World Digest
Thousands of acres lost to British Columbia wildfires

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The largest of the 388 fires in the province was the 25,750-acre Lonesome Lake fire in Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, east of Bella Coola, the B.C. Forest Service said.

No deaths have been reported, but the Lonesome Lake fire has destroyed a historic homesteader lodge.

Fires have consumed more than 40,000 acres of forest so far this summer, more than 10 times as much land as had been burned at this time last year.

Moscow

Russia says Georgia seized military bases

Russia accused Georgia yesterday of illegally seizing two Russian military depots inside the Caucasus country, in a dispute likely to worsen strained relations between the neighbors.

Georgia said it was baffled by Russia's claim and that its forces were merely guarding the depots to prevent them from being vandalized before they legally pass into Georgian hands.

Although Russia promises to eventually withdraw from the bases — left over from the Soviet era — there is no fixed deadline for their handover. Russia and Georgia, which share a border through the Caucasus mountains, have had a turbulent relationship since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Georgia accuses Russia of secretly supporting the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, while Russia says Georgia has not been sufficiently zealous in pursuing Chechen separatists.

Bogotá, Colombia

Catholic bishop freed days after abduction
 
Marxist guerrillas freed a Roman Catholic bishop unharmed yesterday, three days after he was abducted in an effort to use him to deliver a political message to authorities, officials said.

But Bishop Misael Vacca Ramirez said he was never given a message because an army rescue operation cut his captors off from their commanders who had prepared the statement.

Vacca Ramirez was seized by members of the National Liberation Army, or ELN.

Brasília, Brazil

Six arrested in deaths of labor investigators

Police arrested six suspects in the shooting deaths of four Labor Ministry employees investigating living conditions for ranch workers but acknowledged yesterday that they still don't know who ordered the killings.

Three inspectors and their driver were shot Jan. 28 inside their vehicle near Unai, about 95 miles east of Brasília. Unai's economy is heavily dependent on cultivation of black beans, and some 30,000 migrant workers are recruited every year for the harvest, which starts in January.

Rights groups charge that many of the workers end up laboring under various forms of coercion such as debt slavery, where employers provide jobs but force workers to pay exorbitant prices for basic goods, thus keeping them indebted.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Humanitarian group sued for ransom pay

The Netherlands has filed suit against Doctors Without Borders to recover $936,000 it paid in ransom to win the release of a kidnapped employee of the humanitarian group, the foreign ministry said yesterday.

Arjan Erkel, a Dutch citizen, was released April 11 after being held in southern Russia for 20 months. He was kidnapped by masked gunmen while on assignment for the Swiss arm of Doctors Without Borders.

The Dutch foreign ministry said yesterday it was suing to recover the money "because Doctors Without Borders promised to repay the loan but now doesn't want to do so."

Also

Russia's chief military prosecutor said yesterday that 109 soldiers have committed suicide so far this year, 38 percent more than the same period last year.

In comments broadcast on NTV television, Alexander Savenkov also said 25 servicemen were killed in hazing incidents and 12 others died as a result of excess force used by their officers, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

A ski lift malfunctioned and two lift-chairs collided, killing a 17-year-old girl and injuring three other people in northern Sweden yesterday.

The riders were part of a youth group vacationing in Abisko National Park in Lapland, one of Sweden's northernmost regions, police said.