IN BRIEF (Page 12)

Greece

Wildfire death toll raised to 91

Fire officials raised the death toll from a wildfire that raged through a coastal area east of Athens to 91 and reported that 25 people were missing on Sunday, six days after Europe's deadliest forest fire in more than a century. Before the national fire service updated the official number of fatalities, it stood at 86 as hundreds of mourners attended a Sunday morning memorial service for the victims in the seaside village hardest-hit by the blaze. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras paid his first visit to the area on Monday as anger mounts over his government's response to the disaster.

Tajikistan

4 tourists killed in possible terror act

Four foreign cyclists have been killed by a hit-and-run driver in Tajikistan in what may have been a terrorist act, the Central Asian nation's interior minister said on Monday. The tourists, from the United States, Switzerland and the Netherlands, were killed on Sunday. Three more, from Switzerland, the Netherlands and France, were injured - and one of them also had a stab wound.

Nigeria

Gunmen kidnap 15 villagers

At least 15 villagers were taken hostage by gunmen who attacked Maradun area of Nigeria's northwestern state of Zamfara over the weekend, a local official said on Monday. Speaker of the state parliament Sanusi Rikiji said by telephone that the whereabouts of the victims remained unknown following the gunmen's attack. Recently, at least 18 villages and towns across more than three districts in the state have been taken over by gunmen, said Rikiji. The Nigerian government on Sunday announced the deployment of more than 1,000 army personnel to curb the spate of attack.

Norway

Polar bear shot dead after attack

A polar bear was shot dead after attacking a German cruise ship worker on Norway's Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, the authorities said on Sunday. The unnamed man in his 40s suffered head injuries shortly after landing on Spitzbergen island. He was accompanying a tourist expedition from the MS Bremen of Hapag-Lloyd Cruises on Saturday. Polar bears have been protected in Norway since 1973 and nearly 1,000 were counted on Svalbard during a 2015 census. Five fatal polar bear attacks have been recorded on Svalbard in the last 40 years.

Afp - Reuters - Xinhua

(China Daily 07/31/2018 page12)