HOSTENS, France, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Firefighters flew to France from across Europe to battle a "monster" wildfire raging for a third day near the wine-growing heartland of Bordeaux on Thursday, with no let-up in blistering temperatures likely before the weekend.

More than 1,000 firefighters backed by water-bombing aircraft tried to contain the blaze in the southwestern Gironde region that has forced thousands of people from their homes and scorched 6,800 hectares of forest.

"It's an ogre, it's a monster," Gregory Allione from the French firefighters body FNSPF told RTL radio.

You may have heard the saying, “When you’re in love, smoke gets in your eyes.” Well when you’re talking, smoke gets in your eyes and ears. Once you’re on a roll, it’s very easy to not notice that you’ve worn out your welcome. You may not even realize that the other person is politely trying to get a word in, or subtly signaling that they need to be elsewhere (possibly, anywhere else if you have been really boring).

There are three stages of speaking to other people. In the first stage, you’re on task, relevant and concise.  But then you unconsciously discover that the more you talk, the more you feel relief.  Ahh, so wonderful and tension-relieving for you… but not so much fun for the receiver. This is the second stage – when it feels so good to talk, you don’t even notice the other person is not listening.

The third stage occurs after you have lost track of what you were saying and begin to realize you might need to reel...

Gold has staged a dramatic rebound over the past three weeks, rising from a low of below $1,680 per ounce for the most-active contract to an intraday high of $1,824 per ounce on Wednesday, after tumbling for five straight weeks.

In...

FRANKFURT, Aug 11 (Reuters) - RWE (RWEG.DE) is holding talks with a larger number of suppliers of liquefied natural gas (LNG), not just Qatar and North America, CEO Markus Krebber said, as Germany's largest power producer continues its efforts to replace Russian gas volumes.

RWE earlier this year said it was in discussions with potential LNG suppliers in the United States and Qatar, as Germany tries to diversify away from Russia, its largest supplier of natural gas.

Sources told Reuters in May that talks with Qatar have proven difficult over disagreement regarding key contract clauses, most notably differences over how long supply agreements would run. read more

CHARMEY, Switzerland, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Swiss army helicopters have been drafted in to airlift water to thousands of thirsty farm animals sweltering under this summer's soaring temperatures in the country's Alpine meadows.

Lower rainfall this year forced farmers to call on the army to swoop in with much-needed refreshments for their animals and prevent a drought causing feed shortages later in the year.

A two-week operation is now under way with Super Puma helicopters flying to refill the near-empty reservoirs used by farmers for their cows, whose milk is often used to make Gruyere cheese, and other animals such as pigs and goats.

Politics: The FBI's effort to get documents from former President Donald Trump's Florida home escalated sharply this summer. 

Economy: The Labor Department is set to release data on producer prices for July and initial jobless claims for the week ended Aug. 6.

The Russia-Ukraine War: Kyiv is building forces outside Kherson, even as larger battles continue in the eastern region of Donbas.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Brazilian woman Sabine Coll Boghici, 48, was arrested on Wednesday on allegations she was part of a bizarre scheme to defraud her 82-year-old mother, Genevieve Boghici, the wife of the late art collector Jean Boghici, out of money, artwork and jewelry totaling some 724 million reais ($142.42 million).

Her arrest has exposed a disturbing web of fraud that police say lasted years and involved alleged psychics to swindle artwork by some of Brazil's most emblematic painters. Four other people were also arrested and two others, Diana Rosa Aparecida Stanesco Vuletic and Slavko Vuletic, are on the run.

The scam began in 2020 when Genevieve was approached by a supposed psychic with prophecies of her daughter's imminent death.

When Nafisat Ekerin’s weekly grocery bill soared to 20,000 naira last June, up from 12,000 the previous year, her family of five made major cuts: fewer eggs and beans, watered-down hot chocolate, no more fruit for the baby. After she found herself pleading with market vendors for price cuts to keep her children fed, the fashion designer in Lagos, Nigeria, didn’t think it could get much worse. 

And then it did. In the year since, Nigeria’s currency has continued to depreciate while food prices are up another 21%, forcing households like hers to make a new round of dietary sacrifices even sharper than the first. 

The Government is running out of time to tackle rising household energy bills ahead of winter, warned Simon Oscroft, co-founder of So Energy.

In his view, the longer politicians failed to announce plans to ease the pain facing consumers, the fewer options they would have at their disposal.

He argued the energy sector was “at a state of emergency” and that the “Government needs to act.”

Oscroft told City A.M.: “I think that every day that goes past, the Government is narrowing its policy and the tools are which they are going to have to utilise are going to be blunter and blunter.”

The energy boss’ concerns follow multiple alarming forecasts of vast hikes in the price cap this winter.

Cornwall Insight has predicted the cap will rise to £3,582 per year on October 1 and peak at £4,426 per year in April, and does not expect prices to drop off until 2024.

There has also been an alarming forecast from Auxilione climbing to a vast...

The founder of a Cayman Islands headquartered fund, that bankrolled ‘no win, no fee’ lawsuits, has been jailed for 14 years for using millions in investors cash to finance his own extravagant spending habits.

Axiom Legal Financing Fund founder Timothy Schools was today sentenced to 14 years in prison at a hearing at Southwark Crown Court after being found guilty on five counts of fraud and money laundering.

The former lawyer used a network of offshore trusts and bank accounts to siphon off millions invested in his litigation fund to buy £262,543 worth of luxury cars, a £78,000 motor boat, and a £5m shooting and fishing estate in the Lake District.

The investment manager, who set up Axiom in 2009 with a view to financing ‘no win, no fee’ lawsuits, told investors their money would be paid out to a panel of high-quality law firms, and used to bankroll profitable legal cases.

Instead, the majority of the money was paid out to just three separate...

MOSCOW, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Russia on Thursday condemned a resolution by Latvia's parliament that designated Russia as a "state sponsor of terrorism".

"Considering that there is no substance, except for animalistic xenophobia, behind this decision, it is necessary to call the ideologues nothing more than neo-Nazis," foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram.

The resolution said that "Latvia recognises Russia's actions in Ukraine as targeted genocide against the Ukrainian people", and called for greater military, financial, humanitarian and diplomatic backing for Ukraine. read more

Russia says it had to send its armed forces into Ukraine to "denazify" a country that it says is ruled by neo-Nazis, and has also applied the term to critics in the Baltic states.

Ukraine and the West have dismissed Russia's use of the word as propaganda, aimed at justifying an imperial-style war of conquest by likening Ukraine to the Nazi German invaders...

SEOUL, Aug 11 (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared victory over COVID-19 and his sister indicated that he too caught the virus, while vowing "deadly retaliation" against South Korea, which the North blames for causing the outbreak.

Kim ordered the lifting of maximum anti-epidemic measures imposed in May though adding that North Korea must maintain a "steel-strong anti-epidemic barrier and intensifying the anti-epidemic work until the end of the global health crisis", North Korea's KCNA news agency reported on Thursday.

North Korea has never confirmed how many people caught COVID, apparently because it lacks the means to conduct widespread testing.

The shares sank as much as 11%, the most since late May, after Kwarteng said Drax’s reliance on US pellets isn’t sustainable and “doesn’t make any sense.” It’s another setback for the power producer, which is already under scrutiny following a complaint by environmental campaigners over its green credentials.

Jeffrey O’Connor is a senior execution consultant and market insight analyst for US equities at Liquidnet

The recent surge in retail trading is important for the vibrancy of capital markets and the price formation process.  However, the market structure which underpins elements of equity trading has also come under severe criticism by these new entrants.

This...

BERLIN, Aug 11 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has no concrete plans yet for a visit to China, he said on Thursday.

There were talks but no date had been set yet, Scholz said at a news conference in Berlin.

He stressed the importance of German companies not being too dependent on China but being able to rely on diversified supply chains.