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BBC News with Roisin Hastie.
The French President Emmanuel Macron has promised to commit every available resource to fight raging wildfires, saying the crisis was the most severe to face France since the Second World War. On a visit to the worst hit region around Bordeaux, he thanked firefighters and others involved in the massive response. David Hazan is a Paris correspondent at The Times. He's in Bordeaux. I think what I'm picking up from people in this area is that they're fairly happy with the local authorities. They think the fire brigade and the police who've joined them and the soldiers, they're all doing a great job but they're very angry with the national government and with President Macron because they, they say, you know, why doesn't France have more firefighting planes? The only way to combat these fires is from the air using water bombing aircraft and France clearly doesn't have enough. In Spain firefighters have been battling to contain some of the worst fires in recent history amid warnings of an intensifying heat wave that could keep matters worse. Temperatures in some areas are forecast to reach 40 degrees Celsius. The Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has warned that difficult hours lie ahead. The U.N. body fighting AIDS says the world risks a resurgence of the HIV epidemic after global funding was cut by nearly a fifth last year. In a report to mark the opening of an international AIDS conference in Brazil, UNAIDS said funding fell to around seven billion dollars, its lowest in nearly two decades. Winifred Byanyima is the executive director of UNAIDS. "It is a report that tells two stories. The first one of extraordinary scientific progress. The second story is a warning - funding cuts, rising inequality, attacks on human rights, shrinking civic space. Together, they are putting decades of progress at risk." Washington had accounted for three-quarters of international HIV funding before President Trump's return to office in January, 2025. Police in Seattle now believe at least three suspects were involved in the deadly shooting at a food festival on Sunday night close to Seattle Space Needle tourist site. Here's David Willis. One of them a 15-year-old boy was taken into custody. A second teenager is thought to be among those who died and police are appealing for help in identifying a third suspect who fled the scene. More than 300,000 people regularly attend the annual Bite of Seattle food festival. The city's mayor Katie Wilson has condemned what she described as "an act of horrific violence." BBC News. Austria has announced plans to increase military service from six to nine months as it looks to bolster its preparedness in the wake of Russia's war in Ukraine. All men in Austria must choose between military service or a longer civilian alternative which the government is also looking to extend. Austria is not a NATO member and has been trying for years to improve its military capabilities. The American pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson says it's agreed to pay up to five and a half billion dollars to settle lawsuits claiming its talc products cause ovarian cancer. The company won a significant victory in the decade-long legal battle last week when a U.S. judge cast doubt on the plaintiff's ability to prove the claims. J&J has always denied that its talc products such as baby powder cause cancer. A man has been arrested after three women, one of them pregnant, was stabbed in Paris on Monday. Authorities say two of the victims are in a critical condition. Eyewitnesses report a man wielding two kitchen knives running and around lunging at women. This man was at the scene. "When I saw him stab a woman in the back, I started shouting come on let's stop him. Several people stepped in. One person threw a suitcase at him. He dropped the knives. At that moment, I grabbed him and we pinned him to the ground. Then the police arrived and arrested him." The director of the International Monetary Fund has praised Argentina's improved economic standing since President Javier Milei took office in 2023. On a visit to Buenos Aires, Kristalina Georgieva said Argentina was in a much stronger position but she acknowledged measures were needed to achieve balanced growth, in particular creating more jobs. Mr. Milei took power promising to revive the economy by slashing public spending and lowering inflation. BBC News. |