Global News Podcast - A vehicle ploughs into a gay pride event in Germany

Episode Date: July 26, 2026

A vehicle has ploughed into a crowd at a gay pride event in central Berlin, killing one person. At least sixteen others were wounded, some with life-threatening injuries. A search is under way for the driver, who police say is linked to the Islamists in Berlin. Hundreds of thousands of people in the German capital had been attending the annual event. Also: more people in France have been ordered to leave their homes to escape wildfires, bringing the total to about a quarter of a million. Students in India, who have led an unprecedented challenge to Narendra Modi's government, have called off their protests. The Cockroach Janta Party said the administration had accepted all of its demands including the resignation of the education minister. We hear from Palestinian patients from the occupied West Bank who have to go to Israel for desperately needed medical care, and the Israeli volunteers who help them. And Greeks wait anxiously to see if Mount Olympus will be given UNESCO World Heritage status. The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]: People wrapped in security blankets hug each other near the scene where a vehicle drove into crowds celebrating the Christopher Street Day parade in Berlin, Germany. Credit: EPA/Shutterstock

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This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Will Chalk and in the early hours of Sunday, July the 26th, these are our main stories. A vehicle has ploughed into a crowd at a pride event in central Berlin, killing one person. At least 16 others were wounded. The authorities in southwest France, France have ordered around a quarter of a million people to evacuate as devastating forest fires continue to burn. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, says firefighters are working to save lives as wildfires continue to blaze west of Madrid. Also in this podcast. If I close my eyes and my life to what's going on here, I don't know if I'm contributing to the future.

By living here, I have the naive feeling that I can hopefully be a thorn in the side. of my co-settlers. We hear from the Israeli volunteers meeting ill Palestinians at the border to drive them to hospital. But we begin in the German capital where one person has been killed and several others left with life-threatening injuries

after a vehicle drove into a crowd celebrating Berlin's pride parade. Julian Mitheg was there. He says it's a sad day for the queer community. We have a beautiful pride today and now it's a terrible situation. Yeah, it's very difficult for me. I'm shocked.

Christopher Street Day, which is one of Europe's biggest annual LGBT events, has now been cooled off and the area cordoned off as well. We've seen videos showing people evacuating and helicopters circling overhead as a manhunt continues for the driver, who, we're told, fled the scene. We've heard from police as well, the suspect has been identified by them as a member of the city's Islamist circles.

The German Chancellor has vowed to punish the perpetrator for what he called this horrific act, while the mayor of Berlin said the city's freedom had come under attack. Joanne Iflander from Berlin Police gave this update. According to the investigation, around 10 p.m., a vehicle entered the Tiergarten from the area of Leningstrasse. Our offices are searching intensively for a post-year-enstrasse. Our officers are searching intensively for a possible suspect or suspects. A large police presence is on the scene, and investigators are working to establish the circumstances.

I got more from the BBC's Michael Steininger, who's in Berlin. A van ran into a crowd of people at the edge of the large Tiergarten Park, which is in the centre of Berlin, right next to the iconic Bratneberg Gate, where hundreds of thousands of people had gathered to celebrate the Berlin Pride March. We think that that van injured at least a dozen of people. Police say possibly one dead maybe more. We think that the driver left the car and fled on foot. So there's now a large manhunt underway.

Police are looking with helicopters and with lots of forces using torchlights and floodlights to look for a possible, a potential perpetrator in the darkness of that large part, which is in the centre of Berlin. Yeah, I mean, Berlin is famous across Europe, isn't it, for its LGBT scene? I can only imagine that Berlin Pride is an absolutely massive event. That's right. I was in the city centre myself today, and as usual, this day, every year, the city centre has completely taken. over by revelers, by the queer community. There are lots of parties all over town, people in garish dresses and very exotic attire are all over the place, and then they converge, they gather around Vanderbuk Gate in the late afternoon, early evening, when the party really takes

off and when there's a concert, when there's kind of floats, all kinds of things, entertainment. So I can only think that this was being a very, very abrupt and very, very horrible end to that kind of party. Now, we don't know the motive for this yet, and we're not here to speculate, obviously, but what we do know is that this is far from the first time in Germany that a car has driven into a crowd at a big event. It is not, and I think people are nervous about these events, the authorities are nervous about these events, the area around the Brandenburg Gate had been caught off and secured for several days prior to this event already but it's a very large area with lots of major roads

converging on this particular point so it is very hard to kind of secure the whole area and basically make everyone safe we did have several incidents in the recent past where cars were used to injure people to kill people for whatever reasons. We had an incident not long ago in Leipzig. We famously two years ago had an incident

where a man ran into a Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg in the eastern Germany and killed several people. So it is unfortunately not a new phenomenon. Michael Steininger in Berlin. Well, let's bring you an update now on the wildfires burning in Western Europe. More than a quarter of a million people

have now been forced to leave affected areas. Take south-west France. Tens of thousands of tourists and residents alike have been instructed to leave Biscar Ross, the Cap Ferry Peninsula and seven small towns west of Bordeaux. And with the weather making things harder for firefighters, the French Prime Minister has warned the wildfires will just continue to burn.

Then there's Spain were about 90,000 people have been told to flee an area west of Madrid or to stay inside their homes. Joe Inwood has this report. In one of France's most popular tourist areas, houses burn. This is the wildfire in Gironde in the southwest of the country, seemingly out of control. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes as the flames approach. Standing in front of a burning house is one of the men tasked with tackling the blaze.

The wildfire was driven by the wind, he says. overnight evacuation notices were sent to a number of villages on the outskirts of Bordeaux. Cars filled the road. Those inside were leaving everything behind. Some could not escape on their own. At one care home, elderly residents were transferred to ambulances. Others did not hear the warnings. Rebecca Pappin was on holiday in the town of Biskaros. She was sleeping with earplugs in when the message arrived and became trapped there with her children. There were water planes in the sky that were dropping water. There were firefighter helicopters in the sky, and the entire distance was just a wall of flames. But it was quite far away from my house, but I could see it very clearly from the upstairs level.

So I went down to the beach, but at the beach it was the strangest atmosphere because everyone was acting like nothing was wrong, and nobody had any idea how serious it was. It is not only France that is suffering under record wildfires. Spain has declared a national emergency the first time it has done so because of wildfires. Two blazes near the capital Madrid have now joined up. There are fears they could soon merge with a third. Spain's Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, visited the area this morning.

Right now we have a window of opportunity this weekend to fight the fire and therefore protect lives, to protect communities, and ultimately to bring this extremely serious fire under control as far as we're able to. Both countries have requested help from the EU, which has sent seven water bombing planes. But their real hope comes from a change in the weather. Conditions are improving slightly, but there are warnings of another heat wave next week. So that's Joe Inwood. Staying with the situation in Spain, my colleague, Unca Dessai, spoke to the BBC's

Sergei Fikada, who's currently in the country. So what's happening on the ground in and around the Spanish capital? There's these two fires still ongoing. They have burned around 35,000 hectares, and they are far from being under control. So right now we know that over 60,000 people have been evacuated from their homes nearby in these areas of Madrid and also in Abilah, which is west of Madrid. They have been asked to flee to other locations. So in places like community centers and sports facilities have been set up and turned into temporary overnight shelters. Other people, exactly the opposite. Around 20,000 people have been asked to stay indoors to be under lockdown because local authorities believe that that's the safest thing for them. But yeah,

these fast-moving fires are forcing authorities to evacuate more and more towns. And the perfect example is that the place in which Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez gave a press conference earlier today, the command centre in which lots of people were operating, had to be moved because the fire was approaching that area as well. So this is right now far from over. And Sergio, I guess a real concern is the fact that some of the fires have joined up. This is a case of conflagration. Yeah. So when these fires started a few days ago, the ones in Madrid were actually two different blaze. And in that case, those two blazes ended up merging into one big fire, which is the one

that we have now close to the capital. Now, the other one in Western Madrid, in Adela, that is also growing. And now the fear is that both of these already big wildfires may merge into even a bigger one. This hasn't happened yet, but depending on the direction of the wind in the coming hour, this is something that may happen. And obviously, authorities are concerned about because then it would be even a bigger fire and potentially more difficult to tackle. Yeah, how are the authorities coping and what sort of help are they asking for? So authorities are saying that they are using all the available resources available in the country to tackle the fires, including deployments from the military, civil protection,

anything they can basically. But at the same time, they admit that as of now, this may not be enough. So they have asked help from the European Union. there have been additional resources sent from countries like Greece or Italy. They are sending two water-dumping aircrafts each, also help from neighboring Portugal. They are sending around 100 personnel from there. But this may not be enough. And the issue here is that while obviously there is lots of focus and attention in these very big wildfires

in central Spain, there are other smaller wellfires happening across the country. Just a few hours ago, another one started near Valencia. all the services are extremely busy. So what authorities are saying is like, hey, we're doing everything that we can, but we admit that it may not be enough. It's the BBC's Sergei Fikada in Spain. Let's get a little bit more on this as well, because as we've been hearing, with temperatures expected to remain high, the fear is that winds will continue to fuel and drive the fires. And as Chris Forks from BBC weather explains, wildfires create unique conditions that can also fan the flames. The problem is with wildfires, they make their own winds because you've got all this

heat going up into the atmosphere, it will suck in the air from the surroundings. And so the winds can change very quickly. It causes problems because then those winds blow embers onto surrounding areas and can spark new fires and make it very, very difficult for firefighters to keep on top of. And in terms of the forecast, we've seen a bit of rain into Western areas of France, but looking again ahead to what we've got coming, we've got very little rain. We've got very little rain. on the cards over the next few days because the storms that we have seen are working into the Alps over the next 24 hours. Rainfall totals then for the rest of this week, pretty much nothing across these wildfire

areas. And worse than that, actually this week we're going to see a renewed severe heatwave build across Spain and France that will see temperatures again climbing into the upper 30s to low 40s. So this incredible heat that we've seen time and time again this year is going to come back this week and that's not the kind of forecast that people will want to see if we're looking at trying to bring these fires under control. Chris Forks there. Now it's something not many people would have predicted even a few weeks ago. A meme in India becoming a protest movement so powerful it's brought down a government minister. But that's exactly what's happened. The Cockroach

Janta Party have been celebrating in the streets after the country's education minister resigned. They've been protesting for five weeks now. It's one of the largest, bays of dissent in years against the government of Narendra Modi. The unrest was driven by anger about the leak of crucial exam papers earlier in the year, which then forced millions of students to re-sit the test. Yagita Lamae reports from Delhi. Punching their fists in the air, the leaders of the student movement announced to waiting crowds that they had won and the education minister had resigned.

Surround me, I can just see scenes of jubilation. people were hugging each other, chanting. There was some music on and there was also dancing. These are the first reactions that we are seeing from the site of the protest. People who do not ordinarily have power, that they were actually able to make the minister design. I think it's fantastic for our democracy, I think. Whatever else may happen.

I've been attending such a movement of mass scale for the first time in my life. And I feel like a citizen today, actually. That's why. What had begun? anger over entrance exam leaks and a crude comment from India's Chief Justice, likening jobless youngsters to cockroaches, turned into a ground movement the government never saw coming. For the first time in his 12 years as Prime Minister, Narendra Modi seemed at his wit's end, posting nightly videos trying to connect with the youth of his country.

The climb down is a big setback to his strongman image, and the past few weeks have also seen the popularity he once enjoyed, take Assyria Blue. Yagita Lemae. Still to come in this podcast. If you respect that mountain, mountain respects you. And if you have the right leader, you can climb to the peak with very easy steps. You feel the tired, but the tired is sweet. Mount Olympus, the mythological home of ancient Greece's 12 Olympian gods

may soon join UNESCO's World Heritage List. This is the Global News podcast. Every day, dozens of Palestinian patients from the occupied West Bank cross into Israel for desperately needed specialised medical care they can't get at home. And waiting to drive them to hospital are Israeli volunteers who've increased in number since the October 7th attacks in 2023. Since the war started, it's become an increasingly rare space for Israelis and Palestinians to speak and build trust.

a meeting of two worlds amid the trauma of war. Naomi Sherbal-Bul has been joining the patients and volunteers for the car journeys from the checkpoints to hospitals in Israel. Every week, 24-year-old Nasser Aadi stands with his mother on the edge of Betul Ma in the occupied West Bank, waiting for a lift to hospital in Israel. Heightened tensions in the West Bank, after Hamas's October 7th attacks,

and the war in Gaza that followed, as well as the recent unprecedented rise in settler violence make his journey for treatment even more fraught. The situation is always there. If anyone starts any problem at a checkpoint or carries an attack, the impact can affect us all. So I am always on guard. Thankfully, nothing has happened to be personally,

but I always stay cautious. There isn't any prostitening, I still have Jewish friends, but at the same time there is fear. And it goes both ways. They are also afraid of Arabs. NASA is one of thousands of Palestinian patients who are treated in Israeli hospitals every year, paid for by the Palestinian Authority. He suffers from a rare enzyme disorder which can be life-threatening.

Even leaving NASA's home is far from straightforward. Just arrived at one of the entrances to Bait Umer. There's a bright orange gate which straddles the road into town. And most of the roads that provide access to the town have been blocked in this way for much of the war. The Israeli militaries say that it's a security measure. But it makes life here very difficult, preventing residents from driving in and out of town.

And so at the gate, people have to get out and then walk across the orange gate. and take another car or taxi to continue their journey. Despite the bleak outlook, the family has an unlikely ally trying to support them. 78-year-old Myron Joshua from a neighbouring settlement, laughs and chats in Hebrew with Nasser and his family. I definitely became what I call an unsettled settler. Myron is a volunteer from Road to Recovery, a charity which drives Palestinian patients from the West Bank to hospital in Israel.

He lives in Kvaat-Zion, the first Israeli settlement to be built in the West Bank in 1967. Under international law, settlements are illegal. I can understand Israelis who look to me and say, but if you're so unsettled about what's happening, why don't you just leave? If I close my eyes and my life to what's going on here, I don't know if I'm contributing to the future. By living here, I have the naive feeling that I can hopefully be a thorn in the side of my co-settlers

and that I can also reach out to Palestinians and help them in ways I couldn't do it in the past. Driving through the checkpoint into Israel every week, the group casts an unusual image. Myron, an Orthodox Jew, wearing a kippa, driving Nasser and his mother's suppa, wearing a hijab. Myron calls it a tent of Abraham. The minute young people don't come into contact with Israelis, the fact that Israelis don't come into contact with Palestinians, we demonize each other. But since October 7th, it's almost as if we're building the fear, but the fear is real, the fear is true, but we're like casting it in cement, making it so we can't be.

deal with it. Last year, 55,000 visits by Palestinian patients were approved by Israel, 50% more than the year before. According to international law, as an occupying power in the West Bank, Israel does have a legal obligation to provide access to health care, but a third of patients, and the carers who request to cross with them still had their permits refused by Israel. For those that navigate the permissions needed, these volunteer drivers, may be able to make that access to life-saving treatment possible.

It's actually grown from taking him to the hospital to friendship, to almost a partnership. And I'd be creating hope, right? But I pray to feel that one day be hopeful. I'm a pessimist. Realist. You can hear more on that as well. Just search for driving across the divide on the documentary podcast,

which is available wherever you get your podcasts from the beginning. BBC World Service. It's not a look Russia would have wanted for one of its most high-profile sports events. Athletes and spectators forced to take shelter because of a nearby Ukrainian drone strike. Some people left the stadium at the National Athletics Championship in Yucateringburg, while others hid indoors. The event was taking place near to a facility operated by the Russian retail giant wild berries. It comes as Ukrainian officials, say the capital Kiev, came under attack early on Sunday.

claiming Russian forces have been targeting the city with ballistic missiles. Unka Desai spoke to our global affairs reporter Paul Moss about these latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The first we heard from this about this was early on Saturday when the Sferd-Losk region's authorities said there'd been a drone attack by Ukraine, which they said had been repelled, they said just a bit of debris had fallen. Then a footage emerged showing smoke coming out of a site in Yacatarimberg. that's the biggest city in the Svedlosk region. Now, when you look at those pictures, you know, it's hard to say, but it doesn't look like just debris.

It looks like something hit its target. Either way, there was a huge amount of disruption. These outlets for this office, in fact, of wildberries had to be evacuated. And much more embarrassingly, they had to suspend the national athletics championships because of this nearby drone attack. I think we can hear from someone who was there. We were sitting in the stands when they announced, over the loudspeaker that everyone was being asked to go under the stands.

After that, they announced a missile threat and didn't even say how long it would last. I'm in a bit of a worried state. It's hard to overstate just how embarrassing this is. The national athletics championships in Russia would normally be very prominent. But since Russia was banned, effectively, from most international sporting occasions, it's had particular importance. So to have it disrupted by a Ukrainian drone really will annoy the authorities in Russia. Bear in mind also, Yakaterimberg, is 2,000 kilometres inside Russia.

So it's just another sign of Ukraine's success in penetrating deep inside the Russian heartland. And Paul, why would Ukraine be so keen to hit a retail outlet like Wildberries rather than military or, let's say, more strategic target? Yeah, it might sound like a low priority. Well, what Ukraine says is that Wildberries supplies kit to the Russian military. Russia denies this. But in fact, if you look at Wildberry's website, you can see they sell things like camouflage gear body armor. Now, given that Russian soldiers often have to buy their own kit,

it clearly can and probably does supply the Russian military. But I think there's something else going on here. This is just another way which Ukraine is bringing the war home to ordinary Russian people. Wildberries is massive. It has more than half of the e-retel exchanges in Russia. It's often called Russia's Amazon. And also a large number of Russians sell their stuff through Walberries. That goes from major companies to ordinary artisans. So this is really a blow. Several of their facilities were actually hit and badly damaged last week. Billions of dollars worth of stock destroyed. And just before you go, we're also hearing about an attack in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine. What more can you tell us about that?

Yeah, this is not confirmed, but it was in the Russian-occupied Zaporizia region, a village called Kiri Livka. And what the local administration says, bear in mind this is a Russian-occupier administration, say a Ukrainian drone hit a tourist camp, killing 11 people, including four children. No way to confirm this. Ukraine hasn't said anything. In fact, they've been busy boasting of hitting another oil refinery. This one in Tumen, that's even further into Russia than Yacquaterimberg. So once again, showing that they could hit deep inside Russia and that they could do so accurately. That's Paul Moss. Two students have been expelled from a Nigerian university after being accused of what were termed

homosexual activities. Nigeria has strict laws against same-sex relationships with those convicted facing up to 14 years in prison. Macuacchi Ocalfo reports from Lagos. The university announced on Friday that two students had been expelled over alleged involvement in a same-sex relationship while four others were suspended for one academic session over fighting on campus. The university said the disciplinary action followed his student rules and regulation, adding that he remained committed to maintaining discipline providing a safe learning environment. Nigerian's anti-LGBT laws have been criticized by right groups who say they have contributed to discrimination, violence and harassment against LGBT people.

Activists say reports of attacks, threats and blackmail remain common. In part of northern Nigeria, where Islamic laws operate alongside the national legal system, same-sex arts can also carry severe penalties. Across Africa, some countries have recently moved to introduce or strengthen anti-LGB laws, including Ghana, Burkina Faso and Niger. A story out of Egypt now, an unusual one at that. A man's been remanded in custody in the city of Alexandria, accused of vandalising the 1961 Cadillac of the late President Gamal Abdu Nassau.

Police say he was using an angle grinder to cut the car up to sell for scrap. Yusuf Taha reports. President Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution in 1952 and remains a legendary figure for many in the Arab world. His rare fleet with 75 Cadillac was decommissioned and sold at auction in 1981 to an antiques dealer who had since stored it in his garage. The neighbours caught the suspect after they spotted him several times sneaking into the building, followed by the sound of an angled grinder. The suspect told the police that he had no idea that the vehicle had any historical value.

Now, if the gods were going to smile on an application for UNESCO World Heritage status, this would probably be the one. Greek officials are going to discover in the next few days whether Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece, and the place which was the mythological home of Zeus and the 12 gods of ancient Greece, is being added to the list as a mixed cultural and natural site.

The discussions on whether to add it to the list begin on Sunday, and the UNESCO meeting concludes on Wednesday. My colleague James Kumrasami has been speaking to one interested party. Stavrula Vauri, is the owner of the Inipios rooms, a hotel in Lita Choro at the foot of Mount Olympus.

Mount Olympus is very special from 1913, where Christos Cacalos, Bonbovi and Frederick Busnas climbed for first time to the peak. All the people that they are coming here come to explore our mountain. They know about mythology, the 12 gods, and they want to reach every peak because Mountain Olympus has 55 peaks,

with different names and different history. Every footpath is very interesting, very wonderful, and very refreshing for everybody. There are some points that they have no signal in mobile phones so they can remake themselves and land everybody themselves. Away from all the social media and all the messages. Yes. Now, tell me about climbing it.

How difficult is it to walk up the mountain? It's not difficult. If you respect that mountain, mountain respect you. And if you have the right leader, you can climb to the peak with very easy steps. You feel the tired, but the tired is sweet. It is. And tell us about your hotel.

It's at the foot of the mountain. Yes, it's on foot of Olympus. It's a special spot from here. we can see the highest stops. So people stay in your hotel and off they go to hike up to the top of the mountain? Yes, it's the beginning of the climbing and when they are coming down, they are understand, look where we are. Now, what about this UNESCO World Heritage status?

Would it be a good thing for you? It's an extra certificate here. They ask every year certificate and certificate for extra things. But now is one of the best certificate to be in UNESCO. So you are hoping that finally it is given the UNESCO status? Yes, why not? And you have grown up there. This has been your life, Mount Olympus, has it?

Yes, yes, yes, that's true. I hear that your mother-in-law was still climbing in her 80s. Yes, that's true. Before Corona is the last time that she climbed up to the peak. That's not a myth. No, no, it's real. You can ask Michalis Stillas. He was her leader for last time.

And last year, at 8th of August, we celebrate her birthday in my property here. And he comes from the peak and say, Hello. And she asked her, why? Why are here? Would you like to climb again now? And we love all together. 80 years old.

She's great fun. She's Stavrula Vowary there. That's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at global podcast at bbc.com. I'm also on X at BBC World Service. We have a sister podcast, The Global Story, sure to check that one out. This edition of the Global News podcast was mixed by Nick Randall. The producers were Carla Conti and Ariane Cotchy. The editor is Karen Martin and I'm Will Chalk. Until next time,

goodbye.