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There are dangerous loopholes in the regulation of ebikes | Letters

The case of Jane Ouartsi is horrific, but not surprising to many disabled people who move around central London and know how quickly careless riding can become dangerous (‘I felt my spine and body split’: the woman who was hit by a child on a Lime bike – and denied compensation, 7 July). I am a powered wheelchair user in Westminster. I support cleaner streets and fewer car journeys, so I am not opposed to ebikes in principle. But the present dockless system too often transfers risk on to pedestrians, disabled people and older people. In Westminster, I regularly find hire ebikes and scooters abandoned across pavements, dropped kerbs and crossings. A walking person may step around them. I may be blocked entirely, forced to reverse, or pushed into the road. I have been hit by an e-scooter while crossing the road near my home. Outside Tate Britain, at a zebra crossing, I was almost run over by a rider looking at his mobile phone. There was a millimetre between my wheelchair and the bike. Had he hit me at speed, the consequences could have been catastrophic. The level of penalties still feels pitiful. In Westminster, a higher‑rate car parking penalty is £160, reduced to £80 if paid promptly. If a badly parked car can attract that sanction, why should dumped hire ebikes and scooters be treated more lightly when they block disabled people’s safe passage? Jane’s case exposes a serious loophole. The issue is not only age verification, but whether these bikes can be ridden at all by someone who has not been identified, verified and charged for the journey. A heavy electric hire bike should not be usable anonymously. Allowing that risk to persist is a commercial choice, not a technological inevitability. When I was a child, cycling came with visible expectations. We did cycling proficiency at school. I still remember a village bobby stopping a friend for riding dangerously. Perhaps that sounds quaint, but the principle was right. A livable city must be accessible as well as convenient for everyone. For many Londoners, especially wheelchair users, blind people and older people, that balance is badly wrong today. Colin Hughes London • Having read your article about ebikes, I should like to propose that a system be devised whereby the person hiring the ebike is firstly registered and approved, during which process the person undertakes to abide by strict terms and conditions that, in the event of any mishap, ensures that the said person becomes potentially liable if a claim is made against them. As such, the person hiring any bike would either need to prove that they are covered by insurance or, better still, be covered by the hire company’s group policy. A person’s “licence” to hire an ebike, as identified by their unique registration number, could be revoked or suspended by the hire company in accordance with contractual terms and conditions. Without a licence, it would not be possible to hire an ebike. The suggestions I have made would obviously need to be considered by the relevant parties involved, but it is of the utmost importance that no victim should remain without due compensation. Richard C Harris Wallington, London • Until recently I had commuted in London by bicycle for more than a decade. Going through two parks, it was the highlight of my day. Then came Lime bikes. Mostly ridden and parked with little consideration for others, they have exposed how selfish people can be. At least the clacking din of hacked Lime bikes gives an “arsehole incoming” warning, but it’s become the soundtrack to the capital. Charging purely by time and allowing parking on pavements, London is made worse by dockless electric rental bikes. It’s time to change at least those elements. Richard Beeching Hove, East Sussex • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

‘The worst possible combination’: what has caused Spain’s deadly wildfires?

As firefighters struggle to quell the flames ravaging southern Spain and doctors treat the injured, a horrific picture of the fallout is emerging. At least 12 people died in a fast-spreading inferno that ripped through Almería on Thursday, many trapped in cars as they sought to escape a blaze that scorched 3,800 hectares (9,390 acres). Overwhelmed authorities say eight people have been injured and 23 cannot be accounted for. Yet the dozen deaths confirmed in Andalucía are likely to represent just a fraction of the fatalities from the fires. Far more deadly than the flames – on a scale that is hard to comprehend even for scientists who study it – is the thick black smoke they spew into the air. Lung-scarring pollution from wildfires kills a staggering 1.53 million people each year, a study found in 2024, with separate research finding a bad season in a single country, such as Canada in 2023, can lead to tens of thousands of deaths around the world. Strong winds carry toxic particles across oceans and into homes and lungs. When record-breaking wildfires torched the Iberian peninsula last year, killing eight people in Spain and six in Portugal, they produced so much toxic smoke that 2,000 people died early, according to a study released as a preprint last month. That so many people should die is not a given. Fossil fuel pollution and mismanagement of land have laid the groundwork for increasingly fierce blazes across southern Europe, and the coming decades herald a longer fire season that burns stronger and covers a wider area. Reports suggest the blaze on Thursday may have been sparked by a fallen power line. This summer’s fires are able to spread quickly because a hot summer turned vegetation into a dangerous fuel, preceded by a wet winter and spring that helped plants grow. “The Los Gallardos wildfire in Almería appears to have faced the worst possible combination: a point of ignition in a vast landscape of extremely dry vegetation, strong winds, and a nearby community that was unprepared,” said Guillermo Rein, a fire scientist at Imperial College London. “These conditions allowed the flames to spread extremely rapidly toward homes, overwhelming the firefighters operating under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Recent heatwaves had already dried out the landscape, turning the vegetation into highly flammable fuel.” Western Europe is suffering through its third heatwave in two months and this year’s fires are already among the deadliest in Spanish history. They have burned double the usual area for this time of year, data published on Tuesday by the European Forest Fire Information System shows, with triple the number of fires and above-average emissions. Last year, the high number of simultaneous fires hampered firefighting efforts and allowed small fires to explode into huge infernos. The steep terrain of the ravine-scarred Sierra de Bédar lends itself to the rapid spread of wildfires, scientists said, and temperatures in the area reached highs of nearly 42C after several days in a row above 35C. “In this area, just a few weeks without rain during the summer are enough for fine fuels to reach very high levels of flammability,” said Gustavo Saiz, a senior scientist at the National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology. Alongside the rising heat, the hollowing out of rural Spain has alarmed fire experts as populations age and young people leave farms for jobs in cities. The resultant vegetation overgrowth – alongside the political tendency to suppress fires rather than prevent them – has encouraged large fuel build-ups that make mega-fires more likely. “The inertia of the two major processes that have brought us to the current situation – land abandonment and climate change – is enormous,” said Juan Picos, a forest fire scientist at the University of Vigo. “Even if we begin implementing ambitious measures immediately, conditions are likely to continue worsening for some time before any significant improvement becomes apparent.” He compared shock at increasingly “unprecedented” wildfires to someone climbing a mountain and being surprised each day that they had reached a new height. “If they continue climbing, they will almost certainly say exactly the same thing again tomorrow.”

Berlin’s mayor abandons reelection campaign after ‘tennis-gate’ outcry

Berlin’s embattled mayor has abandoned his campaign to stand for reelection after failing to recover from a row over his decision to play tennis while large parts of the German capital were hit by a power blackout in January. Kai Wegner announced on Friday afternoon that he would not run in Berlin’s 20 September election after coming under huge pressure to step down from his party, the Christian Democrats (CDU). Some members wrote an open letter to Wegner this week in which they appealed to him to withdraw his candidacy. “The communication was rubbish … and believe me, I am more annoyed about this than anyone else,” Wegner said, referring to the power outage triggered by an arson attack which plunged about 45,000 homes and more than 2,000 businesses into darkness for nearly a week in January during a very cold spell. Wegner said the drop in trust in him meant he was no longer able to communicate the essence of his politics to the electorate. “I can no longer get my message out because another debate is overshadowing everything else,” said Wegner. He insisted that, while he had made errors in terms of his communication, his management of the emergency had been good. He said he had always sought to remain authentic. The fallout had caused the CDU’s standing to suffer, he admitted. By resigning, he would ensure “that the CDU is not further weakened over the coming days and weeks through debates about its personnel,” he said. Polls indicate that the coalition between the CDU and the Social Democrats (SPD) is unlikely to secure anything near the majority it would need to continue in power after the September vote. Wegner told reporters in January that he had been working round the clock to mitigate the impact of the blackout, the longest since the second world war. “I was neither bored nor putting my feet up, but was on the phone all day trying to coordinate and get as much information as possible,” he said, adding that he had “literally locked myself in my office at home”. He was soon forced to confirm a report by the public broadcaster RBB that he had gone to play tennis for an hour with his partner, the Berlin education minister, Katharina Günther-Wünsch, just hours after the onset of the blackout. Later, he admitted his choice of words had been wrong. “Looking back, I should have said on Sunday what I did on Saturday,” he said. “Yes, at some point I said: ‘I need a short break, I need to clear my head’ and the best way for me to do that is with sport.” The outcry around the incident was considerable. Since January, he has faced growing pressure to resign amid a broad consensus that he had lost the authority to stay in office owing to what has become known as “tennis-gate”. In the most recent poll, the CDU had fallen to fourth place, behind the far-left Die Linke, the Greens and the far-right populist AfD. Released on 1 July, the poll showed Die Linke in the lead on 20%, with the CDU on 17%, trailed only by the SPD on just 13%. Wegner is expected to be replaced by Stefan Evers, Berlin’s finance senator, who since April, has also held the role of culture senator.

Test runs and a shock-absorbing cage: how Bayeux tapestry was moved to UK

The Bayeux tapestry has survived myriad perils, from cathedral fires to its potential destruction for use as wagon covers. Now, with the embroidery about to be displayed in a blockbuster London exhibition, experts must contend with a host of more insidious dangers. The arrival of the tapestry at the British Museum in the small hours of Friday morning was a historic moment – albeit less dramatic than the landing of William the Conqueror it portrays. Unloaded from a large yellow lorry to a hushed audience of staff and diplomats, the 70-metre-long (230ft) embroidery was back in its country of origin for the first time in almost 1,000 years. But getting it to the UK, putting it on display, and understanding its secrets have required some very modern science. To be transported, the work first had to be removed from display at its home at the Bayeux Tapestry Museum in Normandy, France, then mounted on a folding screen called a paravent, which was then padded. “The tapestry is essentially folded back on itself in a concertina-type way,” said Prof Michael Lewis, the curator of the Bayeux tapestry exhibition at the British Museum. The transportation system involved complex engineering, with temperature and humidity being carefully controlled. This was achieved using an inner crate built around the paravent, with a second outer crate, composed of wire-rope isolators to tackle shocks and vibrations, and an aluminium frame. To ensure the crates and lorry could transport the fragile work safely, experts carried out two dry runs earlier this year. “We had two previous tests: one that just came over the Channel with another paravent which had a kind of replica tapestry inside … and then one that did the whole trip to the British Museum,” Lewis said. “And the purpose of that was to monitor the vibration levels on the tapestry.” But it is not only getting the embroidery to the UK that has required technical skills; displaying it also relies on science and innovation. According to the Bayeux Tapestry Museum – which has loaned the embroidery while the museum undergoes a renovation – light, dust, insects, mould, and temperature changes are among the factors that can imperil the work. To prevent the materials from deteriorating, the tapestry will be housed in a custom-made case – believed to be the longest ever constructed – with temperature and humidity again being carefully controlled. Lewis noted the work would be shown under low light levels, and exposed to a limited number of hours of light a day. When visitors are not present, the lights will be turned off and the case covered. Lewis said the removal of the tapestry from its previous casing had also opened up the opportunity for fresh scientific analyses, adding that while non-invasive techniques have been possible while it has been on display, its materials can now be studied up close for the first time since the early 1980s. Lewis said such studies would only take place when the tapestry returned to France next year, where it is expected to undergo restoration work. Possible topics for research include investigating whether the linen cloth is made from flax, gleaning insights into the type of sheep the wool came from, and identifying different batches of dyed wool in the embroidery. “That might help us understand the phases through which the Bayeux tapestry was produced,” he said, noting that such studies – together with analyses of the stitching itself – could help to resolve the question of whether the nine pieces of linen that comprised the work were made in the same workshop or not. “There’s lots of science that potentially could be done,” said Lewis. “It’s not going to happen in London, but it’s something that we’re thinking about for the future as well.”

One million women lost access to humanitarian support in past 18 months, UN report says

At least one million women and girls have lost access to humanitarian and other critical support over the past 18 months, according to a United Nations agency, after “the steepest annual decline” in foreign aid on record. The report by UN Women, which focuses on advancing women’s rights, gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, found 84% of women’s organizations reported increased demand for their services since January 2025. That month, Donald Trump re-entered the White House and implemented sweeping cuts to US foreign aid. According to the report, nearly nine in 10 organizations reported that they can no longer meet the current levels of need, and two in five organizations surveyed said they expect to shut down, either temporarily or permanently, within the next year. The report is based on responses from 855 women-led and women’s rights organizations across 52 crisis- and conflict-affected countries. “The women’s organizations at risk of being shut down are on the frontlines of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises,” said Sofia Calltorp, the chief of humanitarian action at UN Women. “In countries including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Haiti, they operate where international actors cannot and stay long after global attention has moved on. “Every dollar withdrawn from women’s organizations is a dollar withdrawn from survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, displaced mothers, girls forced from school and communities struggling to survive.” The report comes as humanitarian agencies worldwide continue to grapple with deep funding reductions. Over the last year and a half, many UN agencies have cut staff, reduced budgets and scaled back operations after drastic funding cuts in foreign aid assistance from the US, as well as reductions in foreign aid from other international donors including the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Recent data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), cited in the report, found there had been a “historic decline in foreign aid” between 2024 and 2025. According to the OECD, the US alone drove three-quarters of the decline” with US foreign assistance falling by more than 50% in 2025 “compared to 2024”. Since returning to office in 2025, the Trump administration has cut billions in US foreign aid and dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAID). In May, the Associated Press reported that US support for UN humanitarian programs was currently at $3.8bn across 21 countries, which the outlet described as a “fraction of what the US has contributed in the past”. In a statement to the Guardian, a senior White House administration official said that “the United States provides more foreign aid than any country in the world” and that “we’re going to do more than anyone in the world again this year, but we’re going to do it the right way: holistically and as part of an integrated foreign policy.” Asked about the UN report and OECD data showing the US share in global decline in foreign aid, a senior Trump administration official described it as a “ridiculous insinuation”. Foreign assistance is to be “delivered with more accountability, strategy and efficiency”, the official added. “It is imperative to remember that the American taxpayer was never meant to bear the full burden of taking care of every person on Earth – whether that be with food, medicine or otherwise.” In the news release for the UN Women report on Friday, the agency said that the consequences of recent global funding cuts are “already visible”, noting that “half of women’s organizations have introduced waiting lists or are turning away women and girls in need.” The report also found that 92% of organizations have seen rising levels of poverty among the women they serve, while 82% reported seeing more girls dropping out of school. In addition, the report warned that conflict-related sexual violence doubled in 2025, “just as the systems designed to protect survivors are collapsing”. In their news release, UN Women called for “sustained investment in women’s organizations as indispensable first responders, defenders of women’s rights, and the foundation of peace and recovery”. “Without immediate action, the organizations that have kept women and girls alive through the world’s worst crises risk becoming another casualty of war,” Calltorp said.

‘I had an incredible escape’: British woman tells of close encounter with Spanish wildfire

The speed, scale and ferocity of the wildfire in and around the Bédar municipality of Almería took everyone by surprise. Jeanne Henny, an English woman who has had a house in the tiny hamlet of Los Pinos for 33 years, initially took Thursday afternoon’s yellow skies as proof that a calima wind from the Sahara was showering desert dust on the area. Then she noticed the smoke and saw from a fire-alert app that a blaze had broken out. “There was a lot of smoke, but it was far away,” said Henny, 74. “We get fires and there’s some kind of scare most years. The police will come to each house and tell us to get out and there will be sirens going. But this time it didn’t happen like that.” The gravity of the situation became apparent when a neighbour knocked on her door at 5.30pm and told her it was time that she and her friend, who uses a wheelchair, abandoned their house. It took Henny almost half an hour to get her friend and two dogs into the car. She had to leave her five cats behind. The pair drove to the next village, Serena, about 1km away. “We were supposed to go to the town of Bédar but there’s only one main road,” Henny said. “There’s an alternative route, but it’s too hard to get to.” She had reached Serena and was about to turn towards Bédar when she saw the fire was surging up the cliff on to the road. “I had to make a split-second decision and do a three-point turn to get away from Bédar,” said Henny. “It was a narrow road, and if I’d missed that three-point turn, I would have gone over the cliff. But the fire was pouring on to the road so I had to make that split-second decision and I did the turn in one and just made it.” The manoeuvre saved their lives. After driving up the mountain and down a rough path for another 5km, they reached safety. Others, she now knows, were not so lucky. “Some people took the alternative road and they died in their car,” she said. Perhaps the most frightening thing about the fire, Henny said, was its sheer speed: “You thought it was miles away and then suddenly it was in front of you on the road.” Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, the regional president of Andalucía, said most of the 12 people who had died in the fire appeared to have been foreigners, including hikers. “I think they’ve been caught off-guard in the woods. When there’s a sudden fire … you don’t know how to get out,” he said. Ángel Francisco Collado, the mayor of Bédar, said he and others had gone door to door, telling people to evacuate along an officially approved route, or to stay put. “Some people didn’t want to leave and they stayed in their houses and are still alive,” he said, adding that some decided to leave when it was too late. “A group of nine people was told to stay put but they didn’t listen,” he said. “Seven of them are dead and two are on the way to hospital with severe burns.” Francisco Miguel Reyes, the mayor of the nearby municipality of Los Gallardos, said the past few hours had been terrible. “The fire is fearsome and it’s devoured everything in its path,” he told Cadena Ser radio. “The difference between yesterday and today is just devastating.” Henny, who was speaking as helicopters swept through the smoky skies overhead, said that while she had no idea what had happened to her house or her cats, she felt “very lucky” to be alive. “I’m with some friends, but if the wind changes, then obviously we’ll have to leave here as well. But I had an incredible escape.”

Protests engulf Indian state after rape and murder of 11-year-old girl

Protests have engulfed the Indian state of West Bengal after the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl, the subsequent lynching of an innocent man and the police killing of one of the accused. Outrage erupted on Sunday after the body of a missing girl was recovered from a pond in a town just outside the state capital, Kolkata. Police said the child had been raped and then stuffed into a sack and thrown into the pond while still alive. According to the autopsy, she had suffered an extreme blow to the head and her body showed bites and scratches. The grotesque assault prompted fury from the local community, who set upon a 26-year-old man they believed was responsible. When police detained the main suspects, the man who had been killed was not among those named in connection with the case and the government said he was innocent. The incident escalated into a political row after the recently elected state government, run by the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) – which is also in charge of the central government – was accused by political opponents of failing to protect women and of a decline in law and order in the state. Family members have alleged that the police initially did not take the incident seriously and that they were forced to look for the girl themselves, checking CCTV cameras in the local area. Police have not responded to the allegations. In the protests that erupted after her body was recovered, local shops were vandalised and police officers targeted. Tensions escalated further on Tuesday after police shot and killed Pravash Mondal, the main suspect, after an alleged attempt by him to snatch a police gun and escape, according to officers at the scene. The circumstances of the so-called police “encounter killing” have been questioned by opposition figures, who said it raised concerns over the rule of law. Similar police killings of criminal suspects have been widely documented in other BJP-ruled states but were previously unusual in West Bengal. Women’s safety was already a contentious political issue in the state. The rape and murder of a trainee doctor at a government hospital in Kolkata in 2024 had become a pivotal subject in the state elections, which took place in April, and was seen as one of the issues that brought down the previous government after 15 years in power. Workers from the BJP and the opposition Trinamool Congress party came to blows this week and a ban on public gatherings is now in force across the state, with paramilitary officers deployed to sensitive areas. The state’s newly elected BJP chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari, said the government was committed to preventing violent attacks against women and visited the rape victim’s family on Tuesday. However, Adhikari, a hardline Hindu nationalist whose previous comments against Muslims have caused controversy, was also accused of seeking to communalise the incident, in particular the incident of the deadly mob attack on the suspect. The young girl who was raped was Muslim, while her alleged attackers – who police say have confessed – were Hindu. The man killed by a mob was also Hindu. Adhikari suggested that the attack on the Hindu man had a “communal connection” and that there was a “political conspiracy” behind the violence. More than 30 people have since been arrested over the lynching and the wider violence.

Completely nuts: Dutch gallery covers floor in peanut butter to honour late artist

A museum in Rotterdam has paid tribute to the idiosyncratic character of one of the most influential figures in the Dutch arts by spreading 800lb of peanut butter across the floor of one of its galleries. The hexagonal floor installation, called Pindakaasvloer (Peanut Butter Floor), is a recreation of a work by Wim T Schippers conceived of in 1962 and first exhibited in 1969. It is displayed alongside detailed instructions Schippers left behind after his death last month aged 83. They stipulate that curators should apply 15.6kg of non-chunky peanut butter to every square metre of the floor and spread it as “smoothly and monotonously as possible”. The work should not be stood or lied upon and not be approached “with any educational purpose”. “Peanut butter floor still raises questions like, is this art? Am I allowed to like this?” said Sandra Kisters, the acting director of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. “And it is this sense of bewilderment that makes this piece so special. We regard it as a great honour to be able to present this unique artwork in his memory.’’ Born Willem Theodoor Schippers in Groningen, Schippers was a unique figure in the cultural life of the Netherlands. His dadaist mischief and love of the absurd proved influential far beyond the refined world of galleries and museums. In the early 1960s, he was the co-founder of the A-dynamische groep art collective that railed against commercialisation, seriousness and, above all, boredom in art with stunts that included shaving cactuses and filling galleries with shards of glass or salt. Food was a popular medium: as well as spreading peanut butter across floors, Schippers also upholstered a chair with canned noodles and covered a table in peas. From the late 60s, he branched out into television. His music show Hoepla was discontinued after it featured the first completely naked woman on live Dutch television. He later conceived of the cult comedy character Sjef van Oekel, a Belgian frites salesman in a tuxedo played by the comedian and opera singer Dolf Brouwers. To Dutch people, Schippers is best known as the voice of Ernie, Kermit the frog and Count von Count on the Netherlands’ version of Sesame Street. “You could compare his status and influence to Monty Python,” said Kisters. “He believed that life and art were always entirely serious and entirely non-serious at the same time.” He continued to make conceptual art until his death in June. For his seemingly gravity-defying 1999 work Het Is Me Wat (That Is Quite Something), he made a large stone float above a pedestal through large electromagnets. Hilversum’s Media Park continues to showcases his 4 metre-high sculpture representing a pile of excrement, entitled Stationnement Gênant (Unauthorised parking), unveiled in 2011. In April this year, he told Dutch media he was working on his last artwork, which would be titled Wim is Gone. “I keep putting it off, because then I think I’m going to die,” he said. Schippers’ peanut butter floor has been installed numerous times in Dutch museums. When Pindakaasvloer was showcased at Utrecht’s Centraal Museum in 1997, it was vandalised by schoolchildren who covered it with chocolate sprinkles and slices of bread – recreating a popular Dutch childhood snack. Schippers was reportedly not dissatisfied with the result. When the peanut butter floor was last in place at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in 2011, it was damaged when an inattentive visitor walked over and slipped on the installation. Visitors submitted 648 questions about the work to the artist, each of which he answered in writing. Schippers’ work will be shown until 6 September and the museum’s restaurant will have a peanut butter sandwich on its menu during that time, with optional additions of cheese and spicy sambal relish. Kisters said the museum shop would also sell smooth peanut butter, so visitors “can make their own art at home”.