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Zelenskyy warns of low air defence supplies after Russian strike kills nine in Ukraine – Europe live

Hello, and welcome to our Europe live blog. Nine people have been killed in Ukraine after Russia launched a barrage of missiles and drones at the capital Kyiv overnight, Ukrainian authorities have said. Twenty-two people were also injured in the attack, which the Russian defence ministry described as a “massive strike” against “Ukrainian military-industrial complex facilities and logistics centres in Kyiv”. Andrii Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said Russia was “intensifying its air attacks and terror against civilians”. It came just two days after an onslaught of Russian missiles killed 10 people and injured more than 50 others across Ukraine, as Moscow looks to exploit Kyiv’s shortage of western-supplied air defence systems. The scale of the problem was laid bare by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said Kyiv managed to shoot down just one of the 27 ballistic missiles fired in the overnight attack because stocks of interceptor missiles for US Patriot systems had been depleted. In a post on X, he said: Overnight, the Russians launched 35 missiles at Ukraine, including 27 ballistic missiles, as well as 185 attack drones of various types. Kyiv was the primary target, but strikes also hit the Dnipro, Sumy, Kharkiv, and Poltava regions. Only one ballistic missile was intercepted, simply because there are no interceptors for the Patriot systems. And it is this shortage of ballistic missile interceptors that only encourages Russia to launch such attacks that take human lives. He appealed to allies to urgently supply more Patriot interceptors, saying every additional missile saved lives and that shortages were leading to more civilian casualties. Yesterday, he said he spoke to the US vice-president, JD Vance, and discussed a meeting with the president, Donald Trump, earlier this week in Washington, which Zelensky described as “positive and productive”. Read more: Elsewhere in Europe: More than 300 firefighters were battling a fast-moving wildfire near the coastal Greek resort of Porto Germeno, about 45 miles (70km) north-west of Athens, as strong winds continued to fuel the blaze and complicate firefighting efforts. Greek authorities said the fire had spread to the shoreline, with officials confirming to AFP that homes had been damaged. It is one of several wildfires burning across Europe, with France and Spain also battling major outbreaks as extreme heat, prolonged drought and the climate crisis create increasingly fire-prone conditions. France and Italy have bolstered border controls after about 60,000 people crossed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco. The crisis has turned increasingly deadly, with at least 57 people killed attempting the crossing, according to reports, prompting Spain to deploy troops to help regain control of the border. The Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, blamed trafficking gangs for orchestrating the surge, accusing them of exploiting vulnerable migrants by encouraging the dangerous crossings.

First Australian mass mortality event suspected as deadly bird flu virus rapidly escalates among native birds

More than 80 dead and sick birds seen on rocks off the South Australian coast are suspected to be the first mass mortality event from the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, only six weeks after the disease arrived in Australia. Authorities reported on Saturday that helicopter surveillance had revealed 49 dead greater crested terns on Baudin Rocks, near Robe, as well as 35 more sick terns. While some of the birds had been collected for testing, South Australia’s chief vet Skye Freuan said it was likely the first mass mortality event from the disease. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email South Australia also reported three suspected positive cases in other greater crested terns, including one inland at Monarto, suggesting the disease has begun moving away from the coast. The Monarto area is home to several poultry farms. Three silver gulls were also suspected positive, SA authorities said, adding to the first silver gull found a few days ago and confirmed positive by the CSIRO earlier on Saturday. Kate Millar, the chief executive of conservation charity BirdLife Australia, called it a “very significant escalation of the bird flu situation in Australia, and a very bleak milestone”. “Sadly, we’re at the beginning of a long and challenging battle and birds and wildlife are going to need all the help they can get,” she said. Jack Gough, the chief executive of the Invasive Species Council, said it now appeared the disease was “starting to take off” and “mirroring the experience in South America of early detections, then rapid increases in numbers and spread leading to mass mortality events in wildlife.” “We are still at the very early stages of this devastating disease spreading, but the possible first mass mortality coming just days after the virus was declared not eradicable indicates how quickly this could escalate,” he said. Freuan said there was “nothing we can do” to stop the spread of the disease, but that surveillance was working. The news came at the end of a significant week in the development of the disease when numbers jumped by 20 in just a few days to the current total of 53. Australia was the last continent to have the unwelcome arrival of a disease that has killed millions of birds and mammals around the world. Victoria this week confirmed its first cases of the virulent strain in a greater crested tern found in Portland, with the state joining Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland that have all recorded positive cases. On Saturday, Victorian authorities said samples from five crested terns had been sent to the CSIRO laboratory in Geelong, with preliminary testing suggesting more positive results. Five confirmed cases in birds at Seal Bay on Kangaroo Island also raised concerns for the welfare of the area’s Australian sea lions – an endangered species. Tens of thousands of seals have died worldwide from the disease. But it has been the cases among silver gulls that has experts like Sean Dooley, the national affairs adviser at BirdLife Australia, concerned that the spread of the virus has now reached a critical new stage. “When people think of a seagull, they’re almost always thinking of the silver gull,” said Dooley. “They’re very common, and primarily they are coastal, but they do come inland and can turn up in Lake Eyre following floods,” said Dooley. Silver gulls are the second Australian native species to catch the disease, after dozens of detections in greater crested terns. But it is the silver gull’s behaviour and habits that have experts concerned because they scavenge from dead or dying animals, meaning they can easily pick up the disease from other sick birds. They also pick detritus from water bodies – lakes and flooded areas included – and these are known to be breeding grounds for the disease. “There is such a large population of silver gulls, and they move into other habitats. They could be the vector that takes bird flu inland,” says Dooley. “They’re also really successful in urban areas and could bring the disease into those bird populations.” Because Australia has a high concentration of unique birds, the susceptibility of many native species isn’t known. But the fears are there is no reason to think they would manage any better than birds overseas. Birds that flock around water have tended to be the hardest hit. Examples include sandwich terns, black-headed gulls and northern gannets in Europe and, in Peru, pelicans. Dooley said the mood at BirdLife Australia this week had been one of “trying to suppress that sinking, gut-churning feeling”. The winter season for birdwatchers along the coast had been one of the best in 10 years, said Dooley, with rare petrels turning up in numbers along the east coast. “Now that has been heavily tinged because probably among those were birds carrying H5N1.”

‘A symbol of resistance’: the fight to save treehouse built on no man’s land next to Berlin Wall

Sometimes the currents of history converge in a single spot. In Berlin, one of the most intriguing of those places is a small traffic island with a lovingly tended garden and a ramshackle two-storey structure called the Treehouse at the Wall. In 1983, Osman Kalin, a Turkish “guest worker”, was looking in his corner of the city cleaved by the Berlin Wall for a patch of earth in which to plant his onions, garlic and cucumbers. Virtually on his doorstep in the Kreuzberg district was a slice of no man’s land next to the concrete barrier and barbed wire. Although it sat in West Berlin, cold war logic meant the lot officially belonged to the communist East. The east-west border cut a sharp angle near a curved street called Bethaniendamm. The wall was built to slice straight across the road, which left a triangle-shaped scrap of land on the wrong side. Neither side could use it and so nearby residents commandeered it as a dump – until Kalin came along. Perhaps it took an outsider such as Kalin to see the potential in the postage stamp of fertile soil beneath the orphaned furniture and discarded drug paraphernalia. And it required a certain audacity to build something abutting the wall patrolled by East German soldiers with shoot-to-kill orders. Over the decades, the “guerrilla garden” came to symbolise a rebel spirit in dark times, the ingenuity of immigrants who were often made to feel unwelcome, and the tragedy and absurdity of great-power confrontation in a city where citizens on both sides just wanted to breathe free. That’s a lot of mythology for one place to hold, and four decades of upheaval have left their mark. Now supporters of the Treehouse at the Wall fear it could be demolished by city authorities as a public safety hazard and are rallying to save it. Kalin, one of the first generation of so-called Gastarbeiter brought by West Germany to plug a labour shortage, was “a remarkable figure”, said Suat Özkan, the general secretary of a Turkish community group in Berlin. “Perhaps he wasn’t a master of language, perhaps he wasn’t the perfect architect, perhaps he wasn’t the perfect artist, but he created something artistic – something that became totally unique.” Kalin, who was born in 1925 in Anatolia, arrived in West Germany in the late 1960s as a manual labourer. Under the programme, about 14 million guest workers came to the country between 1955 and 1973. Despite the temporary nature of the scheme, many stayed on. Nearly 3 million people of Turkish origin now live in Germany, about 200,000 of them in Berlin. Kalin at first squatted the land with his flower and vegetable garden and a small improvised shed. Then, eventually, against the odds, he won permission from the East German authorities to stay, so long as whatever he built there would not be taller than the wall. In time he replaced the shed with the larger “treehouse”, which despite the name is not up in the branches but built around a mature trunk that was on the site. After the city reunited in 1990, Kalin faced eviction orders but found an unlikely ally in the neighbouring St Thomas church, which located 18th-century papers showing it was the rightful owner of the land and allowed him to stay. Since Kalin’s death as a local hero in 2018, his son Mehmet has tended to the property and his father’s legacy. “Right when two global political systems were facing off,” Özkan said, Osman Kalin carried out an “act of defiance against the GDR regime, against the system, to show that it is possible to stand up and carry out a kind of revolution”. He added: “It’s a symbol of resistance as well as a symbol against racism, discrimination and hostility.” Özkan said that more than six decades after West Germany established the guest worker programme, it was long past time for the reunited nation to pay tribute to its waves of immigrants. “We still haven’t managed to construct a central memorial,” he said, to the foreign labourers who helped build the postwar economic miracle. “This house should serve as a kind of memorial.” Stefan Zeppenfeld, a historian who published a book in 2021 about Turkish labourers in West Berlin during the cold war, said it took decades for Germany to acknowledge its transformation into a “country of immigration”. He noted that migrant labourers like Kalin were relegated to neighbourhoods close to the wall, such as Kreuzberg, that became prime real estate after the wall’s fall in 1989. Zeppenfeld said the treehouse crystallised many aspects of what made up Berlin and its people. “The history of German division or the iron curtain is still absolutely crucial and defining for Berlin, for Berlin’s sense of identity,” he said. “And I find it absolutely fascinating that this building is still standing – it’s one of the few tangible legacies where we can actually see agency by Turkish guest workers as a real part of the cityscape.” As a first step, Özkan is planning an open-air exhibition on the chain-link fence surrounding the structure, complete with archival pictures and Kalin’s extraordinary life story. The tension with city authorities ahead of a Berlin election in September is that supporters of the treehouse want to maintain its scruffy authenticity while safety and legal concerns have forced a conversation about its structural integrity. Outside, the wooden facade is made up of listing, mismatched planks. Tongue-in-check Nato and Soviet flags whip from erected poles while plum and apple trees mark the seasons. Inside, a jumble of black-and-white photographs and construction tools point to the Kalin family’s past and future in their garden idyll. A donated chandelier lends an unexpected touch of elegance. Florian Schmidt, a Kreuzberg district councillor, said his office was working closely with the Turkish community and Kalin’s son Mehmet, who has done extensive repairs on the house, to “grant the necessary permits” for it to remain. “Due to the unusual situation – the site being a no man’s land and the lack of planning permission – use of the treehouse was initially prohibited,” Schmidt said in an emailed statement, noting that Mehmet had been granted a temporary exemption to do work there. “Issues relating to ownership rights are also being clarified.” Adrian Sampson, of Alternative Berlin Tours, which spotlights the city’s subculture and street art, was leading a group of visitors past the treehouse on a hot July day as he explained Kalin’s legacy. “His story is about three things: resistance, community spirit and multiculture all together there. And that’s what Kreuzberg is about,” said Sampson, who is originally from Melbourne. Asked about speculation that the site’s days could be numbered, he said: “I think it’d be an absolute shame, like really a pity for the city, because it just makes a lot of people happy.”

Noma restaurant prepares to reopen under new leadership after abuse allegations

The Copenhagen restaurant Noma – often ranked among the world’s best – is preparing to reopen next week under new leadership for the first time since its star chef and co-founder, René Redzepi, stepped down amid accusations of physical and psychological abuse. The new executive head chef, Pablo Soto, who has worked at the restaurant for nearly a decade, said while it remained “the same Noma” there had been some significant changes. Along with a new, evolving monthly menu to replace its previous seasonal one, he said there was now a heightened focus on enabling employees to live full lives. Redzepi, who has apologised to “those who have suffered under my leadership”, is no longer involved in the restaurant’s day-to-day running but Soto said he would still have a creative influence. Since storming the culinary establishment in 2003, Noma has been ranked as the world’s best restaurant five times and been awarded three Michelin stars, and has reinvented itself several times in the Danish capital and in pop-ups around the world. But earlier this year, as the restaurant launched a pop-up in Los Angeles, the entire organisation threatened to come crashing down after Redzepi was accused of creating abusive working conditions – including punching, screaming and public shaming – between 2009 and 2017. One of dozens of former employees who spoke to the New York Times said going to work “felt like going to war”. Redzepi said in response: “Although I don’t recognise all details in these stories, I can see enough of my past behaviour reflected in them to understand that my actions were harmful to people who worked with me. To those who have suffered under my leadership, my bad judgment or my anger, I am deeply sorry and I have worked to change.” A few days later, amid global media scrutiny, he announced he would “step away” from the restaurant and that he had resigned from his nonprofit, MAD. When Noma reopens in Copenhagen on Wednesday, it will face one of its biggest tests yet without Redzepi at the helm. Taking a break from intense final preparations for the reopening, Soto said: “It’s the same Noma. We are simply back home – that is what is different.” Before the allegations against Redzepi, Noma had planned to turn its Copenhagen restaurant, which closed in 2024, into a food laboratory. But after the international fallout, the decision was made to reopen it. “After Los Angeles, the best thing, in my opinion, was to come back to something stable. Our beautiful restaurant,” Soto told the Guardian. “This was a good decision for the team because of course what happened created instability – it was a difficult thing.” There had been moments in recent months when he feared for Noma’s future, he said. But he is now adamant it could regain its best-in-the-world status. “The team that has done it for so many years is still here. And that’s the number one marker of confidence right now,” he said. Responsibility for daily operations is now in the hands of Soto along with the chief executive, Annika de Las Heras, and Mette Brink Søberg, the head of research and development, with Redzepi turning his attention to creative projects. “That doesn’t mean he is banished from his company. We actually want his input,” Soto said. He insisted he was “not stepping into René’s former role,” adding: “This is still his restaurant. He is now simply moving to the side to continue on other creative ventures.” When the restaurant reopens, the 4,500 DKK (about £515) per head menu (plus an additional 2,000 DKK or £229 for wine pairing) will focus on what is available during that specific time of year, replacing its previous model where the restaurant revolved around three seasons: seafood in the winter, vegetables in spring and summer and forest and game in the autumn. “It’s a menu that is dynamic, that can change day to day in many ways,” Soto said. Initially, the restaurant will work with ingredients such as berries, flowers, vegetables and sweet seafood, moving on by October to wild mushrooms, game, stone fruits and red shellfish. Soto also plans to prioritise ensuring the staff of about 100 are able to live full lives outside work, including having children, pets and hobbies. “This is nothing new but is definitely something that is a priority, that people can continue their lives and continue to be at work,” he said.

‘Who could have done this?’ Mystery over Briton found dead in a suitcase in Athens

Two worlds separated by sheets of corrugated iron: one, a tree-lined road, bordered by a park and the home of Greece’s oldest sports club; the other a wasteland of derelict buildings and graffiti-covered walls in what was once a car park. It is here, on the wrong side of the divide, in Kypseli, a neighbourhood in central Athens, that the body of Elisabeth-Jane Ross was found, inside a suitcase last month. The 38-year-old who had longtime connections to the country – she reportedly worked in the charity sector – had arrived in the Greek capital on holiday almost three weeks earlier. “She was an angel,” a friend in her native Edinburgh told the Guardian. “Wherever she went, she did good. Who could possibly have done this?” The homeless man who made the grim discovery was among the few who ventured into the abandoned lot, located between an apartment block and design school on Evelpidon Street. It was midday on 18 July. What he did next – alerting authorities to the find – would shake up police forces in Greece and Scotland. “We’ve had the entire homicide division of the Greek FBI working night and day on the case,” said the police spokesperson Konstantina Dimoglidou. “We’re in contact with other police forces. We’re going to solve this.” But four days after Ross was publicly identified, with Greek authorities announcing the body was that of a Briton based on fingerprints that matched biometric data in the US, mystery continues to shroud the case. Initial examination of her remains proved inconclusive although pathologists deemed she had probably been dead for several days before the discovery. There were no evident injuries or sign of struggle on her body, raising further questions as to how she had died. On Friday, as local people left flowers at the site, police said investigators were intensifying their search of CCTV footage after it emerged that DNA analysis of the suitcase had not produced any evidence that could be linked to a suspect. “Whenever I pass by I think of that poor woman,” said Manos Andreou, a fashion designer who walks his dog each day along Evelpidon. “Until the area was closed off, I used to go in there and let her run around it, so it’s all been a bit of a shock. They say they’re looking at camera footage, they say they’re making progress, but can you see any cameras anywhere on this street?” The daughter of a lawyer, Ross, who had lived and worked in the US, flew into Athens from Edinburgh on 26 June. Until 15 July she had stayed with the son of a Greek friend in Keratsini, a working-class suburb close to the port of Piraeus. Before moving on, she had told him she would be spending a few days with friends from the US in Kypseli. Detectives, now desperately trying to reconstruct her movements, have expressed frustration at their inability to trace the Americans. Other members of the Briton’s social network in Athens have been interviewed at length, giving testimony that has been described as “incredibly helpful”. None are considered suspects. “July 15 was the last day she had contact with any of her friends,” said the police spokesperson. “Our investigations are focused on the intervening days and whom she may have met and where she stayed. The Americans have not been identified or found.” Police remain confident the suitcase was not at the crime scene more than 48 hours before its discovery on 18 July. They are also convinced that Ross died nearby in Kypseli although have stopped short of describing her death as a murder. “There is always the possibility that she died and then for some reason was hidden,” added Dimoglidou. “Our priority is to get to the bottom of who left the suitcase. Whoever they were was careful not to leave any fingerprints or DNA.” Adding to the mystery, it emerged that the Briton’s mobile phone was in operation and being used days after her death. Ross’s distraught father is reported to have told police he received text messages from his daughter, believing she was alive and well, until her body was identified, publicly, on Wednesday. Messages spoke of her “need to be alone”. Authorities, who have yet to retrieve the device, believe they were deliberately sent so that she would not be declared missing and “to buy time”. Investigators have located the phone’s digital footprint to Athens. One source said: “We have to presume that the person who had her phone and then sent these messages, days after pathologists believe she probably died, is connected to the crime and we cannot rule out that they knew Ms Ross.” More than 60 people in the Greek police department’s homicide division have been assigned to the case. Urgency is such that investigators have also requested that laboratory tests be fast-tracked to determine the cause of death. “At such times, when there is advanced decay because of heat or the conditions in which a body is kept, only toxicological tests and in-depth examination of [vital organ] tissues can determine, exactly, how a person died,” said Grigoris Leon, who heads the Hellenic Society of Forensic Medicine. There would be answers, he said, that would unearth the truth. “I have no doubt they will come but it won’t be easy and it will take time.”

‘We stared into an abyss’: the men and women battling to tame France’s megafire

By noon it is time for a break. The temperature is about 35C, the smell of ash, cinders and burnt wood hang acrid in the air. At tables laid out in the shrinking shade on the desiccated grass and sand outside the sports centre in Le Porge, 200 men and a handful of women have gathered. Firefighters, soldiers, police, gendarmes, officials, first aid teams, foresters and volunteers sit elbow to elbow, plates of sausages, steak and potatoes in front of them. The village was evacuated just over 14 hours after the “megafire” – as it has become known in France – broke out 6km away last week. The blaze has consumed 42,000 hectares (104,000 acres) of mainly forestland west of Bordeaux. Though finally contained, there are outbreaks every day, pushing to the limit emergency services and the hundreds of amateurs who have come to their aid. “We’ve turned a corner but we are very, very tired. We have gone beyond what we thought possible,” said a senior firefighter at Le Porge, downing a litre of water in less than a minute. “We stared into an abyss.” Overhead, three planes carrying huge tanks of water and retardant flew low towards new fires. A drone buzzed nearby, sent up by the fire brigade to detect with thermal cameras the creeping underground blaze – described by local media as a “zombie fire” – that threatens fresh chaos in the coming days, weeks and months. Around the village, roads run straight through a smouldering, smoking and deserted landscape of charred but upright trees. In places, the forest is intact, the tall pines in their serried green ranks. In others, chosen at apparent random by the racing flames, it has been reduced to ash and cinders as far as the eye can see. “Now we are all running on adrenaline, but the crisis is going to pass and that’s when it will be really hard. That’s when we will weep,” said Remy Bossion, 46, whose home was damaged in the fire and who is now spending his days helping cut 200-metre-wide firebreaks through the remaining forest to slow any future outbreaks. This weekend, fires elsewhere in France are bringing similar, if less extensive, devastation. In the Var region, George and Amal Clooney were forced to evacuate their home as a wildfire burned nearby. In the famous forests of Fontainebleau outside Paris, in Corsica and near Dijon, the flames still threaten. Across Europe, emergency services are struggling. In the UK, 120 firefighters have been tackling a blaze in Suffolk for three days. In Spain, the cumulative number of fires in 2026 has set a new record for this time of year. In Greece, three firefighters died in Crete and thousands of tourists were evacuated from resorts. The fire weather across the EU has broken records for this time of year, new data shows. Scientists say models of climate change have long predicted such extreme weather, though some disasters appear to be striking earlier and with more strength than expected. “We still have a month or more of summer to go. We need rain, a lot of rain,” said the senior firefighter in Le Porge, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not have authorisation to talk to the media. Leaders in France have been seeking to reassure worried communities – and avert a political crisis. “We are gradually getting back to normal,” said Sophie Brocas, the prefect of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and the Gironde department, which includes Le Porge, on Thursday night. President Emmanuel Macron said last week it was not the time to analyse lessons to be learned while France was still in “full battle”. No one doubts the scale of the megafire, which at one point reached the suburbs of Bordeaux itself, but the question of its origins and the availability of resources necessary to fight it is bitterly contested. Among the residents of Le Porge eating at the makeshift canteen was Nicolas Di Domenico, a local public works contractor who learned of the blaze when his electricians working near the village of Saumos called to say a spark from a faulty machine being used by workers cleaning a high-tension cable had just ignited a fierce blaze. Di Domenico, 46, said: “It was a short circuit or something of that nature and immediately everything went up because it’s all so dry. The guys there tried to use a fire extinguisher but it was too intense. My guys basically ran for their lives and by the time the fire brigade turned up it was huge.” The blaze initially overwhelmed firefighters, who had difficulty accessing the deeper forest where it was spreading. Within six hours, it had travelled 6km (3.7 miles) to reach the outskirts of Le Porge. Very early the next morning, residents were in the streets, burning cinders were falling from a red sky and a decision was made to evacuate. “The authorities should have stopped all work in the forest. Someone got their priorities wrong,” Di Domenico said. Many in Le Porge and elsewhere in the region accuse the local administration of being “asleep at the wheel” before the fire, and then failing to commit sufficient resources fast enough. Many have asked why France’s ageing fleet of firefighting planes had not be replaced or sufficiently reinforced. “We feared this for a long time, and were warning about the planes specifically since 2017,” said Sebastien Delavoux, head of the firefighting section of the CGT union. “This summer has shown we have reached the extreme limit of what is possible for France’s firefighters.” The mayor of Le Porge, which lost 20% of its homes and only “by a miracle” escaped further devastation, described an event that was impossible to predict, despite multiple warnings over the years. “The conditions this year are totally exceptional. We’ve never seen anything like this,” Martial Zaninetti said. “You can always say it’s not enough, we’ve not got adequate resources, enough planes, or of whatever, but the scale is completely beyond anything we’ve seen before.” On Wednesday evening, at a base on the edge of the zone worst hit by the fire, senior firefighters gathered around a map taped to the side of a fire engine for a briefing. Burnt red by the sun and with notebooks in hand, grizzled sector commanders stood to receive missions for the night, when lower temperatures and higher humidity make it easier to fight a blaze. Younger team members, still in their fire retardant overalls and covered in soot, watched as their superiors greeted each other with black humour and bags of Haribo sweets. “All right, my little chicken? Ready for another night of work? Not too much for you,” joked one officer to his replacement as he finished his 12-hour shift. “Are you planning your holidays already?” came the response. One said the struggle with the megafire was now shifting from a dynamic and dangerous “war of manoeuvre” to a long, slow and hard “war of attrition”. “We were on the defensive at the beginning but now it’s not spreading any more. There are still lots of individual outbreaks that have us running around and when everyone is exhausted, that is hard. So the mobilisation remains total,” he added. Instead of the usual summer tourist traffic on the long straight roads through the pines of the Landes, there are now long convoys of fire trucks, ambulances, police cars and a motley collection of agricultural water tankers, lorries rigged with plastic containers and pickups carrying jerry cans connected to garden hoses. Some ferry water to the fire engines, allowing the crew to remain at an outbreak without leaving to replenish their tanks. Others spray roadsides or the new firebreaks which leave wide, white scars through the forest. In the small resort town of Lacanau, just to the north of the worst-hit zones, volunteers refilled containers at a makeshift pumping station set up by volunteers at the sailing club. Armand Fargeas, 51, who runs pleasure trips for tourists on Lacanau’s inland lake, said: “We’ve got 600 people in our WhatsApp group, which for a community like ours is a huge number. What’s really great is that you have every generation getting involved. We might not agree on politics, but the spirit of solidarity is amazing.” Now the hotels and camping sites are empty – all evacuated – and the bistros shut. Rows of sailing boats and paddleboards were drawn up on the shore. “We hope the tourists come back. It’s a catastrophe,” said Anne-Marie Nardou, 74, as she brought fruit and drinks to Fargeas and his friends. Some of the roughly 200,000 people forced to leave their homes by the fire are now being allowed home. On Friday, an exhibition hall in Bordeaux, the regional capital, began to empty of hundreds of evacuees, though many still awaited permission. Tens of thousands of others remained with friends, relatives or in hotels. Frédéric Farrugia, a 55-year-old financial adviser who lives in the coastal village of Lège, watched on his home’s security cameras as the fire brigade fought to save the building. Eventually, the flames were beaten back, though homes 50 metres away were destroyed. An image of the inferno taken by his wife, Severine, as she escaped with him and their cat after being woken by gendarmes at 2am led to an offer of temporary accommodation from a wellwisher. “We were on the dual carriageway with these flames like a wall along one side. It was a bit like the apocalypse,” Farrugia said. “I think that now the French will realise that the climate is heating up and that we have to react.” In Lacanau as elsewhere, many also talk about the obvious effects of the climate crisis. Anthony Legrand, a carpenter in the village, said he had seen massive change over the decades: tides that reduce the width of the stunning beach, green algae and, of course, repeated fires, including one in 2022 that devastated a swathe of forest not far from his small home. “You’d think that would be a warning but no one paid attention,” he said. “It’ll be the same this time. They’ve got memories like goldfish.” In Le Porge, the mayor said the “worst had passed for now” but risks of a new megafire remained high, now and in coming years. “Right now, we need new shelter, clothes, insurance, legal support, doctors and psychologists,” Zaninetti added. “But this is a problem for the long term. Unless we find another way to live with the forest, this will just happen again.”

‘Just the tip of the iceberg’: how a Bali run club reignited tourist tensions on holiday island

When Annisa Rahmadani posted online about being rejected from a social running club in Bali, she expected a few sympathetic comments. Instead, her story went viral, prompted national politicians to weigh in, immigration authorities to intervene and ultimately, the club’s Dutch organisers barred from Indonesia. “I had no idea it would get that big,” said the 34-year-old university lecturer from the Indonesian city of Bandung. “But it seems it was just the tip of the iceberg.” The controversy centred on the expat-run Entourage running club. The group attracted a huge backlash after posts like Rahmadani’s circulated online and sparked allegations it was excluding Indonesians and accepting foreigners. The club denies it excludes Indonesians and says the issue stemmed from its registration system incorrectly rejecting some Indonesian phone numbers. For many in Indonesia, the story hit a nerve, inflaming frustrations about an influx of wealthy foreigners and digital nomads on the island. It crystallised a feeling that parts of Bali are becoming socially and economically detached, places where locals says they increasingly feel like outsiders in their own home. “The patience of the locals had been tested for too long,” said Bali regional parliamentarian Niluh Djelantik. Bali has long been a popular tourist destination but since the pandemic, it has become a magnet for remote workers and digital nomads, drawn by the weather, surf, relatively low cost of living and relaxed visa requirements. Around tourism hubs such as Canggu and Uluwatu, co-working spaces, luxury gyms, paddle clubs and wellness retreats have overtaken warung food stalls and beach bars, alongside a growing foreign population choosing to stay for months or years. Despite an increase in jobs and income levels, the rapid transformation has brewed resentment among locals. Infrastructure has struggled to keep pace, housing costs have soared and frustrations over cultural clashes – from topless scooter riders to foreigners disrespecting sacred sites – have angered the Balinese and the wider Indonesian population. “In Bahasa Indonesia we say, Seperti api dalam sekam (like a fire under the dry rice husk). It had been escalating, and the fire was always going to come out,” said Djelantik. Djelantik said not all foreigners were causing problems, but some ignored local culture, broke the rules or worked illegally. ‘Rife with discrimination’ Run clubs have become popular activities in Bali for locals and foreigners. The Entourage group had held a similar early morning “silent disco” event in May, with social media posts showing a crowd jogging through the streets with headphones. Rahmadani, a keen runner, had wanted to join their next early morning event in July with her British husband. He was immediately accepted while she was rejected. The organisers later said they were targeting digital nomads and their registration system had incorrectly excluded some Indonesian phone numbers. Online, she found dozens of Indonesians reporting similar experiences, and screenshots of rejected applications quickly spread across social media. As criticism intensified, Entourage posted a statement denying it had intentionally discriminated against Indonesians. The run club said events were “open for everyone, including non-digital nomads”. The statement said Indonesians made up almost a quarter of participants and blamed an automated approval system for excluding some Indonesian numbers, adding it had paused events to review the processes. Entourage has been approached for comment. Immigration director-general Hendarsam Marantoko has since banned two Dutch nationals who were running the club from returning to Indonesia, described the club as “rife with discrimination against local residents”, and argued there “should not be a state within a state”. Bali’s tourism office also announced that organised running events would require permits in future. Bali governor Wayan Koster adopted a more measured tone, saying he did not believe the controversy showed foreigners were deliberately creating exclusionary enclaves. Running clubs, he said, remained welcome provided they complied with regulations. The debate comes as Bali grapples with record tourism. Foreign arrivals reached 6.9 million in 2025, surpassing the pre-pandemic high, while authorities have intensified immigration enforcement amid complaints over illegal work, tourist behaviour and visa violations. In the first six months of this year, 342 foreigners were deported. The crackdown has targeted foreigners accused of abusing tourist visas, including working illegally as tour guides, fitness instructors and online entrepreneurs, alongside high-profile incidents involving assaults on police, reckless driving, and public indecency at sacred sites. Social justice advocate Piter Panjaitan said those incidents had fuelled broader resentment among locals that had been building for years, alongside growing frustrations over rising housing and living costs, worsening traffic congestion and weak enforcement of immigration rules. “The laws are there, we just need to get better at enforcing them.” New Zealand content creator Hamish Newton-Vesty, who documents his life in Bali and his efforts to learn Bahasa Indonesia under the moniker “Bule Hamiss” – a play on the Indonesian word for foreigner and local pronunciation of his name – said the run club controversy prompted his Indonesian friends to share similar experiences. “Some foreigners come here arrogantly and have a mindset that it’s not their country, that they can just do whatever they want,” he said. Learning the language, understanding the culture and showing respect went a long way, he added. “I don’t think it’s actually a big ask.” For Rahmadani, the backlash was never about driving foreigners away. Her husband is British, and they still love visiting Bali. “We’re not against foreigners,” she said. “We’re just against those who abuse the system and who take it for granted.”

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