Briefly

JAPAN

Suga reaches out to South Korea leader

Japan's new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has expressed hopes for improved relations with South Korea in a letter to the country's president, Moon Jae-in, Moon's office said on Monday, amid strained ties over history and trade. Feuds dating to Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of Korea continue to dog bilateral relations, including the issues of Korean laborers forced to work at Japanese firms and women held at military brothels during World War II. The ties further soured after South Korea's Supreme Court ordered a Japanese steel-maker to pay compensation for forced labor in 2018, which prompted Tokyo to impose export curbs on some key high-tech materials. In a letter delivered to Moon, Suga underscored the need for cooperation between the two neighbors, Moon's spokesman said.

BOTSWANA

Algae suspected in elephant mass deaths

The sudden deaths of some 330 elephants in northwestern Botswana earlier this year may have occurred because they drank water contaminated by toxic blue-green algae, the government announced on Monday. The elephants in the Seronga area died from a neurological disorder that appears to have been caused by drinking water tainted by "a toxic bloom of cyanobacterium in seasonal pans (water sources) in the region," said Cyril Taolo, acting director of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks. The unexplained deaths ceased after the water pans dried up, Taolo told a news conference in the capital Gaborone. No other wildlife species were affected by the toxic water in the Seronga area, close to Botswana's famed Okavango Delta, said Taolo.

GREECE

243 COVID-19 positive among Lesbos migrants

Greece's government spokesman said on Monday that 243 people have tested positive for the coronavirus among thousands of asylum-seekers admitted to a new camp on the island of Lesbos after the old one burned down. The average age of those confirmed positive was 24, and most were asymptomatic, spokesman Stelios Petsas said. A further 160 people, mainly police and administrative staff who had come into contact with the migrants, were tested and all were negative for the virus. Petsas said the positive cases from Lesbos would be added to Greece's official coronavirus figures on Monday. Health authorities release daily statistics of the virus's spread every evening.