A political crisis brews in Greece as fires rage - International Herald Tribune

re: "...63 people now reported dead from Greece's worst fires in more than a century. /Most of the villagers died on the run. An elderly brother and sister, unmarried and living together, fled, refusing to leave behind their only donkey. A convoy trying to outrace the flames snarled into a crash, surrounded by a fire so hot it liquefied metal and bubbled windshields like grilled cheese. Those in the cars fled up a slope, where rescue workers later found at least 23 bodies in an olive grove scraped raw by flames. Among them were four children, their mother's body wrapped around them. /These are stories Europe is no longer used to hearing about itself, believing that in the developed world, problems like forest fires can be solved and, if not, that it is because someone has not done his job. And though southern Europe has been hit with drought this year, and high winds spread the flames faster than cars could drive, the government of Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis is facing a crisis over whether it was up to the task of handling the fires..."...