World

Algerian authorities have detained 36 people after the mob killing and burning of a man wrongly accused of starting wildfires. The fires began last Monday and have torn through the mountainous Kabyle region, killing at least 47 residents and 28 soldiers, while also destroying olive groves and livestock. Artist Djamel Ben Ismail, 38, was killed

The Taliban could begin an assault on Afghanistan’s capital within days, a US defence official has warned. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the hardline Islamist group is making a concerted effort to isolate Kabul. Resistance from government forces has been crumbling, with insurgents seizing Afghanistan’s second and third-largest cities in recent days. The Taliban now

Boris Johnson is to convene an emergency Cobra meeting this afternoon over the worsening situation in Afghanistan. Taliban fighters took control of the Afghan city of Lashkar Gah on Friday, following their capture of Kandahar and Herat, as they continue to make advances across the country. With weeks to go before the US plans to

The UK is sending military personnel to help evacuate Britons from Afghanistan as the security situation in the country rapidly deteriorates. The move was authorised by the defence secretary on Thursday morning. The US has also announced that it is deploying some 3,000 additional troops to help the departure of its embassy staff. The American

Fighting in Afghanistan’s Kandahar region has become “extremely intense” amid the continued insurgence of the Taliban in the country. It comes after warnings the capital Kabul could fall within the next 90 days, with the hardline Islamist group now controlling around 65% of Afghanistan. In Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second largest city which is situated 480km (300

Civilians in Afghanistan face a “deadly and dangerous” situation amid concerns that the capital Kabul could fall to the Taliban within 90 days, a former foreign secretary has said. David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, warned the West not to take its eyes off Afghanistan as the Taliban‘s forces continue to make gains

A British embassy worker has been arrested in Germany on spying charges. The British national, named as David S, was arrested in Potsdam after he allegedly worked “for a foreign secret service”, the German public prosecutor said in a statement. The statement continued: “Until his arrest, David S worked as a local employee at the

At least 32 people have been killed in wildfires that erupted in Algeria, including 25 soldiers trying to save residents from the blazes, the country’s officials have said. The fires have been ravaging forests and villages east of the capital, Algiers, in the Kabyle region. Prime Minister Ayman Benabderrahmane said the blazes appeared to be

The Canadian ambassador to China has condemned a court’s ruling to uphold the death sentence verdict for a Canadian convicted of drug smuggling. Robert Schellenberg was arrested in 2014 and sentenced to 15 years in prison in November 2018 but then abruptly resentenced to death in the city of Dalian in January 2019. Schellenberg was

It is sad to think that just a few days ago a family lived happily in the burned shell of the house we are now looking around in the village of Limni on Evia Island. That next door the same family ran a business built over 40 years. Now, the son of the family, Pablos

As wildfires rage across southern Europe and parts of the US, the biggest climate change report in almost a decade is set to deliver the “starkest warning yet” about the crisis facing the planet. The report from the United Nations’ climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), arrives this morning and is

Heatwaves, flooding and droughts will be more frequent and more intense as the world is set to hit the 1.5C global warming limit in the next 20 years, a landmark United Nations review has predicted. The milestone scientific assessment says the rate of warming in the last 2,000 years has been “unprecedented” and it was

From Greece to California, the summer has seen wildfires rage in several places around the world, with lives lost and thousands evacuated. In Europe, where some officials have blamed climate change for the large number of fires, blazes have burned in several countries, from Italy to Greece and Turkey. Massive fires also have been burning

British firefighters are being deployed to tackle the raging wildfires in Greece – as new footage shows people escaping by boat as flames fill the sky. It comes after the death of a volunteer firefighter and the evacuation of thousands of people from an island near Athens, as well as towns north of the capital.

A former Afghan interpreter has described how he ignored a Taliban demand to quit his job with British forces, so the “killing machines” murdered his brother. The 35-year-old, who has just arrived on a rescue flight from Afghanistan to the UK with his family, said he was also attacked in a separate ambush and had

A volunteer firefighter has died in and thousands of people have been evacuated from an island near Athens as wildfires rage in Greece. Civil Protection chief Nikos Hardalias said firefighters faced “exceptionally dangerous, unprecedented conditions” as they battled 154 wildfires on Friday, with 64 still burning into the night. “Over the past few days we