World

Sri Lankan troops stood with their weapons lowered in the grounds of the prime minister’s office Wednesday, doing nothing to halt the huge mass of people wandering through the compound, despite orders to “restore order”.

Some of the civilians sang or waved the Sri Lankan flag, with its motif of a golden lion brandishing a sword, after they lobbed back tear gas canisters and pushed past elite commandos on Wednesday to occupy the premises in the capital Colombo.

Thousands of people cheered as they breached the walls of the colonial-era compound on a leafy boulevard, opening yet another symbol of state power to the public. 

The office was the fourth government building occupied by protesters in as many days, following the seizure of the president’s seafront office and the official residences of Sri Lanka’s two most senior elected officials. 

And as with those earlier conquests, by evening the compound had been repurposed into a public attraction, with demonstrators who helped storm the building hours earlier now chaperoning others through its rooms. 

“We feel proud,” said Satish Bee, a businessman who came to explore the compound once the dust had settled. 

“There’s no proper governance in this country. It has never been good… The youngsters, they don’t want to continue like this.”

Guards abandoned a losing battle to halt the crowd’s advance less than two hours after the building’s usual occupant, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, was declared Sri Lanka’s acting head of state by incumbent Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Wickremesinghe declared a nationwide state of emergency and soon appeared on television to warn that troops had been instructed to do “what is necessary” to return the building to government control.

But on the ground, his words went unheeded.

– ‘We are not terrorists’ –

People began mobbing the office in the morning, after news spread through the capital that Rajapaksa — blamed by many for driving the country to economic ruin — had left the island nation on a military aircraft bound for the Maldives in the early hours.

What followed was an object lesson in patience and strategy from a crowd hardened by earlier confrontations with security forces over months of protests.

Some carried red traffic cones to smother and safely extinguish tear gas rounds periodically fired into the street by guards stationed along the walls. 

Others guided friends or strangers blinded by the smoke to safety behind the cover of a wall, helping to flush their eyes with fluid. 

Bolder members of the crowd peeled off a part of the gate and sections of wrought iron fence, prompting fresh barrages of tear gas — and loud cheers when still-smouldering canisters were thrown back at the troops that fired them.

In his televised statement, PM Wickremesinghe made allusions to “fascists” trying to “take over”. 

Dhaniz Ali, one of those walking through the compound after it was occupied, told AFP that protesters would continue to find new government buildings to occupy.

“We are not terrorists,” he said. “We are just Sri Lankan citizens here to save the country.”

Firebombs exploded at Greece’s Real News and Real FM radio sparking a blaze that tore through the outlets’ Athens offices, the media group said in a statement Wednesday.

The fire, which began in the early hours, was brought under control after 18 firefighters battled the blaze for two hours with all employees evacuated from the building, the group said.  

A number of people were taken to hospital with respiratory problems.  

A police investigation is under way to determine who was behind the incident.  

A preliminary police account said the remnants of three gas canisters were found in the building between the basement and first floors of the office building.

Proprietor Nikos Chatzinikolaou said on Twitter he believed the company was deliberately targeted, but did not say by who.   

“Explosions and fire at Real FM and Realnews! They’re burning us! They are trying to shut us down,” he wrote on Twitter. 

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told the owner that “the state will do everything to bring the perpetrators to justice”.

“Any attempt to target journalists must be condemned,” he added. 

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said the “attack on Real FM and Real News, which caused a fire and endangered human lives, is an absolutely reprehensible criminal action, which goes against freedom of expression in our country”.  

In February, two incendiary devices exploded outside the homes of a journalist and a police officer in Athens, causing material damage but no casualties. 

Greece has dropped 38 places in the latest international press freedom index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). 

In April 2021, investigative journalist Giorgos Karaivaz was killed in a daylight attack outside his home. 

Since then, the investigation has made no progress, RSF said.  

Real News and Real FM are centre-left outlets that offer platforms to opposition but also pro-government voices.

France and Britain suffered soaring temperatures Wednesday, edging closer to the blistering heat already engulfing Spain and Portugal as wildfires destroyed vast stretches of Western European forestland.

Large parts of the Iberian Peninsula have seen temperatures surpassing 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) this week.

In southwestern France a wildfire raging since Tuesday had ripped through 1,000 hectares of pine trees just south of Bordeaux by Wednesday, prompting the evacuation of 150 residents from their homes.

Near the Dune of Pilat — Europe’s tallest sand dune — another fire consumed about 700 hectares of old pine trees, authorities said, with the blaze still not contained.

Regional prefect Fabienne Buccio told reporters that fires were spread out over five kilometres (three miles), fuelled by dried-out vegetation. 

About 6,000 campers near the dune were evacuated as firefighters worked through the night on the sandy terrain.

Further inland, 500 people were evacuated around the village of Guillos as their homes came under threat from advancing fire.

– ‘It was scary’ –

“There were flames in the top of the trees 30 metres high,” mayor Mylene Doreau told AFP. “We could see them moving towards the village, it was scary.”

Some 600 firefighters have been battling the blazes in the region, aided by waterbomber aircraft.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne warned that the heat, forecast to last 10 days, “affects people’s health very quickly, especially that of the most vulnerable”.

Some cities, like Toulouse and Lourdes, have made changes to their Bastille Day celebrations programmes on Thursday to limit the risk of accidental fire, while Nimes cancelled the traditional fireworks altogether.

The prefect of the Paris region, meanwhile, cut the speed limit on motorways and expressways to limit air pollution.

Heatwaves have become more frequent due to climate change, scientists say.

The previous such phenomenon to blight France, Portugal and Spain occurred in mid-June.

– ‘Expect it to worsen’ –

“We do expect it to worsen,” World Meteorological Organization spokeswoman Clare Nullis said Tuesday.

“Accompanying this heat is drought,” she said.

It had also been “a very bad season for the glaciers”, she said.

Last week an avalanche triggered by the collapse of the largest glacier in the Italian Alps — due to unusually warm temperatures — killed 11 people.

The high temperatures are expected to spread to other parts of western and central Europe in the coming days.

Britain issued an “amber” alert — the second highest of three levels — which indicates that the extreme heat will have a “high impact” on daily life and people. Temperatures are forecast to hit 35C in the southeast of the country in the coming days.

A UK climate official said there was a rising chance of a new UK record, beating Britain’s highest recorded temperature recorded on July 25, 2019 — reaching 38.7C at Cambridge Botanic Garden, in eastern England.

In Spain highs of up to 44C are expected in Guadalquivir valley in Seville in the south in coming days.

Spain’s health ministry said people should drink plenty of fluids, wear light clothes and stay in the shade or air-conditioned rooms to avoid their “vital functions” being affected.

– ‘A bit oppressive’ –

People making a living working outdoors struggled.

“The temperature is a bit oppressive,” said Miguel Angel Nunez, a 54-year-old bricklayer at a construction site in central Madrid.

The Aemet meteorological agency said parts of the country were “suffocating”, especially Andalusia in the south, Extremadura in the southwest and Galicia in the northwest.

Those areas were placed on high alert, meaning residents were asked to be cautious and keep a close eye on the weather forecast. Travel was not advised “unless strictly necessary”.

Between January 1 and July 3, more than 70,300 hectares of forest went up in smoke in Spain, the government said — almost double the average of the last ten years.

Authorities in Portugal said one person had died in forest fires, after a body was found in a burned area in the northern region of Aveiro. 

With temperatures set to climb past 40C, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa urged “a maximum of caution”.

“We have experienced situations like this in the past and we will certainly experience them in the future,” he said.

The whole country is under a “situation of alert” for wildfires that have raged for days and are forecast to go on until at least Friday.

The situation is stirring memories of devastating wildfires in 2017, which claimed the lives of over 100 people in Portugal.

Officials in the town of Sintra near Lisbon closed a series of tourist attractions such as palaces and monuments in a verdant mountain range popular with visitors as a precaution.

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Russia and Ukraine met UN and Turkish officials on Wednesday in a bid to break a months-long impasse over grain exports that has seen food prices soar and millions face hunger.

The high-stakes meeting in Istanbul came with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine showing no signs of abating and the sides locked in a furious long-range shooting battle that is destroying towns and leaving people with nothing.

Ukrainian officials said at least five people were killed in Russian shelling on the region surrounding the Black Sea port city of Mykolaiv.

“You can’t run away from war and you never know where it will find you,” 60-year-old agronomist Lyubov Mozhayeva said, while picking up a humanitarian food package in the partially destroyed frontline city of Bakhmut.

The first face-to-face talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations since another meeting in Istanbul on March 29 comes with the threat of food shortages spreading across the poorest parts of the world.

Ukraine is a vital exporter of wheat and grains such as barley and maize. It has also supplied nearly half of all the sunflower oil traded on global markets.

But shipments across the Black Sea have been blocked by Russian warships and mines Kyiv has laid to avert a feared amphibious assault.

– ‘Two steps from agreement’ –

The Istanbul negotiations are being complicated by growing suspicions that Russia is trying to export grain it has stolen from Ukrainian farmers in regions under its control.

US space agency data released last week showed 22 percent of Ukraine’s farmland falling under Russian control since the February 24 invasion.

The two sides say they have made progress but are sticking to firm demands that could collapse the talks.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Kyiv was “two steps from an agreement with Russia”.

“We are in the final stages and everything now depends on Russia,” he told Spain’s El Pais newspaper.

Russia said its requirements included the right to “search the ships to avoid the contraband of weapons” — a demand rejected by Kyiv.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tried on Tuesday to play down expectations of an imminent breakthrough.

“We are working hard indeed, but there is still a way to go,” the UN chief told reporters.

– Grain corridors –

NATO member Turkey has been using its good relations with both the Kremlin and Kyiv to try and broker an agreement on a safe way to deliver the grain.

Turkey says it has 20 merchant ships waiting in the region that could be quickly loaded and sent to world markets.

A plan by the UN proposes the ships follow safe “corridors” that run between the known location of mines.

Kyiv has also asked that its vessels be accompanied by warships from a friendly country such as Turkey.

Experts say de-mining the Black Sea is a complex operation that could take months — too long to address the growing global food crisis.

Kuleba said he did not think Moscow actually wanted to reach an agreement because proceeds from grain sales would help support a Western-backed government in Kyiv that the Kremlin brands as “Nazis”.

“They know that if we start to export, we will get proceeds from world markets, and this will make us stronger,” Kuleba said.

– ‘Operational pause’ –

The talks in Istanbul precede a meeting in Tehran next Tuesday between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

The war in Ukraine has contributed to Turkey’s mounting economic problems and further complicated Erdogan’s path to a third decade in power in elections due within the next year.

Erdogan’s ultimate goal is to bring Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky down to Istanbul for talks aimed at pausing the fighting and launching formal peace talks.

But the Ukrainian army warned this week that Russia was preparing to stage its heaviest attack yet on the Donetsk region — the larger of the two areas comprising the Donbas war zone.

The Russian army has not conducted any major ground offensives since taking the last points of Ukrainian resistance in the war zone’s smaller Lugansk region at the start of the month.

Analysts believe the Russians are taking an “operational pause” during which they are rearming and regrouping forces before launching an assault on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk — Ukraine’s administrative centre for the east.

Ukraine is trying to counter the Russians by staging increasingly potent attacks with new US and European rocket systems targeting arms depots.

US officials believe the Russians are trying to recoup their losses by negotiating to acquire hundreds of combat drones from Iran.

A Tokyo court Wednesday ordered former executives from the operator of the devastated Fukushima nuclear plant to pay 13.32 trillion yen ($97 billion) for failing to prevent the disaster, plaintiffs said.

Four ex-bosses from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) were ordered to pay the damages in a suit brought by shareholders over the nuclear disaster triggered by a massive tsunami in 2011.

Plaintiffs emerged from the Tokyo court holding banners reading “shareholders win” and “responsibility recognised”.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs hailed the ruling, and said they believed it to be the largest amount of compensation ever awarded in a civil lawsuit in Japan.

“Nuclear power plants can cause irreparable damage to human lives and the environment,” the plaintiffs said in a separate statement after the ruling.

“Executives for firms that operate such nuclear plants bear enormous responsibility, which cannot compare with that of other companies.”

The shareholders argued that the disaster could have been prevented if TEPCO bosses had listened to research and carried out preventative measures like placing an emergency power source on higher ground.

Defendants said the studies they were not credible and the risks unpredictable.

But the court ruled nuclear plant operators have “an obligation to prevent severe accidents based on the latest scientific and expert engineering knowledge”, and the executives failed to heed credible warnings.

– ‘Historic’ –

In a statement read to AFP by a TEPCO spokesman, the firm declined to comment on the ruling, saying only: “We again express our heartfelt apology to people in Fukushima and members of society broadly for causing trouble and worry” with the disaster.

The damages are intended to cover the costs to TEPCO for dismantling the reactors, compensating affected residents, and cleaning up contamination.

The lawsuit is designed so the money will go to TEPCO itself, which the plaintiffs own partially as shareholders.

Hiroyuki Kawai, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, called the decision “historic”.

“We realise that 13 trillion yen is well beyond their capacity to pay,” he told reporters, adding that the plaintiffs expect the men to pay as much as their assets allow.

There was no immediate word on whether the executives would appeal, though the plantiffs’ legal team insisted “if they have heart to feel regret… they should deeply apologise to residents and follow the judgement without appealing”.

The size of the award is enormous. 

As a point of comparison, in 2015 British oil giant BP was ordered to pay $20.8 billion for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in what was described at the time as the highest fine ever imposed on a company in US history. 

– ‘Retirement years in misery’ –

Three of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s six reactors were operating when a massive undersea quake triggered a devastating tsunami on March 11, 2011.

They went into meltdown after their cooling systems failed when waves flooded backup generators, leading to the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

Around 12 percent of the Fukushima region was once declared unsafe but no-go zones now cover around two percent, although populations in many towns remain far lower than before.

TEPCO has been pursued in the courts by survivors of the disaster as well as shareholders, and six plaintiffs this year took the firm to court over claims they developed thyroid cancer because of radiation exposure.

In 2019, a court acquitted three former TEPCO officials in the only criminal trial to stem from the disaster. 

They were among the four men ordered to pay damages in Wednesday’s ruling: former chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, former vice presidents Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro and former president Masataka Shimizu.

The men had faced up to five years in prison if convicted of professional negligence resulting in death and injury, but that court ruled that they could not have predicted the scale of the tsunami that triggered the disaster.

Kawai said when the shareholder suit was filed in 2012 that senior managers at TEPCO must be made to pay.

“You may have to sell your house. You may have to spend your retirement years in misery,” he said then.

“In Japan, nothing can be resolved and no progress can be made without assigning personal responsibility.”

TEPCO is currently engaged in a decades-long effort to decommission the plant, a costly and difficult process.

No one was killed in the nuclear meltdown, but the tsunami left 18,500 dead or missing.