World Watch

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Feeling The Heat
EUROPE As the mercury continued to climb to record-breaking levels across Europe, there was no respite in sight for the Continent's sweltering citizens. Forecasters predicted the hot weather — blamed on strong rains in sub-Saharan Africa — would continue to the middle of the month at least, and possibly into September. With temperatures regularly nudging — and, in some places, exceeding — 40°C, Europeans faced renewed misery. Train tracks buckled, hundreds of thousands of farm animals died and crops either wilted in the heat or ripened prematurely. Although the fires that ravaged countries from Portugal to Poland were brought largely under control, the cost of the heatwave mounted. The death toll — from both the fires and heat exhaustion — reached at least 36. In Portugal, which battled devastating forest fires, the government appealed to the E.U. for 31 billion in aid.

Spinning Around
U.K. David Kelly, the scientist who apparently killed himself after being named as the main source for a BBC report that questioned the government's case for war against Iraq,

MEANWHILE IN SWEDEN ... Skirting the Rules His employer wouldn't let bus driver Mats Lundgren wear shorts as temperatures reached 25ºC in the northern Swedish city of Umea. Lundgren's solution: he showed up to work wearing a skirt. He had found a loophole in the company's dress code that allowed drivers — regardless of gender — to wear skirts. hans-olov lundkvist/afp-getty images

was laid to rest. The press called for the resignation of a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair who suggested that Kelly was a Walter Mitty fantasist. Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon was criticized for going on holiday instead of attending the funeral.

Wave of Protest
ICELAND The government's announcement that it was to re-start whaling after a 14-year break met with protests from environmental groups, such as the World Wildlife Fund, and the tourist industry. The International Whaling Commission approved a plan to kill 38 minke whales for "scientific research"; the WWF charged that the plan is really a front to resume commercial whaling, which the country is considering after 2006. Whale watching draws about 62,000 visitors to Iceland every year and there are fears that tourists may now boycott the country.
European Heroes: Whale Of An Opportunity

Brassed Off
SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO The country's top military committee, the Supreme Defense Council, dismissed 16 senior generals in a bid to rid the military of high-ranking personnel affiliated with former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. The dismissals are meant to secure the military's loyalty to the democratic government that succeeded Milosevic in 2000. As many as 200 lower officers may be fired as well, as the country seeks to gain NATO membership.

Homeward Bound
SAUDI ARABIA Five Britons, a Canadian and a Belgian convicted of a series of car bombings in Riyadh, in which one British citizen was killed and four other people injured in 2000, were released from a Saudi prison and deported to the U.K. The men, two of whom had been sentenced to death by beheading, were granted royal clemency. Saudi officials had claimed the men were involved in illegal alcohol trading that was related to the attacks. Five of the men had made televised confessions, which they later retracted, saying they had been tortured.

Honeymoon's Over
BRAZIL Socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's public support waned as the Brazilian government's lower house passed part of a pension-reform bill,which raises the retirement age, caps civil servants' pensions and puts an 11% tax on pensions over $400 per month. Some 40,000 civil servants protested against the bill, part of a wider reform that is meant to eradicate some of the country's $250 billion debt burden.