Day: July 17, 2022

Saudi Arabia was always going to be the controversial stop on Joe Biden's first trip to the Middle East as US president. Just four weeks earlier, Mr Biden had said he wouldn't meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on his visit here. As he settled into the White House during his first few weeks in the job, he refused to even speak to Saudi Arabia's de-facto ruler. Mr Biden made the "pariah" comment on the US election campaign trail back in 2019. It came after the CIA concluded the crown prince had approved the brutal killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Istanbul consulate. Relations were frosty. Then came the announcement of the president's visit. The stage was set long before Air Force One roared Steve Madden Sho...

In northern Portugal, a pilot died when his waterbombing plane crashed in the Foz Coa area, near the Spanish border. Fires are ravaging areas of France's Gironde region, where more than 12,000 people have been evacuated. In southern Spain, near the Costa del Sol, about 2,300 people had to flee a wildfire spreading in the Mijas hills. Holidaymakers on the beach in Torremolinos saw big plumes of smoke rising in the hills, where several aircraft were tackling the blaze. Ashley Baker, a Briton who lives in Mijas in southern Spain, Hoka Shoes  told the BBC that the fire appeared more threatening on Friday, but since then the wind had blown it away from his area. Planes have been a dropping fire retardant substance, as helicopters shuttle to...