International

Germany paid tribute yesterday to more than 180 people killed in severe floods a year ago, as those left behind charged that help with the reconstruction effort has been too slow to arrive. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier embarked on a tour of the Ahr valley, while Chancellor Olaf Scholz joined a human chain in the hard-hit town of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler and took part in a minute’s silence to remember the victims. In Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Cornelia Weigand, who was the mayor of nearby Altenahr at the time of the floods, told a sombre crowd that “the scale of the damage to body and soul” was “inconceivable”. “Our mourning cannot be described with words,” she said, her voice wavering. In Altenahr, Steinmeier said he wanted to “show that we haven’t forgotten the people of the Ahr valley” and “how many are still struggling to rebuild their homes”. However, a year on from the disaster, frustration is building at the sluggish pace of help promised by the government. Alfred Sebastian, the mayor of Dernau, said the town was “still at the very beginning” of the reconstruction process. “We need to be financially supported by the state ... we need it now. If not now, when? We have to move forward,” he said. “Many of us are simply tired, exhausted and also disappointed about the fact that parts of the reconstruction ... are only progressing slowly,” said Guido Orthen, the mayor of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler. Orthen also called on the government to “improve disaster prevention so that people no longer lose their lives in this way”. Severe floods pummelled western Germany over two days in July last year, ripping through entire towns and villages and destroying bridges, roads, railways and swathes of housing. Between 100-150mm (4-5”) of rain fell between July 14-15, according to the German weather service – an amount that would normally be seen over two months. Forecasters had issued warnings, yet many residents were simply unaware of the risks of such violent flooding, with dozens found dead in their cellars. With former chancellor Angela Merkel still in charge at the time of the floods, the government pledged a total of €30bn ($30bn) in federal and state aid to help with the reconstruction effort. However, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, only €500mn in aid has been handed out of the total €15bn set aside. In neighbouring North Rhine-Westphalia, €1.6bn of government support has been approved for use, out of a total of €12.3bn. Rhineland-Palatinate state premier Malu Dreyer told residents of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler yesterday that their suffering had not been forgotten. “I can assure you that we are working hard every day to ensure that the reconstruction succeeds for all and we take your concerns very seriously,” she said. The disaster prompted criticism of Germany’s flood warning system and a criminal inquiry was opened into local officials for “negligent homicide”. The government has since pledged to introduce phone alerts in the form of “cell broadcasting” and to reinstall sirens, many of which have been taken down in recent years. It also raised concerns about climate change, with one international study showing that man-made global warming had made the floods up to nine times more likely. A year on, Germany is set for more extreme weather with temperatures of up to 40° Celsius (104° Fahrenheit) expected this week as a heatwave sweeps across Europe. In neighbouring Belgium, where 39 people were also killed in the deluge, King Philippe and Queen Mathilde attended a ceremony in Liege. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo paid tribute to the “heroes” who came to the aid of the victims, including a 14-year-old boy who threw himself into a river in an unsuccessful attempt to save a fellow scout camp member. He vowed yesterday to do more to tackle climate change as he marked the first anniversary of the devastating floods. “One year ago, amidst the worst natural disaster our country has ever known, Belgium witnessed the birth of heroes,” De Croo said at a ceremony to remember the victims, in the eastern city of Liege, which was hard hit by the floods. Paying tribute to residents of the affected towns and the emergency services, De Croo said the disaster should spur more ambitious action to tackle climate change, which scientists blame for increasingly destructive weather around the world. “A year ago we promised ourselves that we would transform the destructive rage of nature into an exceptional force for action … we can and we must go further,” he said. EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said yesterday that he would propose that the EU establishes an annual day of remembrance for people killed by climate change. “We should have a day to commemorate these victims of the climate crisis. We cannot let them become anonymous,” he said.

Wildfires raged across tinder-dry country in Portugal, Spain, France and Croatia yesterday, burning homes and threatening livelihoods, as much of Europe baked in a heatwave that has pushed temperatures into the mid-40° Celsius in some parts. Nations across southern Europe – experiencing the second heatwave in as many months – have been hit by a series of wildfires over the last few weeks. In Portugal’s central Leiria district, tired firefighters battled to control blazes that have been fanned by strong winds. Footage from the area on Wednesday showed smoke darkening the sky and billowing across a highway, while flames licked around the roofs of houses in one small village. “Yesterday was a very tough day,” Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said yesterday as he attended a briefing with the national meteorological institute IPMA. “It is absolutely crucial we avoid new events because it leads to the exhaustion of firefighters and all others ... who are doing their best to control the situation.” The most concerning blaze yesterday was near the town of Pombal, where aircraft and helicopters dropped water on flames that were tearing down a hillside lined with highly flammable pine and eucalyptus trees. “When it gets to the eucalyptus it’s like an explosion,” Antonio, an elderly resident of the nearby village of Gesteira, said as he anxiously watched the approaching flames. Across the border in western Spain, a fire that started in the Extremadura region on Tuesday swept into Salamanca province in the region of Castile and Leon, forcing the evacuation of 49 children from a summer camp yesterday. Regional authorities said more than 4,000 hectares (9,900 acres) of land had been burned. Spain’s meteorological agency AEMET expected the heatwave to reach its peak later, with temperatures likely to exceed 44C (111° Fahrenheit) in large parts of southern Spain. On Croatia’s Adriatic Coast, firefighting planes swooped low to dump water over burning forests, and troops were called in to help firefighters battling to contain three major wildfires around Zadar and Sibenek. Arndt Dreste, 55, had moved to the village of Raslina, near Sibenik, this year, after selling his property in Germany. His house was severely damaged by the fire. “I bought this house in January ... I (am) cut off from Germany and this is my life here ... it was here,” Dreste told Reuters, showing the charred walls of his home. In southwestern France, more than 1,000 firefighters backed by nine water-bombing planes were battling two wildfires that started on Tuesday. The fires have already burnt 5,300 hectares, a figure that has doubled over the past 24 hours. “The situation on the ground is unfavourable, there is the scorching heat and the wind,” Fabienne Buccio, prefect of the Gironde department, told local media. “And, as night is about to fall, we will not be able to use our aerial means.” She also urged tourists planning to vacation in the region to avoid the area for a few days or weeks. One of the two Gironde fires was around the town of Landiras south of Bordeaux, where 2,400 hectares have been burnt, roads closed and 500 residents evacuated. The other blaze, now the biggest with 2,900 hectares, was along the Atlantic Coast, close to the “Dune du Pilat” – the tallest sand dune in Europe – in the Arcachon Bay area, above which heavy clouds of dark smoke were seen rising into the sky. Around 6,000 people were evacuated from surrounding campsites on Wednesday, and another 4,000 people early yesterday. A wildfire also broke out near the southeastern town of Tarascon yesterday, burning several hundred hectares of land. “It’s the first time there is such a severe fire,” in the area, the mayor of Tarascon told reporters. Thousands of people were also evacuated from homes on Turkey’s southwestern Datca peninsula, as a fire that started on Wednesday was fanned by strong winds overnight and threatened residential areas. The forestry minister said the fire had been brought under control yesterday after seven firefighting aircraft and 14 helicopters were deployed to contain it. Scientists blame human-caused climate change for the increased frequency of extreme weather such as heatwaves, which have also hit parts of China and the United States in recent days. A study in the journal Nature last week found the number of heatwaves in Europe has increased three-to-four times faster than in the rest of the northern mid-latitudes, such as the United States and Canada, due in large part to the jet stream air current splitting into two parts for longer periods. “Europe is very much affected by changes in atmospheric circulation,” co-author Kai Kornhuber, a climate scientist at Columbia University, told Reuters. It’s a heatwave hotspot.” Some Europeans welcomed the heat, however. In Catania, on the east coast of Italy’s Sicily, tourists and locals thronged cafes to eat granita, a frozen dessert, and jumped into the sea to cool off. “The heat here is a bit tiring, but I think it’s the least tiring thing we face this year, I put up with it gladly,” said Catania resident Pierpaola.

The Italian head of state has 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. Draghi had announced his plan to resign yesterday after the 5-Star Movement (M5S), a coalition party, declined to back him in a confidence vote over his plan to combat soaring prices. He said the “pact of trust” on which the government was based had been broken, and the conditions to carry on were “no longer there”. The former European Central Bank (ECB) president, 74, said he had made “every effort” to “meet the demands that have been put to me”, but the vote showed “this effort was not enough”. “The national unity coalition that backed this government no longer exists,” said Draghi, who has been prime minister of a broad coalition since February 2021. It was not clear how Draghi would respond to the intervention of Mattarella, the supreme arbiter in Italian politics. The confidence vote had become a focal point for tensions within Draghi’s government as its parties prepare to fight each other in a national election due by early 2023. The M5S had wanted Draghi to do more to help families to cope with rising inflation in part caused by the war in Ukraine, even if it meant a steeper hike in government borrowing. The decision by the M5S to boycott the confidence vote triggered the sequence of events that prompted Draghi to say that he would quit. The M5S, headed by former premier Giuseppe Conte, has been haemorrhaging parliamentarians and support in the polls over policy U-turns and internal divisions. It sat out yesterday’s confidence vote in a move described by experts as a tactical attempt to win back grassroots backing ahead of the scheduled 2023 general election. The confidence vote was called on an aid package worth about €23bn ($23bn), designed to combat rampant inflation. However, it also included a provision to allow a garbage incinerator to be built in Rome – something the M5S has long opposed. The M5S said it could not stomach voting for the incinerator, but still supported Draghi. The crisis could still end with Italians heading to the ballot boxes later this year. The far-right has seized on the tensions, with both the anti-immigrant League – part of Draghi’s coalition – and the opposition Brothers of Italy party saying new elections should be called. However, Draghi could equally find himself back at the head of the exact same coalition, as the M5S has little interest in early elections that could see it perform poorly. Draghi had said he would not want to lead a government without the M5S, which emerged as the largest party in the previous election in 2018 but has since suffered defections and a loss of public support. Mattarella can try to persuade Draghi to form another government, find a new caretaker leader to take Italy to an election next year, or call an early election. Italy has not had an autumn election since World War II as that is normally when the budget is drawn up and approved by parliament.

London’s Metropolitan Police have opened an investigation after British Olympic great Mo Farah made stunning revelations he was illegally trafficked into Britain as a child. The 39-year-old Somalia-born athlete – who won double Olympic gold for his adopted country at both the 2012 and 2016 Games – revealed in a BBC documentary this week his real name is Hussain Abdi Kahin. He said that he was forced to work in domestic servitude after entering the country aged eight or nine. He was not allowed to go to school until the age of 12. “Deciding to speak out and making the film has been a difficult and emotional journey, as I didn’t fully understand what had happened to me,” Farah said about the documentary The Real Mo Farah in a post on Instagram. “But, now that my twins have reached the aged I was when I came here, I felt it was the right time to ask these questions and discover more about my childhood.” “We are aware of reports in the media concerning Sir Mo Farah,” said the Metropolitan Police in a statement yesterday. “No reports have been made to the MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) at this time. Specialist officers have opened an investigation and are currently assessing the available information.” “Where offences are reported in the media which are deemed significant public interest and there is no cause to disbelieve then the Met can create a crime report,” the statement said. Farah was helped to obtain UK citizenship by his physical education teacher at school, Alan Watkinson, while still using the assumed name Mohamed Farah given to him by a woman who trafficked him to Britain. On Wednesday, Farah was assured by the British government he would not be stripped of his citizenship, with a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson describing him as “a sporting hero”. Rather than moving to the UK as a refugee from Somalia with his mother and two of his brothers to join his IT consultant father as previously claimed, Farah said he came from Djibouti with the woman he had never met, and then made to look after another family’s children. In fact, he said, his father was killed in civil unrest in Somalia when Farah was aged four and his mother, Aisha, and two brothers live in the breakaway state of Somaliland. His cousin Harun Aden – who also lives in Somaliland – told The Times that Farah’s father Abdi, a farmer, had been killed by shrapnel from a bazooka and the youngster had been sent to live with an uncle in Djibouti. “Mo was very young and could not work and it was a time of poverty and war,” said Aden. “He was sent to Djibouti to save his life and help his family because they could not care for him.” Aden says he calls Farah by his birth name Hussain: “Mo is like his nickname to us.” Aden – a father of nine who was left disabled after being shot – says Farah has looked after his closest family, paying for their houses with the money he has made during his stellar career. “He supports his mother and siblings,” said Aden. “I haven’t had any money from him but I am not upset about that. He has worked very hard for what he has and it is enough for me that he helps others who need it more.”

A gallery in Scotland said yesterday that it was “thrilled” to announce the discovery of a previously unknown self-portrait of Vincent Van Gogh, with his ear intact, hidden behind another painting. The portrait was found on the back of the canvas of Head of a Peasant Woman, an 1885 work by the Dutch post-Impressionist, covered by layers of glue and cardboard. The gallery said the X-ray showed “a bearded sitter in a brimmed hat with a neckerchief loosely tied at the throat. He fixes the viewer with an intense stare, the right side of his face in shadow and his left ear clearly visible”. It was completed before Van Gogh cut off his left ear in 1888. Visitors to the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh will be able to see it at a forthcoming exhibition, as an X-ray image through a specially designed lightbox. Longer term, curators are working on safely extracting it from the overlaying canvas without damaging the paintings. Lesley Stevenson, senior paintings conservator at the National Galleries, said they were “thrilled to bits” at the find. “When we saw the X-ray for the first time of course we were hugely excited,” she said. “This is a significant discovery because it adds to what we already know about Van Gogh’s life. There is lots to think about with regards to the next steps, but for us it is another little nugget to get us a little bit closer to an incredible artist.” Curators believe the painting, which was only sold after his 1890 death by suicide, is one of a series of experimental self-portraits. Five similar works are displayed at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, painted before he moved to Paris in 1886. Van Gogh, who was unknown and penniless when he died, often painted on both sides of a canvas in order to save money. The main painting was gifted to the gallery in 1960 by Edinburgh lawyer Alexander Maitland, and depicts a local woman from a town in the southern Netherlands where the artist lived from 1883 to 1885. The self-portrait is believed to have disappeared from public view in around 1905, when it was deemed the less finished of the two pieces and had cardboard stuck on it before being framed. The uncovered work is believed to date from the period when Van Gogh first encountered the work of the French impressionists. He later adopted the expressive, colourful style that has made his works among the most famous in the world. The artist suffered from depression, and cut off his ear with a razor shortly before Christmas 1888 after suffering from what the hospital called “acute mania with generalised delirium”. After spending time in an asylum, the 37-year-old shot himself in the chest on July 27, 1890. He was able to walk and find help, but nobody could remove the bullet and he died two days later from an untreated infection. According to his brother Theo, his last words were: “The sadness will last forever.”

Over 20 wildfires raged across Portugal and several burned in western Spain yesterday, menacing villages and disrupting tourists’ holidays amid a heatwave that meteorologists expect to push temperatures into the high 40s Celsius. In France too, about 800 firefighters, supported by six water-bomber aircraft, were battling two wildfires in the southwest, which have already prompted the evacuation of thousands of campers, Gironde prefect Fabienne Buccio said. In Portugal’s southern Algarve region, popular with tourists, authorities blocked access to the Quinta do Lago luxury resort and golf course as thick plumes of smoke rose from an area next to it. “A fire is entering an urban area, with a lot of dry vegetation that, with small sparks, quickly becomes a secondary fire. We are concerned and that is what we are telling to people,” said Richard Marques, a civil protection worker in the area. In the central district of Leiria north of Lisbon, where temperatures soared to 45C (113F), authorities blocked a major motorway. Flames and thick smoke could be seen on both sides of the road, while helicopters and aircraft dropped water. Villagers who have not been evacuated poured water on roofs of their homes. Nearly 800 firefighters were combating two active blazes in the area, while in the whole of mainland Portugal 2,124 firefighters, backed by 28 aircraft, were fighting 24 forest blazes. Nearly all of mainland Portugal was on red alert for extreme heat conditions, with the highest temperatures of 45C in the central Santarem and Leiria districts, the IPMA weather institute said. The country’s record temperature of 47.3C was registered in 2003. More than 2,700 hectares have been burnt so far in France’s Gironde region, prefect Buccio told BFM TV. The biggest of the two fires is around the town of Landiras, south of Bordeaux, where roads have been closed and 500 residents evacuated. The other one is along the Atlantic Coast, close to the iconic “Dune du Pilat” — the tallest sand dune in Europe — located in the Arcachon Bay area, above which heavy clouds of dark smoke were seen rising in the sky. That fire led to the preventive evacuation of 6,000 people from five surrounding campsites. They were taken for shelter to a local exhibition centre. “Other campers woke us up at around 4:30 in the morning. We had to leave immediately and quickly choose what to take with us,” Christelle, one of the evacuated tourists, told BFM TV. On the eve of Bastille Day, the Gironde prefecture has forbidden all fireworks until Monday in towns and villages in close proximity to forests. The World Meteorological Organisation warned on Tuesday the heatwave was spreading and intensifying in large parts of Europe. With human-caused climate change triggering droughts, the number of extreme wildfires is expected to increase 30% within the next 28 years, according to a February 2022 UN report. Searing temperatures also swept across China’s vast Yangtze River basin yesterday; firefighters tackled a forest fire near the tourist town of Datca in Turkey; and power demand in Texas hit an all-time high as consumers cranked up their air conditioners to escape the heat. In Spain’s western region of Extremadura bordering Portugal firefighters evacuated a few hundred villagers overnight as a precaution and continued to battle a blaze that on Tuesday swept into Salamanca province in the region of Castile and Leon. Parts of Extremadura, Andalusia and Galicia regions were on red alert for extreme heat, Spain’s AEMET meteorology service said, adding that temperatures could surpass the previous record of 47.4C for all of Spain set in August 2021, and of 40.7C in the capital Madrid.

A decade ago, Elon Musk proposed a new form of transport that would shoot passengers through vacuum tunnels in levitating pods at almost the speed of sound — he called it “hyperloop”. Since then, cities from Abu Dhabi to Zurich have been touted as destinations, research projects have gobbled up millions of dollars and a host of commercial ventures have sprung up — even Richard Branson got involved. “The transportation network has not had a new mode for over 100 years,” said Rick Geddes, a transport infrastructure expert at Cornell University in the United States, who compared the excitement to the early days of aviation. But nobody has come close to making the hyperloop work. The difficulties have ranged from costs and finding suitable locations, to simply persuading people that travelling through a narrow tunnel at speeds faster than a jet plane is a good idea. Musk’s initial proposal would have been a “barf ride”, transport blogger Alon Levy wrote at the time. Despite all the problems, though, the hyperloop idea still energises university campuses, corporate board rooms and city halls across the world. Hidde de Bos, a 22-year-old engineering student, first heard of it four years ago. His university at Delft in The Netherlands excelled in competitions run by Musk’s SpaceX firm, which invited students to develop pods to fire through vacuum tunnels. “It made me really excited to see what the possibilities were,” he told AFP. He is now chief engineer of Delft Hyperloop, a non-profit university spin-off. De Bos said the SpaceX competitions, which were discontinued in 2019, were too focused on speed and became like “drag races in a tunnel”. Now, his team is taking part in a student-led competition, European Hyperloop Week, which he hopes will refocus on sustainable energy and developing levitation systems. And Musk himself recently gave a jolt to the hyperloop fraternity by tweeting that his tunnelling firm The Boring Company would “attempt to build a working Hyperloop” in the coming years. Musk first mentioned the idea in a 2012 media interview before publishing a white paper about it a year later. But his direct involvement has been sporadic, and he has always encouraged others to develop the idea. Los Angeles-based firm Hyperloop TT, among the first and most enthusiastic firms to run with Musk’s idea, welcomed his return. Rob Miller, the firm’s chief marketing officer, told AFP it was “further validation” for the concept. But he stressed that hyperloop was now much bigger than just one man. Bearing out his point, new proposals have emerged in recent months from local authorities ranging from Italy to India. However, proposals are one thing, and revolutionising public transport is quite another. In its early years, Hyperloop TT signed exploratory deals in India, China and beyond. In 2019, the firm promised a 10km (track would open in the UAE the following year. None of these projects has come to fruition. “We’re a little more cautious now about those types of announcements,” said Miller. Virgin Hyperloop, a firm briefly helmed by Richard Branson but majority-owned by DP World, which runs Dubai’s ports, has also had to scale back its promises. It was the first company to fire humans along a hyperloop test track back in 2020. Branson had mooted a 45-minute journey between London and Scotland. But Virgin Hyperloop recently abandoned the idea of carrying passengers altogether, shed half its staff and is now focused on a potential freight line in UAE. Musk has also promised various hyperloop projects that failed to materialise. Virgin Hyperloop and The Boring Company did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

An enquiry by the French Senate into crowd chaos at this year's Champions League final in Paris concluded that organisers were to blame, not supporters, undermining claims by the police and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. A fact-finding mission led by two senators was set up after the Liverpool-Real Madrid game on May 28 which was marred by a delayed kick-off, crushes, teargas and street crime.   The investigation concluded that the problems were caused by a "string of dysfunctions" including a lack of preparation by French authorities and poorly executed security arrangements. "These dysfunctions were at every level, not only during the implementation but also during preparations in advance," the co-chair of the enquiry Laurent Lafon told reporters at a press conference. The final report contradicted repeated statements from Darmanin that Liverpool fans were mostly responsible, with the minister claiming that up to 40,000 of them travelled to the stadium either with no tickets or with fake ones. "The first statements (by the minister) do not match up with reality," Francois-Noel Buffet, a fellow co-chair of the investigation, told reporters. "The conclusions of the minister on the evening and the day after were not the right ones," Lafon added. "It was a biased conclusion, imprecise." Many Liverpool supporters struggled to travel to the stadium because of a transport strike, then found themselves in bottlenecks and crushes at the stadium entry gates. Faced with the build up of frustrated fans around the Stade de France, police fired tear gas to move the crowd back, affecting many children as well as disabled fans in wheelchairs. After the game, visitors were preyed on by local gangs as they made their way to local transport connections, with many reporting pickpocketing, muggings and threats as the police looked on. The televised events were a national embarrassment and are thought to have influenced parliamentary elections in June when President Emmanuel Macron lost his majority.   - 'Failure' -    Darmanin survived a government reshuffle in May and has since been given extra responsibility as interior minister despite his claims, which caused fury in Liverpool and tensions with the British government. Liverpool football club is particularly sensitive to the scapegoating of its fans after they were falsely blamed for the Hillsborough stadium disaster in Sheffield in 1989. "The role of a commission like ours is not to call for the resignation of someone in the government," Buffet said when asked why the commission had not called for Darmanin to resign. Instead, its final report made a series of recommendations to authorities to improve security arrangements at major sporting events.  France is to host the Rugby World Cup next year and the Olympics in 2024. Authorities have also been under pressure to explain why security camera footage from the stadium was not saved, removing a potentially vital source of information for investigators. "The images will always be missing. That's our biggest regret," Buffet said. Darmanin, a law and order hardliner, issued his first partial apology at the end of June, telling RTL radio: "Should things have been managed better at the Stade de France (stadium)? The answer is yes. Am I partly responsible? The answer is yes." The head of the Paris police, Didier Lallement, admitted during a Senate hearing on June 9 that security operations had been a "failure". But he defended the use of teargas to move fans back from the stadium, saying there was "no other way." The Senate report recommended that the police draw up clearer guidelines for the use of teargas and adopt other crowd-control methods such as greater use of mounted officers and water cannons. France had to organise the Champions League final in record time after offering to host the game in February when it was stripped from Russia following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Kyiv said yesterday it had launched artillery barrages that destroyed a Russian arms depot and carried out a “special operation” to free military captives in the Moscow-controlled Kherson region. The bombardments in the south came as Washington and the EU announced nearly $3bn combined for Ukraine. After Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday passed a decree fast-tracking Russian passports for all Ukrainians, Ukraine’s breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic yesterday unveiled its “embassy” in central Moscow. Top Russian officials did not attend the ceremony amid a beefed-up police presence.       Earlier Ukrainian military officials said the strikes had destroyed artillery, armoured vehicles “and a warehouse with ammunition” in the town of Nova Kakhovka. Russian-backed authorities accused Ukraine, however, of damaging civilian infrastructure and killing at least seven people, a toll that could not be independently verified. “Warehouses were hit, as were shops, a pharmacy, petrol stations and even a church,” the head of the city’s Moscow-backed administration, Vladimir Leontiev, said on social media. Ukrainian military intelligence said separately its forces had freed five captives in a “special operation” in Kherson, including a military serviceman and former police officer, without specifying when. The Ukrainian army has for several weeks been waging a counter-offensive to recapture Kherson, which was taken by Russian troops early in the invasion of Ukraine. The deputy head of the pro-Russian authorities in Kherson, Ekaterina Gubareva, said Ukraine had used long-range, precision artillery systems supplied by the United States in the strikes in Nova Kakhovka. EU member states, which have been supplying Ukraine with military support, yesterday approved €1bn ($1bn) in financial help for Kyiv, billing it as the first instalment of a promised €9bn rescue package agreed in May. The US separately announced $1.7bn for Ukraine to help fund recovery. “This aid will help Ukraine’s democratic government provide essential services for the people of Ukraine,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said of the funds that are part of a $7.5bn aid package signed by President Joe Biden in May. Moscow was striking back across Ukraine, with officials in the southern city of Mykolaiv saying Russian forces had bombed two medical facilities and homes, injuring 12 people. Five people were injured in Russian shelling on Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, said regional governor Oleg Synegubov, after strikes the previous day left seven dead across that region. “The front is getting closer,” said municipal official, Dmytro Podkuyidko, estimating that more than one-third of the town’s population of 73,000 have fled. “If it gets worse, I’ll end up leaving too,” Podkuyidko said. Turkey announced meanwhile that Russian and Ukrainian delegations had agreed to meet in Istanbul yesterday for talks to break an impasse on allowing Ukrainian grain to leave its southern ports which are mined and blocked by Russian warships. The four-way meeting with Turkish officials and the United Nations comes as food prices soar globally due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Unblocking Ukrainian ports is one of the key components of global food security,” Ukrainian presidential aide Andryi Yermak said on Telegram. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is due to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin for the first time since the invasion at talks hosted by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran next Tuesday.

French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday acknowledged having held discussions with Uber executives when he was economy minister from 2014-2016, insisting he was proud of what he had achieved. “I’m extremely proud... it’s difficult to create jobs without companies and without entrepreneurs,” the Macron told reporters in southeast France. “I would do it again tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.” The pro-business centrist came under fire from opponents on Monday following investigations in Le Monde and The Guardian newspapers, which revealed repeated discussions between Macron and Uber over the group’s operations in France. Le Monde said Macron had been “more than a supporter, almost a partner” to the controversial US-based firm by offering to help with lobbying efforts to shape legislation and get around restrictive French regulation. “We are creating a sort of atmosphere in which seeing the heads of companies, in particular foreign ones, is a bad thing. But I acknowledge it completely,” Macron said on the sidelines of an event in Crolles. “I’ve seen the heads of companies. What a shock! I saw them, it was always official, with my aides, and I’m proud. If they created jobs in France, then I’m super proud of that.” The newspapers said some of the meetings with Uber executives were not recorded in Macron’s official diary and took place without the knowledge of other members of the Socialist government of the day. The president, 44, finished by stressing he was unperturbed by the revelations, using a vulgar expression popularised by the late president Jacques Chirac. Daniele Simonnet, an MP from the hard-left France Unbowed party, criticised Macron’s choice of language. “If that’s innovation, then it’s lamentable from a president,” she said. “The reaction from the head of state is shameful because it means he acknowledges being a salesman for Uber, of being at the service of lobbies rather than at the service of our country. The former investment banker took an openly pro-Uber position while minister, despite sometimes violent protests against the firm by taxi drivers and multiple investigations by the authorities into the group’s business and tax practices. Macron defended the group at the time for providing employment for people in low-income areas and breaking the monopoly on licences held by taxi companies. “We helped taxi drivers a huge amount during the (Covid 19) crisis,” Macron said yesterday. “I have always respected this profession, but we had a system that was administratively closed. We didn’t give enough licences.” Left-wing opposition parties confirmed yesterday that they would seek a parliamentary inquiry into Macron’s contacts with the group, which some in France see as a symbol of aggressive, rule-breaking American capitalism. The Canard Enchaine newspaper reported that in private Macron had dismissed the media investigations as “empty” and suggested pushing back against the allegations which he said showed “no illegality”. Some aides were alarmed, however, because the reports risked reinforcing his reputation as “the president of the rich”, the paper added. His critics taxed him with this label after he cut income taxes for the wealthy shortly after coming to power. At the event in Crolles yesterday to mark a €5.7bn ($5.8bn) investment in a new semiconductor factory, Macron said his government had succeeded in attracting investors and encouraging investment. “The first thing that I want to state is that we have put an end to the slow de-industrialisation of France,” he said. “We are reopening industrial sites. We are opening more than we close. We’re creating manufacturing jobs. “Why? Because we made the right macroeconomic choices,” he said.

Queen Elizabeth II has awarded the George Cross to the state-run National Health Service (NHS) for its work over the past 74 years and praised its coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccine rollout. The George Cross is the highest non-military award for gallantry bestowed by the British government. The Queen presented the medal to health leaders from across the UK. They were joined at the ceremony by frontline workers, who nursed the country through the pandemic. The latter included May Parsons, the nurse who delivered the first shot of the world’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout. The nurse told the Queen: “We’re terribly, terribly proud of the vaccination roll-out.” “Yes, it was amazing,” she replied. Britain was the first country in the world to deploy an approved Covid-19 vaccine. The 96-year-old head of state was joined by her son and heir Prince Charles at the ceremony in Windsor Castle, the Queen’s residence west of London. She has stepped back from public duties since a bout of ill health last year left her with mobility issues but she appeared well yesterday, albeit in need of a walking stick. Michael Vernon, the royal official responsible for organising ceremonial events, praised the NHS for the work it has done since it was founded in 1948. “Over more than seven decades, and especially in recent times, you have supported the people of our country with courage, compassion and dedication, demonstrating the highest standards of public service,” he told the ceremony. “You have our enduring thanks and heartfelt appreciation.”

Eight Conservatives will fight it out to succeed Boris Johnson as party leader and British prime minister after winning enough nominations from their colleagues to go through to the first round of voting today. Johnson is staying on in Downing Street as prime minister until the internal party contest finds his successor. Only two hopefuls failed to win the 20 necessary nominations, leaving a wide field of candidates seeking to win the backing of the party with promises of tax cuts, honesty and serious government, in a contrast to Johnson who was forced to announce he would resign after a series of scandals. Those failing to get 30 votes in today’s vote will be eliminated. Former finance minister Rishi Sunak is the bookmakers’ favourite, and among those he will be taking on are his successor Nadhim Zahawi and the foreign minister, Liz Truss, in what is becoming an increasingly testy and divisive contest. Sunak, 42, and health minister Sajid Javid quit last week in protest at Johnson’s scandal-hit administration, setting off a wave of government resignations that forced him to step down as Conservative leader. The next British leader faces a daunting in-tray while support for the Conservatives is also falling, polls show. Britain’s economy is facing rocketing inflation, high debt, and low growth, with people grapple with the tightest squeeze on their finances in decades, all set against a backdrop of an energy crunch exacerbated by the war in Ukraine which has sent fuel prices soaring. As the contest heated up, rival campaigns stepped up private criticism of each other and pointed to either financial or other questions hanging over their opponents. Sunak kicked off his campaign by portraying himself as the serious candidate, promising “grown up” honesty “not fairy tales”, seeking to contrast himself with the extensive tax cuts pledged by most of the other candidates. “It is not credible to promise lots more spending and lower taxes,” Sunak said, adding that tax cuts could only come after soaring inflation was tackled. As finance minister, Sunak set Britain on course to have its biggest tax burden since the 1950s, and most of the other hopefuls have turned their fire on him by saying they would oversee cuts immediately. The former finance minister has the widest support among colleagues who have publicly expressed their view. Sunak has refused to distance himself from Johnson’s administration, in which he played a key role supporting businesses and workers during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. He called Johnson “one of the most remarkable people I’ve met”. “Whatever some commentators may say, he has a good heart,” he told cheering supporters, after one Johnson ally accused Sunak of being a treacherous “snake”. “I will have no part in a rewriting of history that seeks to demonise Boris, exaggerate his faults or deny his efforts,” he added. Penny Mordaunt, a junior trade minister who is also heavily tipped, topped a poll of Conservative members on Monday and she too has tried to strike a more measured tone on tax, saying that while she would cut taxes: “I will pioneer sound money.” “I am a small state, low tax conservative, but I also believe we need to use the levers of government to support jobs and livelihoods through difficult economic situations,” she wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper. Attorney-General Suella Braverman, the former health minister Jeremy Hunt, Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the foreign affairs committee, and Kemi Badenoch, a former junior minister who is scooping up support on the right-wing of the party, were among other candidates to enter the first round of the contest. Foreign Secretary Truss received the backing yesterday of two ministers closest to Johnson – Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg – who have both been critical of Sunak. Home Secretary Priti Patel – who like Truss is a favourite of the Tory right – was rumoured to be about to join the fray but ruled out a bid. After days of sniping among leading contenders, Patel expressed hope “the contest will be conducted in a good spirit that brings our party together”. The 1922 Committee of Conservative members of parliament, which is organising the contest, says the field will soon be whittled down with repeated votes in coming weeks, with the final two then selected by the fewer than 200,000 members by July 21. The winner, and Britain’s new prime minister, will be announced on September 5. Meanwhile the opposition Labour Party said the government had blocked its attempt to call a confidence vote in Johnson today to force him from office immediately. The government said that it would allow Labour to call a confidence vote if the wording of the motion was changed to remove reference to Johnson. Labour leader Keir Starmer had said that by their actions last week, the Tories had “concluded that the prime minister is unfit for office”. Labour wanted the vote for today, but the Daily Telegraph reported that the government has refused time to debate the motion. “As the prime minister has already resigned and a leadership process is underway, we do not feel this is a valuable use of parliamentary time,” the paper cited a government source as saying. “Should Labour amend their motion appropriately, they can have the next business day for it to be debated.”

British primatologist Jane Goodall has got a Barbie in her likeness, fulfilling a longtime wish of having her own doll to inspire young girls. Mattel Incorporated unveiled the new Barbie, which the toymaker says is made from recycled plastic, as part of its “Inspiring Women Series”, nodding to Goodall’s groundbreaking studies of chimpanzees and conservation efforts. Dressed in a khaki shirt and shorts and holding a notebook, Goodall’s doll has a pair of binoculars around her neck and David Greybeard by her side, a replica of the first chimpanzee to trust the primatologist as she conducted her research at Gombe National Park, in what is now Tanzania in east Africa. “I wanted a doll to be me even before this idea came up. I’ve seen ... little girls playing with Barbie dolls and certainly at the beginning, they were all very girly-girly and I thought little girls need ... some choice,” Goodall told Reuters. “Mattel has changed its range of dolls and there’s all kinds of astronauts and doctors and things like that,” she said. “So many children learn about me at school. They’ll be thrilled to have the Barbie doll.” Goodall, 88, began her research in east Africa in 1960, observing that chimpanzees make tools, hunt and eat meat and show compassion among other traits. Mattel said it would also partner with the Jane Goodall Institute and her youth service movement Roots & Shoots to help teach children about their environmental impact. “I see us at the mouth of a very long, very dark tunnel with a little shining star at the end and it’s no good sitting at the mouth of the tunnel and saying ‘Oh, I hope that star comes to us’. Hope is about action,” Goodall said. “We ... work around all these obstacles between us and the star, which is climate change, loss of biodiversity, poverty, unsustainable lifestyles, pollution, you name it,” she added. “And as we go along the tunnel, we reach out to others because there are people working on each one of these problems but so often they’re working in silos.”

Turkey said it will host Russian and Ukrainian delegations together with UN diplomats on Wednesday to discuss the resumption of stalled grain deliveries across the Black Sea. The four-way meeting with Turkish officials comes as food prices soar around the world due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine is one of the world's biggest exporters of wheat and other grain. But its shipments have blocked by Russian warships and mines that Kyiv has laid across the Black Sea. NATO member Turkey has been spearheading efforts to resume the grain deliveries. Turkish officials say they have 20 merchant ships waiting in the Black Sea that could be loaded quickly with Ukrainian grain. Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar announced the meeting in a statement on Tuesday, but did not specify who will represent each side. "Military delegations from the Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian defence ministries, and a delegation of the United Nations, will hold talks tomorrow in Istanbul on the safe shipment to international markets of grain waiting in Ukrainian ports," Akar said. A Russian foreign ministry spokesman confirmed the meeting but also insisted that Moscow had a list of demands. "Another round of expert consultations is planned for July 13 in Istanbul," ministry spokesman Pyotr Ilyichev was quoted as saying by Russia's Interfax news agency. "Our understandable conditions include the possibility to control and search the ship to avoid the contraband of weapons, and Kyiv's commitment not to stage provocations," Ilyichev said.   - Erdogan-Putin talks -   Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has tried to use his good working relations with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and the Western-backed leaders in Kyiv to thrust Ankara into the centre of negotiations about Ukraine. Erdogan is due to meet Putin for the first time since Russia's invasion when the two leaders are hosted by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran next Tuesday. The talks are officially due to focus on the situation in war-ravaged Syria. But the Kremlin said Putin and Erdogan will also hold a separate meeting that is almost certain to focus heavily on Ukraine. Turkey has been sending defence delegations to both Moscow and Kyiv in a bid to break the deadlock over Ukraine's grain. A plan proposed by the United Nations would see the shipments start along specific corridors that avoid known locations of mines. Ukraine has refused to de-mine the area out of fear that Russia might then stage an amphibious assault on cities such as the Black Sea port of Odessa.

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne yesterday comfortably survived a motion of no-confidence brought against her by a broad alliance of left-wing opponents. An official vote count showed 146 lawmakers voted in support of the motion. The motion required an absolute majority of 289 votes to precipitate the government’s fall. While the outcome was in little doubt, it was meant as a show of intent by the Nupes alliance — the largest bloc in opposition to Emmanuel Macron’s centrist ‘Ensemble!’ grouping — to make the president’s life difficult in parliament. But as the Nupes alliance is made up of 151 MPs, it meant that five of them chose not to vote the motion of no-confidence, something that could be interpreted as a positive sign by Borne and her government. “We should be debating the issues the French are facing, this non-confidence vote is unfair”, the prime minister told the parliament just before the vote. “This non-confidence vote is just political tactics (...) Let’s switch together to a culture of compromise,” she added. After enjoying a comfortable majority in the lower house during his first mandate, newly re-elected Macron lost his absolute majority in parliament in June’s legislative elections and can no longer count on the chamber to rubber stamp his reform agenda. Instead Macron and his government are faced with negotiating legislation on a bill-by-bill basis, taking a degree of control of the process out of his hands. The no-confidence motion had been expected to fail after the conservative Les Republicains party and Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National said they would abstain. “You are, Mrs Borne, a democratic anomaly (...) you have no legitimacy, nor politic neither parliamentarian,” said Mathilde Panot, head of The France Unbowed group, the main component of the Nupes alliance, in the Assembly. “Those who won’t vote this no-confidence motion will be supporters of your policies,” she added before the vote. Now that the no-confidence motion is out the way, the parliament will soon start discussing the €20bn ($20.13bn) inflation-relief package unveiled last week by the government.

The remains of 50 victims of the Srebrenica genocide were laid to rest yesterday as thousands of people commemorated the 27th anniversary of the atrocity, which most Serbs and their leaders still refuse to recognise in ethnically divided Bosnia. After a joint prayer, the remains of more recently identified victims of Europe’s worst massacre since World War II were buried alongside 6,671 others in a joint funeral at a memorial site, just outside the ill-fated town. They included Samir and Semir Hasanovic, 19-year-old twin brothers of Sebiba Avdic who also lost her husband, father, another brother and several other close relatives in the atrocity. “All I had is here,” Avdic said in tears pointing her hand towards the graves with white tombstones. Some 8,000 Muslim men and boys from Srebrenica were killed by Bosnian Serbs forces in July 1995, after they captured the eastern town. It was an act of genocide under international law. “I cannot speak any more. I turned into a stone,” said Avdic who now lives with her daughter in Switzerland. “My pain is intense, as if only 27 days have passed not 27 years... Once I had a family, now I have nothing”, she sobbed. The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell and enlargement commissioner Oliver Varhelyi paid tribute to the Srebrenica dead at a time when the Russian invasion of Ukraine shows “still today we cannot take peace for granted”. “It is more than ever our duty to remember the genocide of Srebrenica... to stand up to defend peace, human dignity and universal values. “In Srebrenica, Europe failed and we are faced with our shame,” they said in a statement ahead of the ceremony. The discovery of skeletal remains from the massacre have become rare in recent years, even though some 1,200 people have still not been found, according to the Missing Persons Institute of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

French President Emmanuel Macron was under pressure yesterday to explain his past support for taxi app Uber while he was economy minister, following media revelations that have been seized on by critics. According to investigations by media including France’s Le Monde newspaper and Britain’s The Guardian, Macron held several undeclared meetings with Uber executives while minister from 2014-2016. Citing leaked internal documents and text messages, Le Monde also alleged that Uber struck a secret “deal” with Macron on regulation of the company’s services at a time when it was upending the traditional taxi market. Opposition MPs on the left and far-right slammed the president, a former investment banker who positioned himself as a pro-enterprise, pro-innovation politician when named as economy minister. Macron was “a lobbyist at the service of foreign private economic interests,” senior far-right MP Sebastien Chenu told France Info radio yesterday morning. The 44-year-old president was “an ideologue for deregulation, for globalisation,” Chenu added. Hard-left MP Alexis Corbiere from the France Unbowed party suggested a parliamentary enquiry, which could prove embarrassing for the 44-year-old leader who lost his majority in the National Assembly last month. “It’s very serious the idea that with this secret pact Mr Macron de-regulated the regulation of the taxi industry,” he told Public Senat television. “What lessons should be drawn? “Obviously, we’ll ask the questions to the government when we can, and a parliamentary enquiry as well,” he added. According to the reports, the “secret deal” entailed Macron promising to help Uber work around legislation introduced in 2014 which sought to regulate the new app-based taxi hailing services. Le Monde described Macron as “more than a supporter, almost a partner” for Uber over the course of 17 meetings held by him or his staff with company executives. At the time, the firm faced multiple legal enquiries over its business practices which undercut French labour law and caused sometimes violent protests from traditional taxi drivers. Macron’s agenda yesterday included a meeting with the heads of multinational investors in France at the annual “Choose France” summit at the Versailles chateau outside Paris. The biggest announcement was a €5.7bn ($5.8bn) investment by French-Italian chipmaker STMicroelectronics and US-based GlobalFoundries. Around 180 executives are expected, more than in previous years which demonstrated “the very strong interest from foreign bosses after the president’s re-election,” an aide said. Contacted by AFP, Uber France confirmed that the company had been in contact with Macron during his time as minister. The meetings had been in the normal course of his ministerial duties, which covered the private-hire sector, it said. The president’s office told AFP that at that time Macron had “naturally” been in contact with “many companies involved in the profound change in services that has occurred over the years mentioned, which should be facilitated by unravelling certain administrative or regulatory locks”. Macron was a vocal and public supporter of Uber when it arrived in France — contrary to many colleagues in the Socialist government of the time. He defended it as providing employment for people in low-income areas and as a means of breaking the monopoly held by taxi companies. “Go to Stains (a deprived area north of Paris) and tell young people there who are willingly working for Uber that it would be better to do nothing or deal drugs,” Macron argued in an interview with Mediapart in 2016. He also found support yesterday among people who remembered the long waits for taxis in Paris and other cities, as well as drivers who refused to take bank cards as payment. “Fortunately there were ministers and elected figures who questioned all this,” Herve Joly, a sociologist from the CNRS research group, wrote on Twitter. The Uber Files investigation is based on a leak of tens of thousands of documents to Britain’s Guardian newspaper from an anonymous source, and has been co-ordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Around 1,5000 firefighters were battling multiple forest fires and several bush fires in central and northern Portugal yesterday following a punishing heatwave, prompting the government to implement a “state of contingency”. The fires have been burning in several areas since Thursday, destroying at least two homes, as nearly 250 fires were reported to have started on Friday and Saturday. The blazes follow an intense heatwave in Portugal, with temperatures reaching over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) this week, and expected to rise in the coming days. Scientists say climate change is linked to more extreme and more frequent weather events, including heatwaves and forest fires. The Portuguese government issued a national “state of contingency” as the latest fires raged yesterday, which puts rescue personnel on alert. It is above state of alert, but beneath state of calamity and state of emergency. The Civil Protection agency said there were some 1,500 firefighters battling blazes in Ourem, Pombal and Carrazeda de Ansiaes municipalities. In the hamlet of Travessa de Almogadel in central Portugal, pensioner Donzilia Marques was relived to find her house was not damaged as she returned yesterday after being evacuated the night before. “The fire arrived 50m (165 feet) from the last house in the village... up there everything burned,” the 76-year-old told AFP, pointing to the hills between home and the town of Freixianda. More than 700 soldiers were dispatched to the area Sunday after the fires destroyed some 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) of vegetation, the Civil Protection agency estimated. The fires have injured a dozen firefighters and about 20 civilians, but most were treated on the spot for breathing problems or exhaustion. Prime Minister Antonio Costa cancelled a planned trip to Mozambique to follow the fires at home. The government has asked the European Union to activate its common civil protection mechanism, which will allow Portugal to access two water bomber planes stationed in Spain. “We are facing an almost unprecedented situation in meteorological terms”, national commander of civil protection, Andre Fernandes, said on Saturday.

At plants painted with birds and hedgehogs, hot water from deep underground is being channelled to produce energy and heat for thousands of households in Hungary’s third largest city Szeged. Experts say the project — billed as Europe’s biggest urban heating system overhaul — can serve as a model for other cities across the continent as EU nations scramble to wean themselves off Russian gas after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. “Geothermal energy is local, accessible and renewable so why not use it,” geologist Tamas Medgyes told AFP beside a recently completed well in the middle of a residential neighbourhood. The city of 160,000 people, located some 170km south of Budapest, is one of 12 in the landlocked central European country with geothermal district heating. When the system is fully built out next year, 27 wells and 16 heating plants will push geothermally heated water through 250km of pipes to heat 27,000 flats and 400 non-residential consumers. This will make it Europe’s biggest geothermal urban heating system outside of Iceland. But unlike in the Icelandic capital, Szeged’s heating systems were built to run on gas. EU member Hungary covers 65% of its oil needs and 80% of its gas needs with imports from Russia. “This housing project was built in the 1980s. Since then we have burnt millions of cubic metres of imported Russian gas to heat cold water in these apartments,” Medgyes said. But now, “we drilled down and got the hot water beneath our feet,” he said about the project, whose cost of more than €50mn euros ($51mn) is partially covered by EU funds. He added the project can be a “blueprint” for cities in parts of France, Germany, Italy or Slovakia that are rich in geothermal deposits. Experts says geothermal energy is an underutilised source of renewable heat in Europe. “The geothermal urban heating development in Szeged is an easy-to-adopt example in many regions of Europe,” said Ladislaus Rybach, an expert at the Institute of Geophysics in Zurich, Switzerland. Lajos Kerekes of the Regional Centre of Energy Policy Research told AFP that more than 25% of the EU’s population lives in areas suitable for geothermal district heating. Long before the Ukraine war, Balazs Kobor, director at Szeged heating firm Szetav, began exploring how cities can use geothermal energy and “knocking on doors of decision-makers”. In 2015, the city municipality appointed him and Medgyes to initiate the integration of renewables into district heating. “To heat the city annually the firm was burning 30mn cubic metres of gas and producing around 55,000 tonnes of carbon emissions every year,” said Kobor. “The city itself was its biggest carbon emitter,” he added. Replacing gas by geothermal energy will slash the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60% — around 35,000 tonnes — annually, according to Kobor. If similar small-to-medium-sized cities switched their district heating to geothermal it would be “a major step towards a carbon neutral, sustainable Europe,” he said. Surrounded by the Carpathian and Alps mountain ranges, Hungary and especially the area around Szeged forms a basin where 92-93 degree Celsius (198-199 degree Fahrenheit) hot water collects as deep as 2,000m (6,600 feet) below ground. In facilities adjacent to the wells, “heat exchangers” comprising hundreds of metal panels transfer the heat to water in pipeline circuits that serve different neighbourhoods. The geothermal water itself does not enter the circuits but re-enters the earth through a “reinjection” well nearby, explained Medgyes. In another neighbourhood, a noisy drill is gradually working its way deeper and deeper into the ground, adding sections of pipe as it goes. The drilling period takes around three months, said Medgyes. And while residents can see and hear the drills as they work, after the work is done, they don’t notice the change of heat source in their homes. “The radiators and tap water are as warm as before. I don’t feel any difference,” Gabriella Maar Pallo, a 50-year-old clerk, told AFP in her nearby apartment.

Every 10-20 minutes a train rolls into Bradford’s main station. On the platform, the driver gets out and walks to the other end of the carriages before continuing the journey. The time-consuming routine occurs daily because Bradford – England’s sixth biggest city – has no through-station, forcing trains to reverse to continue along the line. Regional leaders have long demanded a solution to shortcomings in infrastructure like this one, which highlight the wealth gap between places in the north like Bradford and more affluent areas in the south. When Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a landslide election in 2019 vowing to “level up” places like Bradford, it appeared poised to happen. However, two years later his government announced rail modernisation plans without the planned through-station on a proposed high-speed line between nearby Manchester and Leeds – disappointing locals. More modest upgrades were eventually approved instead. It fuelled suspicions Johnson could not be trusted over the pledge. “I was just really disappointed,” said Mandy Ridyard, finance director at Produmax, a Bradford-based aerospace engineering firm eager for better connectivity to attract workers. “We’re asking for what the rest of Europe and the south (of England) expect,” she told AFP. “We’re trying to catch up. So not investing ... is madness really because there’s such an opportunity.” In 2019, Johnson’s “levelling up” pledge helped his Conservatives win in more deprived, post-industrial parts of central and northern England traditionally held by the main opposition Labour party. However, critics argue there has been little tangible progress since, with some analyses showing the situation worsening. Fresh doubt was sown this week when Johnson sacked the minister in charge of delivering the policy, before himself quitting as ruling party leader. Mike Cartwright, of West Yorkshire’s chamber of commerce, called “levelling up” a “wonderful catchphrase or slogan” – but said that there was a lack of material action. A much-anticipated government policy paper last year was a “missed opportunity” and the region felt “short-changed” so far, he said, praising the ambition but emphasising the importance of outcomes. The Labour leader of the city council, Susan Hinchcliffe, agreed. She emphasised that investment in places like Bradford was key “if levelling up is to mean anything”. Bradford and surrounding towns have received some extra resources, including “levelling up funds” and being designated an “education investment area”. The wider West Yorkshire region also got its own directly elected mayor last year and is set for further devolution. However, as London in May saw the opening of a new £18.9bn ($22.7bn) cross-city rail line, Bradford locals are furious at their cancelled project. “It just felt a bit like we’ve got forgotten about again,” said Josie Barlow, a food bank manager who received a levelling up grant to help buy the building it operates from. She added they were “really grateful” for the £225,000 but that the city needed bigger infrastructure investment. Bradford – once a wool-producing powerhouse – is now the fifth most income-deprived city nationwide, the government’s last poverty index in 2019 showed. In Redcar, 70 miles (110km) northeast of Bradford, levelling up funds have helped refurbish housing previously plagued by crime. Clare Harrigan, development director of Beyond Housing, which rents out many of the low-rise properties, called the £711,000 grant “the green shoots” of levelling up. “This is just an example of where it has made a difference,” she told AFP. Sandra Cottrell, 64, who has lived in the Church Lane Estate for decades, said that it had become “a mess”, and the wider region had been neglected by successive governments. “We were living in squalor until all this started,” she said, as workers fitted insulation and landscaped the grounds. Despite the new investment, and ambitious plans to turn the nearby Teesside Steelworks into a hub for industries including offshore wind, Cottrell is sceptical of Johnson’s lofty aims. “I don’t believe anything he says,” she told AFP, mirroring countless polls showing most Britons now mistrust him after lockdown-breaking parties at Downing Street. “I just think he talks a load of rubbish.” Johnson will soon be talking as a former prime minister. Whether his signature policy lives on remains to be seen.