GREECE
Wildfire blame game begins
Grief and shock over the nation’s deadliest wildfires were clouded yesterday by a bitter debate over who was to blame, as the opposition rejected the government’s suggestion that the blazes were started deliberately. Alternate Minister of Public Order and Citizen Protection Nikos Toskas on Thursday said there were “serious” signs that the worst of the fires, which killed scores this week east of Athens, were the result of arson. Forensics experts pressed ahead with the difficult task of identifying the bodies of the 82 people known to have perished in the catastrophe.Amid public anger over the government’s handling of the aftermath, Toskas told reporters that “a serious piece of information has led to us opening an investigation” into possible “criminal acts.” Officials citing information from satellite maps have said that 13 fires broke out at the same time on Monday across the region of Attica, which includes Athens. Experts have said that poor urban planning contributed to what were Europe’s worst wildfires this century.
FRANCE
Air China makes bomb error
An Air China flight to Beijing on Thursday returned to Paris after an airline employee misunderstood a passenger who was calling on the phone and thought he was reporting a bomb on the plane, Paris airport police said. Xinhua news agency initially reported that the plane turned back because of “suspected terrorist information.” Not so, said an official with the airport police prefecture, the state body that oversees security at the city’s airports. The passenger, speaking in English, called Air China to say he was stuck behind police lines that were set up at Charles de Gaulle Airport’s Terminal 1 while officers investigated an abandoned package. “The company thought it was a bomb alert” for the plane, the official said. “It was an error of comprehension.” The official did not identify the passenger or the airline employee. He was not authorized to speak publicly. Flight CA876 returned to Charles de Gaulle and was separated from other aircraft for an inspection. It was scheduled to take off again at 9pm, the official said. The plane had been in the air nearly 40 minutes before heading back, the local airport authority said.
UNITED STATES
NAFTA could be back on
The US, Canada and Mexico could conclude talks to remake the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as soon as next month, the lead US trade negotiator said on Thursday. The remarks follow Wednesday’s joint declaration of a pause in trade hostilities between the country and the EU, raising the possibility of closing two fronts in President Donald Trump’s global trade offensive. The three North American trading partners could reach “some kind of conclusion during the course of August,” Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told a Senate committee. He said “that’s not an unreasonable time frame if everybody wants to get it done,” and would allow Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to sign the new deal before he leaves office on Dec. 1. “That’s what our hope is,” Lighthizer said. Lighthizer suggested he still favored a so-called sunset clause in US trade agreements, requiring parties to renew them every five years. US insistence on the sunset provision helped derail the NAFTA talks earlier this year after both Canadian and Mexican officials rejected it outright.
SOUTH KOREA
Chinese plane makes flyover
The nation summoned a Chinese embassy official yesterday to lodge a complaint over a Chinese military aircraft flying in the nation’s air defense territory, the third such incident this year, the Ministry of National Defense said. South Korea scrambled fighter jets to intercept the plane when it entered the nation’s Air Defense Identification Zone, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. The aircraft spent more than four hours flying near a submerged rock in the area controlled by Seoul, but claimed by Beijing, it added. There was no immediate comment from China. The ministry said it called in Chinese embassy defense attache Du Nongyi (杜農一) and “sternly” urged China to take steps to prevent the incident from recurring.
JAPAN
Typhoon nears flooded areas
Outlying islands were pelted by intense rain yesterday, as a powerful typhoon bore down, threatening the main islands with heavy rain this weekend and putting areas already ravaged by deadly floods at risk again. Typhoon Jongdari — meaning “skylark” in Korean — is to strengthen to a Category 4 typhoon as it moves northwest, but is to be off peak strength as it draws closest to Honshu late today or early tomorrow. While the heaviest rains are likely to hit the region around Tokyo, with 300mm to 500mm possible in the 24 hours to tomorrow morning, the storm could also pass right over the western region lashed by floods earlier this month. Heavy rains and winds were already lashing the Ogasawara Islands, about 1,000km south of Tokyo, by yesterday afternoon as the storm churned toward Japan on an unusual northwest course. A raft of summer festivals were canceled or postponed in the Tokyo area, including the famed Sumidagawa Fireworks Festival scheduled for tonight.
AUSTRALIA
Project maps massacres
Thousands of Aborigines are estimated to have been murdered in 500 massacres across Australia from European settlement in 1788 until the mid-20th century, researchers said yesterday. Historians from the University of Newcastle said they had drawn on settler diaries, contemporary newspaper reports, evidence from Aboriginal groups, and state and federal archives to attempt to catalogue the violence for the first time. “To date we have identified about 250 massacre sites in colonial Australia and we estimate there will be about 500 when the project is finished,” lead researcher Lyndall Ryan said. Ryan estimates the death toll from the 250 massacres already identified at about 6,200 people, including fewer than 100 Europeans. It defines a “massacre” as an incident in which at least six people were killed. The research is expected to be completed next year.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not