Moroccan firefighters have stepped up their efforts to contain forest fires, fanned by fierce winds, that are sweeping across the north of the country, according to local authorities.

In the most affected province of Larache, south of Tangier, intervention teams supported by the army were attempting to keep in check fires that were still active and threatening villages, local sources told AFP on Wednesday night.

At least six people were killed in floods near Tehran Thursday, most in a landslide that dumped mud four meters deep in a village west of the capital, emergency services said.

The flash flooding near the capital, in the foothills of the Alborz mountains, comes less than a week after floods in the normally arid south of Iran left 22 people dead.

Shazad Akbar carried his four-year-old daughter on his shoulders Tuesday as he and his wife waded through knee-high water flooding a street in Surjani, a poor part of Pakistan's port city of Karachi.

A futuristic Saudi megacity is to feature two skyscrapers extending across a swathe of desert and mountain terrain, according to the latest disclosures on the project by the kingdom's de facto ruler.

France is on track to experience its driest July on record, the national weather service said Wednesday, with drought-like conditions leading to increasingly severe water restrictions around the country.

In 1998, as nations around the world agreed to cut carbon emissions through the Kyoto Protocol, America's fossil fuel companies plotted their response, including an aggressive strategy to inject doubt into the public debate.

"Victory," according to the American Petroleum Institute's memo, "will be achieved when average citizens 'understand' (recognize) uncertainties in climate science... Unless 'climate change' becomes a non-issue... there may be no moment when we can declare victory."

Firefighters were battling California's largest wildfire of the summer on Monday, a blaze near famed Yosemite National Park that has forced thousands of people to evacuate, officials said.

People in England were urged Tuesday to use water "wisely" to protect supplies and the environment, after the Met Office said the previous eight months had been among the driest on record.

Firefighters from several countries have joined forces to battle a fire in a national park in northern Czech Republic that has spread to neighboring Germany, officials said Tuesday.

The fire in the Bohemian Switzerland park broke out on Sunday and was mostly contained before windy weather caused it to spread again on Monday afternoon and overnight. Firefighters said some 30 hectares have been affected in the park and more across the border in the German state of Saxony.

A weather emergency was declared in Karachi Monday as heavier-than-usual monsoon rains continue to lash Pakistan's biggest city, flooding homes and making streets impassable.