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BRUSSELS, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – A forest blaze in Greece is “the largest wildfire ever recorded in the EU” and the bloc is mobilising nearly half its firefighting air wing to tackle it, a European Commission spokesman said Tuesday. Eleven planes and one helicopter from the EU fleet have been sent to help Greece counter the fire north of the city of Alexandroupoli, along with 407 firefighters, spokesman Balazs Ujvari said. The EU’s civil […]
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – Meta on Tuesday said it purged thousands of Facebook accounts that were part of a widespread online Chinese spam operation trying to covertly boost China and criticize the West. The campaign, which became known as “Spamouflage”, was active across more than 50 platforms and forums including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X, formerly known as Twitter, according to a Meta threat report. “We assess that it’s the largest, […]
MOSCOW, Aug 28, 2023 (AFP) – Russia on Monday accused a former US consulate employee of illegally passing data about the Ukraine conflict to American diplomats, drawing a protest from Washington which has called his activities routine. The Russian Security Service (FSB) also announced it was seeking to question two US diplomats at the embassy in Moscow over the case, in a break from diplomatic tradition. The announcement is the latest in a series of […]
MOSCOW, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – An FSB security services helicopter crashed Tuesday in central Russia leaving three people dead, regional officials said. The MI-8 helicopter went down near the village of Krasnoe Pole in the Chelyabinsk region, the governor said without indicating a cause for the incident. “According to preliminary information, three people died,” governor Aleksei Teksler said on social media. There was no damage to buildings or individuals on the ground, he added […]
GAINESVILLE , United States, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – Residents along Florida’s west coast were under orders to evacuate Tuesday ahead of Hurricane Idalia’s arrival, as forecasters said the storm was strengthening over an exceptionally warm Gulf of Mexico and would likely become “extremely dangerous” before landfall. Idalia, which the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said had become a Category 1 hurricane overnight, was churning Tuesday morning hundreds of miles off Florida’s southwest, and bringing […]
KYIV, Ukraine, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – Ukraine said Tuesday that its forces had pushed deeper into Russian defensive lines near the village of Robotyne, a day after claiming control over the village on the southern front. Kyiv also ordered children to be evacuated from five settlements near the focus of their assault, as Russia claimed to have repelled Ukrainian forces. Kyiv launched a grinding counteroffensive in June after stockpiling Western-supplied weapons and building up […]
TOKYO, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – Toyota said Tuesday it halted operations at 12 of its 14 factories in Japan due to a system glitch, but that it did not appear to be a cyberattack. The world’s biggest automaker refrained from discussing other details of the incident, which began Tuesday morning. “Twelve vehicle factories, affecting 25 lines, are not able to process orders for parts due to a system glitch… At this point, we believe […]
DENPASAR, Indonesia, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – A strong, deep 7.1-magnitude earthquake and several aftershocks rattled Bali and other Indonesian islands on Tuesday, the USGS reported, sending panicked tourists into the streets but causing no major damage. The quake struck at a depth of around 515 kilometres off the northeastern coast of Bali at around 3:55 am local time (1955 GMT Monday), according to the US Geological Survey. The tremors were felt across Bali, and […]
PARIS, Aug 28, 2023 (AFP) – Silicon Valley’s favourite philosophy, longtermism, has helped to frame the debate on artificial intelligence around the idea of human extinction. But increasingly vocal critics are warning that the philosophy is dangerous, and the obsession with extinction distracts from real problems associated with AI like data theft and biased algorithms. Author Emile Torres, a former longtermist turned critic of the movement, told AFP that the philosophy rested on the kind […]
WARSAW, Aug 28, 2023 (AFP) – Poland and Baltic nations on Monday asked Belarus to expel the Russian mercenary group Wagner, whose fighters are sheltering there after a failed rebellion against Moscow. “We have asked the regime (of Belarusian President Alexander) Lukashenko to immediately expel the Wagner group from Belarus,” Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said after meeting his counterparts from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Poland says thousands of Wagner fighters are stationed in Belarus, […]
MIAMI, Aug 28, 2023 (AFP) – Tropical Storm Idalia was strengthening in the Caribbean on Monday, buffeting southeastern Mexico with wind and rain, with forecasters predicting it will become a major hurricane before reaching Florida later in the week. The storm, which is not forecast to make landfall in Mexico, will travel across western Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico before reaching northwest Florida, the US National Hurricane Center said. Idalia was “intensifying as it […]
TOKYO, Aug 28, 2023 (AFP) – Japan’s prime minister urged China to ensure its people “act in a calm and responsible manner” after instances of stones being thrown at diplomatic missions and schools, following the release of wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant. Last week, China banned all seafood imports from its neighbour as Japan began releasing cooling water from the Fukushima plant in an operation that Tokyo and the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog have […]
