Hundreds more people were evacuated from their homes as wildfires blistered land in France, Spain and Portugal yesterday, while officials in Europe issued health warnings for the heatwave in the coming days.

The five remaining contenders to be Britain’s next prime minister were set to go head to head in the first of three televised debates yesterday, hoping a good performance will boost their chances in a battle that so far has no clear frontrunner.

Britain's Met Office weather forecaster on Friday declared a national emergency, issuing a red 'Extreme Heat' warning for parts of England for Monday and Tuesday next week when temperatures could reach record highs.

The Italian head of state on Thursday rejected the resignation of Prime Minister Mario Draghi and asked him to address parliament to get a clear picture of the political situation, a statement from President Sergio Mattarella's office said.

Kyiv said Wednesday it was severing relations with North Korea, as Pyongyang confirmed it was formally recognising two self-proclaimed pro-Russian

Mario Draghi said he would resign as Italian prime minister on Thursday, after a party in his ruling coalition did not participate in a confidence vote.

France and Britain were set to suffer soaring temperatures on Wednesday (July 13), with a heatwave in Western Europe fuelling wildfires across vast stretches of forestland.

The European Union has frozen Russian assets worth $13.8 billion since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said yesterday.

Fresh waves of Covid infections show the pandemic is “nowhere near over”, the World Health Organization’s chief warned yesterday, voicing concern the virus is “running freely”.

Ex-finance minister Rishi Sunak, the favourite to become Britain’s next prime minister, kicked off his campaign yesterday promising “honesty”, in an increasingly testy and divisive battle to succeed Boris Johnson.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday extending a simplified Russian naturalisation process to all citizens of Ukraine, a document published on the government's website showed.

A tense fifth bull run at Pamplona’s San Fermín Festival left three people gored and three others with bruises on Monday, a Spanish Red Cross spokesman said.

A major gas pipeline from Russia to Germany was shutting down for annual maintenance on Monday amid German concern that Russia may not resume the flow of gas as scheduled.

Britain’s main opposition Labour party yesterday threatened to call a no-confidence vote in Prime Minister Boris Johnson to get him to quit immediately, after he was forced to resign by a cabinet revolt.

Scandal-ridden Boris Johnson yesterday announced he would quit as British prime minister after he dramatically lost the support of his ministers and most Conservative lawmakers, but said he would stay on until his successor was chosen.

Soaring global food and energy prices have forced 71 million people into poverty in the world’s poorest countries, according to a United Nations Development Program report published yesterday.

The European Parliament yesterday approved a contentious EU proposal giving a sustainable finance label to investments in gas and nuclear power, sparking claims of “greenwashing” by environmental lobbyists.

Cabinet ministers gathered in Boris Johnson’s official residence yesterday to tell him to quit as British leader after he insisted he would not stand down in the face of a mounting rebellion within his party.

Ukraine has so far thwarted an attempted Russian advance into the north of its Donetsk region, but the city of Sloviansk and other civilian areas there were being heavily shelled, Ukrainian officials said yesterday.

World hunger levels rose again last year after soaring in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with the Ukraine war and climate change threatening starvation and mass migration on an “unprecedented scale” this year, according to UN agencies.