Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday sacked Russia’s top forestry official over criticism that he did little to combat deadly forest fires that were unleashed by a record heat wave and blanketed Moscow in smoke.
At a government meeting, Putin sacked Alexei Savinov, head of the Forestry Agency, following criticism that he kept a low profile and was not in sufficient control of Russia’s wooded areas. Savinov was replaced by his deputy, Viktor Maslyakov.
WILDFIRES
Critics have said the Forest Code, rushed through the State Duma (parliament) in 2006 on Putin’s orders, was the main cause of devastating wildfires that raged across central Russia, because the law disbanded a centralized system of forest protection.
Russian forests cover 809 million hectares, twice the size of the EU landmass, but the new legislation deprived the Forestry Agency of important powers to oversee them, critics said.
Putin on Friday also pledged another 2.7 billion roubles (US$88.52 million) in aid for wildfire victims, on top of the 5 billion roubles he promised earlier.
Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu told a news conference on Thursday that the cost of extinguishing fires across Russia, as well as funds allocated to building new houses, had reached 12 billion roubles.
DEATH RATE
President Dmitry Medvedev lifted the state of emergency on Friday in the Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Mordovia regions, after torrential rain provided much needed respite to the capital at the end of the country’s most severe heat wave ever recorded.
The heat and wildfires are expected to shave US$14 billion off this year’s GDP, and have devastated grain crops. Moscow’s top health official said the acrid smoke doubled the city’s normal death rate.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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