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France will ban children from wearing the abaya – the loose-fitting, full-length robe worn by some Muslim women – in state-run schools, the country’s education minister has said ahead of the back-to-school season. France, which has enforced a strict ban on religious signs in state schools since 19th-century laws removed any traditional Catholic influence from public education, has struggled to update guidelines to deal with a growing Muslim minority. end of list French public schools do not permit the wearing of large crosses, Jewish kippas or Islamic headscarves. In 2004, the country banned headscarves in schools, and in 2010, it passed a ban on full face veils in public, angering many in its five million-strong Muslim community. “I have decided that the abaya could no longer be worn in schools,” Education Minister Gabriel Attal said in an interview with TV channel TF1. “When you walk into a classroom, you shouldn’t be able to identify the pupils’ religion just by looking at them.” The move comes after months of debate over the wearing of abayas in French schools, where women have long been banned from wearing the hijab. The right and far right had pushed for the ban, which the left argued would encroach on civil liberties. Unlike headscarves, abayas occupied a grey area and faced no outright ban until now. The French Council of Muslim Faith (CFCM), a national body encompassing many Muslim associations, has said items of clothing alone were not “a religious sign”. Defending secularism is a rallying cry in France that resonates across the political spectrum, from left-wingers upholding the liberal values of the Enlightenment to far-right voters seeking a bulwark against the growing role of Islam in French society. Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/27/france-to-ban-wearing-abaya-dress-in-schools-minister

  Police in India are investigating a teacher after a video of her encouraging students to slap their 7-year-old classmate, who is Muslim, sparked widespread outrage in the country. The video of the incident, which took place in the Muzaffarnagar district in northern Uttar Pradesh state, shows the boy fearfully standing in front of his classmates as the teacher calls on students to hit him. The boy cries as his classmates take turns to slap him, while the teacher is heard telling the students to do it “properly.” A man can be heard laughing as the boy wails while the slapping continues. Muzaffarnagar’s superintendent of police, Satyanarayan Prajapat, on Friday said the teacher told students to hit the boy “for not remembering his times tables.” The teacher also referenced the boy’s religion, according to Prajapat. “The female teacher declared: ‘When the mothers of Mohammedan (one who follows Islam) students don’t pay attention to their children’s studies, their performance is ruined,” he said. Police in the district have registered a case against the teacher and an investigation is underway. The teacher has not been formally charged. District officials have also ordered the school to shut, according to CNN affiliate CNN News-18. CNN has reached out to Uttar Pradesh police officials for more details. The incident has caused widespread anger and upset in India, the world’s largest democracy of 1.4 billion, where the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Hindu nationalist policies have deepened the country’s communal tensions and created what rights groups and government critics say is an atmosphere of fear and alienation among minority groups. Prominent opposition politician Rahul Gandhi accused the teacher of “sowing the poison of discrimination in the minds of innocent children.” Writing on Twitter, now known as X, he said: “Turning a holy place like school into a market place of hatred – there is nothing worse than this that a teacher can do for the country.” Gandhi also blamed the BJP for stoking religious intolerance. “This is the same kerosene spread by the BJP which has set every corner of India on fire,” Gandhi wrote. “Children are the future of India – do not hate them, we all have to teach love together.” While the BJP has not responded to Gandhi’s comments, it has long maintained it does not discriminate against minorities and “treats all its citizens with equality.” During a trip to the United States in June, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told reporters there was “absolutely no space” for discrimination in India. Indian law does not have a statutory definition of corporal punishment targeting children, however physical punishment and mental harassment are prohibited under the country’s Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act. According to CNN News-18, the teacher claimed the 7-year-old’s father had asked her punish the child, adding that she was unable to do so because she is disabled and had therefore told the other students to discipline him. “His father brought the child in and said to straighten him out. Now because I can’t get up, I thought I’d get one or two children to hit him,” she said. The incident comes at a time of heightened communal tensions in the country as the BJP’s popular but divisive policies gain momentum in India. A study by economist Deepankar Basu noted a 786% increase in hate crimes against all minorities between 2014 and 2018, following the BJP’s election victory. Uttar Pradesh, where the incident took place, is India’s largest state of about 200 million. It boasts a religiously diverse population, where about 20% of its residents are Muslim. However, it remains among one of the most polarized of states in India. Its chief minister, the Hindu-monk-turned BJP politician Yogi Adityanath, has been criticized for his anti-Muslim rhetoric and Hindu-first policies, and the state has passed legislation critics say is rooted in “Hindutva” – the ideological bedrock of Hindu nationalism Source:https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/28/india/india-muslim-student-slapped-teacher-video-intl-hnk/index.html

Hundreds of people are still listed as unaccounted for after this month’s devastating wildfires on Maui – a number that’s expected to change as the FBI continues vetting names. The “validated list” curated by the FBI currently includes 388 names, Maui County said Thursday, as cell phone data is now being used to try to pinpoint where victims may have been when the deadliest US wildfire disaster in more than 100 years tore through the Hawaiian island. At least 115 people are confirmed dead, though authorities say that number is likely to change. The FBI on Friday acknowledged the list of names was “a subset of a larger list” of people who are believed to be missing. Steven Merrill, the bureau’s special agent in charge in Hawaii, said those currently on the list are people who authorities had more complete information about. Since the list was released, they’ve gotten “at least 100 people that have notified us that a certain person shouldn’t be on the list,” Merrill said – so the number of those still unaccounted for is expected to change. As the race to identify the lost continues, the state’s main electrical utility stands accused of compromising evidence in the fire investigation, and Maui County officials have followed others in suing the company over responsibility for the fire. First responders also are pressing for answers about why they weren’t better prepared after a similar ruinous fire five years ago. The updated list of the missing was released with hopes of confirming anyone who’s not truly still lost, officials said. ‘As long as it takes’: Biden vows support for fire-ravaged Maui as search efforts continue “We’re releasing this list of names today because we know that it will help with the investigation,” Police Chief John Pelletier said in the release. “We also know that once those names come out, it can and will cause pain for folks whose loved ones are listed. This is not an easy thing to do, but we want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to make this investigation as complete and thorough as possible.” Pelletier said Friday that since the names were released, authorities have received hundreds of calls. Authorities would like to do a weekly update on the list of missing people to help notify the public, he said. The FBI has worked with agencies “to unduplicate people that have been reported missing,” Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said earlier Thursday in a social media post. Some 800 to 1,200 people have been listed as unaccounted for since the fires, he said. The grim search for those believed missing began shortly after wind-whipped flames tore through the island on August 8. Much of the western Maui community of Lahaina – once a lively economic and cultural hub – was left in ruins, with entire neighborhoods and businesses reduced to ash. Some residents were forced to jump into the ocean to survive as flames overtook the town. Search crews and cadaver dogs have searched 100% of single-story homes in the disaster area, Maui County officials said Tuesday. They are now going through multistory homes and commercial properties. A 7-year-old boy and his relatives are among the dozens killed in the Maui wildfires. Here’s what we know about some of the 115 lives lost And an FBI team that specializes in using cell phone data has launched in Maui to help identify potential fire victims, a law enforcement source told CNN. The Cellular Analysis Survey Team was on the island working with local law enforcement, the official said. The team can get and analyze cell phone company subscriber records and cellular tower registration data, which could prove useful to the search efforts by geolocating the last known area where a victim’s cell phone was operating. The team in the past has used information obtained through court orders to help with terrorism, kidnapping and criminal investigations. Enter your email to sign up for CNN’s “Meanwhile in China” Newsletter. close dialog “Cellular telephone analysis” is among the resources being provided by the bureau, Steven Merrill, special agent in charge of the FBI’s office in Hawaii, said during news conference Tuesday without giving specifics. Additionally, Maui County has named a new interim administrator of the Maui Emergency Management Agency after its prior chief resigned from the post August 17. In announcing Darryl Oliveira’s hiring Friday, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said he has a track record of “invaluable experience and skill during challenging times.” Oliveira, who previously served as the administrator of the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency, is expected to begin leading the county’s emergency agency Monday Evidence may have been compromised, power company says As the human toll of the fire comes into focus, investigators also are trying to determine what sparked the flames, and while no official cause has been announced, the Hawaiian Electric Company is facing scrutiny over its actions before and after the fires broke out. Some evidence potentially vital in determining the cause of the deadly fire in Lahaina may have been compromised, Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) acknowledged in an exchange with attorneys included in court documents obtained by CNN How a devastating combination of conditions triggered America’s deadliest wildfire in more than a century The company said fallen power poles, power lines and other equipment were moved during firefighting efforts and as officials worked to make the area safe for residents, according to letters part of a class action lawsuit. The company told attorneys, who are representing Lahaina residents in the class action suit, that it was “possible, even likely” that evidence that “relate(s) to the cause of the fire” might be lost, correspondence obtained by CNN shows. The equipment was removed from the area around the Lahaina substation – which is thought to be where the blaze started – before federal investigators arrived. Those actions could have violated national guidelines, which say the fire scenes should be heavily preserved for investigators and any and all evidence should be secured and not removed from the site without documentation, court documents filed by attorneys say. The ATF said on

The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) Punjab on Saturday claimed to have arrested eight suspected terrorists allegedly belonging to banned organisations. According to CTD spokesperson, the arrested terrorists include 2 commanders of the banned Al-Qaeda. Officials said explosive material, grenades and cash were also recovered from those arrested terrorists. The terrorists were arrested from Lahore, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Sargodha, and Multan, it added. The officials claimed that the arrested men were preparing a dangerous plan. The CTD officials said that during this week, 700 combing operations were conducted during which 135 suspects were taken into custody. During the combing operations, more than 16,784 people were questioned, the officials added. Source:https://www.nation.com.pk/26-Aug-2023/ctd-arrests-eight-terrorists-of-banned-outfits-in-punjab

The burned bodies of 18 people were found as wildfires ripped through Greece on Tuesday and countries across Europe sweltered under yet another extreme heat wave. The dead, found near a village in northern Greece, may have been migrants, the fire brigade said Tuesday. Another person was killed in a fire northwest of the capital Athens on Monday. As dozens of wildfires scorch Greece, other parts of the region are suffering under intense heat, as Europe’s summer of extremes continues. More than 20 countries are under heat warnings with temperatures reaching record-breaking levels in some areas. ‘It’s like war conditions’ Hundreds of firefighters in Greece are battling 65 wildfires that have broken out in the last few days, state-run ANMA news agency reported on Monday, citing Yiannis Artopios, an official from the Greek fire brigade. Some of the major ongoing wildfires are in the Greek northeastern town of Alexandroupolis where 13 communities have been evacuated since Saturday, according to the fire brigade. Two hundred patients were evacuated from two hospitals in the town on Tuesday. An Alexandroupolis Hospital Nurse, Nikos Gioktsidis, compared the situation to war, telling Reuters, “I’ve been working for 27 years, I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s like war conditions, really.” Ad Feedback As of Monday, fires have burned through more than 8,500 hectares (21,000 acres), according to the European Union’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service. Firefighters battle flames during a wildfire near Prodromos on August 21, 2023. Spyros Bakalis/AFP/Getty Images Firefighters battle a wildfire at Loutra Alexandroupolis, Thrace, northern Greece, on 19 August 2023. Dimitris Alexoudis/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock The European Union has deployed two firefighting aircraft from Cyprus and a team from Romania with 50 firefighters to help Greece control the fires. “We are in state of emergency of ‘Category 5’ as we will be also on Tuesday due to the very high temperatures and the gale force winds,” Artopios from the Greek fire brigade said on Monday, according to ANMA. Greece has had a devastating wildfire season this year – experiencing its worst recorded fires in July since at least 2003. Last month, deadly wildfires tore through parts of the Greek island of Rhodes, forcing thousands of tourists to flee their hotels in what Greek officials said was the largest evacuation effort in the country’s history. Enter your email to sign up for CNN’s “Meanwhile in China” Newsletter. close dialog Out of control wildfires also continue to burn in Tenerife, in Spain’s Canary Islands, with more than 12,000 people forced to flee their homes. The Spanish government will declare the areas affected by the wildfires in Tenerife as a “disaster zone” once the blaze is under control, the country’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Monday during a visit to the Spanish island. Red heat warnings As parts of Greece and Spain burn, temperatures are reaching record levels in other parts of Europe. There are 21 countries across the continent under heat warnings, with six under red heat warnings – the highest level – said MeteoAlarm, a network of European national weather services. France is one of the worst affected. The country’s national meteorological agency Météo France warned on Sunday that this week’s heatwave would be the “hottest of summer 2023,” adding that it is rare for a heatwave of “such intensity” to occur so late in the summer. “Red-level” heat wave alerts have been declared in 19 French departments as of Tuesday, including Ardèche, Drôme, Haute-Loire and Rhône. These regions are all experiencing very high temperatures, with some pushing above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). A man wipes off sweat and rests during a heatwave. Météo-France has issued red-level heat alerts for four departments in France. Igor Ferreira/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images A paddleboat lies in the mud of the Montbel’s lakebed, on August 18, 2023. Montbel is well below its normal level due to an unprecedented drought. Speaking to CNN affiliate BFMTV, French health minister Aurélien Rousseau said on Monday that “France could reach temperatures never measured before.” Some records have already been broken, according to data from Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist and weather historian. All -time records were broken in three communes, he said, including Puy St. Martin, a commune in Drôme, where temperatures reached 42.5 degrees Celsius (108.5 Fahrenheit) on Monday. Rousseau warned French people to be “extremely vigilant” in the coming days, stressing that the protection of the elderly, young children, isolated and disabled people remains at “the core” of the government’s concerns. Temperatures are also high in Italy, which has grappled with several searing heat waves this year. Savona, in the northwest, saw an all-time record high of 39.1 degrees Celsius (102.4 Fahrenheit) on Monday. Fears for Swiss glaciers Switzerland, too, is experiencing high temperatures. MeteoSchweiz, the Swiss weather service, said that a new record had been broken for the height of the “freezing level” – the point above the ground at which temperatures fall to 0 degrees Celsius (32 Fahrenheit). A weather balloon had to climb to a record 5,298 meters (17,381 feet) above sea level before the zero degree limit was reached, MeteoSchweiz posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Monday. This is the highest freezing level since records began in 1954. There are serious concerns for what this means for the health of the country’s glaciers. Last year, Swiss glaciers recorded their worst melt rate since records began, losing 6% of their remaining volume. Melting ice reveals remains of climber lost on glacier 37 years ago Europe’s heat wave is expected to continue until at least Wednesday, before a cooling pattern brings some relief. Scientists are clear that the kind of extreme weather Europe and other parts of the Northern Hemisphere are experiencing this summer will only become more common and more severe as humans continue to burn planet-heating fossil fuels. July was the planet’s hottest month on record and scientists found that the heat wave that scorched the Mediterranean, as well as parts of the US, would have been virtually impossible without the human-caused climate crisis. Source:https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/22/europe/greece-wildfires-france-heat-climate-change-intl/index.html

CAIRO (AP) — About 500 children have died from hunger in Sudan — including two dozen babies in a government-run orphanage in the capital of Khartoum — since fighting erupted in the East African country in April, a leading aid group said Tuesday. Save the Children also said that at least 31,000 children lack access to treatment for malnutrition and related illnesses since the charity was forced to close 57 of its nutrition centers in Sudan. Sudan was plunged into chaos after monthslong tensions between the military and a rival paramilitary force exploded into open fighting on April 15. The conflict has turned Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields. Many residents live without water and electricity, and the country’s health care system has nearly collapsed. “Never did we think we would see children dying from hunger in such numbers, but this is now the reality in Sudan,” said Arif Noor, Save the Children’s director for Sudan. “We are seeing children dying from entirely preventable hunger.” The violence in Sudan is estimated to have killed at least 4,000 people, according to Liz Throssell, a spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office. Activists and doctors on the ground, however, say the death toll is likely far higher. Mamadou Dian Balde, the U.N. East Africa regional refugee chief and coordinator for Sudan, told a U.N. press conference that 947,000 people have fled Sudan including South Sudanese, Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees who had sought shelter there — and 3.6 million Sudanese are displaced within the country. Speaking from Sudan’s White Nile state, Balde praised neighboring Chad, Egypt, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Central African Republic for opening their borders to those fleeing the fighting. But he expressed concern that recently “we started seeing and witnessing bureaucratic barriers as well as challenges into admission.” Balde urged all countries to keep their doors open. He also urged donors to give generously to the $566 million appeal for Sudanese refugees, which is only 35% funded. Save the Children said that between between May and July, at least 316 children, mostly under 5 years of age, died of malnutrition or associated illnesses in the southern While Nile province. More than 2,400 more children have admitted to hospitals in the past eight months with severe acute malnutrition — the deadliest form of malnutrition, it added. In the eastern Qadarif province, at least 132 children died from malnutrition in the government-run Children’s Hospital between April and July. And at least 50 children, including two dozen babies, died of starvation or related illnesses in an orphanage in Khartoum in the first six weeks of the conflict as the fighting prevented Save the Children staff from accessing the building to care for them, the charity said. Save the Children also warned that special food supplies for treating malnutrition were running critically low at 108 facilities it still operates across Sudan. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the U.N.-led agency responsible for famine classifications, said Sudan’s conflict and economic decline have driven about 20.3 million people — or more than 42% of the country’s population of over 46 million people — into high levels of acute food insecurity. Of them, about 6.3 million people live in areas that are a step away from an official famine classification, according to the agency. Meanwhile, clashes have raged this week around a military camp south of Khartoum as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have attempted to seize the crucial facility, the warring sides reported. Fierce battels were reported last week in Nyala, the provincial capital of South Darfur. The sprawling Darfur region saw some of the worst bouts of violence in the conflict with the fighting turning into ethnic clashes. Source:https://apnews.com/article/sudan-military-rsf-children-hunger-a8e7f5130cbce5c860104fb579bd585e

Four people including a gunman were killed in a shooting at a bikers’ bar in California’s Orange County, the local sheriff’s office said on Wednesday. Six more people were in a hospital after the shooter opened fired at the Cook’s Corner bar in Trabuco Canyon, the Orange County Sheriff said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. CBS Los Angeles, which first reported the shooting at the historic bikers’ bar, initially reported five people were killed. It said a retired law enforcement officer opened fired at the bar and cited KCAL News reporting from sources that the shooter had been shot by deputies. The Sheriff’s office has not released any details about the shooter or how he was killed. The California governor’s office said it was monitoring the shooting. Source:https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/mass-shooting-at-a-bikers-bar-in-uss-california-police-4324464

BATTAGRAM/SHANGLA: It was a routine morning for students who were en route to school on a chairlift. But as fate would have it, they soon found themselves suspended in mid-air, thousands of feet above the ground after two of the three wires holding the chairlift snapped. “As a result of the sudden jerk which came with a big bang, we piled on each other in the lopsided trolley, which was swaying due to strong gusts of wind,” the survivors told Dawn a day after they were rescued in a 14-hour-long operation. The passengers — including six students — held on to the rickety trolley’s hooks and supporting pipes — their lives dangling by a solitary steel wire. As if the gusts were not enough to terrify them, the wind pressure on the trolley scared them to death. “All hope was lost; with every passing moment,” one of the survivors told Dawn. However, they got their hopes up again after an army chopper started hovering over the chairlift in an attempt to rescue them. Before the aerial operation was called off at night, 13-year-old Irfan was the only one rescued by a helicopter. Irfan said he did not see any other option but death before he was rescued. As he was being pulled out of the gondola, his parents and the rest of the family gathered at the site anxiously awaited his return. Survivors, families recall how panic eventually gave way to relief; cable car owner, operator arrested Another student, Niaz Mohammad, said army officials threw down a rope after rescuing Irfan. “I tied the rope around myself, but when I was pulled up, the rope got stuck with another rope on top of the cable car and they had to abort the attempt,” he said. “After several attempts, when the helicopter flew back, I thought it was impossible to rescue us,” Attaullah, 16, told Dawn. Gulfraz, 20, who was earlier mistakenly identified as a teacher, said that at nightfall, their hopes also faded. “When the helicopters left and darkness fell in front of our eyes, we started losing hope; if we could not be rescued in daylight then night was surely going to make things worse,” the survivor told Dawn. Heroic operation Enter Sahib Khan and his Koka and Engineering Company. They were called in to rescue the stranded passengers after the aerial operation did not get the job done. The two private rescuers and their team from Bisham Seror, along with zipline operators from Naran, rescued the passengers in a daring operation, widely hailed by locals. Sahib Khan told Dawn at his residence that he was asking the local authorities to spearhead the efforts to save the students, but his requests were ignored at first. Mr Khan claimed that the army had succeeded in rescuing one student, but after that it became impossible for them to overcome the situation, due to poor visibility. After nightfall, he and his team were allowed to initiate the operation with ground support provided by the army, Rescue 1122, police and locals. He claimed that locals and the administration started to back him after he rescued the first person. Soon, other rescues followed, and eventually everyone was safely by midnight. Niaz Mohammad was rescued at about 11pm. His teary-eyed family and mother hugged him and thanked God for the rescue. His father, Umer Zaib, said they had lost all hope of their son’s safe recovery, but rescue efforts thankfully bore fruit, ending their hours-long ordeal. Voice of reason As these teenagers were facing death, Sher Nawaz, who was on his way to Abbottabad, became a voice of reason. He said the chairlift was already ferrying students when he reached there and he got on board on the third trip. “After the rope snapped, the students got scared and were screaming… I calmed them down and told them to be patient and have some hope… whatever fate has held in store for them will come to them,” he said as he related the scenes inside the trolley to Dawn. “Some of the children were so frustrated, they were considering jumping down, but the elder passengers gave us confidence,” 15-year-old Rizwan Ullah told AFP. Gulfaraz said they were prepared to die after the ropes snapped. “I don’t have words to explain what we faced inside the hanging cable car,” he said. On the ground, the families’ terror was palpable. 13-year-old Irfan’s father said that shortly after his son left for school, he received word about the accident. “I reached there with a heavy heart, unaware of my son’s presence in the cable car… soon someone told me that my son is also stranded.” “My wife and other kids rushed to the scene and their eyes remained glue to the cable car till the rescue operation came to an end in the night,” he said. “Death is less painful than looking at your teenage son dangling thousands of feet above the ground, in a broken trolley,” Umraiz told Dawn. Two arrested Meanwhile, Allai police arrested cable car owner Malik Gulzarin and operator Ejaz after a loding a case over the incident. The FIR said that a substandard rope had been used, with no alternatives available, which endangered the lives of the passengers. The report also mentioned that the chairlift operators had been instructed beforehand to provide a fitness certificate for the cable to a nearby police station, but they neglected to do so. Separately, AC Allai Muhammad Jawad told Dawn that he formed an inspection committee to inspect such chairlifts. SOURCE:https://www.dawn.com/news/1771862/hanging-by-a-thread-and-living-to-tell-the-tale

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary group chief who led a failed munity against Moscow, is presumed dead after being named among passengers on a private jet that crashed into a field near Moscow with no survivors. The 62-year-old warlord, who challenged Vladimir Putin’s authority in a 23 June uprising, was listed on the manifest, or passenger list, of an Embraer Legacy business jet that spiralled out of the sky in the Tver region, about 96km (60 miles) north of the capital, according to civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia. Dmitry Utkin, the co-founder of Wagner and a former Russian military intelligence special forces officer, was also on board, it said. The other passengers onboard were Sergey Propustin, Evgeniy Makaryan, Alexander Totmin, Valeriy Chekalov and Nikolay Matuseev, according to Rosaviatsia. The regulator also said pilot Aleksei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova were onboard. Flightradar24 online tracker showed that the Embraer Legacy 600 (plane number RA-02795) carrying Prigozhin had dropped off the radar at 1811 local time (1511 GMT). Seven passengers and three crew were said to be aboard the aircraft, which was flying from Moscow to St Petersburg. The bodies of all 10 people travelling on board the crashed plane have been recovered from the site, and the search operation has been completed, says the Interfax news agency, quoting emergency services. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but video circulated on the Baza Telegram channel, which is closely associated with Russian security services, showing a plane spiralling into a nosedive. Flight tracking data gave no indication of a distress call or inflight emergency, and the aircraft was still climbing when it disappeared from the radar. Media channels linked to Wagner quickly claimed a Russian air defence missile had shot down the plane, without citing evidence. British security forces believe Russia’s FSB intelligence agency shot down the jet on the orders of Vladimir Putin, The Telegraph reports. Prigozhin’s longstanding feud with Russia’s beleaguered military, and his aborted uprising, would give Mr Putin’s state apparatus plenty of motive for revenge. The mutiny, which ended when a deal was stuck between Prigozhin and the Kremlin, marked the most significant threat to Putin’s authority during his decades in power. As news of the crash broke, the president was attending a concert commemorating the 1943 Battle of Kursk and hailing the troops of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Mikhail Podolyak, a chief adviser to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, said Prigozhin’s reported demise showed “it is obvious that Putin does not forgive anyone for his own bestial terror”. Prigozhin’s deal to end the uprising was a “death warrant”, he added. The UK Foreign Office said it was “monitoring” the situation closely, while US president Joe Biden said he was not surprised by the reports, adding that “not much happens” in Russia that Putin is not behind. A Telegram channel linked to Wagner said Prigozhin is dead. The Grey Zone account said he was “killed as a result of actions by traitors of Russia”. In an image posted by another pro-Wagner social media account showing burning wreckage, a partial tail number matching the jet could be seen. Prigozhin has reportedly used the plane before, including shortly after the aborted armed uprising. A second private jet linked to Prigozhin, which also appeared to be heading to St Petersburg, turned back to Moscow and landed, flight tracking data showed. Once a low-profile businessman, Prigozhin profited from Mr Putin’s patronage, earning the nickname “Putin’s chef”. He amassed a fortune from state contracts and later went on to establish a paramilitary army that became an important extension of Russian power abroad. Moscow would repeatedly deny any official link to the Wagner group, founded in 2014. Fighters for the private military company were deployed in support of Moscow’s allies in countries including Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic. The United States has sanctioned it and accused it of atrocities, which Prigozhin had denied. Prigozhin had acknowledged that he founded and financed the Internet Research Agency, a company Washington says is a “troll farm” which meddled in the 2016 US presidential election. In November 2022 he admitted that he had interfered in US elections and would do so again. He soared in prominence after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, where his fighters – including thousands of convicts he recruited from prison – were at the vanguard of the Russian assault on the eastern city of Bakhmut. That battle became the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, and gave Prigozhin a boost in power among Kremlin circles and among the Russian military elite. It would also have made him plenty of enemies. Prigozhin used social media to trumpet Wagner’s successes and wage a months-long feud with the military establishment, accusing it of incompetence and openly questioning decisions made on the Ukrainian frontline. In June, Prigozhin led the mutiny in which Wagner fighters took control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and shot down a number of military helicopters, killing their pilots, as they advanced towards Moscow. In a television address as Prigozhin’s forces marched twowrads Moscow, Mr Putin called it an act of treachery that would meet with a harsh response. The deal ended the march would be made hours later. As part of that deal, Prigozhin and some of his fighters would leave for Belarus and a criminal case against him for armed mutiny would be dropped. But confusion has surrounded the implementation of the deal and the future of Prigozhin. The Kremlin said he attended a meeting with Mr Putin five days after the mutiny ended. Then, on 5 July, Russian state TV said an investigation against him was still being pursued, and broadcast footage showing cash, passports, weapons and other items it said were seized during a raid on one of his properties. In late July, Prigozhin was photographed in St Petersburg during a Russia-Africa summit in the city. Prigozhin appears to have been able to move relatively freely, a surprise given the anger Mr Putin showed while the mutiny was taking

Eighteen bodies have been found in a forested area of northern Greece hit by wildfires for the past four days, the Greek fire service says. Initial reports suggest those who died may have been migrants. A coroner and investigation team are heading to the scene near the Dadia forest. The Evros region of north-eastern Greece, not far from the Turkish border, has been ravaged by fires. A hospital in the city of Alexandroupolis had to be evacuated. Newborn babies and intensive care patients were among those moved to a ferry at the port. Fires are raging across several fronts in Greece, whipped up by high winds and temperatures which climbed above 40C in several places on Tuesday. Flames are thought to have spread rapidly since Monday in the large wooded Dadia national park to the north of Alexandroupolis. Emergency services sent mobile text messages to the surrounding areas asking people to leave. Before the latest grim discovery, an initial death believed to have been of a migrant was reported in the area. Eighteen more bodies were found on Tuesday near a hut outside the village of Avantas, reports said, when the fire brigade inspected the charred remains of a building. Fire service spokesman Yiannis Artopios said the possibility that the victims had entered Greece illegally was being investigated, given that there had been no reports of missing residents. Unconfirmed reports said the bodies were discovered in two groups and there were fears that the number of casualties could increase. The fire service said investigations were continuing throughout the area where the fire had spread. The Evros region has become one of the most popular routes for Syrian and Asian migrants crossing the River Evros from Turkey into the European Union. The Dadia forest is also known to be a route favoured by migrants. Yiannis Artopios stressed that emergency messages had been sent to all mobile phones in the area, including foreign networks. Migrant support group Alarm Phone said it had been in contact with more migrants who needed rescuing from the fires. One group of nine people had already crossed the border while another 250 people were stranded on two small islands in the River Evros, it said. In the past three days 380,000 acres of land has burned in the Evros region alone, according to the National Observatory of Athens’ Meteo unit. Firefighters are having to respond to major outbreaks in other parts of Greece too. The fire brigade has urged tens of thousands of people to leave parts of the north-west Athens suburb of Ano Liosia. A few kilometres to the north, 50 nuns were reported trapped when a fire broke out near a historic monastery on the slopes of Mt Parnitha. Several villages have also been evacuated on the island of Evia and in Boeotia in central Greece. A fiery, red glow was visible on the fringe of Alexandroupolis in the early hours of Tuesday and satellite images showed several regions of Greece covered in thick smoke. During the night residents in eight nearby villages were told to leave their homes and head for safety in the city. Later on Tuesday a stream of cars could be seen heading there as vegetation along the coast burned. IMAGE SOURCE,DIMITRIS ALEXOUDIS/EPA-EFE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCKImage caption, A number of those evacuated from the hospital were taken to a ferry at the port of Alexandroupolis Flames were seen entering the grounds of the university hospital while the operation was taking place to evacuate the site on the north-east fringe of Alexandroupolis. Greek officials ordered a fleet of ambulances and buses to take some 115 patients away. While some of the patients were moved to other hospitals in the city, as many as 90 were taken to a ferry, the Adamantios Korais, which has been requisitioned to look after intensive care patients and new-born babies. West of Athens, several warehouses became engulfed in flames in an industrial area in Aspropyrgos and close to the Attica Highway the sky darkened with acrid smoke. Two Albanian workers told the BBC that if helicopters had arrived in time they would have been able to put the fire out. Around midday on Tuesday a second large fire broke out on the opposite side of the highway in the village of Fyli. Half an hour later residents received a mobile phone message from the 112 emergency number to evacuate the area. IMAGE SOURCE,KOSTAS TSIRONIS/EPA-EFE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCKImage caption, Fires raged out of control around Fyli, close to the Attica Highway Meanwhile, France endured its hottest ever day on Monday after the mid-August holiday, according to weather service Météo-France. Temperatures on Monday soared as high as 42.4C in the Drôme area of south-eastern France but the record refers to Monday’s daily average temperature of 26.63C, recorded in 30 weather stations across France. In Switzerland, the high temperatures have pushed the “zero-degree isotherm” – the height where temperatures fall below freezing point – to a record altitude. MeteoSwiss said the limit had now increased to 5,298m (17,381ft). The point is shifting steadily higher, mainly because of global warming induced by humans, the Swiss met office says. The increased height of the zero-degree isotherm has been accelerating since the 1970s, especially in spring and summer, it says. Source:https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66579193