At least 150 properties have been destroyed in Knysna, according to the fire service.
The town has a population of 77,000. It lies 500km (310 miles) east of Cape Town on South Africa's famed Garden Route.
"Humanitarian support is being co-ordinated for an estimated 8,000 to
10,000 residents of the Greater Knysna area, after devastating fires,"
said James-Brent Styan, spokesman for the Western Cape local government
ministry.
The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) would
assist in a water-bombing operation to extinguish the fires, its
spokesman Simphiwe Dlamini said.
About 150 troops would also be deployed to make sure that criminals do not loot properties that have been vacated, he added.
In
May, the Western Cape province declared a drought disaster after two
reservoirs had completely dried up. It was said to have been the
region's worst drought in more than a century.
Several other
southern African nations were also affected by the two-year drought,
which was caused by the El Nino climate phenomenon.
BBC NEWS
However, many parts of the region are now experiencing bumper maize harvests.
Qatar vows 'no surrender' in row with Arab states
Qatar has vowed it will "not
surrender" its foreign policy in a row with other Arab states over its
alleged connections to extremism.
Foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed
bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said he favoured diplomacy to resolve the
escalating crisis and that there was no military solution, Reuters
reported.
Qatar rejects claims it is a leading supporter of Islamist extremism.
Meanwhile, Qatar's Al Jazeera network said it was suffering a cyber-attack.
"Al Jazeera Media Network under cyber-attack on all systems, websites and social media platforms," it tweeted. The network has been in the crosshairs in the current dispute, and other Gulf countries blocked it in late May.
On
its website, Al Jazeera said its services were all still working but
the attacks "are gaining intensity and taking various forms".
Meanwhile, Qatar's state-run TV station later said it was shutting down its website temporarily because of hacking attempts.
In other developments:
Egypt urged the UN Security Council to launch an investigation into claims that Qatar paid a ransom of up to $1bn (£770m) to secure the release of royal family members kidnapped while hunting in southern Iraq
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister flew
to Oman for talks but officials did not elaborate. Oman has so far not
been involved in the action against Qatar.
Saudi Arabia and other states cut travel and diplomatic links on
Monday. The emir of Kuwait is trying to mediate the row, carrying out
shuttle diplomacy between Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates (UAE).
Qatar out of step: BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins
This
is a region largely of absolute monarchs - kings or emirs - who have in
common a very firm grip on politics at home to head off any dissent
that could represent a threat to their individual regime survival.
But
the emir of Qatar pursues a series of policies that simply don't fit
into the rigid orthodoxy expected by most of the others, notably Saudi
Arabia, the superpower of Sunni Islam.
His unconventional foreign
policy is seen as a threat to Sunni solidarity, particularly because the
emir and his ministers promote dialogue and a search for good relations
with the rival regional superpower, Shia Muslim Iran.
Saudi
Arabia is deeply hostile to that approach, and now feels empowered to
turn that hostility to action, in the certain knowledge that a new US
president, Donald Trump, is at Saudi King Salman's side.
Addressing reporters in Doha on Thursday, Sheikh
Mohammed said Qatar had been isolated "because we are successful and
progressive".
"We are a platform for peace not terrorism. This
dispute is threatening the stability of the entire region," he said,
adding: "We are not ready to surrender, and will never be ready to
surrender, the independence of our foreign policy."
He said Iran
had offered the use of three of its ports to ship food and water to
Qatar as supplies ran low, but he said the offer had not yet been
accepted.
Qatar is heavily dependent on food imports and the crisis has led to stockpiling and shortages.
Sheikh Mohammed said Qatar had never before experienced such hostility.
In
another development, Russia said Sheikh Mohammed would fly to Moscow
for talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on Saturday.
They will discuss "urgent international" issues, Tass news agency reported, but there were no further details.
BBC
diplomatic correspondent James Robbins says Russia's intervention could
complicate existing efforts to defuse the situation.
Several
countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt cut diplomatic and
flight links with Qatar on Monday. Saudi Arabia also closed its land
border, a vital lifeline for supplies.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel
al-Jubeir has said Qatar needs to cut ties with Palestinian Islamist
group Hamas in the occupied territories, and the Muslim Brotherhood in
Egypt, if it wanted to end its isolation.
Meanwhile, Bahrain has joined the UAE in threatening jail terms for anyone voicing support for Qatar.
"Any
expression of sympathy with the government of Qatar or opposition to
the measures taken by the government of Bahrain, whether through social
media, Twitter or any other form of communication, is a criminal offence
punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine," a statement from
the interior ministry said.
Turkey, in an apparent act of support for Qatar, has approved a bill
allowing more troops to be based there. The Turkish president has also
offered to mediate.
Qatar is also home to the biggest American air base in the region.
US President Donald Trump urged Gulf unity in a call to Saudi Arabia's King Salman, US officials said on Wednesday.
However, he had earlier claimed credit for the pressure placed on Qatar saying his recent visit to Saudi Arabia was "already paying off".
BBC NEWS
Trump's lawyer Marc Kasowitz rejects James Comey's allegations
US President Donald Trump's personal
lawyer has rejected allegations made by James Comey, the former FBI
director, before US lawmakers.
Marc Kasowitz said Mr Trump never
sought to impede the investigation into possible Russian interference in
the 2016 presidential election.
He suggested that leaks by Mr Comey should themselves be investigated.
Mr Comey told Congress that the Trump administration's comments about him and the FBI were "lies plain and simple".
He told a Senate committee they were wrong to denigrate the agency and its leadership.
Mr
Comey was also "confused" by the "shifting explanations" for his
sacking, which came as he led a probe into any links between the Trump
campaign and Moscow.
When reporters asked Mr Trump himself whether
he thought Mr Comey was telling the truth, he did not respond but
simply pursed his lips and smiled.
Mr Trump's attorney, Marc
Kasowitz, said in a statement that Mr Comey's testimony "finally
confirmed publicly" that the president was not under investigation as
part of any probe in Russian political meddling.
In the
statement, Mr Trump also denied asking Mr Comey for his loyalty or to
drop an investigation into fired national security adviser Michael Flynn
during private meetings.
In his testimony, Mr Comey said Mr Trump had repeatedly told him he was doing a "great" job.
He also suggested he was fired to "change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted".
The
former FBI boss remained largely composed throughout almost three hours
of testimony but became impassioned when delivering his opening
remarks.
He told the panel that the White House "chose to defame
me, and more importantly the FBI" by claiming the agency was "poorly
led".
"Those were lies, plain and simple. And I'm so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them," he continued.
"The FBI is honest. The FBI is strong. And the FBI is and always will be independent," he said in his opening remarks.
Mr Comey was leading one of several Russia investigations before Mr Trump fired him.
US
intelligence agencies believe Russia interfered in the US election and
they are investigating alleged links between the Trump campaign and
Moscow.
But there is no known evidence of collusion and President Donald Trump has dismissed the story as "fake news".
His spokeswoman Sarah Sanders on Thursday hit back at Mr Comey, saying: "I can definitively say the president is not a liar."
'Staggering blow' for Trump - Anthony Zurcher, BBC News
For
Donald Trump the good news from James Comey's testimony is that the
former FBI director clearly said the president was not directly under
FBI investigation at the time he was fired. The bad news was, well,
everything else.
On multiple occasions, Mr Comey said he was
either concerned or knew that the president or his administration was
lying "plain and simple" - about the circumstances of his dismissal and
about the nature of his meetings with the president.
It's clear
the president woefully mishandled this, for which he has paid a high
price ever since. By unceremoniously sacking him, and offering a muddle
of explanations for it, he created an adversary with both the means and
the motivation to respond in the most damaging way.
Mr Comey had a
friend leak disturbing information about the president's actions to the
media. He was given the biggest spotlight in a generation to publicly
air further details. He stood before a Senate committee not just to
defend himself, but also the honour of the FBI.
The White House
may claim today's testimony is a technical exoneration. Politically,
however, it's a staggering blow. And when it comes to the presidency,
politics is everything.
During Thursday's testimony, Mr Comey emphasised that Russia's
political meddling was "not a close call", adding: "There should be no
fuzz on this whatsoever."
When asked by the Senate Intelligence
Committee whether the president tried to stop the Russia investigation,
Mr Comey said: "Not to my understanding, no."
He said he it was not for him to say whether Mr Trump's actions were an obstruction of justice.
Democratic
Senator Mark Warner, the committee's vice chairman, pressed Mr Comey on
why he decided to keep a record of his conversations with Mr Trump.
Mr Comey, who published his prepared remarks a day before the
hearing, detailed one meeting with Mr Trump in which the president asked
Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House aide Jared Kushner to
leave the Oval Office.
"I knew something was about to happen that
I needed to pay very close attention to," he said. "I remember thinking
that that was a very disturbing development."
During another meeting with Mr Trump, Mr Comey said the president
appealed to him to "let go" an investigation into fired national
security adviser Michael Flynn and his ties to the Kremlin.
After US media reported the conversation, the president warned Mr Comey in a tweet, saying he "better hope there are no 'tapes' of our conversations".
Mr Comey told the committee he hoped there were tapes, calling on Mr Trump to release them.
"The
president surely knows whether he taped me, and if he did my feelings
aren't hurt. Release all the tapes, I'm good with it," he said.
The White House has refused to say whether any such tapes exist.
After
Mr Trump's tweet about potential tapes, Mr Comey said he realised it
was important to release his own account of the story.
He revealed that he asked a "good friend of mine" who is a professor
at Columbia Law School to share contents of the memo with a reporter, in
order to build pressure for a special counsel. As a result of
this episode, former FBI chief Robert Mueller was appointed as special
counsel to lead an independent investigation into the Trump campaign's
potential ties to the Kremlin. Mr Comey said he was "sure" Mr Mueller was also looking at whether Mr Trump obstructed justice. Mr
Trump attacked Mr Comey for leaking the documents, saying it showed
that members of the US government are "actively attempting to undermine
this administration".
What's the reaction?
"He's new in government, and so therefore I think he's learning as he goes," said Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan. "I'm not saying it's an acceptable excuse. It's just my observation." "If
you want to convict the president of being inappropriate, putting Comey
in a bad spot, being rude, crude and a bull in a china shop, you would
win," Senator Lindsey Graham told the BBC. "The American people elected a bull in a china shop to help them with their lives, not this." Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said "it's hard to overstate the impact of Jim Comey's testimony today" and that "it seems like the walls are closing in".
BBC NEWS
Tom Cruise's The Mummy gets some grim reviews
The reboot of The Mummy starring Tom Cruise has received some scathing reviews from critics.
The film, which is released in the UK on 25 June, also stars Annabelle Wallis and Russell Crowe.
Writing in The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw said: "This has some nice moments but is basically a mess.
"The plot sags like an aeon-old decaying limb: a jumble of ideas and scenes from what look like different screenplay drafts."
'Monster fail'
Empire was slightly more kind, with Dan Jolin awarding the film three stars.
"It's
running and jumping grin-flashing business as usual for Cruise, once
more on safe character territory as an Ethan Hunt-esque action
protagonist who couples up with a much younger woman, while another
woman chases after him," he wrote.
"And if the next
instalment-teasing conclusion is anything to go by, Cruise seemed to
have enough fun making this that he may just return for more."
Geoffrey Macnab gave the film two stars in his review for The Independent.
"The stunts are by far the best element here," he said.
Whether
it's planes being torn apart, Cruise and Wallis driving through the
woods with the Mummy in pursuit or the very spectacular finale, the
visual effects are first rate.
"Whenever the action stops, though, the film becomes derivative and empty headed."
Taliban territory: Life in Afghanistan under the militants
Sixteen years after they were ousted
in the US-led invasion, the Taliban have fought their way back to
control swathes of Afghanistan. The country remains mired in conflict,
and recent months have seen a series of bloody attacks. In the south,
key towns are now Taliban territory. The BBC's Auliya Atrafi was invited
by the militants to spend four days behind the front line in Helmand
province witnessing life under their control.
In the town of
Sangin, two dozen men sat cross-legged inside a huge mud compound. Under
the full moon, their black turbans cast deep shadows over their
sunburned features.
These were the Taliban's special forces; the
Red Unit. They sat quietly as they listened to their commander Mullah
Taqi telling war stories, gently cradling their M4 machine guns. The
M4s, with their night-vision scopes, were one of the main reasons they
had captured nearly 85% of Helmand province from less-well-armed Afghan
forces.
But these victories had presented Taliban leaders with an unexpected challenge.
The
people they now ruled had lived with government services for more than a
decade. Schools, hospitals, development - residents had become
accustomed to them. So how could a group entirely focused on taking
territory evolve into one that could attempt to run it?
Who are the Taliban?
The hardline Islamic Taliban movement
swept to power in Afghanistan in 1996 after the civil war which
followed the Soviet-Afghan war, and were ousted by the US-led invasion
five years later
In power, they imposed a brutal
version of Sharia law, such as public executions and amputations, and
banned women from public life
Men had to grow beards and women to wear the all-covering burka; television, music and cinema were banned
They sheltered al-Qaeda leaders before
and after being ousted - since then they have fought a bloody
insurgency which continues today
In 2016, Afghan civilian casualties hit a new high - a rise attributed by the UN largely to the Taliban
Setting up our visit to Taliban territory took
months. It had been years since a journalist with international media
had secured such access. But in mid-May, we crossed the frontline in
Gereshk, following a boy on a motorbike. We drove on the main
Kabul-Herat highway towards Kandahar.
Just by an Afghan National
Army post, the boy suddenly turned left, leaving the highway behind, and
rode into scattered settlements. He handed us over to two Taliban
guards who were manning a makeshift base. One sat with us in the car,
while the other led us on a motorbike towards the Zanbulai area.
There, waiting for us. was Mullah Taqi, the head of Taliban special
forces. He stood with a group of his men, all nursing sophisticated
weaponry.
Throughout the visit we were accompanied by a Taliban media team who controlled what we saw.
We
were not allowed to film anything to do with opium. The opium trade is
synonymous with this region - Afghanistan produces about 90% of the
world's opium - and helps fund the Taliban.
I tried to explain to
their media head, Asad Afghan, the English concept of "an elephant in
the room". He put his hand on my shoulder and said: "Opium is our
economic necessity, but we hate it as much as you do."
The fact is the Taliban need the money they get from drugs - it buys arms and helps fund their fight.
Our first encounter with Taliban governance came in the market.
Sangin has been fiercely contested for more than a decade - hundreds of
UK, US and Afghan troops lost their lives here - and finally fell to the
Taliban in March this year.
The old Sangin bazaar had been
flattened in the battle for the city. We walked through its makeshift
replacement, a sea of tarpaulin and boxes. Two men were arguing by a
food stall.
"I can't read!" shouted shopkeeper Haji Saifullah.
"How was I supposed to know the biscuits were out of date?" He fidgeted
with his turban, pushing it to one side nervously.
The other man was the Taliban mayor of Sangin, Noor Mohammad. He
ordered Haji Saifullah to be imprisoned for three days and to pay a
fine.
Next on the mayor's list was inspecting petrol containers
to see if they had been altered to pour under the promised gallon. After
that came examinations for people who claimed to be doctors, but who he
suspected were lying.
Later we drove to Musa Qala, the Taliban's
de facto capital. Just short of the town, we stopped at a travelling
bazaar set up on a dry riverbed.
Musa Qala is famous for the opium trade but it is also a commercial
lifeline for the district. Traders come here all the way from the
Afghan-Pakistan border areas.
At the bazaar you could buy motorbikes, cows, ice-cream - and less conventional commodities such as ammunition.
Bullets
for an AK47 were 25 cents (15p) each. Bullets for a Russian machine-gun
used to be 40 cents each, but were reduced to 15 cents because -
according to the shopkeeper - too many of them had been captured from
the Afghan security forces.
Image caption
Bullets on sale in the market in Musa Qala
While the Taliban focus on health, safety and
trading standards in Sangin was surprising, more discoveries awaited us
in Musa Qala. Despite it being the Taliban capital, the school and
hospital were still being funded by the government in Kabul.
"The government recently did their
inspections; our schools were officially registered; our salaries that
were locked for a year were later released," said Abdul Rahim, the
government's head of education for Musa Qala.
He said the Taliban did not have any problem with government inspectors, and that the system was working.
"The
government give us stationery and everything else, we implement the
government syllabus and the Taliban don't have a problem with it," he
said.
But not everything was running smoothly. Across Afghanistan, about
40% of pupils enrolled in schools are female, according to US Aid. Not
in Musa Qala, however. No girls over the age of about 12 were being
educated in the Taliban capital. But girls were deprived of education
here even before the Taliban took hold, because it is a very
conservative area.
For the boys, meanwhile, there were not enough basic supplies.
"The
way our school is run is good, as in security, but we have one problem
and that's we don't have enough books," said one student, Dadul-Haq.
"One student will be missing maths, the other chemistry - not all pupils
have the same books."
It struck me that in education, at least,
the Taliban are tentatively experimenting by allowing wider access to
education - at least for boys - than during their earlier regime. Under
them, before 2001, many fewer boys went to school in the countryside.
But experiences like Haji Saifullah's - the biscuit seller in Sangin -
have made rural Afghans realise that education and literacy are
essential. They will not turn you into an infidel, as their forefathers
feared.
Now the Taliban appear to have realised that they cannot
fight the modern world forever, so some have opted to join it on their
own terms.
Asad Afghan, the Taliban's media co-ordinator, used a proverb to make
his point. "The fire may have burnt our house, but it made our walls
stronger," he said. He meant that the Taliban had learned from the past
mistake of isolating themselves from modernisation.
Many say the
Taliban have brought some security - albeit with limited freedoms - to
the countryside they control. Areas used to years of fighting between
troops and militants are now seeing a dramatic rise in trade. Many
people say they prefer the Taliban's swift - but flawed - system of
justice to the previous administration, which they say was riddled with
corruption and patronage.
We visited the district hospital which, like the school, was funded
by the government but run by the Taliban. It is meant to serve 120,000
people, but lacked many basic facilities. There was not one female
doctor; neither was there a paediatric specialist. It wasn't even
possible to get a chest X-ray.
To cater for women the Taliban had built a separate facility next door, run by female staff.
One
doctor said the dual system had created a responsibility vacuum and
opened the door to corruption. "I haven't been paid in the past six
months - not only me but also the entire staff of the hospital," he
said.
"[Government] supervisors write things on paper that don't
turn into reality. Our medicine for three months doesn't last us more
than a month and half… this is because sometimes the Taliban come and
want medicine for themselves."
We asked the Taliban's supervisor for health services, Attaullah, if we could interview a female nurse, but he refused.
Her
husband told him that he had no problem with the interview, but
Attaullah said: "It is your right to allow the interview and my
responsibility to stop it.
"What would be the difference between us and the government if we allowed interviews with women?"
During
the four days I was in Taliban territory, I only saw women in clinics
and being transported around by their male relatives. But men here have
always preferred women to stay at home out of sight. Even if the Taliban
were not here, it is unlikely things would be very different.
Some
activities were limited. In Musa Qala, using mobile phones and the
internet was banned for security and religious reasons - our Taliban
media handlers communicated via walkie-talkies. Filming and playing
musical instruments are also not allowed. One young man told me he was
given 40 lashes for watching a Bollywood film.
The Taliban have
cracked down on bachabaze - dance parties involving teenage boys that
can often end in sexual abuse. They also come down hard on
homosexuality, although it appears the Taliban legal process can be
influenced with a mixture of pulling strings and bribes.
Ireminded him that the Taliban also had a culture of obedience and
were disciplined, so didn't he think they would be able to direct their
devotion to war into the art of politics? He dropped his head, thought
for a moment and shook his head doubtfully. He didn't think so.
At night, we would dine with local Taliban leaders and discuss these themes.
One
evening a Taliban leader strove to convince us of the benefits of life
under the Taliban by contrasting it with the failings of the Afghan
government. But it struck me that the world they wanted to create was
too absolute for a human society.
I suggested that society was
messy, complicated and always in transition, and wondered how successful
any government would be trying put it in a fixed framework.
The
leader, Musavir Sahib, was a tiny man, with long beard and blue eyes. He
was adamant: "Our governance is based on sacred scripture; it is the
best solution for any human society.
"Afghans are adaptable
people," he added. "When we took over the country for the first time,
very soon people started dressing up like us. And then when the
Americans came, they started dressing up like the Americans. So surely
they will adopt our governance again."
He could not conceive that people could oppose Taliban rule and were coerced by them into doing what they wanted.
BBC NEWS
General election 2017: Voters to go to the polls
Voting in the UK general election is under way at more than 40,000 polling stations across the country.
Polls opened at 07:00 BST on Thursday, with counting starting once voting ends at 22:00 BST.
A total of 650 Westminster MPs will be elected, with about 46.9 million people registered to vote.
That is up from the last general election, in 2015, when there were 46.4 million registered voters.
Some votes have already been cast, through postal voting, which
accounted for 16.4% of the total electorate at the 2015 general
election. People with an undelivered postal vote can still deliver it by
hand to their local polling station.
Overall turnout in 2015, when the Conservatives won 331 out of 650 seats, was 66.4%, up from 2010.
A handful of seats are expected to be declared by midnight, with the final results expected on Friday afternoon.
Unusually,
no local elections are taking place at the same time, so results might
come through earlier than in recent general elections.
In 2015 the first seat to declare was Houghton and Sunderland South, at 22:48 BST.
To
form a majority in the House of Commons one party must win 326 seats -
in 2015 a Conservative majority was not confirmed until 13:34 BST.
The
weather forecast is for some rain in south-west England, Northern
Ireland, Scotland and Wales on Thursday, with south-east England
remaining cloudy and dry.
Image copyrightReuters
Polls close at 22:00 BST, but officials say anyone in a polling station queue at this time should be able to cast their vote.
The BBC's main election programme, fronted by David Dimbleby, starts at 21:55 BST, with live coverage from scores of counts.
Dimbleby, fronting his 10th election night broadcast, will be joined by Mishal Husain, Emily Maitlis, Jeremy Vine.
Wales,
Scotland and Northern Ireland will have their own overnight programmes
but will join Huw Edwards from 07:00 BST on 9 June.
On the radio, an overnight broadcast by BBC Radio 4 will be hosted by Jim Naughtie and Carolyn Quinn.
On BBC Radio 5 live, the overnight show will be hosted by Stephen Nolan and Emma Barnett.
Full
coverage of the results as they come in will be on the BBC politics
online live page and front page scorecard, with all the big breaking
stories from around the country and analysis by correspondents.
