Published12 hours agoSharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Spanish governmentSpain’s equality ministry has launched a summer campaign to encourage women worried about how their body looks to go to the beach.”Summer is ours too,” runs the slogan above an image of five diverse women of different shapes and sizes.”All bodies are beach bodies,” said Social Services Minister Ione Belarra.Women’s Institute head Antonia Morillas said physical expectations affected not only women’s self-esteem, but denied them their rights.The campaign illustration of five women relaxing on the beach also features a topless woman after a mastectomy.The institute, which is behind the initiative, said it was an attempt to show that all bodies had validity.Women should enjoy the summer, however, wherever and with whoever they wished, said the ad: “Today we toast a summer for all, without stereotypes and aesthetic violence against our bodies.”But not everyone was impressed by the campaign. Some wondered if it should be widened to include men without so-called standard bodies, while left-wing leader Cayo Lara said the campaign was the height of absurdity, trying to “create a problem where it doesn’t exist”. Junior equality minister Ángela Rodríguez Pam posted a message on Twitter to men who believed women did not need the ministry’s permission to go to the beach: “Of course we go, but we’re assuming we’ll attract hatred for showing a body that isn’t standard.”You may also be interested inPoor body image harms half of men’s mental healthThe Range pulls bikini and bride weight loss itemsThis video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.More on this storySpanish women call for gender equality8 March 2018Bangladesh scraps women-only beach after outcry31 December 2021

Published2 hours agoSharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingThis video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.Sweltering temperatures hit much of Western Europe on Tuesday as a ferocious heatwave headed north.The UK hit its highest ever temperature of 40.2C, according to provisional Met Office figures, and forecasters warned temperatures were still climbing.Extreme heat warnings were issued in France and record July temperatures were reported in the Netherlands.Deadly wildfires in France, Portugal, Spain and Greece have forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes.Two people were killed by forest fires in Spain’s north-western Zamora region and trains in the area were halted because of fire near the tracks. An elderly couple died while trying to escape fires in northern Portugal.Heatwaves have become more frequent, more intense, and last longer because of human-induced climate change. German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke said the climate crisis meant the country had to rethink its preparations for very hot weather, drought and flooding.Wildfires were still burning a day after several French cities including Nantes in the west saw their hottest-ever day.More than 30,000 people have had to flee, with several camp sites destroyed and emergency shelters set up for evacuees. Gironde, a popular tourist region in the south-west, has been hit particularly badly, with firefighters from across France battling to control two blazes that have destroyed 19,300 hectares (47,700 acres) of land in the past week. The city of Bordeaux was blanketed by smoke early on Tuesday as the wind changed direction.”It’s a monster like an octopus, and it’s growing and growing and growing in the front, in the back, on both sides,” said Jean-Luc Gleyze, Gironde’s regional president. Image source, Sira Thierij/BBCThe hottest temperatures have now moved to the north and east. Hundreds of people have had to leave their homes in the far north-west of Brittany, and fire has destroyed 1,400 hectares of vegetation. A dozen animals at the zoo in La Teste-de-Buch died of stress and from the high temperatures, the government said. In a complex operation involving vets, zookeepers and others, 363 animals that could be moved were driven in convoys to Bordeaux-Pessac zoo 65km (40 miles) away.The UK’s Met Office said 40.2C°C was provisionally recorded at Heathrow Airport west of London on Tuesday, and forecasters warned temperatures were still climbing in many places. Extreme heat warnings have been issued covering central, northern and south-east England.UK heatwave set to peak with record high of 42C How do you keep cool when temperatures reach 41C?Forecasters say the heatwave is heading north, with the mercury expected to hit 40C in the far south of Belgium as well as western and southwestern Germany. A fire broke out in dunes at the Belgian resort of De Haan, setting several vehicles alight.Germany’s DWD weather service recorded a national record temperature of 41.2C in the city of Duisburg in July 2019 and spokesman Andreas Friedrich said similar highs were possible on Tuesday in similar areas along the River Rhine.The Netherlands saw one of its hottest days on record on Tuesday with 38.9C in Maastricht, forecasters said, warning that temperatures were continuing to rise.Image source, MIGUEL PEREIRA DA SILVA/EPA-EFEIn Spain and Portugal, more than 1,000 deaths have been attributed to the heat in recent days. A forest fire in Losacio in the north-west left one firefighter dead on Sunday and the body of a 69-year-old shepherd was found on Monday.Warnings of ‘heat apocalypse’ in parts of France BBC reporters on the ground in Europe as fires rageTemperatures in Portugal hit 47C on Thursday – a record for July. Most of the country has been placed under high fire danger by the national meteorological office IPMA.Several villages were evacuated as a fire spread in the Murça area of northern Portugal, and a man and a woman in their 70s died in their car while trying to flee the flames. Firefighters were fighting the blaze on three fronts and a local mayor said more than 3,000 hectares had been burned. Authorities are anxious to avoid a repeat of 2017, when 66 people were killed in wildfires. This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.In Spain, at least 20 fires are burning out of control. A passenger filmed the moment the train he was travelling on came to a temporary halt – as fires raged on both sides of the carriage near the northern border with Portugal.Forecasters in Italy are warning of temperatures as high as 40 to 42C between Wednesday and Friday. The effects of climate change in Europe were highlighted earlier this month when a melting glacier triggered an avalanche that killed 11 people. Now experts at Italy’s IlMeteo warn that new crevasses are opening up on Alpine peaks and that ice is melting even on Western Europe’s highest mountain, Mont Blanc.The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.More on this storyWhere is this hot weather coming from?4 days agoFirefighters battle wildfire in France1 day agoToxic wildfire smoke rips through Morocco4 days ago

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, BBC/SVT/Lars GranstrandA Swedish court has given a disgraced Italian surgeon a suspended sentence for causing bodily harm during an experimental stem-cell windpipe transplant.Paolo Macchiarini, once seen as a pioneering transplant surgeon, was cleared of two charges of assault.Three patients treated in Sweden died.Prosecutors had recommended Macchiarini serve five years in jail but the district court ruled that he had not intended to cause the patients harm.He consistently denied the charges.Macchiarini was feted internationally in 2011 for carrying out the world’s first synthetic organ transplant at Sweden’s Karolinska University Hospital. His work using plastic tracheas with stem cells held out the prospect of patients no longer waiting for donors.He had been hired a year earlier from Italy, despite damning references from his previous employers.Andemariam Beyene, a graduate student from Eritrea who received the first transplant in 2011, died two and a half years later after a series of infections. His synthetic trachea was found to have come loose. Shortly after the operation he told the BBC: “I was very scared, very scared about the operation. But it was live or die.”Image source, University of IcelandTwo more patients were also given transplants at the Karolinska hospital and eventually died. Christopher Lyles from the US was given a synthetic trachea transplant in 2011 and died within months. Yesim Cetir, who was in her twenties, was operated on in 2011 and died in 2017. Other patients treated abroad also died, including Russian mother Julia Tuulik.Macchiarini was eventually suspended by the acclaimed Karolinska Institute. A TV documentary later exposed alarming practices he carried out during surgery and prosecutors investigated him for criminal wrongdoing.The case finally came to Solna district court near Stockholm, where he was charged with the criminal offences of aggravated assault and causing bodily harm. However, he was not accused of killing the patients.Chief judge Bjoern Skaensberg said the court had agreed with prosecutors that the surgery had not been consistent with “science and proven experience”. However, he told public broadcaster SVT that it had concluded that “two of the interventions were justifiable, but not the third”.He said the court had found that all three patients had suffered serious bodily injury. But Macchiarini was cleared of assault, he said, because no intent to harm had been proven.Macchiarini had always denied any wrongdoing, arguing that the transplants were aimed at saving the patients’ lives. However, whistleblower Dr Matthias Corbascio told SVT that the verdict was a scandal and there had never been any chance of the operations succeeding.The suspended sentence means he will be on probation for the next two years.More on this storyNobel judges fired in medical scandalThe downfall of a high-flying surgeon