.
The Iran-backed group had accused US ally Saudi Arabia of a "dangerous escalation" after Riyadh struck Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday.
A Yemeni security source told AFP a naval base in the port city of Hodeida and a military camp on Kamaran Island were among the Saudi targets.
The renewed exchange of fire between the US and Iranian allies signals the emergence of a new front in the Middle East war following US and Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February.

'Back to strikes'

 
Faiza, a 36-year-old mother of two and Hodeida resident, told AFP the strikes were like "the sound of loud thunder", explaining she had heard three distinct explosions. 
"I didn't want to believe that we had gone back to strikes," she added.
Yemen's Houthis have been at war with the internationally recognised, Saudi-backed government since 2015, in a devastating conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands and triggered a major humanitarian crisis. 
However, fighting in the poverty-stricken Arabian peninsula country had been largely frozen since a UN-negotiated truce in 2022.
This week the Houthis announced a maritime blockade of the top oil exporter, hitting Saudi tankers in the Red Sea. 
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi insisted Tehran could not be blamed for the situation, and offered to help start a dialogue between the Houthis and the Saudis, arguing that "there is no military solution to the issue".
The threat to shipping comes in parallel with Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has become the central flashpoint between Tehran and Washington amid renewed hostilities between the two sides.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday their forces stopped four ships attempting to transit the strategic chokepoint over the past 24 hours.
A fresh incident involving a tanker and unspecified military forces was reported on Saturday near the Strait of Hormuz, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations monitor.
The US did not announce strikes on Iran, a first after 13 nights of consecutive bombardments. 
According to a report on the Axios news platform, the Pentagon had presented US President Donald Trump with plan for a 14th night of strikes, but that Trump had decided not to authorise it, favouring a push for renewed talks.

'Tipping point'

Trump said on Friday he had not yet decided whether to return to an all-out major operation against Iran.
"Look, we're talking to them right now. I think they're getting more and more serious as the days go by, for maybe the obvious reason," Trump told journalists. 
Trump said Iran had a choice between making a deal or facing a "much higher level" of strikes, after two weeks of US attacks left an April ceasefire in tatters.
The war that Trump once predicted would last four or five weeks is now nearing its fifth month, and is weighing on the Republican's approval ratings ahead of crucial US midterm elections in November.
Trump added that he did not know what the "tipping point" would be for a decision, but reiterated that his red line would be if Iran was close to developing a nuclear weapon.
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weather

Fires in Europe: latest developments

  • Spain fire 'decreased' The government delegation in Madrid said on X early Saturday that overnight conditions had helped the fight against the wildfires, "which advanced little and decreased in intensity". burs-st/jj
  • Here are the main developments related to the wildfires raging in Spain and France on Saturday:   'We will rebuild' France's President Emmanuel Macron vowed the damage from the fires would not last, posting on X: "We will rebuild, we will repair and we will be there for as long as is needed."
  • Spain fire 'decreased' The government delegation in Madrid said on X early Saturday that overnight conditions had helped the fight against the wildfires, "which advanced little and decreased in intensity". burs-st/jj
Here are the main developments related to the wildfires raging in Spain and France on Saturday:
 
'We will rebuild'
France's President Emmanuel Macron vowed the damage from the fires would not last, posting on X: "We will rebuild, we will repair and we will be there for as long as is needed."
 
One dead in Spain
A wildfire in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia killed one person before firefighters brought it under control, authorities there said. 
 
'Grave situation'
The threat to the southwestern French department of Gironde "remains very serious", said top regional official Sophia Brocas. 
"We are still facing a grave situation," she added, but the blaze has lost "some of its intensity".
 
Tonnes of help
A military transport plane deployed by the French government on Saturday to help fight wildfires carried out its first mission in the southwest of the country, AFP journalists saw.
The A400M military aircraft, equipped with a dispensing kit that can release 20 tonnes of water or fire retardant, flew over a forest in Lacanau in southwestern France.
 
France sends 500 more troops
France's government ordered 500 more soldiers to the wildfire zone in the southwest, bringing the total number deployed to 1,500.
The troops will assist with evacuating residents from areas threatened by the fires and help safeguard homes left unattended during the emergency, the defence ministry said.
 
Tour de France affected
Tour de France organisers announced that they were shortening the following day's final stage of the cycling race due to the wildfires ravaging southwest France.
"In a spirit of national solidarity with the areas and communities affected, it was decided to adapt the route for the final stage from Thoiry to Paris," organisers ASO said in a statement.
 
More than 250,000 evacuated
The wildfires have forced the evacuation of more than 250,000 people in total, authorities in both countries said. 
The French government said 197,000 people were evacuated because of wildfires near Bordeaux. 
Spain's interior ministry said 60,000 people had been evacuated from villages west of Madrid. Officials had earlier given a higher estimate of 70,000.
 
Record area burnt in France
Fires across France have burned nearly 98,000 hectares (242,163 acres), Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said, describing the total as a "historic record".
"There are still a number of fires across the country that have not yet been brought under control," he said, singling out major blazes in the southwestern departments of Gironde and Landes.
 
'Save lives': Sanchez
The priority is "to save your lives and protect inhabited areas", Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told reporters while visiting a village in the fire zone.
"We are going to have some complex hours ahead because although the temperatures have gone down, we do not know exactly how the wind will develop, how strong it will be."
25,000 hectares burned
Wildfires raging west of Madrid have burned up to 25,000 hectares, more than twice the surface area of the city of Paris, the Spanish interior ministry said.
Flames have ravaged nearly 10,000 hectares in the Madrid region and "between 13,000 and 15,000" in the neighbouring province of Avila, the ministry said in a message sent to journalists.
Paris sends 100 firefighters
Around 100 Paris firefighters were being deployed to southwest France to help battle raging wildfires, the head of the Paris Fire Brigade told AFP.
Arnaud de Cacqueray, commander of the Paris Fire Brigade, said the firefighters would primarily be involved in wildfire suppression operations.
Spain fire 'decreased'
The government delegation in Madrid said on X early Saturday that overnight conditions had helped the fight against the wildfires, "which advanced little and decreased in intensity".
burs-st/jj

Global Edition

Spain fights to 'save lives' as wildfire evacuees shelter in Madrid

BY ROLAND LLOYD PARRY AND MARGAUX BERGEY

  • A separate, smaller fire in a ravine near Valencia in the east meanwhile killed one person, the local authority in the affected town of Manises said on X, without giving further details.
  • Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Saturday firefighters were working to "save lives" in the blazes raging west of Madrid, as authorities said a separate fire in the east killed one person.
  • A separate, smaller fire in a ravine near Valencia in the east meanwhile killed one person, the local authority in the affected town of Manises said on X, without giving further details.
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Saturday firefighters were working to "save lives" in the blazes raging west of Madrid, as authorities said a separate fire in the east killed one person.
The fires in the parched countryside have forced 60,000 people to flee their homes, the interior ministry said, in what officials have called the region's worst fire on record. The central government delegate in Madrid had earlier given a higher estimate of around 70,000.
"Our priority, our thinking, our aim is for your lives, to save your lives and protect inhabited areas," Sanchez told reporters in the village of Cenicientos in the fire zone.
"We are going to have some complex hours ahead because although the temperatures have gone down, we do not know exactly how the wind will develop, how strong it will be."
Early on Saturday the smell of burning reached the streets of central Madrid, forcing them to keep their windows closed. The health ministry on X advised people to avoid staying outside for long periods because of bad air quality.
Evacuees from surrounding villages were bussed in to shelter in sports halls around the capital.
When flames reached the village of Robledo de Chavela, Rosa, 56, refused to leave at first because she wanted to arrange for carers to rescue the feral cats that she keeps.
"I felt very ill because I have asthma. I started coughing and I threw up," she told AFP at a gymnasium in the northern Madrid suburb of Alcobendas.
"In the end ... they (police) came to get me," she said, asking not to be identified by her last name as she was concerned for her safety.
"They didn't do anything for the cats, but they told me I had get out of the house one way or the other."

'Opportunity' to beat fire

The interior ministry said on X on Saturday afternoon that another 30,000 people had been evacuated from villages near Madrid and nearly 30,000 from neighbouring Avila province, bringing the total who have fled to 60,000.
It said 8,000 were ordered to stay in their homes in Madrid and 20,000 in Avila.
Easing heat overnight offered a "window of opportunity this weekend to fight... this very serious fire", Sanchez said.
Two separate wildfires in the Madrid region combined on Friday to form one huge blaze, which threatened to merge with a third near Avila in the neighbouring Castilla y Leon region.
A separate, smaller fire in a ravine near Valencia in the east meanwhile killed one person, the local authority in the affected town of Manises said on X, without giving further details.
The Madrid regional government said on X that more than 2,000 people were being looked after in 14 emergency evacuation centres.
Jacqueline Villafranca, 38, from Peru, told AFP she was evacuated in about an hour on Friday evening from the village of Navalagamella to Alcobendas with her husband and two daughters, aged 16 and two.
When the fire alerts sounded on telephones, "I thought everything was going to burn, the house and everything," she said at the sports hall, where they sat dozing and eating snacks.
"Yesterday was unbearable. My daughter came home from holiday camp and said: 'Mum, I can't open my eyes, my eyes are burning'" from the smoke, she said.
"And then the alerts started to sound and I evacuated."
So far this year fires have burned more than 168,000 hectares in Spain, according to the EU's European Forest Fire Information System.
Spain recorded its worst wildfire season in recent history in 2025, when more than 393,000 hectares were destroyed, EFFIS said.
rlp/st

Conflict

Palestinians bury four killed in West Bank clash with Israeli settlers

  • Violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has surged since the Gaza war began with Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, and the clash in Tell has already had political repercussions.
  • Palestinians in the occupied West Bank village of Tell on Saturday buried four men killed during a clash with Israeli settlers the previous day, local officials said.
  • Violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has surged since the Gaza war began with Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, and the clash in Tell has already had political repercussions.
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank village of Tell on Saturday buried four men killed during a clash with Israeli settlers the previous day, local officials said.
Violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has surged since the Gaza war began with Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, and the clash in Tell has already had political repercussions.
On Friday, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that, following the deaths of two Israelis in the village, he would allow the establishment of more settlements in the region.
Israel, he said, would conduct more raids in Palestinian villages suspected of hosting militants and accelerate "the legalisation of farm outposts and establishment of new ones".
All Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law, while outposts are small settlements usually established without government approval.
Walid Zidan, head of the Tell village council, told AFP that "Families of the four martyrs held a common funeral early this morning ... but the army restricted who could attend and only about 30 people were able to be there."
On Friday, about 20 Israelis from a nearby settlement entered the village and clashed with residents, Zidan said.
A Palestinian villager seized an Israeli's weapon and shot dead one settler, leading an emergency response team from a nearby settlement to rush to the scene and more gunfire that left four Palestinians and a second Israeli dead, the Israeli military said.
Israeli forces closed gates and checkpoints throughout the West Bank, severely obstructing movement. Troops patrolled Tell, moving between different parts of the village, while residents offered condolences to the families of the four men killed, AFP journalists reported.
A group of settlers was also seen alongside soldiers at a house under construction in the village.
By the time of the funeral, movement was still restricted for villagers, and Zidan told AFP that the military was still present in the village Saturday morning, having detained 51 residents for questioning, and released just six.
"Every person who was brought in was assigned a number, which was written on their forehead," said Saif Hamza, who was released after questioning.
Zidan said he still struggled to comprehend what had happened in the village.
"I am in my own home, and someone comes and assaults me," he said.
"Under what law? Under what moral or legal authority? I am in my own home, on my own land. By what right you, as settlers, come here?"

Surging violence

Ghassan Daghlas, the governor of the Nablus region, which includes Tell, attended a funerary prayer at the Nabuls hospital where the bodies lay before the burial, his office said.
He was joined by crowds of mourners from Tell and across the Nablus governorate.
An AFP journalist at the hospital reported the four deceased Palestinians' bodies were laid on stretchers and wrapped in Palestinian flags while friends and relatives said their good-byes.
Ahmed Ramadan, father of one of the deceased, told AFP: "I was asked to go to the hospital... and when I arrived, I found my son had been killed."
Ismail al-Saifi, another resident of Tell, told AFP the settlers' presence in the village was not an isolated incident, and that locals had decided to fight back on Friday.
"The young men bravely confronted them to defend their homes and lands, which was only natural given the frequency of these attacks," Saifi said.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, but in recent years the number of settlements in the Palestinian territory -- which are illegal under international law -- has soared.
Excluding east Jerusalem, more than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, home to around three million Palestinians.
Israeli figures show that at least 48 Israelis, including civilians and security personnel, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations since the start of the Gaza war.
According to an AFP tally based on data from the Palestinian health ministry, Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed at least 1,097 Palestinians, including both militants and civilians, over the same period.
if-lba-jd/dc

parliament

India's education minister resigns, end called to Delhi protests

  • This is not a matter of personal prestige for me," Pradhan said in a statement posted on social media platform X. "I have sent my resignation letter to the prime minister," Pradhan said in his letter in Hindi.
  • India's Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned on Saturday after mass youth-led protests demanded his ouster in anger over a string of irregularities in potentially life-changing exams.
  • This is not a matter of personal prestige for me," Pradhan said in a statement posted on social media platform X. "I have sent my resignation letter to the prime minister," Pradhan said in his letter in Hindi.
India's Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned on Saturday after mass youth-led protests demanded his ouster in anger over a string of irregularities in potentially life-changing exams.
Thousands of young people gathered in the capital and in other parts of the country this week, under the banner of the social media-driven Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), demanding an overhaul of the education system and Pradhan's resignation.
"I am pained to see the events of the past 10 days. This is not a matter of personal prestige for me," Pradhan said in a statement posted on social media platform X.
"I have sent my resignation letter to the prime minister," Pradhan said in his letter in Hindi.
The CJP said after Pradhan's resignation that all their demands had been met in another round of talks and that they were calling off the protests that were centred on the Jantar Mantar demonstration site in central New Delhi.
Police had fired tear gas and charged with batons at protesters as they tried to march from the site to parliament this week.
The government held two rounds of talks with CJP leaders on Monday and Friday but little headway was made initially, with the youth-led movement sticking to their demands.
Pradhan announced his resignation before the third round of talks.
"India's youth power is the real strength of this nation. My resolve is that we will not let the country's youth get trapped in a vicious cycle of confusion," he said.

'We have done it'

Protesters erupted in joy after Pradhan's announcement.
"We have done it," CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke said to a thunderous response by hundreds of protesters.
Senior minister JP Nadda, who met the CJP leaders for the third time on Saturday after Pradhan's announcement, said, "we have accepted their demands".
The youth-led movement has evolved to include concerns over unemployment, opportunities for young people and what critics brand as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's increasingly authoritarian style of governance.
The protests became one of the biggest challenges to Hindu nationalist Modi's administration since his 2024 re-election.
The protesters' other demands included compensation for those affected by examination irregularities and for legal cases against protesters to be dropped, CJP spokesman Ashutosh Ranka.
India's opposition leader Rahul Gandhi threw his weight behind protesters in support of their cause, calling Pradhan's resignation a "huge step".
Gandhi called for Modi to "apologize" and respect students and India's future generations.
"Action should be taken against those guilty of violence against students," he said.
Sunil, 27, who came to the protest site for the first time on Saturday to "experience the atmosphere", said it was "truly electrifying, especially after the minister's resignation".
"What the young people did was commendable," he told AFP.
bb-pzb/ane

weather

Thousands sheltered in Bordeaux as France wildfires trigger exodus

BY LUCAS CROSET

  • Locals in Bordeaux have come forward to help.
  • Amid rows of camp beds and stacks of food supplies at a makeshift shelter in Bordeaux, thousands of tourists and locals try to regain their composure after fleeing wildfires sweeping through southwest France.
  • Locals in Bordeaux have come forward to help.
Amid rows of camp beds and stacks of food supplies at a makeshift shelter in Bordeaux, thousands of tourists and locals try to regain their composure after fleeing wildfires sweeping through southwest France.
Many are anxious about the fate of their homes, while others have had their holidays abruptly cut short.
Nuala Kelly, a 75-year-old Irish tourist, said she had never seen anything like this.
"Never, never, never, never, never, and I've travelled all over the world and been in all sorts of situations," she told AFP at Bordeaux's vast exhibition centre now housing thousands of people displaced by the wildfires.
"It's an experience, you know, I would be happy to do without it, but everybody's been very kind here, very good, so we have to be thankful."
Masks are distributed upon request. Smoke still hangs in the air, although it is easier to breathe than the previous evening, when the acrid smell of fire spread across Bordeaux.
Hundreds of firefighters have over the past few days been battling blazes in the southwest of France famous for its sand dunes, pine trees, and oyster shacks. 
Rapidly spreading blazes have forced authorities to evacuate tens of thousands of people from the swanky Cap Ferret peninsula and surrounding villages, in one of the largest evacuation operations ever conducted in France.
Most of the evacuees, coming from the Arcachon Bay area and towns near Bordeaux that are now threatened by the fire, arrived during the night. 
Olivier Stewart, 38, had to leave Merignac with his wife and young children after receiving an emergency notification. 
"The children are the most stressed. They think the fire is going to burn down the house, but we're coping," he said.
Outside some children play football or badminton as they seek ways to occupy themselves.
 

'Like a volcano'

Frederic Tavitian, a 70-year-old retiree, who lives about 50 kilometres away, said it took him about four hours to get to the shelter because of the traffic jams.
"At 3 p.m., we were told, 'You have to evacuate.' We saw columns of smoke, like a volcano about to erupt. So we left," said Tavitian, sitting on his camp bed with a guitar in hand. 
He was worn out from not being able to sleep due to the "constant noise."
"It's really tough. That's the way it is. We just have to live with it," he said.
Behind him some eat or line up for coffee, while others try to rest on air mattresses or sleeping mats.
Some evacuees have brought their cats and dogs with them, and bags of pet food and cat litter have been made available.
Several buses have been chartered to transport elderly people.
Locals in Bordeaux have come forward to help.
David Duval, 55, said he could accommodate a family.
"I have a spare room available," he said.
"It breaks my heart when I see all these people in distress. We have to think about what each of us can do," said the engineer, who lives nearby.
A first-aid station has been set up, with a doctor on site to provide support.
"I'm identifying people's needs, especially those of the children, and reminding them about the signs of dehydration," said Marie Decroix as she moved among the families, jotting down notes. 
 
lcr-aj-dab-as/giv

US

Houthis claim strike on Saudi Arabia as conflict deepens

  • The Houthis claimed attacks on two Saudi ships earlier this week, with Saudi Arabia confirming one of the attacks in the Red Sea.
  • Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed a missile strike on Saudi Arabia on Saturday, hours after vowing to retaliate against the kingdom for attacks as the Middle East war expanded.
  • The Houthis claimed attacks on two Saudi ships earlier this week, with Saudi Arabia confirming one of the attacks in the Red Sea.
Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed a missile strike on Saudi Arabia on Saturday, hours after vowing to retaliate against the kingdom for attacks as the Middle East war expanded.
Riyadh struck Houthi military targets in Hodeida on Friday, with rebel media reporting two wounded after the Yemeni group announced a maritime blockade of the top oil producer and hit its ships.
The flare-up marks a new front of the war that has engulfed the region following US-Israeli strikes on Tehran in February, and comes on top of Iran's parallel blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Riyadh's only other maritime route.
The rebels had accused Saudi Arabia of a "dangerous escalation" and said its actions "will not go unanswered".
The Houthis' Ansarollah media said on Telegram early Saturday that a "Yemeni missile strike" had sparked fires in the southern Saudi city of Jizan on the Red Sea.
Saudi Arabia did not immediately comment on the claim.
But Riyadh's civil defence agency had issued brief warnings to residents in Jizan and Yanbu early Saturday for "potential danger", only to lift the warnings minutes later.
Similar warnings have been issued in the past when missiles or drones were fired at the kingdom. 
The warning came after the Saudi-led coalition said Friday it had hit Houthi sites and destroyed targets threatening commercial vessels in response to attacks on Red Sea shipping.
A Yemeni security source told AFP a naval base in the port city of Hodeida and a military camp on Kamaran island were among the Saudi targets.
The Houthis claimed attacks on two Saudi ships earlier this week, with Saudi Arabia confirming one of the attacks in the Red Sea.

Blockade

The Yemeni security source, who requested anonymity, said the Saudi strikes targeted a telecommunications building near Hodeida's port and a naval base at Ras al-Kathib in Hodeida.
The Houthis' al-Masirah television channel said two people were wounded -- a worker in Hodeida and a woman on Kamaran island.
It said a telecoms building had been hit in Hodeida.
On Monday, the rebels had warned in a radio message to ships that they would target vessels "belonging to (the) Saudi enemy" that do not comply with their blockade.
Saudi state media cited a transport authority official on Friday as saying "the vessel (NCC MASA), belonging to a Saudi company, was targeted while sailing in the Red Sea today... resulting in minor damage to the vessel's hull".
The ship resumed its course, the SPA added.
Red Sea access has become vital for Saudi Arabia to keep shipping oil as traffic in Hormuz is disrupted.
In April and May, all of Saudi seaborne crude exports departed from its Red Sea port of Yanbu, according to Kpler data. It represented 92 percent of all seaborne crude exports in June and 78 percent so far in July.
The Houthis have been at war with Yemen's government since 2014, in a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.
The recent exchange of fire threatens a 2022 truce that has held despite expiring.
strs-aya/ach/cms/lga

rights

Turk's term as UN human rights chief extended despite US warnings

  • Both nations' ambassadors voiced opposition Friday to his renewal, saying Guterres, whose term as secretary-general expires at the end of the year, should have left the selection of the human rights commissioner to his successor. bur-abd/msp/ksb
  • The United Nations General Assembly voted Friday to renew Volker Turk's mandate as high commissioner for human rights for four years despite strong opposition from the United States, Russia and Israel. 
  • Both nations' ambassadors voiced opposition Friday to his renewal, saying Guterres, whose term as secretary-general expires at the end of the year, should have left the selection of the human rights commissioner to his successor. bur-abd/msp/ksb
The United Nations General Assembly voted Friday to renew Volker Turk's mandate as high commissioner for human rights for four years despite strong opposition from the United States, Russia and Israel. 
By a vote of 144 in favor, 10 against, and 13 abstentions, the assembly approved the renewal, beginning October 12, 2026, as proposed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. 
An alternative proposal from Russia to extend the mandate by only a few months, until December 31, 2026, was overwhelmingly rejected, as was the US request to postpone the vote. 
Ambassador Jeff Bartos, US representative for UN management and reform, criticized the four-year renewal on both procedural and substantive grounds, accusing Guterres of having rushed the process.
"Make no mistake: If this assembly tolerates procedural overreach, backroom deals, and the misuse of UN posts, there will be consequences. The United States will immediately reassess our engagement, participation, and funding," he warned just before the vote, accusing Guterres of having rushed the timetable "to hand his long-term friend a four-year executive payout."
French Ambassador Jerome Bonnafont, however, described Turk as "a voice of conscience" who had demonstrated "rigor and impartiality" during his first term.
Turk, an Austrian jurist, has served as high commissioner since October 2022. He has emphasized the universality of human rights and the need to apply international law equally.
During his tenure he has been outspoken on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the war in Gaza, Afghanistan, Sudan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nicaragua.
But he's also been criticized for not taking more decisive positions on Cuba, the plight of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China, and for not directly using the word "genocide" in reference to Gaza, unlike several UN experts and rapporteurs.
Turk's stances have earned him sharp criticism from several governments, notably Russia and Israel.
Both nations' ambassadors voiced opposition Friday to his renewal, saying Guterres, whose term as secretary-general expires at the end of the year, should have left the selection of the human rights commissioner to his successor.
bur-abd/msp/ksb

justice

Venezuela to withdraw from International Criminal Court

  • "We regret any decision to depart from the collective effort to end impunity for the most serious international crimes," the ICC stated, adding it takes one year for official withdrawal from the court to take effect.
  • Venezuela will withdraw from the International Criminal Court over the tribunal's perceived bias, the nation's foreign minister said Friday.
  • "We regret any decision to depart from the collective effort to end impunity for the most serious international crimes," the ICC stated, adding it takes one year for official withdrawal from the court to take effect.
Venezuela will withdraw from the International Criminal Court over the tribunal's perceived bias, the nation's foreign minister said Friday.
The announcement comes amid an ongoing ICC investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed under ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro's government.
Caracas had informed the United Nations of its "firm and irrevocable decision" to withdraw from the ICC, Foreign Minister Felix Plasencia wrote on X.
Interim leader Delcy Rodriguez, who took over after US forces ousted Maduro in January, had instructed the move, he added.
"Venezuela considers that the Court's actions reflect a demonstrated geographical bias, which has disproportionately concentrated its work on African and Latin American countries," Plasencia said.
The Hague-based court said it had not yet received a formal notification of Venezuela's withdrawal.
"We regret any decision to depart from the collective effort to end impunity for the most serious international crimes," the ICC stated, adding it takes one year for official withdrawal from the court to take effect.
Even after that, "the withdrawing State remains bound by obligations that arose whilst it was a State Party," the statement cautioned.
"Withdrawal does not affect any pre-existing cooperation obligations arising from criminal investigations or proceedings that had commenced" previously, it added.
The ICC is currently probing alleged crimes against humanity committed during crackdowns on protestors in Venezuela since 2014.
In December 2025, Venezuela's parliament took steps to repeal the Rome Statute, the court's founding text, after the tribunal closed its Caracas office citing fruitless government talks.
And in March of this year, the ICC dismissed complaints filed by Venezuela that US sanctions on the country amounted to crimes against humanity.
Plasencia's announcement coincides with ICC member states' decision Friday to dismiss top prosecutor Karim Khan over allegations of sexual assault.
Khan denies the allegations and his lawyers said Friday he will challenge his dismissal.
In 2024, the 56-year-old Briton successfully applied for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.
When President Donald Trump took office for the second time in 2025, the United States retaliated by imposing sanctions on the tribunal and its judges.
Neither the US nor Israel is a party to the ICC, which tries individuals for the world's worst crimes including war crimes and crimes against humanity.
atm/lp/cc/mlm

Khan

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan removed over 'serious misconduct'

BY AMéLIE BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS

  • In May 2025, Khan voluntarily stepped back from his duties to fight the allegations made by one of his female colleagues after an inquiry was launched the previous year.
  • International Criminal Court member states voted Friday to dismiss prosecutor Karim Khan following disputed allegations that he sexually assaulted a female member of his staff.
  • In May 2025, Khan voluntarily stepped back from his duties to fight the allegations made by one of his female colleagues after an inquiry was launched the previous year.
International Criminal Court member states voted Friday to dismiss prosecutor Karim Khan following disputed allegations that he sexually assaulted a female member of his staff.
Khan, 56, was suspended last month by a key governing body of the ICC ahead of the secret ballot in which 82 of 125 members voted to remove him for "serious misconduct and a serious breach of duty."
Sources told AFP only 13 states voted for Khan to stay in his post during the closed-door session at the United Nations headquarters in New York. A further 15 members abstained, while some did not attend the vote.
Khan will challenge "the lawfulness and fairness of the decision through all available legal mechanisms," his lawyer said, while the ICC, based in The Hague, said in a statement it "takes note" of the members' vote.
In May 2025, Khan voluntarily stepped back from his duties to fight the allegations made by one of his female colleagues after an inquiry was launched the previous year.
The alleged victim, a Malaysian lawyer who worked as Khan's direct assistant, gave her account of what happened in an interview last week with CNN.
The woman, who asked to be identified by her first name Sarah, described "an escalation of attempts" that resulted in physical assault.
"There is no way for something to be consensual when you have such a power disparity," she told CNN. "What I think many people don't understand is that Mr Khan was not just my boss, he was everyone's boss."
Khan, who had been in the job since 2021, categorically denies the accusations.
After the vote, Paivi Kaukoranta, head of the governing body that oversees the ICC, praised members for their "spirit of unity shown in upholding the integrity of the court."
The process ensures the court "can discharge its critical mandate in the interests of the international community as a whole and victims of atrocity crimes the world over," she added.

'Credibility'

Khan's lawyer Tayab Ali warned the decision has "grave implications" beyond his individual case.
"The independence of the International Criminal Court depends upon its elected officials being protected from removal through processes that are political, procedurally unfair or inconsistent with the findings of independent judicial bodies," Ali said on X. 
Khan has faced heavy political pressure during his tenure, leading several headline-grabbing cases.
In 2024, he successfully applied for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant over the Gaza war.
The ICC also issued warrants for the arrest of several key leaders of Hamas who have since been killed.
Khan was the target of US sanctions over the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, as were several ICC judges.
Washington welcomed Khan's removal, branding him an example of institutional corruption.
"It is good that he is gone, but he is only one small cog in this irredeemably corrupt institution," State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said on X. The US, like Israel, has not ratified the international treaty that established the ICC and it has rejected the court's jurisdiction in cases involving the US or Israel.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Khan's removal was "long-delayed" and that the arrest warrants were "an attempt to deflect from the serious misconduct he feared would be revealed."
"These warrants, issued against a country that is not even a member of the ICC, should never have been sought in the first place and should be revoked immediately," he posted on X. 
Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said after Friday's decision that the court "is more than any one person; it's a critical court of last resort that anchors a global movement for justice."
She added that the court should "hold itself to the highest standards."
abd/sst/bjt/mlm/ksb

Global Edition

Mixed day for global equities as oil prices retreat

  • With tech stocks not as predominant in Europe, that region's main stock markets advanced on Friday.
  • The main international oil contract Brent North Sea fell back under $100 Friday after surging past the key milestone the previous day on escalating Middle East strikes, helping US and European stock markets stabilize.
  • With tech stocks not as predominant in Europe, that region's main stock markets advanced on Friday.
The main international oil contract Brent North Sea fell back under $100 Friday after surging past the key milestone the previous day on escalating Middle East strikes, helping US and European stock markets stabilize.
Brent dropped about four percent to under $97 a barrel, having soared seven percent Thursday. The key US contract, West Texas Intermediate, declined more than three percent after having gained more than six percent on Thursday.
The sizeable jumps had come after Yemen's Houthi rebels struck oil tankers in the Red Sea, potentially opening a new front in the Middle East war.
Despite the United States launching fresh strikes Friday on Iran, there was relief on markets that some ships were still able to pass through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a crucial passage into the Red Sea. 
"Ships with Saudi crude are still crossing...so for now, it is not a full blockade, reducing a bit the risk of an even tighter oil market," Giovanni Staunovo, a commodities analyst at Swiss bank UBS, told AFP.
A Houthi spokesman said Friday that the rebels were not blocking traffic through the strategic strait.
On Wall Street, both the Dow and S&P 500 rose, while the Nasdaq retreated again, with semiconductor shares enduring another round of selling.
Angelo Kourkafas of Edward Jones described markets as buffeted by uncertainty over unpredictable geopolitical events and questions about how the Federal Reserve will weigh the latest jump in oil prices. 
At the same time, "the bar is set high and there is also some skepticism about the sustainability" of this week's lofty corporate earnings, Kourkafas said.
David Morrison at Trade Nation said expectations that the US Federal Reserve could hike interest rates at its meeting next week have risen from 13 percent last week to 30 percent currently.
"Perhaps more seriously, the CME's FedWatch Tool shows a 90 percent probability of at least one 25-basis point rate hike before year-end," he said.
Besides the Fed, next week's schedule includes another heavy calendar of quarterly results featuring tech giants such as Amazon and Apple, as well as major industrial players including Boeing and Ford.
With tech stocks not as predominant in Europe, that region's main stock markets advanced on Friday.
Asian stock markets followed the sell-off Thursday on Wall Street as world markets were battered by a perfect storm of the resurgent Middle East war, the spike in oil prices and concerns about the artificial intelligence boom.

Key figures around 2020 GMT

Brent North Sea Crude: DOWN 3.9 percent at $96.78 per barrel
West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 3.1 percent at $89.31 a barrel
New York - Dow: UP 0.5 percent at 51,947.25 (close)
New York - S&P 500: UP 0.1 percent at 7,411.98 (close)
New York - Nasdaq Composite: DOWN 0.6 percent at 24,975.82 (close)
London - FTSE 100: UP 0.9 percent at 10,736.23 (close)
Paris - CAC 40: UP 0.9 percent at 8,372.28 (close)
Frankfurt - DAX: UP 1.4 percent at 25,099.00 (close)
Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 2.7 percent at 64,611.15 (close)
Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 1.0 percent at 24,963.23 (close)
Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 1.6 percent at 3,814.20 (close)
Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1373 from $1.1377 on Thursday
Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3323 from $1.3315
Euro/pound: DOWN at 85.34 pence from 85.45 pence
Dollar/yen: DOWN at 163.84 yen from 163.86
burs-bcp-rl/rmb/sla

trade

Trump tariff wall set to stay after Supreme Court blow: analysts

BY BEIYI SEOW

  • - Court's reluctance - Already, Trump's newest tariffs face legal challenges from small businesses.
  • Circumventing the US Supreme Court, President Donald Trump has found a way to resurrect his tariff wall in a fashion that analysts say could prove more durable to legal challenges.
  • - Court's reluctance - Already, Trump's newest tariffs face legal challenges from small businesses.
Circumventing the US Supreme Court, President Donald Trump has found a way to resurrect his tariff wall in a fashion that analysts say could prove more durable to legal challenges.
Just this week, Trump slapped sweeping new tariffs on 60 trading partners and saw 25-percent duties take effect on Brazilian products. Both cases involved an authority that has previously been used to impose levies.
Trump separately tapped an untested justification for 50-percent tariffs on many Canadian goods.
The actions and threats "underscore the president's continued affection for tariffs, and that they are not going away as long as he is in the White House," Asia Society Policy Institute senior vice president Wendy Cutler told AFP.
Trump's latest tariffs of 10 percent to 12.5 percent apply to goods from 60 economies starting Friday.
They came after probes over forced labor concerns, under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.
Cutler said this has a lower likelihood of being overridden by courts, noting Trump's top trade official Jamieson Greer had carefully navigated procedural requirements before imposing duties.
More concerning was Trump's targeting of Canada using the untested Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, the Atlantic Council's Josh Lipsky told AFP.
The justification was Canada's alleged discriminatory treatment of US exports, with duties effective after a month.
"That's more tariff-as-punishment" and could signal that Washington intends to keep less conventional tools at its disposal, Lipsky said.
This is an "uncertainty generator," added Scott Lincicome of the libertarian Cato Institute.

Court's reluctance

Already, Trump's newest tariffs face legal challenges from small businesses.
As courts have earlier allowed the use of Section 301 for imposing duties, arguments against Trump's latest salvo would likely focus on official findings that justified action, Lincicome said.
"That's just not something that courts typically want to weigh in on," he added.
Still, some argue that Trump lacks such broad powers to impose sweeping tariffs.
Within months of returning to the presidency, Trump unleashed a barrage of tariffs on US trading partners.
He invoked emergency economic powers to impose a swath of these duties quickly, a move deemed illegal by the high court this February.
Trump's sector-specific tariffs, imposed under different legal authorities on steel, automobiles and other goods, are unaffected.
Officials have since launched Section 301 investigations, including on forced labor, to reinstate duties.
Lincicome warns however that past investigations were more substantive. A probe into China during Trump's first term took a year to result in duties.
This time, probes into 60 economies including major partners like the EU and India spanned just four months.

Hard to undo

US tariffs are tough to undo. Former president Joe Biden, the Democrat who succeeded Trump after his first term, kept his predecessor's tariffs on China intact.
Even if a future leader wanted to reverse Trump's duties, revenue considerations will complicate the situation, Lipsky predicts.
Many countries were likely hoping the worst of trade wars are behind them, he said, but some may now have doubts.
The Trump administration has struck 19 framework or reciprocal tariff deals. Yet, threats of further duties loom with Washington investigating 16 economies including China, the EU and Japan over excess industrial capacity.
"The administration has been careful not to exceed the tariff levels agreed to in bilateral agreements," Cutler said. "But partners are concerned that this assurance may not hold."
Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics believes Trump is missing a chance to address bigger problems like China's rare earth export curbs.
Trading partners have to "fight a two-front trade war –- dealing with Trump's tariffs and China's export restrictions –- instead of just being able to focus on China," he said.
While countries have expressed disappointment, Cutler said, there are no signs of retaliation, "knowing full well they would risk further US tariff escalation."
bys/ksb

US

Trump says hasn't decided on big Iran strikes, Tehran getting 'serious'

BY DANNY KEMP

  • But we're talking to them, so I think while we're talking, we'll see what comes of it.
  • US President Donald Trump said Friday that he had not decided on whether to launch major strikes on Iran yet, as Tehran was now getting "serious" in talks with Washington.
  • But we're talking to them, so I think while we're talking, we'll see what comes of it.
US President Donald Trump said Friday that he had not decided on whether to launch major strikes on Iran yet, as Tehran was now getting "serious" in talks with Washington.
His comments came after reports that an increasingly frustrated Trump was meeting senior advisors to discuss launching a large-scale military operation against Iran.
"No I haven't," Trump told journalists in the Oval Office when asked if had made a decision.
"Look, we're talking to them right now. I think they're getting more and more serious as the days go by, for maybe the obvious reason."
Trump said Iran had a choice between making a deal or facing a "much higher level" of strikes, after nearly two weeks of US attacks that have left a ceasefire in tatters.
The United States says it is carrying out the strikes to stop Iran closing the crucial Strait of Hormuz. Iran has responded with strikes on US bases that have killed four service members.
"We're locked and loaded and ready to go. But we're talking to them, so I think while we're talking, we'll see what comes of it. I believe...They're very serious. They should be," Trump said.
The war that Trump once predicted would last four or five weeks is now nearing its fifth month, and is weighing on the Republican's approval ratings ahead of crucial midterm elections in November.
Trump added that he did not know what the "tipping point" would be for a decision, but reiterated his stance that his red line would be if Iran was close to developing a nuclear weapon.

'Massive attack'

The New York Times reported earlier that Trump had met advisors on Friday, while the Axios news outlet quoted the US leader as saying on Thursday that he was considering a "massive attack" on Iran.
Trump separately doubled down on comments in an earlier social media post in which he said he believed that Russia and China were not arming Iran, despite reports that both countries were giving Tehran intelligence to target US forces.
"I mean, I will tell you that President Xi said he will not partake, and President Putin said the same thing. I think you know I trust them," Trump told reporters. "I don't think they'd want to have me disappointed."
Earlier in a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump had warned Moscow and Beijing not to sell weapons to Iran.
"If they did, it would be very bad for them -- Certainly not in their best interests," he wrote.
Trump said Chinese president Xi Jinping had told him when they met in Beijing in May that he would not arm Iran under any circumstances, and that Russia's Vladimir Putin had made a similar promise despite the war in Ukraine.
"He understands that I do not sell Weapons to Ukraine, but to NATO Countries. They pay full price, and how those Weapons are distributed, I have no idea," Trump said.
Trump has frequently taken a more deferential tone towards Xi and Putin than he has towards Washington's own allies, saying that they must be respected as the leaders of major world powers.
dk/msp

Khan

Karim Khan: Forensic ICC prosecutor with a tarnished legacy

BY CHARLOTTE VAN OUWERKERK

  • "Even if they are only accusations, it disturbs us and it has poisoned the atmosphere of the court," Deputy Prosecutor Mandiaye Niang told AFP in an interview in December.
  • Karim Khan will go down in the history of the International Criminal Court as the prosecutor who clinched arrest warrants against the leaders of Russia and Israel but also as the one who "poisoned the atmosphere" within the institution.
  • "Even if they are only accusations, it disturbs us and it has poisoned the atmosphere of the court," Deputy Prosecutor Mandiaye Niang told AFP in an interview in December.
Karim Khan will go down in the history of the International Criminal Court as the prosecutor who clinched arrest warrants against the leaders of Russia and Israel but also as the one who "poisoned the atmosphere" within the institution.
Rigour and precision are the watchwords of this 56-year-old British lawyer when it comes to building a case against the alleged perpetrators of the world's most serious crimes.
But the forensic spotlight shifted to Khan himself after a female staffer accused him of sexual assault -- allegations he strongly denies -- ultimately costing him his job at the ICC.
At his swearing-in ceremony in 2021 as chief prosecutor of the Hague-based court, Khan said the ICC should be judged on its actions: "The proof of the pudding should be in the eating." 
And by obtaining arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders, he has shown he does not shy away from controversy.
Before that, he won an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, which led to Khan being placed on a wanted list in Russia.
The official has courted controversy throughout a career that has included defending former Liberian president Charles Taylor against allegations of war crimes in Sierra Leone.
Other high-profile clients have included Kenyan President William Ruto who faced charges of crimes against humanity at the ICC -- a case that was ultimately dropped.
He was also the lawyer for Seif al-Islam, son of the late Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.
Asked about "crossing the floor" -- working as both prosecutor and defence -- Khan told specialist journal OpinioJuris it helps lawyers stay "grounded".
It also prevents "corrosive traits such as thinking that defence counsel is the devil incarnate or that, as a prosecutor, you are doing 'God's work'," he added.
Initially criticised for dithering over atrocities in Gaza, Khan touched off a firestorm by applying for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Hamas leaders.
Netanyahu called it a "moral outrage of historic proportions" while then US president Joe Biden described Khan's actions as "outrageous".
Even before Khan's applications, senior US Republicans had penned a letter threatening to bar him and his family from the United States, ending ominously, "you have been warned".
In his defence, Khan stressed: "This is not a witch hunt... It is a forensic process that is expected of us as international prosecutors." 
– 'Aware of his achievements' –
Born in Scotland, Karim Khan studied at a private school in northern England, before reading law at King's College London.
He cut his teeth in international law at the former Yugoslav and Rwandan war crimes tribunals from 1997 to 2000, before representing survivors and relatives of victims of Cambodia's 1970s Khmer Rouge regime before a UN-backed court.
Other roles include a stint at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, based in The Hague, created to try the assassins of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005.
With a nod to the arrogance some critics ascribe to him, the ICC selection panel described him as a "charismatic and articulate communicator who is well aware of his achievements".
"I did apply because I thought I could do the role. If the Search Committee thought this was arrogance, then I'm guilty as charged," retorted Khan.
His speeches feature a strong command of rhetoric, peppered with touches of British humour.
A member of the minority Ahmadiyya Muslim sect, he often punctuates his speeches with "Inshallah" (God willing).
"Karim Khan seems like a no-nonsense lawyer," Melanie O'Brien, visiting professor in international law at the University of Minnesota, told AFP.
An ICC prosecutor "has to have a certain fortitude because you know you are going to be up against people who don't agree with you and who don't agree with the court in general," she added.
But the vote by ICC members to sack him as prosecutor amid allegations of wrongdoing will tarnish his legacy. 
"Even if they are only accusations, it disturbs us and it has poisoned the atmosphere of the court," Deputy Prosecutor Mandiaye Niang told AFP in an interview in December.
The accusations "are out there and that is enough to cast a veil of doubt over what we're doing", he said.
bur-cvo/ric/jj/msp

climate

Many thousands flee burning France holiday haven by road and sea

BY CAROLE SUHAS AND ANNE-SOPHIE LABADIE

  • Some people were moved to Andernos, which itself had to be evacuated.
  • Famous as a summer getaway for the likes of actors Marion Cotillard and Jean Dujardin, the Cap Ferret peninsula in southwestern France has been emptied of its usual summer crowds by the wildfires, with more than 40,000 people moved by road and sea.
  • Some people were moved to Andernos, which itself had to be evacuated.
Famous as a summer getaway for the likes of actors Marion Cotillard and Jean Dujardin, the Cap Ferret peninsula in southwestern France has been emptied of its usual summer crowds by the wildfires, with more than 40,000 people moved by road and sea.
Thick smoke stretched across the skies above Lege-Cap-Ferret, where streets were deserted and metal shutters drawn, as wildfires drove residents and tourists away during the peak summer season.
"There's not a soul around," Cecile Maumy said at the ferry terminal. "It feels like the Covid period. It's unbelievable."
Le Spot campsite appeared abandoned, with only the sound of cicadas breaking the silence. Half-used bottles of syrup and opened bags of crisps remained on the tables, while the door of a caravan had been left ajar.
"It's a disaster, it's horrible," said Jean Goncalves, a T-shirt tied around his face.
The 54-year-old, who has lived in Lege-Cap-Ferret for 30 years, fled his home after watching his neighbour's wooden house catch fire.
Large smoke plumes from the fires could be seen from neighbouring towns along the Atlantic coast. 
Holidaymakers in the seaside resort of Lacanau watched smoke blanket the sky from the safety of the beach, sheltered beneath umbrellas.
France has been battered by three heatwaves since May, part of increasingly frequent extreme weather episodes linked to climate change, causing thousands of excess deaths, drying up rivers and fuelling wildfires.
- 'XXL wildfire' - 
The wildfire broke out on Wednesday in the village of Saumos close to the renowned Medoc vineyards.
Moving rapidly through dense pine forests, the blaze spread to the Cap-Ferret peninsula, long favoured by wealthy French families and known for its sand dunes and oyster shacks.
Many French A-listers, drawn to the understated charm of Cap-Ferret over the glitz of the French Riviera, spend their vacations there -- many have homes on the peninsula.
Residents have described scenes like a "war zone", while the regional prefect Sophie Brocas called the blaze an "XXL wildfire, unpredictable and voracious".
No fatalities have been reported, but dozens of homes have been destroyed, along with a campsite.
Faced with the advancing flames, officials ordered the evacuation of the entire peninsula and several nearby villages.
Officials said 44,000 people had been evacuated over the past two days.
Most people have left by car through the peninsula's single road, with traffic jams building up in the direction of Bordeaux.
Hundreds were also ferried out by boats as part of the evacuation plan, the first time it has been activated after it was put together following devastating fires in the region in 2022.
"Everything was handled smoothly," said David Lafforgue, a Cap-Ferret shopkeeper and local elected official. "Suitcases were ready, and people remained calm."
- 'Catastrophic' - 
But he said he was worried about what comes next.
"Economically, it's catastrophic," he said. "We go from everything to nothing. 
"July 20 to August 20 is the peak of our season. We don't know whether our seasonal workers will come back or whether our customers will return."
Some people were moved to Andernos, which itself had to be evacuated.
Maria Lalanne, a 90-year-old resident of Lege-Cap-Ferret with no family, was still in shock. She left her hearing aid and glasses behind at home.
"I have heart disease, blood pressure issues, eye problems. I don't know how long this will last. I don't know what has happened to my house," she said.
Evacuee Julie Boisvert had been staying in the village of Le Porge when her family was forced to leave.
She said she had begun to feel "surrounded" by the advancing flames.
"The gendarmes knocked on every door," said Boisvert, adding they left by car with their two children, aged five and two.
Firefighters were also battling another major fire near the town of Biscarrosse, southwest of Bordeaux.
"We have never experienced anything like this," said Gilles Clavreul, the prefect of Landes.
al-cas-lcr-jed-as/jxb

parliament

'Cockroach' protest leaders, India govt say no breakthrough in talks

  • Senior ministers JP Nadda and Jitendra Singh met with leaders of the social media-driven Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) for two hours of talks on the group's demands, which include a call for the resignation of the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan.
  • Talks between the Indian government and leaders of the youth-led "Cockroach" movement failed to make headway Friday, as protesters gathered across the country to push for an overhaul of the education system.
  • Senior ministers JP Nadda and Jitendra Singh met with leaders of the social media-driven Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) for two hours of talks on the group's demands, which include a call for the resignation of the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan.
Talks between the Indian government and leaders of the youth-led "Cockroach" movement failed to make headway Friday, as protesters gathered across the country to push for an overhaul of the education system.
Senior ministers JP Nadda and Jitendra Singh met with leaders of the social media-driven Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) for two hours of talks on the group's demands, which include a call for the resignation of the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan.
Both sides said the talks would resume on Saturday.
"We conveyed in very clear terms that nothing short of Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation or his removal from the Union Cabinet would be acceptable," CJP spokesman Ashutosh Ranka told reporters after the meeting in New Delhi.
Nadda, who also met with protesters in New Delhi on Monday, said the government had "heard their points" and was expected to respond in follow up talks.
The Jantar Mantar protest site in New Delhi has seen bouts of unrest and violence during the week that snowballed after police fired tear gas and baton-charged demonstrators as they tried to march to parliament.
The movement spread beyond the capital, with large protests held in several other cities including Kolkata and Mumbai.
Traffic in parts of eastern Kolkata came to a standstill for several hours as thousands of students marched through the streets, identifying themselves as "cockroaches".
Waving the Indian flag, they chanted slogans saying "we want justice for police atrocities against students in Delhi". 
Similar scenes unfolded in the country's financial capital, Mumbai, where hundreds of protesters raised slogans demanding Pradhan's resignation.
A series of irregularities has stoked public anger, including the leak of a medical entrance exam paper -- forcing millions to retake the exam -- and a failure in an online marking system for high school students.
The movement has evolved to include concerns over unemployment, opportunities for young people and what critics brand as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's increasingly authoritarian style of governance -- in one of the biggest challenges to the Hindu-nationalist's administration since his 2024 re-election.

Opposition support

Modi has so far pledged legal reforms and swift punishment for those involved in the exam paper leaks.
At Delhi's Jantar Mantar protest site, student Sushmita, 20 said she felt the government dragged its feet on the issue for too long.
"Why did it take the government this long to announce the steps?" she told AFP.
"I don't know how Modi and this government can come back to us for support during the next elections."
India's opposition parties, who have thrown their weight behind the protesters, disrupted proceedings in the lower house of parliament Friday, saying they would not allow any debate until Pradhan steps down.
Rahul Gandhi of the opposition Congress Party accused police of using pellet guns on some protesters on Monday, after meeting an injured demonstrator in hospital. 
"Thousands of youth were baton-charged, beaten, and pellet guns were used against them," he told reporters.

Draft bill

Modi said in a social media post on Thursday his cabinet would discuss measures to speed up court proceedings against those involved in examination leaks.
After "incorporating the suggestions of my cabinet colleagues", draft legislation would be given "its final shape", he said.
"We will make every effort to have the bill introduced and passed by the House at the earliest," Modi added.
Prominent activist Sonam Wangchuk, who ended a 26-day hunger strike in support of the movement late Thursday, said the government had assured him that no action would be taken against peaceful demonstrators.
"They also assured us that parliament would hold a full debate on the issue and on improving accountability in the education and examination system," he said.
ash-bb-sai/ane