Evening Brief, Saturday 25 July

France and Spain ordered hundreds of thousands of people from their homes as wildfires spread across the Gironde, the Landes, Bordeaux’s western suburbs and central Spain. The Gironde blaze has burned about 32,700 hectares since Wednesday and destroyed roughly 140 homes, and by Saturday its front stood some 30 kilometres west of Bordeaux. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said nearly 98,000 hectares had burned across France this year, a historic record. Spain reported major fires around Madrid and Ávila, with smoke and emergency orders reaching communities that had not treated wildfire as an urban threat before.

Paris sent soldiers, aircraft and 1.5m masks to the affected region, and France activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism for aircraft and helicopters from Croatia, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. An A400M transport adapted to drop retardant joined 18 other planes and helicopters over the south-west. Two firefighters have died in France and dozens have been injured, while Spain activated national emergency procedures after separate blazes merged into a vast front west of Madrid. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu told residents that evacuation orders had to be followed, not debated.

The European Forest Fire Information System put Spain near 50,000 hectares burned in early July, before the Madrid and Ávila fires started, while the EU total passed 167,000 hectares by the middle of the month. The fires also forced trade-offs far beyond the fire line. Tour de France organisers cut the final stage into Paris from 133 to 89 kilometres after security forces were diverted to the south-west, and rail authorities urged travellers to stay away from affected areas. The political argument now turns from response to prevention, because forests, suburbs, tourist economies and climate adaptation have collided in one burning map.

The European Commission fined Google €890m, about $1bn, for two breaches of the Digital Markets Act: €460m for favouring its own services in search results and €430m for restricting app developers from steering users to cheaper offers outside Google Play. Google said it would appeal, but the fine and a 60-day compliance deadline still stand, giving Brussels a live enforcement case against one of America’s most powerful companies.

Donald Trump answered with a trade weapon. He ordered a Section 301 investigation into the EU and threatened tariffs, accusing Brussels of targeting American firms and listing penalty totals that mixed fines with other legal disputes. The tool matters because the administration turned to Section 301 after the Supreme Court struck down its emergency tariff powers in February, and a separate forced-labour action under the same statute now covers 60 economies and, on the trade representative’s own count, 99.4 percent of American imports, at rates of 10 or 12.5 percent.

Brussels insists it will keep enforcing the DMA, while Washington argues that the law discriminates against its best companies. That leaves two clocks running: Google’s compliance deadline and the slower American tariff inquiry. The fight is no longer just about search rankings or app stores; it is about whether digital regulation becomes another tariff frontier between allies.

Dharmendra Pradhan resigned as India’s education minister after weeks of protests over leaked exam papers, handing young demonstrators a rare and visible win against the government. The immediate trigger was the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, the medical entrance exam sat by more than 2m candidates on 3 May, whose results were cancelled after leaks came to light. The government handed the inquiry to the Central Bureau of Investigation, ran a retake on 21 June, published results on 16 July and said the exam would move to computer-based testing next year. Student suicides turned the scandal from an administrative failure into a moral one.

The Cockroach Janta Party, a satirical youth movement born after a Supreme Court judge compared some unemployed young people to cockroaches, transformed online mockery into street pressure. Tens of thousands gathered at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, and protests spread across the country before police used tear gas and batons against students trying to march toward parliament. The group ended its mobilisation after saying the government had accepted demands on compensation and non-prosecution and agreed to review its five-point reform plan.

The government has also approved draft changes to speed up judicial procedures and strengthen penalties for exam fraud, but the wider grievance runs deeper. India has a young population, high pressure around scarce education places and a job market that leaves many graduates anxious before they even sit their first big test. Pradhan’s exit gives protesters a scalp, but the exam system now carries the harder burden of proving that merit is not for sale.

Member states of the International Criminal Court voted by secret ballot to remove chief prosecutor Karim Khan after a two-year misconduct scandal. Of the court’s 125 states parties, 82 voted for removal, 13 against and 15 abstained, clearing the 63 votes an absolute majority required. The Assembly of States Parties said he had committed serious misconduct and a serious breach of duty through prohibited conduct against a subordinate staff member, while Khan’s lawyers argued that he had not received a fair chance to answer the case. He is the first prosecutor removed through this mechanism, and the vote came days after his accuser went public in a televised interview.

The court’s troubles widened the same day when Venezuela formally notified the UN that it would withdraw from the Rome Statute, a step Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia called irrevocable. Caracas accused the ICC of geographical bias and lawfare, but the court has been investigating alleged crimes against humanity linked to the Maduro era since 2021, including torture, arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances and sexual violence. Under the treaty, Venezuela’s withdrawal takes effect only after one year, and existing investigations can continue.

Khan’s removal and Venezuela’s exit push the ICC into a legitimacy squeeze from two directions: internal workplace standards and external political resistance. The next prosecutor inherits active cases, hostile states and a court whose moral authority depends on the same rule it applies to others: accountability must begin at home.

Saudi-led aircraft struck Houthi targets in Hodeidah and on Kamaran Island after the Houthis claimed attacks on Saudi oil tankers and announced a Red Sea blockade on Saudi shipping. Houthi-run media said telecommunications facilities were hit and civilians were wounded, while the coalition said it targeted military sites used to threaten commercial vessels and denied striking Hodeidah port. Houthi authorities called the raids the start of a phase of escalation for escalation.

The Houthis then announced two retaliatory operations against facilities linked to Saudi Aramco, one in Jizan and one in Yanbu, using dozens of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones. Saudi civil defence sounded alerts in both cities shortly after 6am local time and later said the danger had passed. Houthi-run outlets reported a fire at a refinery in Jizan, and Riyadh has not given a detailed account.

That escalation sits on top of a separate confrontation around Iran. US Central Command reinstated its naval blockade of Iranian ports in mid-July and has since disabled at least one tanker in the Gulf of Oman after its crew ignored repeated warnings, and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has fallen to unusual lows. An Omani delegation arrived in Tehran on Friday to discuss a mechanism for managing shipping through the strait, while Iranian and Iran-backed forces claimed retaliatory actions against American positions across the region.

For Saudi Arabia, the danger lies in geography. Hormuz is strained, and Bab al-Mandab now looks less like a backup route than a second exposed nerve. Oil markets can absorb many shocks, but two maritime chokepoints under pressure at once make every tanker a diplomatic message with a hull.