देश-विदेश

Two firefighting helicopters collided mid-air west of Athens while tackling a major wildfire, killing a Greek and a Danish pilot aboard one of the aircraft. The two crew members on the second helicopter survived and were rescued, while the destroyed aircraft had been leased from Australia’s McDermott Aviation to support Greek operations. The tragic crash occurred as high winds whipped up severe blazes across the region, destroying more than 100 homes overnight in the coastal village of Porto Germeno. More than 500 firefighters remain deployed to combat the active flames despite extreme weather conditions hampering aerial firefighting efforts.

The United States and Japan have launched an extraordinary joint currency intervention to prop up the Japanese yen after it plummeted toward a fresh 40-year low. The coordinated market operation aimed to curb severe exchange rate volatility and lower the escalating costs of imported food and energy burdening Japanese consumers and businesses. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the bilateral action, while financial analysts noted that the move helped prevent Tokyo from dumping massive tranches of US government bonds to raise capital. Bank of Japan data indicates that Tokyo sold approximately 59 billion dollars in market reserves alongside parallel purchasing from Washington following political support from US President Donald Trump.

Greek authorities have arrested a 26-year-old man who confessed to transporting the body of 38-year-old Scottish woman Elisabeth-Jane Ross in a suitcase to an abandoned building in Athens. The victim’s body was discovered on 18 July in the Kypseli district following a missing person report, with subsequent investigations leading police to identify the suspect via video footage. Law enforcement officers arrested the suspect on suspicion of manslaughter, robbery, and weapons offences after finding he had used the victim’s bank cards and seized a knife and replica pistol at his home. Greek police are fast-tracking toxicology reports to determine the precise cause of death while continuing efforts to trace American acquaintances Ross was scheduled to visit before her disappearance. The Scottish Government confirmed it is providing official support to the victim’s family alongside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Romania’s parliament has voted to double the annual hunting quota for brown bears to nearly 900 animals in an effort to manage Europe’s largest population outside Russia, which is estimated at between 10,000 and 13,000. The legislation aims to curb an increasing frequency of human-bear encounters driven by urban sprawl, habitat fragmentation, and climate change. Human deaths caused by bear attacks in Romania have reached nearly 30 over the past two decades, with animals regularly entering mountain towns to scavenge for food. Conservationists and wildlife experts argue the expanded culling quota will fail to solve urban encroachment because trophy hunters target large animals deep within forests. Critics maintain that existing safety measures, including fines for tourists feeding wildlife, subsidised electric fencing, and proper municipal waste management, are not being sufficiently enforced. In addition to state-sanctioned culls, local municipal authorities retain legal powers granted in 2021 to shoot individual bears that intrude directly into private residential properties.

Armed gunmen launched a hours-long night-time raid on the village of Lajinge in northwestern Nigeria’s Sokoto state, killing at least 12 people and abducting several women and children. The assailants set fire to homes during the assault, causing six members of a single family to burn to death inside their residence. Local residents reported that four additional individuals sustained injuries while the attackers also rustled significant amounts of livestock. Sokoto state police forces confirmed an ongoing investigation into the assault, which follows a similar attack that left 24 farmers dead in neighbouring Zamfara state just a week prior.