Three people have been killed in Portugal as the country is hit by a record number of forest fires, and three more have died in Spain where blazes sparked by arsonists have been fanned by strong winds from Hurricane Ophelia.

In total, some 440 fires were burning across Portugal Sunday, which is “the worst day since the beginning of the year,” according to a spokeswoman for the national civil protection agency, Patricia Gaspar.

In addition to the three dead, some 25 people had been injured, she said, with thousands of firefighters deployed and three motorways, including one linking Lisbon and Porto, closed.

This year has also seen Portugal’s worst ever fire in June near Pedrogao Grande in the center of the country, which killed 64 people and injured 250.

The recent fires have been caused by “higher than average temperatures for the season and the cumulative effect of drought, which has been felt since the start of the year,” Gaspar said.

In Spain, authorities were blaming arson for some 17 fires which have caused three deaths.

“They are absolutely intentional fires, premeditated, caused by people who know what they are doing,” the head of the regional government, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, said.

Fifteen separate wildfires which posed a risk to built-up areas were raging across the region of Galicia, he said.

The flames were being fanned by wind gusts of up to 90 kilometers (55 miles) per hour as Hurricane Ophelia moved north off the coast of Spain towards Ireland, he told private broadcaster La Sexta.

Feijoo said “thousands” of firefighters, soldiers and locals were battling the blazes.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who is from Galicia, expressed his condolences to the victims in a Twitter message.

Five wildfires were raging near Vigo, Galicia’s biggest city, forcing the evacuation of a shopping mall and a PSA Peugeot Citroen factory on the outskirts of the city.

The flames had reached O Castro, a large hilltop park in the heart of Vigo with sweeping views of the city’s estuary, Spanish public television station TVE reported.

The national weather office is forecasting rain and cooler temperatures in Galicia beginning early on Monday which officials hope will help put out the flames.

Meteorologists say Ophelia is the most powerful hurricane recorded so far east in the Atlantic and the first since 1939 to travel so far north.

(Source: AFP)

Hundreds of people in Catalonia have been injured in violent clashes with police in the wake of a controversial referendum held in Spain’s autonomous region on seceding from the European country.

Barcelona mayor, Ada Colau, said in a statement on Sunday afternoon that disturbances across Catalonia earlier in the day had left over 460 people injured. Injuries came after riot police, with full gear, clashed with pro-independence people who had convened in front of the polling stations.

“As mayor of Barcelona I demand an immediate end to police charges against the defenseless population,” Colau said in the statement.

In a separate statement, the Catalan health service raised the number of wounded to 465, with two people in critical condition at hospital.

Reports said police responded to assembled voters in Catalonia’s capital, Barcelona, with rubber pellets and batons. The violence occurred shortly after police seized ballots and ballot boxes from the Ramon Lull School polling station. The move prompted the voters to chant pro-independence and anti-Madrid slogans, which led to a violent confrontation. Police reportedly broke down doors to force entry into polling stations as people chanted, “Out with the occupying forces!” Over five million people are expected to have cast their votes in 2,315 polling stations across the northeastern region, with more than 200 stations in Barcelona alone.

Despite a police crackdown, long crowded queues of people formed in cities and villages throughout Catalonia to cast their votes. However, it remained unclear what action Catalonia’s separatist government might take.

The Spanish government says the referendum is illegal and the country’s Constitutional Court has ordered the vote suspended. Separatist regional leaders pledged to hold it anyway and called on the 5.3 million “eligible” voters to show up for the poll.

In order to halt the vote, Madrid had increased pressure on Catalan officials over the past week. It also deployed thousands of extra police from across the country to Catalonia to stop the vote.

On September 20, Spain’s military police raided the Catalan government offices, during which at least 14 junior officials and associates were arrested and almost 10 million ballot papers were seized.

Catalonia, one of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions, held a symbolic referendum back in November 2014, during which more than 80 percent of participants voted for independence, according to Catalan officials.

Source: Presstv

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has clinched a fourth term in office through general elections, while the hard-right AfD party has also won its first seats in parliament.

According to latest results from Sunday general elections, Merkel has won around 33 percent of the vote with her conservative Christian Union (CDU/CSU) bloc, AFP reported.

Merkel was followed by the Social Democrats and their candidate, Martin Schulz, who ended second by scoring about 20-21 percent of the vote. Schulz announced after elections that his party will serve as the opposition following Sunday’s general elections.

Exit polls also showed that in a surprising turn of events the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) has captured around 13 percent of the vote, which made it the country’s third biggest political party and enabled it to enter Germany’s parliament for the first time.

A recent poll, conducted by the INSA institute for the local Bild daily, showed sliding support for CDU by two percentage points to 34 percent, and the SPD, down by one point to 21 percent. The hard-right AfD rose by two percentage points to 13 percent.

The 63-year-old Merkel saw a decline in her approval ratings over the past two years, mainly due to a decision at the beginning of 2015 to allow hundreds of thousands of refugees into Germany. However, her success in controlling the refugee inflow and her message that the German economy needs to be rendered fit for the future by investing in digital technologies seem to have won hearts in the run-up to the parliamentary elections.

The AfD, a nationalist, anti-Islam party, has hugely capitalized on Merkel’s fall in several states.

People in Germany have started heading to the polls in national elections that are likely to see Angela Merkel winning a fourth term as chancellor and a right-wing party entering parliament for the first time in 60 years.

Polling stations opened across the European country at 08:00 local time (06:00 GMT) on Sunday and will be open until 18:00, with some 61.5 million people eligible to vote.

The German chancellor is seeking a fourth term and tries to retain her Christian Democratic (CDU) Party’s status as the largest group in the German national parliament, the Bundestag.

Merkel is pitted against Martin Schulz, who is the leader of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and a former president of the European Parliament.

Among other competing parties, the far-right and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) appears set to win seats in the national parliament for the first time in 60 years and may even emerge as the country’s third-largest party.

A recent poll, conducted by the INSA institute for the local Bild daily, showed sliding support for CDU by two percentage points to 34 percent, and the SPD, down by one point to 21 percent. The hard-right AfD rose by two percentage points to 13 percent.

The 63-year-old Merkel saw a decline in her approval ratings over the past two years, mainly due to a decision at the beginning of 2015 to allow hundreds of thousands of refugees into Germany. However, her success in controlling the refugee inflow and her message that the German economy needs to be rendered fit for the future by investing in digital technologies seem to have won hearts in the run-up to the parliamentary elections.

The AfD, a nationalist, anti-Islam party, has hugely capitalized on Merkel’s fall in several states.

Source: Presstv

Turkey will never be accepted into the European Union as long as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in office, Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel says, blasting the Turkish head of state for not taking accession talks seriously. “It is clear that in this state, Turkey will never become a member of the EU,” said Gabriel, who is also Germany’s Vice Chancellor. “It’s not because we don’t want them but because the Turkish government and Erdogan are moving fast away from everything that Europe stands for.”

European leaders have been critical of Erdogan over his government’s crackdown on opponents following last year’s botched military coup in the country. The Turkish president has also come under fire for holding a referendum to expand his presidential powers.

Gabriel’s remarks followed a series of fiery exchanges between the leaders of the two countries. Germany has repeatedly criticized Ankara’s crackdown on those suspected of involvement in the coup, saying the Turkish government has acted beyond the rule of law.

Ankara in response, has accused Berlin of sheltering outlawed Kurdish militants and allowing their sympathizers to stage anti-Turkey rallies across Germany.

Erdogan

Erdogan stirred more tensions between the two sides last week, when he accused Berlin of Nazi-like behavior and urged the three million or so Turkish nationals living in Germany to vote against German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the country’s September federal election.

The comment drew a strong response from Germany, with Gabriel denouncing Erdogan’s “interference” in the vote. The Turkish president in response said Gabriel has to learn his “limits.” “He knows no limits! Who are you to talk to the president of Turkey? Know your limits. He is trying to teach us a lesson… How long have you been in politics? How old are you?” Erdogan said Saturday.

Erdogan says both the crackdown and the bid to increase presidential powers were necessary to address security challenges Turkey faces at home and abroad.

Source: Presstv

UK government ministers have said that the free movement of people between Britain and the European Union will end in March 2019. UK Immigration Minister Brandon Lewis told the BBC that the government is “very clear” that “free movement of labor ends when we leave the European Union in the spring of 2019.”

It was a “simple matter of fact” that EU free movement rules would not apply after 2019, Lewis said. Home Secretary Amber Rudd said after March 2019, EU workers moving to Britain will have to register, at least until a permanent post-Brexit immigration policy is implemented.

Rudd said the “implementation phase” would involve new EU workers registering their details when they come to the UK.” “We will ensure we continue to attract those who benefit us economically, socially and culturally,” she added.

“But, at the same time, our new immigration system will give us control of the volume of people coming here – giving the public confidence we are applying our own rules on who we want to come to the UK and helping us to bring down net migration to sustainable levels.”

The UK is currently due to leave the EU at the end of March 2019. Immigration was one of the central topics of last year’s Brexit referendum, which resulted in 52 percent of voters voting in favor of leaving the EU.

British finance minister Philip Hammond said Friday that the Brexit transition could last until 2022 and the UK will try to keep as many aspects of its EU membership in place as possible.

UK and EU negotiators held their first full round of Brexit talks earlier this month. The European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier says that both sides still have “fundamental” differences remaining.

Brexit Secretary David Davis said last week that there is a “moral imperative” to reach a quick deal on the rights of EU nationals living in Britain and UK citizens in the bloc.

Source: Presstv

A commuter train crashed into a buffer in Barcelona’s Francia terminus on Friday morning, injuring at least 54 people, one of them seriously, emergency services said on Friday. The force of the crash crumpled the front of the train against the buffer and detached a sheet of metal.

Twenty of the injured, including the driver, were taken to hospital, emergency services said, while paramedics treated others on stretchers on the platform. They had previously put the number of the injured at 39.

Many of the passengers were already standing, ready to get off, when the train crashed, the newspaper La Vanguardia reported.

The train was coming from the village of Sant Vicenc de Calders in the province of Tarragona on the R2 line of the Rodalies commuter rail service, emergency services said. The state-run railway company Adif said an investigation had been opened.

(Source: Reuters)

At least 10,000 people were evacuated overnight after a new wildfire broke out in southern France, which was already battling massive blazes that have consumed swathes of forest, authorities said Wednesday. The new fire came a day after France asked for Europe’s help to tackle the flames already raging in the tinder dry south, including near the popular resort of Saint-Tropez.

“The evacuations, at least 10,000, followed the progression of the fire. It’s an area that doubles or triples its population in summer,” said a fire service official of the blaze near Bormes-les-Mimosas on the Mediterranean coast.

The number of people on France’s Cote d’Azur bulges in July and August as holidaymakers head to the beach, though the area is experiencing an exceptionally hot, dry summer that has made it especially vulnerable to fires.
On Tuesday, over 4,000 firefighters and troops backed by 19 water bombers had already been mobilized to extinguish the flames, which have left swathes of charred earth in their wake. At least 12 firefighters have been injured and 15 police officers affected by smoke inhalation since the fires broke out on Monday, according to the authorities.

The blazes on Tuesday had devoured around 4,000 hectares of land along the Mediterranean coast, in the mountainous interior and on the island of Corsica. With strong winds and dry brush creating a dangerous mix, the government asked its European Union partners to send two extra fire-fighting planes — a request immediately fulfilled by Italy, according to the EU.

But one union official denounced what he said was a lack of spare parts preventing all the aircraft required from being put into action. Interior Minister Gerard Collomb announced on Tuesday that France would be adding six more firefighting planes to its fleet during a visit to Corsica.

(Source: AFP)

France’s military chief has resigned following a public dispute with President Emmanuel Macron over the government’s proposed defense budget cuts. The head of the French armed forces, General Pierre de Villiers, said in a statement on Wednesday that he had tendered his resignation to the president and that it had been accepted.

Villiers explained that with the financial constraints imposed on the army, he was “no longer able to guarantee the robust defense force I believe is necessary to guarantee the protection of France and the French people, today and tomorrow, and to sustain the aims of our country.”

A disagreement between the army chief and Macron started last week when the government revealed the details of a plan to make 850-million-euro cuts to the 2017 military spending. The government said the move was aimed at bringing France’s deficit to below the European Union’s limit of 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

The general protested the plan the following day at the president’s own council of defense and the parliament’s defense commission. Macron reacted to his remarks last Friday, saying, “For me, it is undignified to wash dirty linen in public. I am your leader; I need no pressure, no comment.”

Only two days later, Macron told Journal du Dimanche that if de Villiers “has an issue with the President of the Republic, the chief of staff will be changed.” General de Villiers reacted in a Facebook post this week, saying he could resign.

His open disagreement with Macron was untypical of French military officials, who are historically silent on government policy. The French army is nicknamed “la grande muette” — “the great and silent” — because of that tradition.

But Macron has come under fire over the cuts from other parties, too, including members of his own party. The chairman of the parliamentary committee on defense, Jean-Jacques Bridey, who is also a Macron ally, said last week that he regretted the proposed cuts “while our men risk their lives every day.” Alexis Corbière, a leftwing member of the National Assembly, also warned that consequences of austerity on the French army would be “intolerable.”

Source: Presstv

Ten fire engines and more than 70 firefighters have battled a large fire in a building in London’s popular Camden Lock Market, a well-known tourist attraction, the London Fire Brigade has said. According to the Fire Brigade, the fire which erupted a few minutes before midnight was under control by around 3:00 a.m. local time on Monday, but firefighters would continue to “damp down” the site in order to prevent any re-ignition.

There were no immediate reports of any casualties or cause of the blaze. The London Fire Brigade said on Twitter in an earlier statement that the first three floors and roof of a building within the market were alight. “The Brigade’s 999 Control Officers have taken multiple calls to the highly visible blaze and people are asked to avoid the area,” it said on Facebook.

This is the second major fire incident in London in recent weeks. On June 14, a fire tore through the Grenfell Tower residential building, killing at least 80 people. Cheap materials used to refurbish the tower were cited as the reason for the Grenfell inferno, according to a report published in The Times.

The 24-story building block with 120 apartments was home to many Muslim residents. Reports said a lack of suitable equipment; low water pressure and radio problems hindered the response to the Grenfell Tower disaster. Fire crews have told the BBC that low water pressure, radio problems and equipment that was either lacking or did not arrive before the fire got out of control.

Source: Presstv