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Schools Closed as Indonesia Battles Wildfires

Smoke billows over an area affected by wildfire at Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park, which was closed for all tourist activities for an undetermined duration, in Probolinggo, East Java province, Indonesia, August 9, 2026. (Reuters)
Smoke billows over an area affected by wildfire at Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park, which was closed for all tourist activities for an undetermined duration, in Probolinggo, East Java province, Indonesia, August 9, 2026. (Reuters)
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Schools Closed as Indonesia Battles Wildfires

Smoke billows over an area affected by wildfire at Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park, which was closed for all tourist activities for an undetermined duration, in Probolinggo, East Java province, Indonesia, August 9, 2026. (Reuters)
Smoke billows over an area affected by wildfire at Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park, which was closed for all tourist activities for an undetermined duration, in Probolinggo, East Java province, Indonesia, August 9, 2026. (Reuters)

Dozens of Indonesian schools were shuttered for a second day Tuesday against the spreading haze of wildfires plaguing the archipelago at the start of a long and intense dry season worsened by El Nino.

In West Kalimantan on the island of Borneo that Indonesia shares with Malaysia and Brunei, the mayor of Pontianak ordered schools closed due to the smoke wafting over the city from fires elsewhere, reported AFP.

Public records show Pontianak has tens of thousands of public school pupils.

Children will learn from home for as long as air quality remains poor, mayor Edi Rusdi Kamtono said in a statement Monday, without stating how many schools were affected.

"We have started to feel it, especially at night and in the morning, as haze has already blanketed the city of Pontianak," he said.

On the island of Java, firefighters battled flames for a ninth day at a national park that has lost 900 hectares to an inferno that broke out on Monday last week.

The blaze at the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park, a major tourist attraction closed to visitors since Saturday, is one of several wildfires that have drawn in nearly 50,000 firefighters countrywide.

Indonesia is forecast to experience an unusually tough dry season this year with high risk for drought and wildfires due in part to the El Nino weather phenomenon, the BMKG weather agency has said.

More than 107,000 hectares of land have burnt countrywide so far this year.

Authorities insist that food stocks remain adequate.

- Hot July -

The fire at the Bromo park in East Java has consumed nearly 900 hectares, or more than 2,200 acres, by Tuesday morning.

This is equivalent to over 1,200 football fields and nearly two percent of the total park area.

"We're making our best effort and mobilizing everything... to extinguish and wet-down the area," local disaster official Satriyo Nurseno told AFP.

"We hope that today we can put out the fire in all areas, then carry out soaking so that the fire does not reignite."

Three water-bombing helicopters and fire trucks were providing support to about 200 firefighters, forest rangers, police and soldiers helping to put out the blaze.

According to the BNPB disaster agency, more than 48,000 personnel have been deployed to fight fires in six provinces.

And Security Minister Djamari Chaniago said Monday Indonesia has deployed 43 helicopters and up to 15 fixed-wing planes for cloud seeding where needed.

The process involves spraying particles such as silver iodide and salt from aircraft to produce rainfall, but depends on clouds being present.

As Indonesia braces for the worst effects of El Nino, the BMKG said the average air temperature in July was 27C -- higher than the 26.2C average.

It was the highest such jump for July since 1991.

El Nino is a naturally occurring climate phenomenon that brings worldwide changes in winds, air pressure and rainfall patterns.

In India and Southeast Asia, it typically causes drier conditions.

The last El Nino helped make 2023 and 2024 the two hottest years globally on record.

The land lost to wildfires in Indonesia so far this year is double the area burnt in 2023.

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World

Ukraine Says Russia Fired N. Korean Missiles in Deadly Attack

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a Russian attack on a residential area in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, 11 August 2026. (EPA)
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a Russian attack on a residential area in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, 11 August 2026. (EPA)
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Ukraine Says Russia Fired N. Korean Missiles in Deadly Attack

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a Russian attack on a residential area in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, 11 August 2026. (EPA)
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a Russian attack on a residential area in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, 11 August 2026. (EPA)

Russian attacks across Ukraine killed at least nine people overnight and wounded dozens, Kyiv said Tuesday, accusing Moscow of launching North Korean missiles in the raid.

The allegation comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned -- without providing evidence -- that Moscow was receiving more ballistic projectiles and troops from its ally Pyongyang.

Russia has turned to North Korea for support throughout its four-and-a-half-year invasion.

Earlier in the war, Pyongyang dispatched thousands of troops to help Russia fight back a Ukrainian counterattack into its western Kursk region.

Intelligence from the West, Kyiv and Seoul, has long accused North Korea of supplying weapons to Russia.

The southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia was worst hit in Russia's latest overnight barrage, with six people killed and 19 wounded, Zelensky said.

"The city was struck with North Korean ballistic missiles, Zircons, and guided aerial bombs. It was a vicious attack, calculated to inflict maximum damage specifically on civilian infrastructure," he said.

Three more were killed by Russian drones and missiles in the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, the local military administration said.

In the capital Kyiv, Zelensky said an infectious diseases hospital was hit, while strikes on the frontlines cities of Kherson and Kharkiv caused power outages.

A children's hospital in Kyiv was also hit, the health ministry said, posting photos of broken windows and debris in a courtyard.

"Children and medical staff were not harmed, as they were in a shelter at the time of the attack," the ministry said.

Russia's defense ministry said its forces "delivered a group strike with high-precision ground-based weapons, hitting military-industrial enterprises and transport-logistics centers in the cities of Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia".

- Zelensky's N. Korea warning -

Zelensky has recently renewed his warnings of deepening military ties between Moscow and Pyongyang, while appealing for more Western air-defense supplies.

On Monday, he said that Russia received "additional ballistic missiles from North Korea."

Over the weekend, he alleged "a decision has been made for 30,000 to 50,000 North Koreans to be deployed on the territory of Russia."

Kyiv has not explained how it obtained the figures and did not provide a timeframe for the deployment.

But Zelensky is urging allies in the Asia-Pacific to supply air defense to Kyiv in order to counter Pyongyang's capabilities.

Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defense pact in 2024, ahead of Pyongyang sending troops to help push Ukrainian forces out of Russia's Kursk region.

In recent weeks, Russia has considerably stepped-up strikes with ballistic missiles -- a fast and powerful weapon that is hard to intercept.

Dozens have been killed in Kyiv in the attacks.

Only the most advanced air defense, such as the US-made Patriot system, is capable of intercepting them.

Ukraine has been reporting an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors since the US-Israeli war against Iran began in February.

Kyiv has also boosted its own long-range drone strikes against Russia, hitting oil infrastructure and e-commerce warehouses in counterattacks it says are justified and designed to crimp Moscow's logistics and revenue sources.

The latest spiral of escalation has brought the civilian death toll in Ukraine to the highest since the war's first months in 2022, according to the United Nations.

World

Ceuta Leader Wants Migrant Detention Center after Influx

The future of the migrants left in Ceuta has sparked a battle between the leftist central government and regions governed by the right. Antonio Sempere / AFP
The future of the migrants left in Ceuta has sparked a battle between the leftist central government and regions governed by the right. Antonio Sempere / AFP
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Ceuta Leader Wants Migrant Detention Center after Influx

The future of the migrants left in Ceuta has sparked a battle between the leftist central government and regions governed by the right. Antonio Sempere / AFP
The future of the migrants left in Ceuta has sparked a battle between the leftist central government and regions governed by the right. Antonio Sempere / AFP

The leader of Ceuta demanded on Monday the detention and expulsion of the thousands of migrants wandering the Spanish north African territory's streets after last month's mass influx from Morocco.

Some 72,000 migrants breached the border in an unprecedented and deadly rush on July 30-31, with 70,000 having since returned to Morocco, according to Spanish government figures.

But the thousands who remain -- including hundreds of unaccompanied children who cannot be summarily deported -- struggle to access food, water, shelter and sanitation while the tiny enclave's resources are overwhelmed, AFP said.

Their future has sparked a political battle between Spain's leftist central government and regions governed by the main conservative Popular Party (PP) and far-right Vox, which resist taking in unaccompanied children under existing legal provisions.

"A space that acts as an internment center for foreigners must be set up, where these people can be held and remain confined," Ceuta's PP leader Juan Jesus Vivas told reporters.

He said the measure "must be achieved urgently" so that the migrants "are not in our streets and that expulsion proceedings can be handled with greater speed and ease".

Vivas called the situation "unsustainable", estimating that between 8,000 and 11,000 migrants were left in Ceuta, well above the government's figure of around 2,500.

Thousands of residents of the territory of 84,000 inhabitants gathered to protest on Sunday at the handling of a crisis that they say has left Ceuta insecure and abandoned.

The Spanish government minister responsible for relations with the regions, Angel Victor Torres, assured Ceuta's population that police and troop numbers had been ramped up, including 40 percent more Civil Guards.

Reuniting the children with their families was "the priority", he added, without mentioning the possibility of expulsions.

World

Typhoon Dolphin Floods Central China, Puts Beijing on Alert for Heavy Rain

A person rides an electric bike through a flooded street after Typhoon Dolphin brought heavy rain to Shanghai, China, August 10, 2026. (Reuters)
A person rides an electric bike through a flooded street after Typhoon Dolphin brought heavy rain to Shanghai, China, August 10, 2026. (Reuters)
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Typhoon Dolphin Floods Central China, Puts Beijing on Alert for Heavy Rain

A person rides an electric bike through a flooded street after Typhoon Dolphin brought heavy rain to Shanghai, China, August 10, 2026. (Reuters)
A person rides an electric bike through a flooded street after Typhoon Dolphin brought heavy rain to Shanghai, China, August 10, 2026. (Reuters)

Typhoon Dolphin churned deeper inland to the central Chinese province of Hubei on Tuesday, flooding streets, forcing the closure of tourist areas and halting construction projects, as forecasters warned of extreme rainfall across a broad swathe of the country.

The strongest typhoon to hit China this year, Dolphin packed an unusually resilient storm system that travelled nearly 6,000 km (3,728 miles) before making landfall over the weekend, drenching the country's eastern coast and bringing with it a sprawling cloud field.

The storm's reach has extended as far as Beijing, more than 1,000 km north of Hubei.

Four districts on the ‌capital's outskirts activated the ‌highest level of emergency flood responses, as the city braced for the expected ‌onset ⁠of more than one-third ⁠of its annual rainfall over 24 hours starting late on Tuesday.

Hubei, a major auto and high-tech electronics manufacturing hub and home to more than 58 million people, was just recovering from two rare tornadoes last month in the wake of Typhoon Maysak, which killed at least 11 people.

In the city of Xiangyang, where Hubei authorities issued a yellow warning for landslides and floods, pedestrians waded through water-covered streets as shared electric scooters were partially submerged.

At one crossroads in heavy rain, drivers slowed down to get their vehicles through water that was more than 30 cm deep while others turned around.

Sixty-year-old ⁠Huang, who had delayed her trip to buy groceries earlier in the morning ‌due to the rain, looked at the waterlogged roads with concern. She ‌was worried the floods could reach the compound of her apartment building a few hundred meters away.

"This area always gets ‌flooded when it rains. If it continues like this, the waters could reach my home," she said.

Nearby, rainwater ‌gushed onto a lower-lying highway from the elevated motorbike paths on either side of the road.

Authorities deployed workers in neon safety gear to remove some of the concrete and allow the water to drain faster. At a section of another highway prone to flooding, authorities had preventively stationed a drainage truck.

WIDESPREAD TORRENTIAL RAIN

On Tuesday, the National Meteorological Center renewed an orange alert ‌for heavy rain, the second-highest warning level, with Hubei expected to receive as much as 250 mm of rain in a 24-hour period.

As well as Xiangyang, ⁠Hubei authorities also issued yellow warnings ⁠for cities including Huanggang and Suizhou.

As of Tuesday morning, water levels at 35 reservoirs in Xiangyang had exceeded flood-control thresholds, prompting authorities to relocate 9,705 people.

Scenic areas across the province have announced temporary closures, including the popular Three Gorges Dam tourist area in Yichang. All but two of Xiangyang's 59 major scenic spots were shut.

Of 107 major highway and waterway construction projects underway in the province, 26 projects deemed high-risk have been suspended.

Dolphin's peripheral airflow will be forced to rise when it encounters the mountains in Hubei's western region, causing rainfall to intensify several times over, Wang Xiaoling, deputy director of Hubei's provincial meteorological observatory, told local newspaper Hubei Daily.

In neighboring Henan province, authorities issued a red flash-flood alert as the storm continued to channel moisture northward. Forecasters said some areas could receive up to 350 mm of rain through Wednesday afternoon.

Japan, which was battered by Dolphin before the storm reached China, was also preparing for landslides, flooding and strong winds after the Japan Meteorological Agency said Typhoon No. 15, Chan-hom, could move across Japan's mainland later on Tuesday.