Agence France Presse: A senior Japanese official said Monday that 2005 would be fair for a base year in a new deal on slashing greenhouse gases, suggesting the Kyoto Protocol was slanted towards the European position. The unusually blunt remarks come a week before the latest round of negotiations start in Bangkok on drafting a successor to Kyoto, the landmark treaty on fighting global warming. The Kyoto Protocol requires major developed nations to slash emissions blamed for global warming by an …