The ​largest proportion of heat-related deaths occurs in ⁠the age ⁠group of 75 ​and older, RKI said.

The mortality ​rate rises significantly during ‌weeks with average temperatures over 20 degrees Celsius, according to the ⁠institute.

“Consequently, we anticipate that heatwaves occurring this summer will similarly ⁠lead ‌to increased mortality,” ⁠it added.

In June, ​Germany ‌already experienced a ​record-breaking heatwave ⁠with temperatures of 40 degrees or more in many regions.

(Reporting by Miranda Murray, editing by Thomas ​Seythal)

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan, July 30 (Reuters) – A drone attack and ambush by Islamist militants at a police post in northwest Pakistan killed at least 10 ​officers, police said, the second such assault within a ‌week.

The attack took place late on Wednesday in the Hangu district near the Afghan border, an area that has long served as home to militant groups.

Militancy in Pakistan’s border areas has risen sharply in recent months, targeting ‌mainly ​the military and police after an armed ⁠conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan ⁠killed hundreds.

Islamabad says the militants use safe havens in Afghanistan to train and plan attacks in Pakistan. Afghanistan’s Taliban government has denied the charge and said militancy is Pakistan’s domestic ​problem.

The militants ambushed the police check post after hitting it with improvised explosive devices attached to quadcopters, police said in ⁠a statement.

Ten officers and 15 of ⁠the attackers were killed in several hours of fighting, ​said Zulfikar Hameed, the provincial police chief.

The Islamist militants have in ​recent months started using the quadcopters to target security ‌forces in the border areas.

No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attack, which came days after a suicide bombing killed 15, including 12 Pakistani army soldiers in the nearby district of ⁠Tank. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistan Taliban, claimed responsibility for the suicide attack.

The group has been waging an insurgency against the Pakistani state since ⁠2007 in an ‌attempt to overthrow the government and replace it ⁠with their own brand of strict Islamic ​governance.

Militant attacks ‌have surged along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan and ​have the ⁠potential to reignite fighting between the neighbours. The allies-turned-foes engaged in their worst fighting in years in February, with Pakistan carrying out airstrikes inside Afghanistan.

(Reporting by Saud Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan; Additional reporting by Mushtaq Ali in Peshawar; Writing by Asif Shahzad; Editing ​by Saad Sayeed)

• The climate cycle known as El ‌Nino – ​which changes temperatures ⁠and atmospheric conditions in ⁠the Pacific – threatens higher temperatures and extreme weather in many regions of the world, Munich Re ​said

• Tobias Grimm, Munich Re’s top climate scientist, said: “It’s a ⁠dangerous mix: as global ⁠warming continues, the world ​is also heading for a Super El ​Nino, which will drive temperatures ‌up even further. The effects will likely be clearly felt in the second half of the year”

• ⁠In Australia, Central America and parts of Africa, El Nino can raise the risk ⁠of ‌drought and fires

• It ⁠can lead to heavy rainfall ​elsewhere ‌in places like South ​America and ⁠the United States

• “Current forecasts point to record-breaking El Nino conditions towards the end of the year,” Munich Re said

(Reporting by Tom SimsEditing by ​Ludwig Burger)

July 30 (Reuters) – Capgemini Chief Executive Aiman Ezzat said on Thursday that companies hoping to deploy artificial intelligence at scale will first ​need to modernise decades-old technology systems, creating ‌what he described as a multi-year investment cycle in data, software and infrastructure.

The comments came after Capgemini raised its 2026 revenue growth target following stronger bookings. Speaking to analysts, Ezzat said ‌the ​biggest obstacle to wider AI adoption ⁠was not access to ⁠models, but legacy systems, fragmented data and complex technology estates built up over decades.

“Every organization today wants to become agentic,” Ezzat said, referring to AI ​systems designed to perform multi-step tasks. “But before they can become agentic, they must become AI-ready, and most ⁠are not.”

Capgemini sees a “multi-year modernization ⁠supercycle” as companies upgrade the foundations needed ​to support AI across their operations, including data platforms, ​applications and core infrastructure.

Ezzat said many businesses were constrained ‌by years of accumulated technical debt, leaving data scattered across incompatible systems and making it difficult for AI tools to access reliable information or execute tasks ⁠across an organisation.

While generative AI applications can produce answers, they often struggle to perform business processes consistently when underlying systems ⁠remain disconnected, he ‌said.

“AI is not only creating demand ⁠for new business capability; it’s also accelerating ​the ‌modernization of the technology foundation on which ​those capabilities ⁠depend,” Ezzat said.

Companies remain willing to invest in AI, he added, but spending is becoming more targeted, with clients increasingly prioritising large-scale transformation programmes over standalone experiments and pilot projects.

(Reporting by Leo Marchandon in Gdansk; Editing ​by Matt Scuffham)

CAIRO, July 30 (Reuters) – Israeli strikes killed at least three people, including two children, in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, health officials said, as mediators held new talks with Hamas leaders to work towards full implementation of a U.S.-brokered Gaza ​peace plan.

Medics said an Israeli airstrike on a tent encampment in Khan Younis, south ‌of the enclave, killed a man and an eight-year-old girl.

In the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, an Israeli airstrike hit a house killing an 18-month-old child and wounding at least eight people, medics said.

The Israeli military said both strikes targeted Hamas militants.

The latest deaths add to a toll of more than 1,200 Palestinians, mostly ‌civilians, killed ​by Israeli attacks since the ceasefire took effect, according to ⁠Gaza health officials.

Hamas does not usually ⁠disclose its losses.

The truce halted full-scale fighting but has not ended near-daily Israeli strikes. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed by militants in Gaza over the same period.

CAIRO TALKS

In Cairo, Hamas leaders were holding talks with mediators from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, over the implementation of ​the second phase of President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, as presented to them by his Board of Peace, that oversees its implementation.

The plan called for a surge in humanitarian aid, governance by ⁠a civilian Palestinian administration, the disarmament of Hamas, the ⁠withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the deployment of an international ​force to help maintain security.

But progress has stalled in previous months.

On Thursday, a Hamas official said the ​group was coming with a “positive and good” response, yet he didn’t say whether the ‌group has agreed to fully disarm — a key sticking point in the talks over the past four months.

Hamas wants Israel to commit to ending attacks on Gaza and withdrawing its forces.

Sources close to Hamas said the group was willing to “confine and store” heavy weapons under a Palestinian body, not hand ⁠it over to Israel. Hamas didn’t comment on that.

It is also not yet clear what would be the fate of light or personal weapons or whether the new Hamas stance would be accepted by ⁠Israel and the Board of ‌Peace.

The Board of Peace declined immediate comment on the Cairo talks.

Israel wants ⁠Hamas to cede power completely in Gaza and to fully disarm. Hamas ​dissolved ‌a de facto Gaza government last month but kept a caretaking body ​to maintain ⁠the provision of vital services to residents.

Israel effectively controls an estimated 64% of the tiny coastal Gaza Strip, bombed to ruins by Israel’s two-year military assault that followed a 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel.

Nearly all of Gaza’s 2 million people now live on a sliver of land on the coast, mainly in makeshift tents or damaged buildings and facing dire living conditions, under Hamas control.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; ​editing by Gareth Jones )

LONDON, July 30 (Reuters) – Shell’s adjusted earnings, its measure of net profit, more than doubled from last year to $9.84 billion in the second quarter, beating ​expectations, helped by higher energy prices and increased market ‌volatility during the Middle East conflict.

Higher oil and gas prices, stronger LNG and oil trading and improved chemicals margins helped support the British major’s earnings, offsetting lower sales volumes caused by disruptions to its Qatar operations.

Analysts had expected net profit ‌of $8.92 ​billion, according to a company-provided consensus, compared with $4.26 ⁠billion a year earlier.

Shell ⁠has benefited from the market disruptions and volatility caused by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, creating more opportunities for the large trading businesses operated by companies such as Shell, BP and TotalEnergies.

HIGHEST PROFIT ​SINCE 2022

Shell reported its highest quarterly profit and its highest operating cash flow, including working-capital movements, since 2022, when Russia’s invasion ⁠of Ukraine upended global energy markets. Still, ⁠it said it would maintain the pace of its ​share buyback programme at $3 billion over the next three months.

Profits from Shell’s ​integrated gas business, which includes the world’s biggest trading ‌desk for the fuel, comfortably beat expectations at $2.7 billion, 55% above last year’s.

Its chemicals and products unit, home to its oil product trading desk, also outperformed expectations at $2.3 billion, compared with $118 million a year ago.

Production ⁠at Shell’s Pearl gas-to-liquids plant in Qatar was halted in March after an attack damaged one of the facility’s two trains. Shell has said repairs ⁠could take about ‌a year.

The Middle East accounts for about 20% ⁠of Shell’s oil and gas production, or 550,000 barrels ​of ‌oil equivalent per day, with about 10% linked ​to Qatar.

Shell’s ⁠net debt dropped to $41.8 billion, from $52.6 billion at the end of of the first quarter 2026. Its gearing, or debt-to-equity ratio including leases, fell to 18.7% from 23.2% last quarter and below Shell’s stated comfort level of 20%.

(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Shadia Nasralla, Editing by Louise Heavens ​and Tomasz Janowski)

Growth was ‌also ​slightly above expectations ⁠as analysts polled ⁠by LSEG had forecast gross domestic product to grow 0.6% quarter-on-quarter.

Spain’s economy, which expanded 2.8% ​last year, has been one of the top ⁠performers in Europe, ⁠in part thanks to ​record tourist numbers.

On an annual basis, ​Spain’s GDP expanded 2.7% in ‌the quarter, above the average estimate of 2.5% growth.

Last month, Madrid raised its 2027 ⁠growth estimate to 2.2% from 2.1% and said growth would remain above ⁠2% ‌through 2029. Economy Minister ⁠Carlos Cuerpo saidthen that ​he ‌expected second-quarter GDP growth ​this ⁠year to be similar to, or slightly higher than, the first quarter.

(Reporting by Joao Manuel Mauricio in Gdansk; Editing by ​David Latona)

GAZA/CAIRO, July 30 (Reuters) – Standing on the roof of a war-damaged building overlooking the ruins of Gaza City, beekeeper Ibrahim al-Dabba gently lifts a honeycomb frame as bees buzz around him.

“Bees require trees, ​we are raising bees amongst rubble,” he said.

For Gaza’s beekeepers, the struggle ‌to rebuild their livelihoods after more than two years of war is about much more than honey. It is also about preserving one of nature’s most important pollinators in a territory where farmland has been devastated and access to orchards near the border with Israel has been cut off.

Before the war, the beekeepers kept ‌around ​30,000 hives, according to agricultural engineer and beekeeper Rateb Sammour.

Honey ⁠production had already been declining from ⁠some 400 metric tons annually several years ago to roughly half that amount as climate change affected the flowering seasons.

HONEY PRODUCTION HIT

The conflict dealt a far greater blow, however. Sammour, a well-known Gaza beekeeper and honey producer, estimates around 700 hives remain, with ​beekeepers dividing hives to help maintain the numbers.

Sammour puts the honey production at only 10% of what it was before the war.

Across much of Gaza, where vast neighbourhoods remain ⁠reduced to wreckage, beekeepers are salvaging what they can.

Some ⁠have placed hives on rooftops because agricultural land is inaccessible or destroyed. ​Others are using sugar supplements to increase the food for their bees in places where there ​is no meaningful forage.

Israel effectively controlled an estimated 64% of Gaza by ‌late April. Nearly all of the territory’s roughly 2 million residents are concentrated in a narrow coastal area under Hamas control, living largely in damaged buildings or makeshift shelters and facing dire humanitarian conditions.

After the ceasefire last October, Dabba, 49, hoped to return to a trade passed ⁠down through generations. Instead, he found almost nothing left.

“We couldn’t find bees, we couldn’t find equipment, we couldn’t find frames, we couldn’t find anything to get us back to bees,” he said.

“We ⁠are even forbidden from entering ‌agricultural areas,” Dabba said, explaining how they are within the yellow ⁠line military demarcation established under the ceasefire.

Starting over came at a ​steep cost. ‌Dabba said he paid 10,000 shekels ($3,245) for just three hives, excluding ​equipment.

In the ⁠central Gaza camp of Nuseirat, beekeeper Fahd al-Dahdouh, 32, spends his days repairing shattered hive boxes recovered from destroyed farming areas.

“I collected these beehives, as you can see, I brought them and put them together,” said Dahdouh.

“I collected the lids, the boxes, and even the flooring.”

(Reporting by Ebrahim Hajjaj and Dawoud Abu Alkas in Gaza and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; ​Editing by Alison Williams)

On Wednesday, three Greek firefighters ‌died battling blazes during high winds on Crete and on the mainland, and two more were lightly injured.

Two firefighters died after becoming trapped in the Crete fire near the village of Krya Vrysi in the centre of the island while they ‌were ​driving between fire fronts. Another died in ⁠a separate fire in the ⁠Peloponnese region.

Hundreds of residents and tourists were evacuated on Wednesday from Krya Vrysi and other nearby villages by sea and by land in the centre of the island as high winds pushed the ​fire out of control near popular holiday spots.

On Thursday, more than 200 firefighters with dozens of fire engines and water-carrying aircraft battled two ⁠wildfires on the island of Crete, where ⁠agricultural crops and olive groves were destroyed and warehouses ​and a few houses were damaged.

“Unfortunately there is no improvement, and the ​latest information indicates that winds will increase later in the ‌day,” said Giorgos Tsapakos, deputy regional governor for civil protection on Crete, on SKAI TV.

“Aircraft were unable to operate this morning due to the strong winds,” he said.

On Wednesday, the head of the EU’s emergency response ⁠centre said Greece and Italy were set to face a heightened wildfire risk in the coming weeks.

Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent, has endured record-breaking heatwaves ⁠this year as human-driven ‌climate change intensifies the heat and drought that ⁠enable wildfires to spread faster.

Blazes have forced large-scale evacuations ​of ‌people in Spain and France over the last few ​days, scorching ⁠through forests and killing wildlife.

On Wednesday, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska warned of “three tough days” ahead, with strong winds and high temperatures, even as the major fire in the Avila and Madrid region stabilised, allowing authorities to lift some of the evacuation and shelter-in-place orders.

(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas; Editing ​by Hugh Lawson)

Here are more details:

• More than 5,000 hotspots were detected as of July 29, a sharp increase compared to previous El Niño years in 2015, 2019 and 2023, agency official Ardhasena Sopaheluwakan said in an online briefing. ‌The ​provinces of West Kalimantan, South Papua and ⁠Riau recorded the most hotspots.

• ⁠As of mid-July 2026, 54.5% of Indonesia’s seasonal zones had entered the dry season, which is expected to peak in August, unchanged from a previous forecast, agency chief Teuku Faisal Fathani told the ​same briefing.

• The risk of forest and land fires is expected to peak from August to September, particularly on the islands of ⁠Sumatra and Kalimantan, before gradually easing from ⁠October to November when higher rainfall is expected to ​return to some areas.

• “The critical period for forest and land fires is ​expected from July through September 2026, making intensified monitoring and ‌surveillance in high-risk areas crucial to prevent hot spots from spreading and causing wider environmental damage,” Sopaheluwakan said.

• Dry spells have been recorded across much of the country, with the longest stretch without rain reaching ⁠80 days in Purworejo regency in Central Java.

• There were 1,366 locations with dry spells lasting 21-30 days, 943 locations with 31-60 rainless days, and ⁠70 locations where dry ‌conditions persisted for more than 60 days.

• The ⁠agency said hotspot activities have increased in West ​Kalimantan, heightening ‌the risk of forest and land fires and ​driving dense ⁠haze concentrations.

• The agency has conducted weather modification operations in several areas to reduce the risk of fires and limit their impact.

• The agency had previously warned farmers to adjust their farming activities to mitigate risks stemming from the extreme dry weather expected this year.

(Reporting by Dewi Kurniawati; Editing ​by David Stanway)