France Braces for Record Temperatures

Philippe Huguen, AFP | France braces for another heatwave weeks after the mercury touched record levels in southern France.
Philippe Huguen, AFP | France braces for another heatwave weeks after the mercury touched record levels in southern France.
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France Braces for Record Temperatures

Philippe Huguen, AFP | France braces for another heatwave weeks after the mercury touched record levels in southern France.
Philippe Huguen, AFP | France braces for another heatwave weeks after the mercury touched record levels in southern France.

France was bracing Monday for the peak of the heatwave gripping the country, with crushing temperatures expected from the Mediterranean as far up as Brittany in the northwest.

Forecasters have put 15 departments across the country on the highest state of alert for extreme temperatures, including Gironde in the southwest where forest fires have already wrought havoc, AFP said.

In the Landes forest, in the southwest Aquitaine region, temperatures "will be above 42 degrees Celsius" (107 Fahrenheit) said forecaster Olivier Proust.

And Brittany, which until recently has escaped the worst of the heat, could register temperatures as high as 40 degrees Celsius, (104 Fahrenheit), say experts, which would be a record for the region.

The increasing number of extreme weather events is the direct consequence of global warming, as greenhouse gases increase their intensity, length and frequency, say scientists.

The intense heatwave has already caused multiple forest fires in France and elsewhere, and some farmers have taken to working at night to minimize the risk of a spark from their harvesting equipment starting a fire that destroys their crops.

By late Sunday, the fires in Gironde, which have been raging since Tuesday, had already destroyed 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres), driven by high winds and forcing the evacuation of 16,200 holidaymakers, fire service officials said.

- 'Red alert' heat warnings -
The blaze at the Teste-de-Buch forest in southwestern France has arrived at the beach and was moving south, said the local prefecture. Video shot by people at the scene showed the massive fire consuming the beach at La Lagune, near the famous the Dune of Pilat -- Europe's tallest sand dune.

France's interior ministry announced it was sending three more firefighting aircraft to reinforce the six already operating in the region as well as 200 more firefighters and more equipment.

But the crews fighting the blaze will have to contend with soaring temperatures Monday. It is one of the regions on a "red alert" heatwave warning.

"In certain zones in the southwest, it will be an apocalypse of heat," forecaster Francois Gourand of Meteo-France told AFP.

Temperatures across France are expected to be over 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) but between 38 and 40 degrees in the western half of the country.

Officials in several regions meanwhile, have also issued pollution alerts because of the high concentrations of ozone.

The heatwave is gripping much of western Europe, with high temperatures and forest fires in Spain and Portugal.

Britain's Met Office has issued a first-ever "red" warning for extreme heat, cautioning there is a "risk to life" and attributing the heatwave to man-made climate change.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."