About 220,000 people have been evacuated in France, while in neighbouring Spain more than 75,000 people have been told to leave their homes and a further 30,000 ordered to shelter in place

International News via Reuters:

Firefighters battled massive wildfires threatening the French city of Bordeaux on Monday while crews in Spain struggled to control a series of forest blazes raging since last week, the result of a blisteringly hot and dry summer in Western Europe.

About 220,000 people have been evacuated in France, while in neighbouring Spain more than 75,000 people have been told to leave their homes and a further 30,000 ordered to shelter in place, authorities said over the weekend.

The French blazes, which broke out last week near the Atlantic coast, are now only 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) from entry points to the main metropolitan area of Bordeaux.

“This is a fire of a size never seen before,” Jerome Steffe, mayor of Cestas, said on Monday. Cestas is one of the suburbs just outside the main Bordeaux city area.

In Spain, fires were burning in the central provinces of Madrid, Avila and Toledo. Flames have devastated more than 50,000 hectares (123,500 acres) of countryside in Avila, making it the biggest wildfire in Spain’s recent history, according to Environment Minister Sara Aagesen.

A separate blaze in Spain’s eastern Castellon province has ravaged over 6,500 hectares, regional authorities said.

ECONOMIC IMPACT BEING FELT

The wildfires around Bordeaux in southwestern France have delivered a shock to the regional economy, Finance Minister Roland Lescure said on Monday. The region is one of the centres of French wine production and a major centre for tourism.

“It’s like a clap of thunder for an area which could have done without this,” Lescure told reporters.

President Emmanuel Macron’s government will discuss the wildfire situation at a cabinet meeting on Monday.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said his government will on Tuesday declare a civil protection emergency for the central provinces plagued by the wildfires, unlocking additional recovery funding.

More than 150,000 hectares have burned across Spain since January, Sanchez has said, six times the area destroyed during the same period last year.

In both Bordeaux and Avila, July high temperatures have averaged 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit), almost 6 C above the month’s normal high between 1961 and 1990, according to the Reuters Climate Monitor.

RESPONSE UNDER SCRUTINY

The scale of this summer’s wildfires in Europe is putting pressure on firefighting resources and raising questions about how to respond.

Under the European Union’s civil protection mechanism, Greece and Italy have each sent two Canadair water-bombing aircraft to Spain, while Portugal has deployed more than 100 military personnel along with equipment.

Two more planes were due to arrive from Turkey, the Spanish interior ministry said.

French firefighters are hoping to take advantage of more favourable conditions on Monday before the temperatures rise again to as high as 37 C (98.6 F) later this week in the Bordeaux area, according to forecasts from France’s weather office.

“It’s a race against time before the heatwave returns,” said Steffe, the mayor of Cestas.

Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Manuel Ausloos, Elizabeth Howcroft, Yves Hermann and David Latona;Writing by Keith Weir, editing by Andrei Khalip Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan

The ECB left rates unchanged last week but clearly hinted at a rate hike at its next meeting in September as oil and gas prices both surged this month on renewed conflict in the Middle East

International News via Reuters:

The European Central Bank will need to raise interest rates at least once more to contain inflation and a deterioration in the outlook could warrant more tightening than now expected, Slovak central bank chief Peter Kazimir said on Monday.

The ECB left rates unchanged last week but clearly hinted at a rate hike at its next meeting in September as oil and gas prices both surged this month on renewed conflict in the Middle East. 

“I remain of the view that at least one more hike will be needed as part of our measured adjustment to inflation risks,” Kazimir, an outspoken policy hawk, said in an opinion piece. “This is warranted even if the situation improves somewhat.”

He added that “very convincing” economic data and geopolitical developments would be needed in the coming weeks for him not to advocate a move in September. 

A key reason the ECB held out this month was that the inflation surge has yet to generate any significant second-round price impacts but Kazimir said policymakers needed to act preemptively.

“They often form quietly. By the time they are fully visible, they are costly to reverse. Our task is to act before that point, not after,” he said.

Financial markets see at least two more rate hikes from the ECB, with the first move fully priced in by October and the second by March. 

These expectations are highly volatile, however, and move with oil prices, which are now between the ECB’s “baseline” and “milder” scenarios.

“Should the situation escalate, with the price pressures becoming stronger and more persistent, we will need to tighten more over the next quarters than is currently expected,” Kazimir added. 

“We did not surprise the markets in July, and we should not surprise them in September,” Kazimir said.

Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Sharon Singleton

Organisers of the parade cancelled several related events after Saturday night’s attack, including a breakfast market at a popular food hall and a post-parade clean-up

International News via Reuters:

Members of Berlin’s LGBTQ community and others voiced grief, anger and solidarity on Sunday after a vehicle rammed into crowds at the city’s annual Christopher Street Day Pride celebrations, killing one person and injuring more than a dozen.

Organisers of the parade cancelled several related events after Saturday night’s attack, including a breakfast market at a popular food hall and a post-parade clean-up.

Instead, thousands of people gathered for a community vigil at 2 p.m. (1200 GMT) in Pariser Platz, the square surrounding the Brandenburg Gate, just a few hundred metres from where the attack took place.

The event hit maximum capacity about 30 minutes after beginning, despite on and off rain, with police limiting attendance due to security precautions, according to organisers.

Attendees held a moment of silence for the victims and waved pride flags, with one holding an oversized sign reading “From grief, to anger to resistance!”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig attended a memorial service at the medieval St Mary’s Church.

Alfonso Pantisano, the Berlin state government’s LGBTQ affairs commissioner, said he was at Brandenburg Gate when everything changed in a matter of moments.

“To you, my dear community: I know that many of you are afraid right now. I won’t sugarcoat it – I am, too. But you are not alone in this fear, in your grief, and in your anger,” Pantisano wrote on Instagram.

BERLIN HAS LONG HISTORY AS LGBTQ HUB

Up to 1 million people participate in Berlin’s CSD parade each year, according to city authorities.

The march through Berlin’s green heart, the Tiergarten park, brings together groups and supporters campaigning for the rights and inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex people.

The event — first held in 1979 — takes its name from Christopher Street in New York’s Greenwich Village, commemorating the 1969 Stonewall uprising against police raids and harassment.

Berlin has long occupied a central place in the history of gay rights and culture, starting in the late 19th century, when sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld founded what is regarded as the world’s first gay rights organisation in 1897.

The city became an international hub of gay and lesbian life during the liberal Weimar era, but the flourishing cultural scene that emerged was largely destroyed under Nazi rule.

Despite continued discrimination after World War Two and during Germany’s division, gay communities gradually re-emerged in Berlin through bars, social organisations and political activism.

“I hope that many people realise how important it is that we stay strongly together, now more than ever,” German rapper Ikkimel, who was part of the stage show for the first day of CSD, wrote on Instagram.

“Please please please stay strong. I will always stand up for us.”

Reporting by Miranda Murray, Lena Toepfler and Martin Schlicht; Editing by Helen Popper and Peter Graff

Hours after the apparent attack many details remained unclear, but police said the vehicle struck multiple people after charging into the city’s central Tiergarten park close to the Brandenburg Gate

International News via Reuters:

One person has been killed and 17 injured, with some in life-threatening condition, after a vehicle mowed down a crowd near Berlin’s Pride celebrations on Saturday evening, setting off a manhunt for those responsible, the police said.

Hours after the apparent attack many details remained unclear, but police said the vehicle struck multiple people after charging into the city’s central Tiergarten park close to the Brandenburg Gate. They later said they had identified an Islamist as a suspect and were seeking his arrest.

“According to our latest information, the vehicle drove … into the Tiergarten around 10 p.m. (2000 GMT), injuring several people in the process, and then came to a standstill after hitting a tree here in the Tiergarten,” a police spokesperson at the scene said. 

“It was empty, which is why we are currently working intensively to track down the perpetrator or perpetrators.”

EIGHT SERIOUSLY INJURED

Among the injured, eight had serious injuries and of those, three were in life-threatening condition, a fire brigade spokesperson said.

“We have now identified a suspected perpetrator. Measures against this suspected perpetrator, who has not yet been arrested, are underway. However, this suspected perpetrator is known to the police as a member of the Islamist scene here in Berlin,” the police spokesperson told reporters.

The police said the vehicle was white, describing it as possibly a car or minivan or minibus. Tabloid newspaper Bild cited a witness as saying it was a van and that a man emerged from it and fled on foot.

Hundreds of thousands of people had gathered peacefully in the German capital for the annual Christopher Street Day celebrations, one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ events, before the apparent attack brought it to an abrupt end.

A large number of emergency service vehicles were at the scene.

“It’s one of the worst days for the queer community and a day I personally hoped I’d never have to experience… I’m shocked,” said Julian Miethig, who attended the event.

Christopher Street Day draws hundreds of thousands of people to the German capital each year. The event commemorates the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York and combines a parade with political demands for equality, inclusion and protection against discrimination. 

SERIES OF CAR ATTACKS

First held in West Berlin in 1979, the CSD has grown from a small demonstration into a major fixture of the city’s cultural and political calendar. The parade is the centrepiece of the CSD, but it is accompanied by a range of political, cultural and party events held across the city.

Germany has in recent years suffered a series of incidents in which a car has charged into a crowd, causing deaths.

In May, a man believed to have mental health issues drove his car into a central pedestrian zone of the eastern German city of Leipzig, killing two people and seriously injuring three.

Last year, two people were killed in the western city of Mannheim when a 40-year-old man whom authorities described as psychologically unwell drove a car into a group of pedestrians. Weeks before that, an Afghan national suspected by prosecutors of having carried out a similar attack on a trade union demonstration in Munich, killing two and injuring more than 40, including children.

In December 2024, several people were killed in a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg. The suspected perpetrator was a psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia with a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric who had lived in Germany for almost two decades.

Reporting by Kirsti Knolle, Michele Sani and Martin Schlicht and Christian Mang in Berlin and Sabine Wollrab in Frankfurt; Writing by Francois Murphy; Editing by Rod Nickel, David Gregorio and Matthew Lewis