'France faces most severe crisis since the Second World War'

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If you are currently overpaying on software to run your business, remember this number, 10 ,000. That's the number of new businesses that join Odoo per month. Join Odoo today at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. But what policy changes should investors be watching. Washington Wise is an original podcast from Charles Schwab that unpacks the stories making news in Washington right now and how they may affect your finances and portfolio. Listen at schwab.com slash Washington Wise.

0:44That's schwab.com slash Washington Wise. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles and in the early hours of Tuesday 28th July, these are our main stories. Fires are burning out of control in parts of southwest France. Others are bearing down on the Spanish capital. We hear how the fires are so big they're creating their own weather systems. The UN body, which fights AIDS, says the world risks a resurgence of the HIV epidemic after funding cuts. And could India's youth protesters return to the streets after accusing the government of breaching a deal to end the week's long dispute?

1:30Also in this podcast... The question is, do Africans, do Kenyans deserve a clean and healthy environment and clean food as Europeans do, as Americans do? And our answer is to the affirmative yes. We find out why Kenyan activists are taking multinational chemical companies to court And is a battlefield an appropriate place to award World Heritage Site status?

1:59The fires raging in parts of France and Spain are some of the most intense in decades. They've caused commentators and politicians to issue stark warnings and make dark comparisons. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain called on all citizens to exercise extreme caution in the difficult, complex hours ahead. President Emmanuel Macron of France went even further. As he visited the worst affected area near Bordeaux in the southwest, he said it was his country's most severe crisis since the Second World War. Both men know their administrations will be judged on how they react to the crisis. Meanwhile, with temperatures expected to soar again in the coming days, there are fears that Bordeaux could be at risk.

2:45Gwynne Loder is nearby and sent this report. For days, wildfires have raged in the southwest of France. For weary firefighters here, Canadian aircraft provide welcome relief. Most towns and villages in this area are almost deserted. The blaze now burns within 10 miles of the city of Bordeaux. The fires are raging in this rural area. Flames occasionally leaping several feet into the air. Thick black smoke rising as well, sticking in the back of your throat. Wildfires aren't uncommon in this area near Bordeaux, where Mererid has lived for the past 16 years. We're going to take the kids and move further north out of reach of the smoke and the polluted air, or as far as we can.

3:29We're lucky enough to have somewhere where we can go so that we just get, especially the kids, get them away and get them to some cleanery. French President Emmanuel Macron has today been meeting the teams fighting the flames, which could take months to put out. We must understand we are facing a completely unprecedented wildfire. The situation we are dealing with today is the most severe we have ever recorded, the toughest since the Second World War. Across the border, in Spain too, the situation is dire. What's been called the biggest wildfire in the region's history burns near Madrid. There's no shortage of dry vegetation for it to consume, thanks to successive heatwaves after a wet winter.

4:13The pace of the flames have slowed in Valencia, but the fires are still very much active and the government says the next two days will be crucial on whether they can be brought under control. This is the new reality. Summers are becoming increasingly difficult, destructive and therefore deadly. In Spain, as in France, hot, dry weather is forecast for the coming days. The fear here is that an already difficult situation could become catastrophic. Gwyn Loda near Bordeaux. Well, Stav Dines from the BBC Weather Centre told me how the arrival of more hot weather will affect the fires. Well, it's likely temperatures will reach again the 40 Celsius mark, maybe even more than that across central northern Spain, southern France, in the areas where we have the fires blazing.

5:00So this is probably the worst outlook they could have expected with dry air and extreme heat with very little in the way of rain. There could be a few isolated showers and thunderstorms over the higher ground, for example, the Pyrenees, maybe towards the Alps, central and eastern France, but nowhere close to where we have the fires at the moment. So quite apart from all this very warm, hot air coming in from northern Africa, there are also problems associated with the clouds that are formed in the areas where the fires are. Explain what's happening there. pirate clouds as they're known quite a feature of the extremely large fires that we get in north america and canada and the u.s where they almost form their own weather system now because these fires are so large they're burning so fiercely they're actually producing their own clouds all the heat the smoke and water from all the vegetation despite it being tinder dry there is still some moisture in the vegetation which is pushing up into the atmosphere forming clouds they're getting high enough to actually form updrafts and downdrafts so wind close to the ground as it's been drawn up in the cloud begins to blow erratically.

6:02So it fans the flames, it changes the direction of the flames without any warning. And as the updrafts develop, we can actually see flashes of lightning, much like you'd see in the ash cloud of a volcano that erupts, that almost forms its own cloud. And how much longer are these increasing heat waves going to last in Europe? Do they tend to fizzle out at some point? It's difficult to say. This year's been exceptional. A lot of it's attributed, some say, to the cold blob, which is sitting in the North Atlantic. It steered the jet stream very far north of the UK and Europe, dragged all this hot air out of North Africa, which usually stays across the Sahara and occasionally wobbles out into the Mediterranean to bring these heat waves, often towards the eastern Mediterranean.

6:46Greece, Cyprus can be very hot, southern Italy, Sicily. This year, it seems to be a pattern where the eastern side of Europe seems to be under cooler northerly winds as the jet stream's been dipping down. And for northwestern Africa, western Europe, we've been bait by repeated heat waves. And it's difficult to say when this pattern will change. Stav Deneus. The United Nations body fighting AIDS says the world risks a resurgence of the HIV epidemic after global funding was cut by nearly a fifth last year. The number of new cases and AIDS-related deaths dropped to their lowest levels in more than 30 years in 2025, but new infections rose in more than 20 countries.

7:29With more details, here's our global affairs reporter, Mimi Swaby. In a report to mark the opening of an international AIDS conference in Brazil, UNAIDS said funding fell to around$7 billion, its lowest in nearly two decades. It warned that political and financial upheaval threatened decades of hard-fought gains against HIV. The report also repeated that the global goal to eradicate AIDS by 2030 was off track due to reduced funding and other crises such as Ebola hampering efforts. Roughly 1.2 million people contracted the virus last year. Washington had accounted for three quarters of international HIV funding before President Trump's return to office in January 2025.

8:10Life-saving HIV funding is still in place, but he cut most prevention efforts. Mimi Swaby. President Trump has told reporters that Washington is in very deep talks with Iran, but he warned that he would be ready for strong military action if diplomacy failed. A pause in the US bombing campaign on Iran is continuing as officials try to end the conflict through negotiations. Iran has also halted its attacks. Mr Trump is considering his next move after reports of warnings from some of his military chiefs that the US is running out of targets in Iran and is experiencing low stockpiles of key munitions.

8:50Our correspondent in Washington is Bernd de Boosman. The stockpile itself is classified, but just looking at estimates of how many of the particular munition were fired in this conflict and how many were believed to be in the pre-war stockpile, among some very critical munitions, long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, for example, Patriot air defence missiles, That shortage could be down by half or a third. Not only is that a huge concern for the U.S. should the war with Iran heat up again and the U.S. needs to defend its Gulf allies from Iranian drone and missile attacks, but also it comes at a very complicated time in which the U.S., the Pentagon, believes that China is increasingly able and potentially even willing to invade Taiwan.

9:32Besides that, there's also a concern, of course, about what can be provided to Ukraine given U.S. shortfalls. Already, President Trump last year declined to give Ukraine those various Tomahawk missiles, citing a shortage. And that was before the conflict in Iran. So that really does have very wide-reaching implications for U.S. military posture around the globe. Many of these systems have a very long timeline between when they're funded and ordered and when they're actually delivered, something that's measured in years. Now, I've spoken to a few experts who suggested that the lesson from the war in Iran and also from Ukraine's war with Russia is that the U.S.

10:08could diversify its stockpile by manufacturing more cheap, quick-to-produce systems. But in a near-peer conflict with an enemy such as China, for example, that doesn't make up for that shortfall. So in short, there's very little the US can do in the short term to address that. But in the long term, it might change the way US manufacturing looks at the defence industry and what exactly it's building. Bernd de Boosman in Washington. For weeks, members of the Indian fledgling youth movement, the Cockroach Janter Party, took to the streets, angry over the leaking of exam papers. Well, the nationwide demonstrations led to their key demand being met.

10:48the resignation of the Education Minister, Dhamendra Pradhan. It was seen as a victory for democracy by then. But hundreds of students who were detained in Delhi after police fired tear gas and used batons to disperse protesters last Monday remain in custody. The Cockroach Janta Party is accusing the government of Narendra Modi of backtracking on its promise to release them. Its spokesman is Ashun Tanranka. If all the students, youth and protesters who have been arrested or detained in different states are not released, then the Cockroach Janta party will once again be forced to protest. The BBC's Sumedha Pal is in Delhi and gave Rajini Vajanathan this update.

11:32Over the weekend and even today, we've been seeing a series of crackdowns by the police authorities across Indian states. Students who have been allegedly detained and there is legal support now that they require. The Cockroach Janata Party organized a press conference to address the fact that will the protests resume or what will be the further course of action because there's a big demand of the Cockroach Janata Party and its spokespersons was that all these charges will be dropped. The other demand was that all police persons who are responsible for attacking the students using sticks and batons against students will be identified and punished by the agencies.

12:14And today they held a press conference to state that the part of this agreement was not honoured by the government because action against protesters is continuing across India. So they think that the government hasn't stuck to its side of the bargain, as it were. What's the government saying? They haven't responded to this yet because the Kokhra Janata Party just did their press conference. I was at a press conference where the union Minister J.P. Nutta honored these promises when the deal was done, when finally Dharamendra Prithan's resignation was accepted. He did admit that there will be action against those police persons who were involved in attacking the students.

12:52And of course, that there will not be any action against the protesters. They have launched an online portal where they're trying to investigate and identify those who were responsible for the violence against the protesters. They have not said anything about the movement reconvening. Police and the administration have from the beginning maintained that they had imposed Section 163 in this particular area, which meant that anyone assembling on the protest sites, it was unlawful assembly. So I don't see that they will be responding to this or doing much about it. These are the signs as of now. What might come next from the Cockroach People's Party?

13:33As of now, the movement is also dealing with a lot of criticism. There are a lot of questions about the political aspirations of the spokespersons, because videos surfaced online where they were seeing, celebrating and partying after the resignation of the Indian Education Minister. So a lot of questions were being raised on these celebrations, on the actual support that the spokespersons and the leadership are providing to the students on the ground who are currently facing police action. So it will be interesting to see what unfolds in the next few days to come. That was Sumedha Pahl. Still to come in this podcast.

14:11It's an extraordinary 15-slide Instagram post. This doesn't come via a well-worded statement from the governing body, but via a late-night Instagram post from the president. This is the behaviour we've come to expect. Shock and awe as the FIFA president launches a blistering attack on critics of the recent Football World Cup.

14:52bottlers, diapers, and Crest Clean Breath toothpaste. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in-store or online. For easy pickup or delivery, restrictions apply. See the website for full terms. With the new Schwab Teen Investor Account, teens can gain hands-on investing experience and build positive money habits. It's an account co-owned by you and your teen, so you can monitor and engage with the account while your teen learns how to invest and manage money. Learn more at schwab.com. What does possibility mean to you? Um, that's a hard question. Something that you can strive for. That I'm able to do anything I set my mind to.

15:27You're confident in yourself and you believe in yourself. Stuff that you could achieve. I feel excited. Anything is possible when you're more confident. Shoes are a huge part of that. They are the most important part of my style. You can, like, express yourself. In the right shoes. Anything is possible. DSW. Countless shoes at brag-worthy prices. Imagine the possibilities.

15:52This is the Global News Podcast. Let's bring you up to date now on the mass shooting at a food festival in the US city of Seattle on Sunday, which left three people dead. Police now say they believe three people were involved. The shooting has been described by local officials as a horrible act of violence. Our North America correspondent David Willis told me more about what happened. This was the third and final day, Nick, of the annual Bite of Seattle Food Festival, and it regularly attracts more than 300 ,000 people. It was shortly after 6 o 'clock in the evening, Sunday, just as this festival was winding down, that five or six shots rang out, and video footage shows terrified people, including families with small children, running for their lives after those shots rang out.

16:48Now, officials initially thought it involved an exchange of gunfire between two young men, one of whom, a 19-year-old, is thought to have been among the three people who died. A 15-year-old boy is being held in juvenile detention for investigation of firearms violations and first-degree assault. But officials in Seattle appealed for the public's help in identifying a third suspect who, they say, fled the scene shortly after. Detectives are reviewing security footage, they say, from nearby buildings. A 44-year-old man and a 56-year-old woman also died, and at least four other people are known to have been injured, among them a two-year-old boy who remains in hospital as we speak.

17:37This appears to have been a firefight, if you like, amongst heavily armed young people. How much of a problem is gang violence in Seattle? Officials believe that this does appear to have been gang-related, Nick, and that the 15-year-old who is in custody at the moment and the 19-year-old who died knew each other. Two guns were recovered from the scene. Officials in Seattle said it was just the latest in a string of violent incidents involving young people and indeed the third major shooting there in several days. Overall, however, violent crime is actually down in Seattle. It is in many American cities at the moment.

18:21The figures show a drop of more than 30 % in the number of homicides in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year. But gun crime amongst young people has increased. And the mayor of Seattle, Katie Wilson, has announced plans to launch a campaign specifically aimed at curbing youth violence. David Willis. to Kenya now, where activists and lawyers are bringing a high-profile legal case against multinational chemical companies, the Kenyan government and regulators. They claim that hazardous pesticides and herbicides designed to make farming more efficient are in fact harming the health of people across Kenya.

19:04Josephine Cassily reports from Nairobi. Do Africans, do Kenyans deserve a clean and healthy environment and clean food as Europeans do, as Americans do? Our answer is to the affirmative, yes. Outside the law courts in Nairobi, TV cameras are huddled around an activist and a lawyer. Thousands of Kenyans have been affected by the use of these pesticides. And what we see is really shocking. It's November 2025, and they're here because this court in Kenya's capital is hearing a case about the use of chemicals in farming, brought against the Kenyan government and several multinational chemical companies.

19:42Kelvin Kabai is one of the lawyers leading the case. These manufacturers were taking advantage of the vulnerability of these people, harming people who have no ability to fight back. The court agrees that the lawyers and their team can go out into communities and find people who believe their health has been affected by pesticides and potentially enlist them in the case, making it akin to a class action. Like a tingling feeling, as she says. Yeah, a tingling on the feet and the hands. Kelvin and the other lawyers have brought on board two scientists to help them build evidence for their case. Most of them seem to have lost their sensation because of the naps breaking down.

20:17They're particularly interested in exposure to a herbicide called Paraquat. It's a powerful weed killer that's been at the centre of thousands of lawsuits in the US from farmers claiming that they've developed Parkinson's disease as a result of their contact with Paraquat. Although there's no conclusive proof that the herbicide causes Parkinson's, the degenerative neurological disease, It has been linked to the condition in several epidemiological studies. The substance is banned in the EU and UK because it's toxic if ingested. Nurse Prisca Munua is working with the lawyers bringing the case. It's a violation of the human rights because if it's unsafe for the people in the European countries, it is even more unsafe for the Africans who don't even have their protection.

21:01They assess 14 patients who've been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and more who they believe are exhibiting symptoms. all of whom they think have been exposed to paraquat. However, proving that any health condition is caused by exposure to pesticides will be challenging. Diagnosis rates and literacy are low. And additionally, many farmers don't know what products they're using. We've just pulled over by the side of the road and I can see two people spraying the field next to me. I can also see two young boys carrying pesticide rucksacks with the sprayers. What's most striking is that none of them are wearing any sort of PPE.

21:38If you look at the labels of a lot of these pesticides and herbicides, they often advise with accompanying diagrams that gloves, goggles and coveralls must be worn. One of the demands in the court case is for the government to provide more education to farmers on how to use products safely. Frederick Macchiri is the CEO of the Kenyan Regulator, the Pest Control Products Board. Here in Kenya, we have a regulatory mechanism which ensures that the pesticides we have allowed for use are safe to humans and also the environment if used according to labour instructions. Frederick Mociri ending that report by Josephine Cassily.

22:20The president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, has hailed the 2026 Football World Cup, co-hosted by the US, Mexico and Canada, as a celebration of humanity at its best, while accusing critics of spreading hate and false rumours. Despite acknowledging some shortcomings, he said there had been too much focus on the negatives. Mr Infantino's scathing attack came in the form of a lengthy social media post. The football writer Daniel Storey told us more. I mean, it's an extraordinary 15 slide Instagram post. This doesn't come via a well worded cogent statement from the governing body, but via a late night Instagram post from the president.

22:59This is the behaviour we've come to expect. His key point is that he believes that people told him that FIFA and he and America and Trump wouldn't be able to put on a great show, which was never the point being made by any of the critics. The critics pointed out that the humanitarian and the geopolitical complexities of putting on that show had brought FIFA closer towards Donald Trump and had abandoned what they are supposed to stand for as a governing body, which is being apolitical. And he says things like, you talk about the people who didn't get visas. Well, I'm talking about the millions who did.

23:32Yes, Gianni, but the point is, is we have to talk about those that didn't because FIFA is supposed to be, as you keep telling us, standing up for all and standing up for what's right. It's a screw the haters message. It's a you told me I couldn't do this and look what I just did. But actually, it doesn't really answer any of the points that people were making both before and during the tournament. This is another play of self-promotion and self-preservation and a power play. And we know already that that is the positioning that Infantino is taking. The reason he announced his plans for a 64-team World Cup was because it's fair to say during the tournament that his PR took a bit of a hit, certainly around the Trump intervention with the Filar and Balogun red card.

24:10And so he announced these changes to appease his support bases, largely in Africa and South America, who will do better out of a 64-team World Cup than anyone else. This is the, my fingers are in my ears. I don't care what anyone says about me. I'm walking off into my 2026 sunset, happy that I've done the best job in the world because I'm Gianni Infantino. And I think we just have to let him get on with that. I think that if we start taking everything he says seriously, we'll drive ourselves mad. Daniel's story. The Normandy beaches in France used for the D-Day landings in the Second World War have been added to the UN's World Heritage Site list.

24:46Allied forces landed on the beaches in June 1944 to fight Nazi troops and go on to liberate France. Becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site means an area has been recognised as having outstanding universal value and has given special legal protections. All of those who died in the fighting will be commemorated, including around 200 ,000 German soldiers. It's unusual to make a battleground a World Heritage Site, so why here? The BBC's Rebecca Kesby spoke to the Second World War historian, Kate Vigas, about why UNESCO made this decision. They originally thought of them as symbols of division, you know, where something bad happened, people were against one another.

25:31They're now saying that the way that the sites have developed, the way we're looking at them, bears a message of freedom, peace and unity among the nations. And I guess that's reflected in the numbers of people who visit these sites from all over the world for various reasons. So the rule has changed. And I, for one, I'm very pleased about it. And how significant is it that German soldiers are also going to be properly commemorated now here at the same site? I think it's a very interesting decision. And as a historian, you know, it's a slightly contentious one in that the battle was only fought because Europe was under an enemy occupation.

26:15That said, the soldiers on the beaches were your ordinary fellows. You know, they weren't fanatical. They weren't SS. These are your normal soldiers. And actually, the more I've thought about it, the more it's right that they are commemorated in this number. they lost their lives to. And many would have been conscripts, of course, as well. Yes, that's right. I mean, a lot of these people had absolutely no choice whatsoever in what they were doing or who they were fighting for. So officials have said that they're going to improve the information and also signage around the sites. Why is that important?

26:54I think that's important for anyone going to the site who maybe doesn't have a broad knowledge of it. And when you know where you're standing and what happened there, it can have such a profound impact on you. So to improve that signage and visitor information is absolutely phenomenal that they're going to be doing that. And there are so few remaining veterans of that particular battle still with us. I guess that makes the preservation of this site more important. And do we know how they feel about this new status that these sites will be getting? Their numbers are dwindling massively now. We're talking dozens rather than thousands.