04/08/2026

TUESDAY | AUGU 4, 2026

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Water bombers take to skies KRYO PIGADI: Water-bombing aircraft resumed firefighting operations in Greece yesterday after winds eased, joining hundreds of firefighters battling blazes that have already claimed five lives. o Greece battles wildfires

Australia hikes levy for tech giants SYDNEY: The Australian government has increased a planned levy that will force tech giants to pay multimillion-dollar charges if they fail to strike commercial deals with local media outlets for news on their platforms. The government said yesterday it increased the levy for its planned News Bargaining Incentive to 2.5% from 2.25%. In a change from an earlier proposal, the tax would only be calculated from a tech company’s advertising revenue, rather than its entire business revenue, the government said. The levy applies to companies with a “significant” social media or search service in Australia, and local revenue exceeding A$250 million (RM720 million), capturing Meta, Google and TikTok. An exclusion for professional networking sites has also been removed, bringing LinkedIn within its scope. All of the money raised would be directed to the news media sector to support local journalism, the government said. “The charge-base for the News Bargaining Incentive will be advertising revenue,” Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino told ABC Radio National. “We’ve upped the charge rate from 2.25 to 2.5% to make sure that the overall amount of money raised by the deals entered into by these platforms with the media is about the same, and that it will, going forward, increase as the amount of revenue from advertising increases for the platforms, but that this will be more connected with that part of their business.” The new laws are expected to be introduced when parliament resumes sitting later this month. – Reuters Foul smoke confines 30,000 indoors STRASBOURG: An industrial waste warehouse caught fire on Sunday in France, authorities said, spewing foul smoke that gave residents headaches and caused authorities to briefly urge some 30,000 people to remain indoors. The fire broke out in the northeastern village of Gandrange but was under control by the afternoon, local civil defence spokeswoman Geraldine Chambeaudie said. Local media reported the smoke was visible some 15km away in the city of Metz. Amandine Vecchio, 34, said she was taken aback by the smoke when she left a cinema in the nearby town of Amneville. “It smelled terrible and gave me a headache straight away,” she said. She said she told her eight-year-old daughter to place her stuffed toy in front of her mouth and nose, and rang her teenage son at home to tell him to bring their dog and cats inside and close the windows. The mayor of the nearby village of Clouange, Clement Deriu, said the smoke was causing headaches. “It’s making people nauseous,” he said. France has been rocked by a summer of wildfires. – AFP

Greece, which had largely avoided major blazes at the start of the summer unlike France and Spain, is now grappling with a second consecutive week of wildfires that have scorched thousands of hectares of forest, scrubland and farmland. “Today we are facing three difficult fronts: Psatha, Kryo Pigadi and Kandyli,” a fire department spokesperson said, referring to areas located 45-70km west of Athens. Lighter winds allowed aerial firefighting operations to resume early yesterday, with nine water-bombing aircraft joining nine helicopters and about 450 firefighters battling the flames in the regions of Boeotia and Attica, according to the fire service. In recent days, wind gusts reaching 80kph had grounded aircraft for safety reasons, hampering firefighting efforts. Authorities ordered new evacuations yesterday in villages near Kandyli, about 45km west of the capital, Greece’s Civil Protection agency said. “The battle against the fires is uneven,” Deputy Minister for Civil Protection and Climate Crisis Kostas Katsafados told public broadcaster ERTNews. The wildfires have claimed five lives since last week. On Sunday, two Bell helicopters collided while conducting firefighting operations near Psatha. A Danish pilot and a Greek co-pilot aboard one of the aircraft were killed. Their deaths followed those of three firefighters who died last week while battling separate wildfires in Crete and the Peloponnese. Pending the outcome of an official investigation, all Bell helicopters deployed to the firefighting operation have been grounded, public broadcaster ERT reported. The helicopters were leased from Australia’s McDermott Aviation as part of a fleet of 15 aircraft. The company said it has supported operations in Greece for the past seven years. More than 12,000ha of forest and agricultural land have burned over the past week, according to analyses from the European Union’s Copernicus Earth observation programme cited by local media. Police have arrested two employees of an electricity utility company in connection with one of the fires, which investigators believe may have been sparked on Friday by an electrical cable near the coastal village of Porto Germeno on the Gulf of Corinth, about 60km west of Athens. At the height of the tourist season, authorities warned that the wildfire threat would remain “very high”. Civil Protection placed Attica, which surrounds the capital, and neighbouring Boeotia at level four on a five-point fire danger scale. – AFP

A helicopter dousing a wildfire near the village of Agios Nektarios on Sunday. – REUTERSPIC

Star broadcaster faces trial for sexual assault SYDNEY: A star Australian broadcaster and former Wallabies coach fronted court yesterday to face trial on a raft of sexual assault accusations. Australia and held immense sway through his conservative radio talk show.

His feats as a coach and administrator earned him a place in Australia’s sports hall of fame, where he was inducted in 1989. But it was Jones’s subsequent career as a radio talkback host that cemented his influence in Australian public life. At the height of his powers, politicians from both sides would scramble to stay friendly with right-leaning Jones and his hit radio show. – AFP

he was “certainly not guilty”. “These allegations are all either baseless or they distort the truth.” Jones was a speechwriter for a prime minister and taught at a prestigious school. He coached the Wallabies, the Australian men’s rugby union team, for four years from 1984, guiding them to a rare northern hemisphere “Grand Slam” over England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

He was arrested at his luxury Sydney apartment in 2024 and now faces 20 charges of indecent assault and two of sexually touching without consent, court records showed. The alleged offences took place between 2003 and 2020, local media reported. Jones has strongly denied the charges, saying

Alan Jones faced a local court in Sydney for the opening day of a trial that will examine allegations he indecently assaulted six young men across a stretch of almost 20 years. The 85-year-old is a household name across