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Firefighters hasten efforts to contain massive wildfires in France and Spain ahead of heatwave – Europe live

Madrid’s regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso said this morning that the wildfires situation is “gradually improving” and allows authorities to be a bit “more optimistic,” as she thanked the emergency services for their work. But the central government’s delegation to Madrid cautioned that the fire was still not under control, with more progress needed today before the expected fourth heatwave hits the area.

‘Ash fell from the sky’: Tourists describe fleeing ‘apocalyptic’ wildfires in France

Wildfires have forced about 375,000 people to leave their homes in France and Spain. In France, nearly 260,000 have had to flee, while in neighbouring Spain 116,000 have been evacuated as the wildfires continue to wreak havoc across southern Europe. Authorities in France have been battling to contain a huge wildfire near Bordeaux, meanwhile, while Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has warned that Spain and the Iberian peninsula were suffering the effects of the climate emergency. It comes as another heatwave could hit France from Tuesday, with temperatures reaching 40C (104F) in some areas, weather forecasters said. Tourists caught up in the wildfires spoke to us about their experiences. Patrick, 77, was at a beach in Arcachon on the south-west coast of France on Thursday when he noticed the sky getting darker, and a “great billowing pall of black smoke” developing. “It was the beginning of a slightly otherworldly experience,” he said. He and his wife were forced to hitchhike 42 miles (69km) back to Bordeaux, where they were staying on holiday, after all trains were cancelled due to an electrical fault which had nothing to do with the fire. The couple entered a bike shop and asked for a piece of cardboard, on which Patrick wrote “Bordeaux SVP. Urgence!”. They walked about a mile out of town to a roundabout and stuck their thumbs out, hitching a ride within five minutes. That took them halfway, until they were picked up by the owner of a chain of local coffee shops who was on route to Bordeaux to collect his wife, who was stranded because of the cancelled trains. It was only after getting back safely to Bordeaux, and watching the news unfold, that the severity of the fires hit them. “We realised that the two people who had given us lifts lived in areas where houses were burned and tens of thousands of people were being evacuated,” he said. “I hope they are both OK.” He described the “chilling feeling” of seeing life on the beach seemingly going on as usual whilst smoke gathered in the skies above. “My main memory is how bizarre it was to watch people enjoying holidays on the beach while a major catastrophe was unfolding in full view, not far away. Is this how the world ends?” Alexandra, 44, was holidaying with family members when she decided to cut her break short on Friday after seeing an “apocalyptic” scene on the sand dunes near her resort at Lacanau Océan, in the Gironde region in south-west France. “The sky just changed colour and the smoke was really intense. There was ash falling from the clouds, and the beach was littered with black soot where the waves normally leave seaweed,” she said. “It was oddly haunting and beautiful, but also obviously quite terrifying.” Alexandra and her partner booked a flight back to the UK and headed to Bordeaux, where they booked into an airport hotel, thinking they had “done the right thing and gotten out of the way”, but the fire had followed them east. An emergency alert on their mobile phones woke them up at 2.45am, informing them that the area around the airport was under an evacuation order. They joined other guests downstairs. “There were a lot of people confused, waiting in reception, not knowing what was happening,” she said. They were taken by a taxi to the Bordeaux exhibition centre, and spent several hours waiting for sunrise with hundreds of other evacuees from the local neighbourhood, before travelling to the airport on Saturday morning. “It was really heartening to see how well people were being looked after,” she said. “Hopefully the light rain will help the firefighters get this blaze under control. They must be exhausted.” Jason, 53, from Cardiff, was also staying at Lacanau Océan at a campsite with his wife and three children, but they left after “ash began to fall from the sky”. “We were four days into a three-week holiday and had gone down to the beach on Friday and you could see the smoke gradually rising,” said Jason, who is an academic. “As the morning went on, the smoke was growing. So we cycled about a mile back to the campsite, and by then you could see the smoke quite clearly from there. It kept growing, and in the end, it was covering the sun. Everything went dark. It was pretty heavy, the smoke was horrendous.” He said as the day progressed things “calmed down”, and the smoke moved on, but then came the ash. “That was a bit uncomfortable,” he added. “At that point, we decided to pack up everything on the Saturday and leave. We thought enough is enough. I think most of the campsite left at the same time.” He sympathised with the campsite and the region as holidaymakers left. “Lacanau Océan was empty,” he said. “There was hardly anybody there in the restaurants. And this time of year, as you can imagine, it would be really busy and full. It’s a difficult one because we recognise the fact that the tourist industry is really important down there.” He said he and his wife and children, aged 14, 19 and 21, are “in limbo” as they have been told the campsite is still open, but authorities have said they “cannot travel back there”. The family has been holidaying in this part of France for more the past 20 years, but Jason believes this will be their last visit. “It really brought it home how serious it was when we started to drive towards Bordeaux and then north,” he said. “We saw police, fire trucks, ambulances and the big airbus to drop water. We have been aware of wildfires in the area, but this is on another level. “I’ve always believed in climate change, and this is just an outcome of that. We’ve seen it getting worse over the past five years, definitely. It’s been getting warmer every year. We’ve always known there are wildfires in this region, but we’ve noticed them increasing in number and ferocity for sure.”

Tuesday briefing: Can Andy Burnham solve the social care crisis after three decades of failure?

Good morning. Andy Burnham will soon be adding his name to the list of prime ministers who have tried to answer one of the trickiest questions in British politics: how should we pay for social care? In his first sit-down interview as PM, he warned that the NHS would “collapse” without social care reform, and said he wouldn’t want to leave office without significantly changing the system. Those of you who remember Burnham as a fresh-faced health secretary may recall he co-authored a paper setting out plans for a National Care Service in 2010. It was one of the few instances where politicians came close to a solution, but after Labour was accused of trying to introduce a “death tax”, the paper joined a list of at least 22 major reviews, commissions and reports published since 1997 that have tried – and failed – to fix the problem. Care home fees have spiralled over the last two years. Based on my back-of-the-envelope calculations (bear with me), if I, a 33-year-old woman, eventually move into a care home when I turn 90 and die two years later, the fees will cost me roughly £1.2m. That’s based on a conservative estimate that fees increase by 4% annually: last year, they increased by as much as 10%. Something clearly needs to change. But what’s to say Burnham will be successful where others have failed? Today’s First Edition situates the PM’s promises in the history of an exasperating three-decades long debate, and asks what he could do differently. First, here are the headlines. Five big stories UK politics | Andy Burnham will tell schools across England to adapt their curriculums to the needs of local businesses as part of a devolution drive aimed at tackling the jobs crisis for young people. Wildfires | Firefighters in France and Spain are racing to bring huge wildfires under control before another heatwave this week that will complicate efforts to tame the flames. Iran | Donald Trump has once again warned that the US will return to “strong military action” against Iran if diplomatic efforts do not bring a rapid resolution to the crisis in the Middle East. India | India’s youth-led “cockroach” movement, whose nationwide protests forced the resignation of the education minister, has urged authorities to release all detained demonstrators. UK news | A US airman accused of a “spree” of rapes and sexual assaults in England, drugging some women and breaking into the homes of others, was able to avoid British justice after local police handed over part of the case to the American military. In depth: ‘Every month that goes past, the crisis deepens’ Whenever I’ve written about social care, what’s surprised me is how much the system rides on the wealth of baby boomers. Since there is no cap on the amount someone will have to spend on care once they’re down to their last £23,250 (£24,000 in Wales, and an upper limit of £35,000 in Scotland, which has a slightly different system), many people have no option but to sell their houses or use their life savings to fund it. Wealth that was built up over lifetimes and destined for children and grandchildren is instead diverted to the owners of Britain’s mostly privately operated care homes, and an estimated 10% of the money that councils and individuals spend goes on interest payments dividends, directors’ fees and profits – not frontline care. In a 1997 speech, Tony Blair famously declared that he didn’t want to see children growing up in a country where “the only way pensioners can get long-term care is by selling their home”. Two years later, a royal commission recommended that personal care should be free and funded by the state, but Blair’s government rejected its core proposal. The Brown government produced the white paper that was co-authored by Burnham in 2010, which set out plans to create a free at the point of use National Care Service modelled on the NHS. Timing is everything, and the Conservatives realised there was a powerful campaigning tool in accusing the government of trying to implement a “death tax”. It’s an attack line Nigel Farage resurrected yesterday. The white paper wasn’t actually explicit about how the service would be funded, and the government planned to legislate for it during its next term. But Labour lost the election just two months after it was published, and the idea of a National Care service was shelved. *** 2014 Shortly after taking office, the Cameron-led coalition government commissioned its own review of social care chaired by the economist Andrew Dilnot, whose 2011 report framed the next decade of policy debate. It proposed a lifetime cap on how much people would have to pay for their care, suggesting a threshold of £25,000-£50,000. Dilnot’s recommendations culminated in the 2014 care act, which was – in the Guardian’s words – an “historic piece of legislation”. It proposed a cap on care costs in England of £72,000, and its funding reforms were supposed to come into effect from April 2016, but … *** 2015 After unexpectedly winning a parliamentary majority, the Conservatives pushed these reforms into the long grass. In a 2015 letter, Alistair Burt, then minister for community and social care, explained that since the cap was expected to add £6bn to public spending over the next five years, the government had taken the “difficult decision” to delay its introduction to April 2020. *** 2017 During the 2017 general election, Theresa May announced her own plans for social care, which included raising the means test threshold from £23,250 to £100,000, and allowing people to defer the cost of payment until after death. Labour got its revenge on the Conservatives for their “death tax” allegations, and Jeremy Corbyn swiftly branded May’s proposal a “dementia tax”, helping destroy her majority in the 2017 election. “May was doing very well, and then suddenly started talking about plans for social care funding. Labour brands it a dementia tax, and the next thing you know, she’s tanking in the polls and Corbyn is shooting up,” Patrick Butler, our social policy editor, who has been covering this debate for more than two decades, tells me. “That was the second time it became clear that politically, this is a really hard thing to do.” *** 2021 After one pandemic and at least three major commissions, two green papers and three white papers, the Boris Johnson government finally set out plans to cap care costs to £86,000 by October 2023 (higher than Dilnot’s cap, but still progress). Johnson announced a 1.25% health and social care levy to pay for it. But then … *** 2022 Kwasi Kwarteng abolished the health and social care levy in September 2022 during his very memorable 38-day stint as chancellor. Later that year, Jeremy Hunt announced that reforms to the social care cap would be postponed again, until October 2025. *** 2024 and beyond Rachel Reeves said that it would “not be possible” to proceed with the cap on care costs after Labour won the general election. The party pledged to create a “National Care Service” in its manifesto, and in January 2025, then health secretary Wes Streeting announced another commission, this one chaired by Louise Casey, which will try to build a cross-party consensus on social care funding. That commission is supposed to deliver its final report in 2028. Burnham is clearly keen to do something quickly, so it’s possible it will deliver its findings sooner. “In all the years that these debates have been happening in Britain, other countries have pretty successfully solved the social care problem,” Abby Jitendra, policy director at ThinkLabour, who has written extensively on social care, tells me. The question for Burnham, as always, will be how to fund it (Kemi Badenoch helpfully wrote to the PM this weekend saying the Conservatives would be “happy” to work with the government on a solution – so long as it doesn’t involve raising taxes or borrowing). A paper Jitendra wrote last year pointed to a number of international examples. Australia subsidises care for people on lower incomes and caps it for everyone else, funding this through general taxation. In Japan, the costs of care are covered by taxation, insurance contributions and individual fees. With so much “political capital” already expended on the subject, it’s about time politicians came up with a plan. “How much time do you really need to dither on this?” Butler asks. “Every month that goes past, the crisis deepens. And the answers, and the options, are already out there.” What else we’ve been enjoying It’ll (somehow) be 10 years this Christmas since George Michael died. I loved reading about the unreleased early 90s collab album he worked on with Aretha Franklin and Janet Jackson. Michael For almost two centuries, the Evening Standard was a fixture of London life. But it’s doubtful whether the paper will struggle on long enough to celebrate its 200th birthday next year. In his recent piece for The Londoner, Joshi Herrmann examines what went wrong under the editorship of Evgeny Lebedev. Hettie Before I let anything stress me out this week, I vow to think about the man in Montana who hiked 10 miles to safety with a trekking pole speared through his actual torso. Perspective! Michael I’ve been waiting to read our resident classicist and chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins on Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey. She finds Odysseus is “notably laconic” in Nolan’s film, which is perfectly calibrated for our war-weary times. Hettie I found these reflections from oncologist Ranjana Srivastava on medical decisions making really thought-provoking: “Far too often, patients report not understanding that they have a real choice, which includes saying no.” Michael Sport Commonwealth Games | Adam Ramsay-Peaty says he is happy with second bronze and that his “superpower looks very different now”, while Scotland’s Archie Goodburn was racing despite his brain cancer diagnosis. Football |The top Democrat on the House judiciary committee has launched an investigation into Fifa president Gianni Infantino, seeking documents that would detail the ties between soccer’s governing body and Donald Trump and his administration. Premier League | English clubs have spent more on players this summer than the other four major European leagues combined. The front pages “Teach pupils for local jobs, Burnham to tell schools”, is the Guardian’s splash today, while the Times’ take is “Burnham’s ‘hard hat’ schools”, the Telegraph writes “Burnham axes Blair’s university vision” and the FT has “Burnham seeks welfare bill savings by tailoring schools to local jobs market”. The Mail leads with “Burnham’s £18bn ‘death tax’ nightmare”. Elsewhere, a funeral homes case dominates, with Metro writing “Horror beyond belief at rogue funeral parlour”, the Mirror says “‘Sorry’ will never be enough”, and the Express has “Bodies were piled up like in a ‘horror scene’”. Lastly, the i Paper leads Europe wildfires, splashing “Race against time”. The Latest ‘Megablaze’ wildfires rage across France and Spain Firefighters in France and Spain are facing another day battling wildfires that have resulted in hundreds of thousands of people being evacuated, with another heatwave expected to hit this week. French authorities have said this year’s wildfires, particularly the Gironde fire near the south-western city of Bordeaux, are “completely exceptional”, with more than 116,000 hectares of forest and vegetation burned since the beginning of the year, compared with 70,000 in total last year. Lucy Hough speaks to Europe environment correspondent, Ajit Niranjan. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Three new murals installed in east London, Reading and Bristol in a bid to challenge stereotypes and misconceptions about rough sleepers. With numbers of rough sleepers in the UK rising to record levels, homeless charity St Mungo’s has commissioned the artworks to tell the story of former rough sleepers – Lee, Tamika, Ray and Lawretta – that it has helped support out of homelessness. Each mural features an integrated QR code that directs to the narrated stories of the people depicted. “I wanted to give these case studies a voice,” mural artist, Luke Embden says. “This is a really beautiful way to get the message out there.” “They’re asking people to stop and look and listen,” says Emma Haddad, the chief executive of St Mungo’s. “Recovery is possible, hope is possible, and support plays a fundamental role in that.” Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply

A dog saved Houssein Hamze from a bomb. When war returned, he stayed to care for Lebanon’s animals

During Israel’s 2006 war against Hezbollah, Houssein Hamze woke up one night to the sound of barking. Alarmed, he got up to check on the dog – his first rescue pet. Moments later, a bomb dropped next to his home and a piece of shrapnel landed right where he had been sleeping. “I swear to God, he really saved me from death. Animals always possess a sixth sense we don’t have,” Hamze said. Twenty years and two wars later, the 57-year-old is still repaying his debt to the dog that saved his life. Soon after his near-death experience, Hamze founded the Mashala shelter in the village of Zefta, south Lebanon, to take care of animals in the area. In normal times he takes in strays, and in wartime he is the only lifeline for animals in the area. On a recent morning, Hamze strolled through his small farm where the shelter is located, checking on fig trees as a line of dogs followed behind him, ears perking up with his every move. He opened an enclosure where two camels – rescued from the Bekaa valley last year – stood among chickens and geese. “This is Jamoola and her son, Jamool. She is so sweet. When I don’t visit for more than two days, she starts to cry. And when I come back, she wraps her neck around me as if she’s hugging me,” Hamze said, as the camel placed her head in his lap, nuzzling him as he scratched behind her ears. Jamool, a calf who was still nursing, hid his face behind his mother. The donation-supported farm hosts an eclectic collection of rescues. About 200 dogs – some of them missing ears or tails – gnawed on donated chicken feet, while horses whinnied at guests by the entrance. Chickens ran between the camels’ legs while geese patrolled the perimeter of their enclosure. A small conspiracy of ravens flew rings around the forested valley of the farm, never straying too far from the shade in the intense summer heat. Hamze was one of about 20 people who stayed behind in his village during the last Hezbollah-Israel war that started on 2 March 2026 and forced approximately a quarter of Lebanon’s population to flee their homes. He stayed to take care of the animals, despite the constant risk of death from Israeli drone and airstrikes. “Many people fled and left their animals behind during their displacement – some of them left their animals tied up. We would go out, untie them and leave them water,” said Hamze. He pointed to one dog he rescued, Lulu, who lost a chunk of her tail in an airstrike and for whom he has been caring ever since. About 50 dogs came to the shelter during the war by themselves, seeking out food. During the conflict, Hamze would make daily rounds in his beaten-up truck, distributing dry food to the abandoned dogs and livestock in the villages of south Lebanon. It was not easy work: food was hard to secure, and he would often have to carry jerrycans of water long distances to dogs in more remote areas. On several occasions, airstrikes hit a building next to where he was working. Once during his feeding rounds, Hamze stumbled on the corpse of a man recently struck by a drone strike. “By the end, all the dogs knew me. I would beep and they would come running,” he said. Hamze would travel between the villages despite a Israeli drone that hovered overhead, watching his every move. He stuck the “Mashala” animal shelter sign on the roof of the car so the drone could identify him – but still it was no sure bet. Drones would regularly strike people in the area, ranging from Hezbollah fighters to medics to a man and his friend who went back to collect clothes from their home. “I wasn’t afraid for myself. I was only afraid for the animals. I kept thinking: if I die, who will look after them? They would be lost,” Hamze said. Despite his bravado, Hamze quietly made arrangements in case he was killed. He sent eight donkeys to a shelter in Beirut, fearful that unlike the dogs, they would not be able to survive on their own if he died. He would have sent the camels and horses too, but he could not fit them in a pickup truck. Since a ceasefire in June ended most of fighting in Lebanon, life has gone back to almost normal for Hamze and the animals in his shelter. The thud of artillery is more distant now; it no longer sets off a row of furious barking. Hamze is now occupied with more mundane tasks: repairing irrigation tubing chewed on by dogs, and chasing animals with a syringe to give them their tick treatments. His work during the war made him a minor celebrity in Lebanon. Videos of him braving drones to feed dogs went viral, prompting an outpouring of donations. With the war no longer in the headlines, donations are slowly drying up. Hamze is still famous in the village, though. His farm is hard to find but everyone in the area knows him. “Keep going all the way down the road and take a left. And tell Houssein I say hi,” said a shepherd on the road. And there is more work than ever, Hamze said, as displaced people return to their homes and have begun calling him to assist with animal rescues. Scrolling through his WhatsApp, he estimated he received about 500 messages and calls a day reporting animals that needed help. “The assistance is really not enough. But thank God, we made it through the most dangerous period. I was on my own, there wasn’t a single day when you could stop working and rest. I felt completely drained,” he said. Hamze said he hoped that one day the shelter would not be necessary, that people would value animals as much as they do humans. Maybe, with a proper respect for the sanctity of life, people would stop fighting, he mused. “The conclusion is this: if you don’t have compassion for animals, you won’t have compassion for human beings. Believe me,” Hamze said, before planting a kiss on Jamoola’s outstretched head.

France and Spain race to contain huge wildfires before fresh heatwave begins

Firefighters in France and Spain are racing to bring huge wildfires under control before another heatwave this week that will complicate efforts to tame the flames. Spain’s interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, said Monday and Tuesday were “absolutely crucial days” before temperatures rise again from Wednesday, prompting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to warn: “We face difficult hours, complex hours” ahead. EU officials have said wildfires could still be burning until early November in what threatens to be a record-breaking year for the area of land burned. A fire in the hilly terrain of Ávila, west of Madrid, has become Spain’s largest on record, burning 50,000 hectares (125,000 acres). Authorities are battling two separate fires north-west of Madrid, taking the total area of scorched land near the capital to 70,000 hectares. Spain’s state meteorological agency, Aemet, said the heatwave would last until “at least” Sunday, “making firefighting efforts more difficult due to high temperatures [and] locally gusty southerly winds”. France was also in “a race against time” to control wildfires before another heatwave this week, said Eric Brocardi, a fire service spokesperson. Weather forecasters have said temperatures could reach 40C (104F) is some parts of the country from Tuesday. This would complicate efforts to control the wildfire in Gironde in south-west France, which the interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, described as “extremely intense and unpredictable … generating its own winds and advancing erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area”. The mayor of Bordeaux, Thomas Cazenave, told the BBC he is bracing for “all eventualities”, as the fire advanced to within 15km (nine miles) from the city. “We are preparing to accommodate a large number of people should further evacuations be ordered,” he said. On a visit to Bordeaux, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said: “The coming weeks will be tough and we have to hold out.” But he said a smaller fire in the adjoining Landes – which forced the evacuation of more than 30,000 people – was “contained” but remained “virulent”. “We must be extremely cautious over the next few hours and the coming days,” he said. The Gironde fire has so far burned 42,000 hectares, making it one of the biggest devastations of land in France since the second world war. In the Cestas commune, about 10 miles from the city of Bordeaux, firefighters used mechanical diggers to uproot trees in an attempt to create a firebreak. The vast fire, which has triggered the evacuation of 220,000 people, had not progressed during the early hours of Monday but was “not contained” and remained “very complicated to control”, Nuñez said. Speaking after an emergency meeting of the French government on Monday, he described this year’s wildfires as “completely exceptional”. More than 116,000 hectares of forest and vegetation have been burned since January, far exceeding the 70,000 hectares reported for the whole of 2025. Spain’s government said the 172,000 hectares of forested land burned this year was six times greater than the equivalent figure for 2025. Sánchez told a climate conference the wildfires were not isolated incidents. “It is the most painful manifestation of a climate emergency that is making … wildfires more voracious and heatwaves more frequent, and as a result our land more vulnerable,” he said. “It is no longer an exception. It is the rule.” The European Commission’s lead official on the green transition, Teresa Ribera, said Europe was not prepared for the consequences of the climate crisis. In an interview with El País she said the commission would propose an adaptation strategy in October that would be much more comprehensive than policies implemented so far. A series of heatwaves, including record-breaking temperatures in June, that scientists say would have been impossible without the climate crisis, has left parched soils and tinder-dry vegetation that have fuelled this summer’s fires. A European Commission official said the wildfire season had begun in April and could last until early November. Officials also stressed the rising risks for fighting wildfires from the middle of the week in France, Spain and Greece. The EU executive has coordinated the dispatch of seven planes and four helicopters to France, as well as six planes and three forest firefighting teams to Spain, after the countries triggered the bloc’s emergency assistance mechanism. EU officials have also been sent to the Bordeaux region to assist local authorities. Officials stressed the unprecedented nature of recent fires, which have spread rapidly over large areas. A commission official said that a recent fire in southern Spain that killed 13 people had reached speeds of 4 mph, while firefighters are able to react only to fires moving 300 metres an hour or less. The scale of Europe’s wildfires has raised questions about the continent’s ability to respond. Italy is among about 10 European countries that have sent firefighting equipment or teams to France and Spain while grappling with its own blazes. Several fires broke out in northern and central Portugal, officials said, with over 1,000 firefighters and other professionals battling the flames. Firefighters fought to extinguish a major wildfire in Italy’s southern region of Puglia on Monday. More than 400 people, many of them tourists staying in campsites set among pine forests, were evacuated by sea from the Gargano peninsula on Sunday as the blaze, fanned by strong winds, encroached on beaches. A further 58 people were evacuated from their homes in Maratea as a wildfire swept through neighbouring Basilicata. Italy is bracing for its fourth heatwave this year as temperatures edge up towards highs of 38C to 40C from Wednesday. Smoke from the fires in France is continuing to cause a “marked deterioration” in air quality across a swathe of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and beyond, with health authorities warning about the danger. Elderly people, pregnant women and those with respiratory issues and chronic conditions were advised to take precautions. Local health authorities said people should close windows, wear an FFP2 mask outside and avoid strenuous activity. The prime minister’s office said more than 1.5 million FFP2 masks had been sent to the region.

Ukraine war briefing: Disastrous drone expo’s organiser appears in Kyiv court

A Ukrainian court remanded in custody the organiser of a weapons exhibition that was struck by Russia in an attack that killed at least 11 people. Prosecutors brought a case against Vasyl Goncharuk, head of the Armada weapons industry association, accusing him of negligence leading to loss of life after the Russian ballistic missile strike on a shooting range outside Kyiv on Friday. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it “certainly should not have been taking place there”. Russia’s defence ministry confirmed it hit the site during “a demonstration of Ukrainian and foreign-made” drones. Goncharuk appeared at the Kyiv court limping and said he sustained light injuries in the attack. Prosecutors have said the weapons association invited more than 300 people including military personnel, state representatives and business figures without official authorisation, providing only a small shelter. The event was even promoted on social media. Agence France-Presse said its reporters saw homes in ruins and victims in body bags after the attack. Previous incidents of Russian attacks on openly held Ukrainian military gatherings have also triggered outcry and resignations. A Wildberries warehouse in the Koledino district of Moscow was reportedly on fire on Tuesday morning after being hit by drones as the Russian capital came under attack. The distribution complex for the Amazon-like chain had been targeted previously. A steel factory in Chekhnov, Moscow oblast, was also hit, the Kyiv Independent reported. The Russian regional governor, ‌Andrei Vorobyov, said an apartment ⁠building in Chekhov was damaged. Drones targeted other areas including Podolsk, ‌Domodedovo and Kolomna. The Pentagon official tasked with building ⁠a domestic drone industry said on Monday the US was still far behind Ukraine’s production capabilities. Travis Metz, chief operating officer of the Defense Innovation Unit, told Reuters that Ukraine would produce 6m-7m small first-person-view attack drones this year – roughly 500,000 a month. By comparison, the ‌Pentagon’s $1.1bn programme will have ordered ‌just under 200,000 altogether by February. But the US would catch up and lead the sector, he predicted. The Pentagon is insisting military drones must be made with US parts to foster “a wholly domestic” supply chain. None of the drones from the 19 companies competing an August test event may contain banned parts like Chinese-made motors or battery packs. “It’s an increasingly difficult thing,” Metz said. Ukrainian companies competing in the test, called Gauntlet II, are being required to localise production in the US as a condition of future orders. All ⁠100 members of the US Senate have been invited to ⁠a meeting ⁠on Tuesday evening with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukraine’s president will be in Washington for the funeral of the late Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who was a strong and influential supporter of Ukraine. A Senate aide said voting might also begin during Zelenskyy’s visit on a bill to impose sanctions on Russia that was championed by Graham. Zelenskyy is due to meet on Tuesday with Donald Trump. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the war in Ukraine has changed dramatically. The Guardian’s Luke Harding looks at who has the advantage in the war now and how Zelenskyy’s strategy has shifted. Andy Burnham welcomed Zelenskyy in his first meeting with another world leader since becoming the UK prime minister, writes Pippa Crerar. “It is intended to send a very clear message,” Burnham told him. “We are with Ukraine 100%, I am personally with you 100%, and I will honour every commitment this country has made to Ukraine in full.” Burnham said Britain was providing new jamming technology to Ukraine that would “help them to hit their targets and help save Ukrainian lives”. The system is known as Stone Cloak. Zelenskyy posted that he was “grateful” to Britain for “today’s decision to provide Ukraine with electronic warfare technologies” that would “certainly be useful on the battlefield”. Romania’s ⁠foreign ministry ⁠said it had expelled a ⁠diplomat at Russia’s embassy after repeated violations of ⁠its national airspace by drones. Romanian F-16 fighter jet pilots have shot down three drones in as many days. The Russian ambassador was shown drone fragments that Romanian authorities identified as a Russian “Shahed model”. Two people were hurt in May when a drone smashed into an apartment building in the Romanian city of Galati near the border with Ukraine. Ukraine ⁠struck a Russian export ⁠terminal in ⁠the Rostov region, as well ⁠as oil facilities in ⁠the Yaroslavl and Udmurtia ‌regions, Zelenskyy said on Monday. “Last night, our long-range sanctions were effective in the Rostov region. An export terminal approximately 250km (155 miles) from the frontline was hit,” he posted. “Deep strikes also targeted oil facilities in the Yaroslavl region and the Udmurt Republic, which is 1,300km from Ukraine’s state border.” Five people were reported killed in Russia’s Rostov region bordering Ukraine. Russian ⁠forces meanwhile struck three Ukrainian ports, including ⁠fuel ⁠loading and storage facilities at the port ⁠of Odesa, the defence ‌ministry in Moscow said ‌on Monday. Russian strikes on frontline localities in eastern Ukraine killed ⁠seven people and ⁠injured more than 20 on Monday, officials said. Prosecutors in the Donetsk region said three people died ⁠in two areas near the contested city of Kostiantynivka. A fourth person was killed near Kramatorsk, a heavily defended “fortress” city considered critical to Ukraine’s defences. Prosecutors said a total of 18 people were ‌injured throughout Donetsk region. In Ukraine’s adjacent Dnipropetrovsk region, the governor, Oleksandr Hanzha, said three people were killed and six wounded in more than 50 drone and artillery attacks on five districts. Two people died near the town of Nikopol and one person was killed near the town of Syneklykove. Over the border in Russia’s Belgorod region, a Ukrainian drone struck a building, killing one person and injuring two. Donald Trump’s administration has told members ⁠of Congress it will not finish spending $400m in aid to Ukraine until fiscal year 2029, even as Kyiv runs critically low on weapons. Democrats and some of Trump’s fellow Republicans have criticised the Pentagon for sitting on aid for Kyiv that members of both parties pushed through last year. In May, the Pentagon sent a letter to lawmakers outlining its spending ⁠plan. It covers $200m for weapons, ammunition and explosives, $99.9m for vehicles, spares and equipment and $100m for services such as transportation of defence articles to Ukraine. The funds still have not been put to use.

Asia ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’ as Red Sea oil blockade worsens energy crisis

Governments in Asia are scrambling to avoid their second major energy crisis in six months, as another maritime chokepoint in the Middle East faces a violent blockade, leaving only the Suez canal completely open for the free movement of gulf oil. Countries like Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and South Korea – which rely on Middle East oil for up to 90% of their imports – are working to secure supplies after Yemen’s Houthis launched a blockade of Saudi Arabian shipping passing through the Bab al-Mandab strait, which forms the southern entrance to the Red Sea. Many countries in Asia are still reeling from Iran’s effective closure of the strait of Hormuz in March, which forced governments across the region to compete for increasingly dwindling supplies of Middle Eastern crude oil. “They’re scraping at the bottom of the barrel in terms of global reserve capacity … there’s very little inventory now,” says Ahmed Helal, from the Asia Group thinktank. Japan – along with neighbouring countries – is already spending billions on fuel subsidies to keep the cost of petroleum down, hitting government budgets hard. ⁠After the announcement from the Houthis, some like South Korea were quick to extend those fuel tax cuts. Meanwhile, the spike in the cost of imports has led to a rise in inflation, piling pressure on the governments of regional giants such as Japan and Indonesia. Now, the threat to Red Sea shipping is set to increase the pressure. In March, Saudi Arabia responded to the closure of the strait of Hormuz by rerouting oil exports from the gulf on the country’s east coast, to the west coast port of Yanbu in the Red Sea which now handles more than 70% of Riyadh’s crude oil exports. That proved to be a lifeline for many Asian nations, like China – which is the largest buyer of Saudi oil – and India, Japan and South Korea, which follow close behind. Some Japanese and South Korean refiners are reportedly seeking to circumvent the Houthi threat by rerouting cargos north through the Suez canal, to the Mediterranean and around Africa. But this lengthy detour comes with huge costs. A VLCC, the largest size of oil tanker, is too big to pass through the Suez canal fully loaded, meaning cargos would need to unload up to half of their oil in the Red Sea, have it transported through Egypt’s Sumed pipeline to the Mediterranean coast, where they would then pick it up after transiting through the canal, adding costs and logistical complications to the journey. Rerouting the oil via the Mediterranean and around the Cape of Good Hope would also more than double the voyage time for most Asian importers, further adding to freight and fuel costs. For now, it’s a cost many may be willing to incur. The Houthis targeted at least two Saudi oil tankers exiting the Red Sea last week and launched attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure this week. The number of vessels transiting through Bab ⁠al-Mandab has fallen to the lowest level in months, with international shipping apparently paralysed by the Houthi threat. “Changing behaviour by tankers tells us that they are ⁠taking the threats seriously,” says Matt Smith, a commodity research director at Kpler, a market tracker. Insurers have responded in kind, with war risk premiums paid by tankers reportedly doubling in the last week, potentially adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of a voyage. Those costs will inevitably be passed on to consumers in Asia, who are already reeling from the energy shock imposed by the US-Iran war. “Businesses are going to have to close. You might have attempts to reduce consumption at peak hours. And you might have, in some extreme cases, higher risk of default,” says Helal. A vulnerability exposed After transits through the strait of Hormuz slowed to a halt in March, many countries in Asia rushed to mitigate the effects of the disruption. Coal-fired power plants blazed back into use, a four-day working week was imposed in Sri Lanka, while staff in Vietnam were urged to work from home. But now, resources and patience are running low. The Houthi threat has inspired the Philippines, India and South Korea to all bolster their strategic reserves of oil and gas. Meanwhile across the region, the crisis has added a renewed urgency to the renewables transition. But with no short-term solutions, Asian importers are reportedly looking farther afield for supplies, with Russia once again likely to benefit from chaos in the Middle East. Earlier this year Japan and South Korea reportedly bought Russian oil for the first time since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in ‌2022. In the past week, Reuters reported that Chinese refiner ramped up purchases ⁠of sanctioned Russian crude oil to counter the latest disruptions. The disruption and chaos points to a truth that experts say governments in Asia have ignored for too long: their energy systems remain far too vulnerable. Helal predicts this crisis will force many governments to reckon with their supply chains and their capacity to store strategic reserves. But for now, they simply have to secure supplies, he says, because “there’s very little in the tank for them to draw on.”

Russia and North Korea finalising first road crossing amid concerns it serves as Ukraine war supply route

Russia and North Korea are close to completing a bridge that will form the first road link ever built between them, amid concerns the two increasingly close allies are creating infrastructure to boost military cooperation in the Ukraine war. The bridge spans the Tumen River, between Khasan in Russia’s far east and Tumangang in North Korea, a remote, thinly populated stretch of borderland where the river marks the final few miles of the frontier before it reaches the coast. The crossing is now largely complete. North Korea finished its side of the project, including customs and quarantine facilities, ahead of a planned opening on 19 June, but Russia has fallen behind on its own side of the border, and no new opening date has been confirmed. Russian and North Korean authorities have made no secret of the bridge project, saying it is intended to expand trade and tourism. However, a new investigation by Ukrainian human rights group Truth Hounds and shared with the Guardian suggests it is intended more to provide a discreet military logistics corridor than to boost trade. Nazar Myhun, who led the open-source research at Truth Hounds, said a key reason behind its conclusion was the fact that it is much easier to evade satellite monitoring – a surveillance method used by the west to understand Russian and North Korean activities – by using roads compared with a rail network. The new crossing over the Tumen River runs alongside the Friendship Bridge, which is the only rail link between the two countries. Russia and North Korea’s road network is far bigger than their rail network, he said, making it harder to watch in its entirety. Loading and unloading of trucks can also take place much more quickly than for railcars, which are exposed to satellite passes for a longer period of time. “The type of railcar visible in an image reveals a great deal about the cargo, and certain categories of goods are transported in open railcars, which allows them to be identified,” Myhun told the Guardian. “Trucks, by contrast, almost always look the same in satellite imagery.” Road cargo can also be loaded anywhere, as opposed to trains, which rely on a handful of fixed rail hubs, Myhun said. Russian officials have presented the project as a way to expand trade and tourism. Andrey Nikitin, Russia’s transport minister, said: “The opening of the new road bridge will increase mutual trade, optimise logistics, strengthen cultural ties, and transform border areas into dynamically developing economic hubs.” North Korea’s state media news agency, KCNA, has similarly cast the bridge as a way to boost “travel of persons, tourism and circulation of commodities” between the two countries. However, Truth Hounds argues that the bridge’s economic rationale is weak. The crossing is estimated to have cost more than $100m, versus bilateral trade that was reportedly worth just $34m in 2024. Tourism from Russia into North Korea remains tightly controlled and largely limited to escorted tours, with around 10,000 Russian visitors in 2025. Pyongyang, where most foreign tourists visit, lies over 500km from the crossing. Instead, the investigation concludes that the crossing is better understood as strategic infrastructure: a corridor for moving North Korean troops, construction brigades and military officials into Russia, and for Russian technology and resources to move in the opposite direction. Myhun said Truth Hounds monitors Russia-North Korea cooperation closely because it considers it “one of the key factors affecting Russia’s strength in this war” on Ukraine. The deepening relationship has also made the two-way exchange of weapons and technology between the two countries “easier and less transparent”, he said, which also poses a threat to North Korea’s neighbours. The Kremlin has been contacted about the claims made in the investigation but has yet to respond. A growing military alliance The bridge over the Tumen River is about 1km long and seven metres wide, with two lanes, part of a wider 4.7km crossing that includes approach roads. Satellite imagery also shows supporting infrastructure being built on the Russian side, including a helicopter landing pad. However, the rail line is hobbled by a mismatch in rail gauge between Russia and North Korea, meaning wheelsets must be changed to allow trains to travel further into either country’s network, a limitation the new road bridge does not share. Open-source researchers have previously relied on satellite imagery of the rail crossing to monitor suspected weapons transfers between the two countries. Construction of the bridge began after Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un signed a comprehensive strategic partnership pact in June 2024, cementing military ties that have since seen North Korea provide troops, artillery ammunition and ballistic missiles to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. It forms a small part of a much broader military relationship. More than 14,000 North Korean troops have fought alongside Russian forces in the Kursk region, after Ukraine staged a surprise counter-invasion in August 2024. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has now warned that Russia is preparing to receive a further 30,000 soldiers. Moscow and Pyongyang have expanded cooperation on weapons, military technology and reconstruction. In 2023, Reuters reported that satellite images showed an estimated 2,000 containers exported from the North Korean port of Rason to Russia, believed to have contained artillery shells and possibly short-range missiles. Kim has praised North Korean soldiers who fought and died for Russia and unveiled housing for the families of those killed. At least 2,000 North Korean servicemen are believed to have died fighting in Russia’s war, with two badly wounded soldiers taken prisoner.