Why countries back Palestinian statehood but arm Israel
Aerial footage shows devastating scale of Gaza destruction
Gaza’s cities, towns and villages have been almost totally destroyed by Israel’s war on the Strip. Footage filmed from planes and drones reveals once bustling communities reduced to rubble. Gaza’s people have suffered the loss of their homes, farmland and infrastructure.
Spain suffers third wildfire death as thousands remain displaced in Europe
Spain has recorded its third death from wildfires this week while Greece began beating back a blaze threatening its third-largest city as a heatwave that began last week continues to sweep through Southern Europe.
Spanish authorities reported the death on Thursday of a 37-year-old volunteer firefighter who sustained severe burns while battling flames in the northwestern Castile and Leon region, taking the toll to three after earlier reported deaths there and near Madrid this week.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez expressed his condolences in an online post.
“The wildfire situation remains serious, and taking extra precautions is essential. Thank you, once again, to all those working tirelessly to fight the flames.”
The extreme summer heat, which scientists say human-driven climate change is lengthening and intensifying, has fuelled blazes and stretched firefighters across Southern Europe, including in Portugal and the Balkans.
The fires have particularly scorched Spain, devouring more than 157,000 hectares (388,000 acres) this year – more than triple the area burned during the same period in 2024.
Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes this week in Spain because of the fires, mostly in Castile and Leon.
Spanish investigators said Thursday they had arrested four people suspected of starting forest fires, taking the total number of accused this season to 30.
France announced it would send two water bombers to Spain, which has also appealed to the European Union for aircraft to reinforce hard-pressed firefighting teams battling on several fronts, notably in the northwest.
Greece, which had requested assistance from the EU to battle its wildfires, gained ground against a major blaze that had closed in on the western port city of Patras.
Firefighters faced “scattered” pockets of flames, but the fire was “still active” in the eastern outskirts of Patras, fire brigade spokesperson Vassilis Vathrakogiannis said. At least 15 firefighters had been hospitalised or received medical attention for burns, smoke inhalation or exhaustion, he added.
Some 600 ground crews and nearly 30 water bombing aircraft were deployed from dawn in all locations, said Vathrakogiannis, but gentler winds were helping the firefighting effort.
Major outbreaks also stretched emergency services on the tourist island of Zante, the Aegean island of Chios and near the western town of Preveza.
Citing data from the EU’s Copernicus satellite monitoring programme, the National Observatory of Athens said those fires and the Patras blaze had burned more than 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres).
Authorities said three men, aged 19 to 27, had been detained on suspicion of starting some of the fires around Patras on Tuesday.
EU assistance sent to several countries
Portugal mobilised more than 1,900 firefighters against four major blazes, with one in the central area of Trancoso having razed an estimated 14,000 hectares (34,595 acres) since Saturday.
Another front that broke out on Wednesday in the mountainous central Arganil area occupied more than 800 firefighters.
“The flames were enormous … it was frightening,” a woman in the village of Mourisia told Sic Noticias television as she gazed at a slope enveloped in thick smoke.
The Balkans appeared to have overcome the worst of an exceptionally strong heatwave that worsened its traditional fire season, destroying homes and prompting the evacuation of thousands.
Greece sent assistance to neighbouring Albania, joining an international effort to combat dozens of wildfires. An 80-year-old man died in a blaze south of the capital, Tirana, officials said on Wednesday.
Residents of four villages were evacuated in central Albania near a former army ammunition depot. In the southern Korca district, near the Greek border, explosions were reported from buried World War II-era artillery shells. Authorities said dozens of homes were gutted in a central region of the country.
In Turkiye, a forestry worker was killed on Wednesday while responding to a wildfire in a southern region, officials said. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said the worker died in an accident involving a fire truck that left four others injured.
Turkiye has been battling severe wildfires since late June. A total of 18 people have been killed, including 10 rescue volunteers and forestry workers who died in July.
The EU’s civil protection agency said it responded to requests for assistance this week from Greece, Spain, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Albania, sending firefighting planes and helicopters from other member states.
The agency said it had already activated assistance 16 times amid wildfires this season, as European countries have been hit by “a high number of catastrophic wildfires.”
Trump administration sanctions two Mexican drug cartels, announces bounties
The United States Treasury Department has revealed it is sanctioning two Mexican drug cartels, Carteles Unidos and Los Viagras, and seven affiliated individuals on allegations of “terrorism”.
The Treasury Department announced the sanctions on Thursday. Separately, the Justice Department stated it was charging five high-ranking members of Carteles Unidos with crimes related to drug trafficking.
“These actions further President Donald Trump’s directive to completely eliminate cartels and transnational criminal organizations threatening the American people,” the Treasury said in a social media post.
In a statement, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained that the sanctions would help the US government hamstring the cartel’s ability to generate revenue, including through cross-border commerce.
“Today’s sanctions action draws further attention to the diverse, insidious ways the cartels engage in violent activities and exploit otherwise legitimate commerce,” Bessent said.
Both Carteles Unidos and Los Viagras are said to be active in the Mexican state of Michoacan, where the Treasury said that they use funds from drug trafficking to hire mercenaries, bribe officials and buy weapons.
Thursday’s sanctions will freeze any US-based assets the targeted individuals may have, and people in the US are prohibited from making transactions with them.
The Trump administration has pledged to take a hard line against criminal groups and those involved in drug trafficking, including by labelling some Latin American criminal networks as “foreign terrorist organisations”.
Experts, however, have questioned the efficacy of such steps and raised fears that they could backfire, penalising nonprofits and civilians who live and work in gang-controlled territory.
Also on Thursday, the Department of Justice announced that it was offering rewards for information leading to the arrests of Carteles Unidos leader Juan Jose Farias Alvarez, also known as “El Abuelo” or “The Grandfather”, as well as Alfonso Fernandez Magallon, Luis Enrique Barragan Chavez, Edgar Orozco Cabadas and Nicolas Sierra Santana.
They are charged with participation in a conspiracy to manufacture and distribute drugs for importation to the US.
Altogether, the rewards totalled $26m, with the highest single bounty offered for Farias Alvarez, at $10m.
Earlier this week, the Mexican government sent 26 suspected cartel members to the US to face charges, the second such transfer this year.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum emphasised that the transfer was a “sovereign decision” she undertook, but critics have expressed concern that the US has been exerting increasing pressure on her government to bend to its will.
Last week, for example, US media reported that Trump signed an order authorising the US military to carry out operations against cartels and other criminal groups, a move that Mexican politicians have warned could result in US troops on Mexican soil.
That, critics warn, would constitute a serious violation of the country’s sovereignty. Sheinbaum, however, attempted to dispel concerns in a news conference: “There will be no invasion of Mexico,” she said.
Mexico, meanwhile, has also called on the US to take greater steps to restrict the massive flow of weapons from sellers and manufacturers north of the border. Mexican authorities and other experts have argued that those weapons fuel the violence committed by criminal groups.
Blast in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province kills four: State media
An explosion at a depot for unexploded ordnance on the outskirts of Idlib city in northwest Syria has killed at least four people, state media has reported, without identifying its cause.
News agency SANA, citing the Health Ministry, reported at least “four dead and five others injured” in the blast, which occurred on Thursday.
The Ministry for Emergency and Disaster Management said in a statement that the “large blast” occurred “in a depot for war remnants”.
War monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that “successive large explosions” had ripped through “a base for non-Syrian fighters containing a weapons depot”.
United Kingdom-based monitoring group SOHR, which obtains its information from a network of local informants, gave a higher toll of six dead, including two civilians, and eight others injured, three of them civilians.
Raed al-Saleh, minister for Emergency and Disaster Management, said on X that the death toll included two children.
He stressed “the need to unite the efforts of ministries, institutions and local bodies to limit the risks of unexploded ordnance and war remnants”.
Images on social media showed a massive cloud of smoke rising above a building in a rural area.
Northwestern Idlib, long governed by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group that led the offensive that toppled Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, was known as a bastion of rebel groups during the war, including foreign fighters.
Some groups of foreign fighters still have bases in the region.
Late last month, a series of explosions in Idlib province killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 100, SOHR said at the time.
Those blasts occurred at a weapons depot belonging to the Uighur group the Turkistan Islamic Party in Ma’arrat Misrin, the monitor reported.
Air Canada plans to cancel 500 flights by Friday as cabin crew strike looms
Air Canada says it is at an impasse with its negotiations with the union representing its flight attendants and has announced that it will be pausing all its flights on Saturday morning.
Air Canada said on Thursday it expects to cancel several dozen flights by day’s end and approximately 500 flights by the end of Friday, affecting 100,0000 passengers, in advance of a planned Saturday strike by its unionised flight attendants.
The Air Canada executives were speaking at a news conference that ended abruptly due to protests by union members donning placards.
Mark Nasr, chief operations officer at Air Canada, said the complexity of the carrier’s network, which operates more than 250 aircraft on flights to more than 65 countries, requires it to start winding down service now.
A strike would hit the country’s tourism sector during the height of summer travel and poses a new test for the governing Liberal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney, which has been asked by the carrier to intervene and impose arbitration.
Air Canada and low-cost carrier Air Canada Rouge carry about 130,000 customers a day. Air Canada is also the foreign carrier with the largest number of flights to the US.
US carrier United Airlines, a code-share partner of Air Canada, said it has issued a travel waiver to help customers manage their travel plans.
Half of hourly rate for hours worked
The dispute hinges on the way airlines compensate flight attendants. Most airlines have traditionally paid attendants only when planes are in motion.
But in their latest contract negotiations, flight attendants in North America have sought compensation for hours worked, including for tasks like boarding passengers and waiting around the airport before and between flights.
The union said Air Canada had offered to begin compensating flight attendants for some unpaid work, but only at 50 percent of their hourly rate.
The airline said it had offered a 38 percent increase in total compensation for flight attendants over four years, with a 25 percent raise in the first year.
Restarting Air Canada’s operations would take a week to complete, Nasr told reporters in Toronto.
“It’s simply not the kind of system that we can start or stop at the push of a button,” he said. “So in order to have a safe and orderly wind down, we need to begin down.”
FlightAware data shows Air Canada has, thus far, cancelled only four flights as of Thursday morning.
Earlier in the day, Canadian Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu urged the country’s largest carrier and union to return to the bargaining table to reach a deal that could avert disruptions.
“I understand this dispute is causing a great deal of frustration and anxiety to Canadians who are travelling or worrying about how they will get home,” she said in a statement posted on X. “I urge both parties to put their differences aside, come back to the bargaining table and get this done now for the many travelers who are counting on you.”
A spokesperson for the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents the carrier’s 10,000 flight attendants, said Air Canada negotiators are not bargaining and have not responded to a proposal they made earlier this week.
“We believe the company wants the federal government to intervene and bail them out.”
CUPE has previously said it opposes binding arbitration.
Arielle Meloul-Wechsler, chief human resources officer at Air Canada, said the carrier never left the table.