分类： world

Southern Europe is facing a fresh wave of destructive wildfire emergencies this weekend, with hundreds of first responders struggling to contain large blazes across Portugal and Greece, while neighboring countries step in with emergency support to boost containment efforts.

In central Portugal’s Vouzela region, the most massive blaze has been burning out of control for more than three days after igniting last Thursday. As of Sunday, data from the European Union’s Copernicus satellite mapping service confirms the fire has already scorched 12,000 hectares—an area equal to 120 square kilometers, or 46 square miles—of land. More than 1,200 Portuguese firefighters, supported by a fleet of nearly 400 ground vehicles and 15 aerial firefighting aircraft, have been assigned to bring the blaze under control, according to Portugal’s national Civil Protection authority.

To address the scale of the emergency, the European Union has coordinated cross-border reinforcements: Spain dispatched 120 additional firefighters and 45 support vehicles to Portugal on Friday, and three extra water-bombing aircraft from both Italy and Spain have also been deployed to assist with containment.

Across the Iberian border in northern Greece, a separate fast-moving wildfire has triggered urgent public safety warnings near Thessaloniki, the country’s second-largest urban center. The blaze ignited Saturday evening on the city’s outskirts, quickly engulfing a local recycling plant and sending toxic plumes of smoke into adjacent residential neighborhoods. Strong gusty winds fanned the spread of flames, prompting immediate evacuation orders for three suburban communities and a care facility that houses 157 people with disabilities.

Around 160 Greek firefighters worked through the night to hold the fire line, waiting for daylight to allow water-dropping aircraft to begin aerial operations. Oraiokastro mayor Pandelis Tsakiris told Greece’s state-run public broadcaster ERT that multiple private businesses and residential properties have already sustained damage, though a full damage assessment is still pending. Greek fire department officials have taken a 76-year-old local man into custody on suspicion of negligence, alleging that sparks from his vehicle caught nearby roadside vegetation on fire to start the blaze. He is scheduled to appear before a public prosecutor for processing on Sunday.

This blaze comes only days after another nearby wildfire killed a 12-year-old boy and his father, underscoring the deadly risk the annual wildfire season poses to Greek communities. Fire department spokesperson Brigadier Ioannis Artopoios told ERT Sunday that an estimated 85% of all wildfires in Greece are caused by preventable human negligence. Common causes include sparks from agricultural equipment, carelessly discarded cigarette butts, and unregulated outdoor grilling, he explained, noting that “this means most of them could have been avoided.”

Greece has long faced frequent, devastating wildfire outbreaks during its hot, dry summer months, a risk that has grown steadily more severe as climate change amplifies drought and high temperatures. The 2018 wildfire east of Athens claimed more than 100 lives, and a 2023 blaze that burned through a remote northeastern Greek nature reserve remains the largest single wildfire ever recorded in the European Union. In response to the growing threat, the Greek government has increasingly turned to satellite technology to improve early detection and monitoring: four new wildfire-monitoring satellites launched into low Earth orbit in May are currently being integrated into the country’s national wildfire response system.

While Greece has so far avoided the extreme, record-breaking heatwaves that have scorched much of Western Europe over recent weeks, dozens of smaller wildfires have still broken out across the Greek mainland and its popular island chains this summer, stretching response resources thin.

CAIRO – Another act of maritime violence has disrupted shipping lanes off Yemen’s volatile Red Sea coast, marking the latest security incident to threaten global trade routes near the conflict-battered nation, according to statements from British military officials.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), a body that monitors maritime safety across the region, confirmed the Sunday attack took place off the coast of Hodeida, a major Yemeni coastal city currently held by Iran-aligned Houthi rebels. The targeted cargo ship alerted authorities that it was “under attack by unknown armed assailants” roughly 30 nautical miles, or 55 kilometers, southwest of Hodeida, with official investigations into the incident now underway.

As of initial reporting, no militant or criminal group has stepped forward to claim responsibility for the assault. Houthi spokespeople have also not yet responded to requests for comment on the attack, despite the rebel group recently issuing public threats to resume targeted attacks on commercial shipping passing through Yemeni waters – a campaign they paused in recent months.

Prior to this latest incident, the Houthis launched a months-long wave of drone and missile strikes against commercial vessels transiting the waters adjacent to the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a narrow strategic chokepoint at the southern mouth of the Red Sea that the rebels control portions of. That sustained campaign, launched in solidarity with Palestinians during the ongoing Gaza war, pushed major global shipping companies to re-route their fleets around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa rather than traversing the Red Sea and Suez Canal – a shift that has added thousands of miles of travel, increased fuel costs, and disrupted global supply chains.

This new attack comes amid a broader resurgence of maritime criminal activity across the region. Further east in the Gulf of Aden, Somali pirate operations have ramped up in recent weeks, underscoring the growing threat to commercial shipping across the Horn of Africa’s key waterways. On July 1, suspected pirates carried out an assault on a vessel 76 nautical miles, or 140 kilometers, south of Balhaf, a port town in southeastern Yemen. According to UKMTO’s account of that earlier incident, four armed assailants traveling in a small speedboat carried out the attack, leaving minor damage to the targeted ship’s bridge before withdrawing.

In the early hours of Sunday, Moscow-appointed authorities in Crimea announced that one civilian has been killed and two others wounded — one critically — in a Ukrainian strike on the northern part of the Russian-occupied peninsula, a development that comes as both Ukrainian and Russian leaders held separate landmark peace negotiations with former U.S. President Donald Trump, as the drawn-out Ukraine war enters its fifth year.

Regional Governor Sergei Aksyonov, installed by Moscow after its 2014 annexation of the peninsula, shared details of the attack on his Telegram channel but declined to release further specifics about the target or the nature of the strike.

Over recent weeks, Ukrainian military forces have ramped up long-range strikes against critical infrastructure sites across Crimea, part of Kyiv’s new battlefield strategy to cut off and isolate the strategically vital peninsula that Russia has held since its illegal 2014 seizure. Western defense analysts and officials note that Ukraine’s expanding long-range strike capabilities have demonstrated Kyiv’s ability to inflict significant, costly damage on Russian military and logistical assets, while putting new political pressure on the Kremlin at a moment when Russia’s own frontline advances have stalled almost entirely.

The latest strike in Crimea unfolded shortly after both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin held separate phone calls with Trump focused on prospects for ending the ongoing conflict.

In a post on the social platform X, Zelenskyy confirmed that his conversation with Trump opened with congratulations to the United States on the 250th anniversary of its independence, before the two leaders moved to a detailed discussion of frontline conditions and peace prospects. “There is a real prospect of ending this war, and America’s determination will be crucial,” Zelenskyy wrote Saturday evening. “We agreed to continue the conversation in person during the NATO summit in Ankara.”

The Kremlin confirmed that Putin’s roughly 90-minute call with Trump, the fourth such conversation between the two leaders this year, also included congratulations from Putin to Trump and the American people for the U.S. independence anniversary, and described the discussion of the Ukraine conflict as “constructive.”

Kremlin foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov told reporters that Trump reaffirmed his “readiness to help achieve a quick cessation of hostilities and search for peaceful solutions to settle the crisis” in Ukraine. Ushakov added that Trump’s designated envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, will continue mediation efforts and remain prepared to travel to Moscow for direct talks.

Ushakov also outlined Putin’s stated position during the call: the Russian leader once again stressed Moscow’s preference for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, but only on the condition that Russia’s publicly stated core territorial and political positions are incorporated into any final agreement.

Putin used the call to repeat his accusation that Kyiv and its Western European allies are “betting on prolonging, and even escalating the conflict,” Ushakov said, arguing that the European “party of war” operates from a flawed understanding of both the overall conflict dynamic and conditions along the front line.

Contradicting assessments from Western analysts that Russian advances are stalled, Ushakov said Putin shared what he called the “real situation on the battlefield,” claiming that Russian armed forces are “confidently advancing, liberating one settlement after another.” Putin specifically highlighted the claimed capture of Kostyantynivka, a key Ukrainian fortified stronghold in the Donetsk region, framing the seizure as a critical step toward capturing the entire Donbas area. Ukrainian officials have rejected Russia’s claim that Kostyantynivka has fallen, issuing a direct denial of the assertion.

On Saturday evening, a rapidly expanding wildfire erupted close to the suburban areas of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-biggest urban center, forcing emergency evacuation orders for residents of three small northern suburbs, according to Greece’s national Fire Service.

The blaze first ignited in a deep ravine nestled in a mountainous zone shortly after 8:30 p.m. local time (1730 GMT), and strong regional gusts pushed the flames across the landscape at an alarming rate before they reached the surrounding plains. Fire officials confirmed that while no residential properties have suffered damage so far, multiple commercial buildings have already been consumed by the fire.

Emergency alerts were sent via text message to all residents of the three affected settlements — Anthoupoli, Filothei and Galini — ordering them to leave their homes immediately. Among the evacuated sites was a care facility housing 157 people with disabilities and special needs. Local government representatives reported that approximately 120 residents who were able to travel independently are now sheltered in a nearby municipal gymnasium, while the remaining 37 people with more intensive care requirements were relocated to a nearby psychiatric hospital that could accommodate their needs.

By midnight, the Fire Service confirmed that law enforcement had taken a 76-year-old man into custody on suspicion of intentionally starting the wildfire. Officials noted that the suspect appeared to be intoxicated at the time of his arrest.

For residents of central Thessaloniki, the wildfire presented a terrifying visible spectacle: orange flames were clearly visible on the horizon, and loud explosions could be heard as flammable materials stored inside the burning commercial structures caught fire and ignited. A thick, toxic blanket of smoke drifted across multiple suburbs and western districts of the city, reducing air quality dramatically.

As of Sunday morning, roughly 115 firefighters and 38 fire engines were joined by dozens of volunteer first responders in the battle to contain the blaze. Aerial firefighting aircraft conducted initial water drops, but were forced to suspend operations once night fell, as fixed-wing and rotary aircraft do not conduct active firefighting after dark in Greece.

Officials confirmed that there is currently no immediate risk that the fire will advance into the core of Thessaloniki, but firefighting command has kept all crews on high alert and additional resources have been dispatched to the region to reinforce containment efforts. Persistent strong winds across the area remain the biggest challenge to containing the spread of the flames.

Greece, which faces long, hot, dry and regularly windy summer conditions, is one of the European countries most vulnerable to seasonal wildfires. Remarkably, the country avoided any major wildfire damage through the entire month of June this year. The first large-scale wildfire of the 2024 season broke out just this past Wednesday in central Greece, which claimed the lives of a father and his 12-year-old son before it was contained, and also required mass evacuation orders for multiple local communities. So far this summer, Greece has also avoided the record-breaking extreme heatwaves that have already engulfed most other regions of the European continent.

Saturday saw multiple other active wildfires burning across the broader Thessaloniki region, including one on the Halkidiki Peninsula, one of Greece’s most popular coastal vacation destinations for both international and domestic tourists, and a second blaze near the northern city of Kilkis.