Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, said the United States has asked 24 Russian diplomats to leave the country when their visas expire in September. The move comes shortly after the U.S. embassy in Moscow was forced to lay off dozens of Russian nationals working at the mission. Daria Dieguts has the story.
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Thousands of people have fled their homes on the Greek island of Evia as wildfires burned uncontrolled for a sixth day on Sunday, and ferries were on standby for more evacuations after taking many to safety by sea.Fires that had threatened northern suburbs of Athens in recent days died back. But the blaze on Evia, a large island east of the capital, quickly burgeoned into several fronts, ripping through thousands of hectares (acres) of pristine forest across its northern part, and forcing the evacuation of dozens of villages.”I feel angry. I lost my home … nothing will be the same the next day,” said one resident who gave her name as Vasilikia after boarding a rescue ferry at the village of Psaropouli.”It’s a disaster. It’s huge. Our villages are destroyed, there is nothing left from our homes, our properties, nothing, nothing,” she said.Wildfires have erupted in many parts of the country during a week-long heatwave, Greece’s worst in three decades, with searing temperatures and hot winds creating tinder-box conditions. Across the country, forest land has burned and dozens of homes and businesses have been destroyed.”Fiery destruction,” newspaper To Vima said on its front page on Sunday.The coastguard has evacuated more than 2,000 people, including many elderly residents, from different parts of the island since Tuesday, in dramatic sea rescues as the night sky turned an apocalyptic red.People are evacuated on a ferry as a wildfire burns in the village of Psaropouli, on Evia island, Greece, Aug. 8, 2021.Others fled their villages on foot overnight, walking along roads dotted with trees in flames.”A house is burning over here,” one woman told emergency crews on the ground in the settlement of Vasilika, pointing to a searing fire in the distance. “Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere,” one of the firefighters replied.The governor for central Greece, Fanis Spanos, said the situation in the north of the island had been “very difficult” for nearly a week.”The fronts are huge, the area of burned land is huge,” he told Skai TV. More than 2,500 people have been accommodated in hotels and other shelters, he said.Greece has deployed the army to help battle the fires and several countries including France, Egypt, Switzerland and Spain have also sent help including firefighting aircraft.A wildfire burns in the village of Vasilika, on Evia island, Greece, Aug. 7, 2021.More than 570 firefighters are battling the blaze in Evia, where two active fronts were burning in the north and south of the island.Greece’s deputy civil protection minister, Nikos Hardalias, said water-bombing aircraft in the region faced several hurdles including low visibility caused by the thick plumes of smoke rising over the mountains and turbulence. “We have ahead of us another difficult evening, another difficult night,” Hardalias told an emergency briefing. “The battle continues.”A fire in the foothills of Mount Parnitha north of Athens has been contained but weather conditions meant there was still a high threat it could flare up again.On Friday night, strong winds pushed the fire into the town of Thrakomakedones, where residents had been ordered to evacuate. The blaze left burnt and blackened houses and cars among scorched pine trees.  
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Struggling to control his emotions, Lionel Messi said Sunday in his farewell to Barcelona that he wasn’t prepared to leave the club.Messi began crying even before he started speaking at his farewell ceremony at the Camp Nou Stadium.”This is very hard for me after so many years, after being here my entire life,” he said. “I wasn’t prepared.”Messi called his unexpected departure from the club “the most difficult” moment of his career.Messi’s family and some of his teammates were at the Camp Nou for the player’s farewell.Messi avoided speaking specifically about his future, saying he received offers from several clubs after the announcement that he would leave the Catalan club.Barcelona announced Thursday it could not keep its greatest player because it wasn’t able to fit a new contract within the Spanish league’s financial fair-play regulations. The club’s salary cap has been significantly slashed because of its huge debt. President Joan Laporta blamed the club’s struggles on the coronavirus pandemic and particularly on the previous administration led by Josep Bartomeu.Messi asked to leave at the end of the 2019-20 season but had his request denied by Bartomeu. The Argentina star had agreed to stay and had reached agreement with Barcelona on a new contract, but the club wasn’t able to make it work because of its dire financial situation.Messi spent nearly two decades with the Catalan club after arriving from Argentina as a teenager to play in its youth squads. He made his first-team debut as a 17-year-old in 2004, then played 17 seasons with the main squad. He helped the club win the Champions League four times, the Spanish league 10 times, the Copa del Rey seven times and the Spanish Super Cup eight times.Messi leaves as Barcelona’s all-time leading scorer with 672 goals. He played in 778 matches with the club, also a record. He is also the overall top scorer in the Spanish league with 474 goals from 520 matches.He led the Spanish league in scoring in eight seasons, and was the top scorer in the Champions League six times. His 26 goals against Real Madrid are a record for the “clasico” matches against Barcelona’s fiercest rival. 
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Hungary’s growing list of European Union worries includes controversial LGBT legislation and potentially hacking the phones of journalists, rights activists and political opponents.Poland has rebuffed a ruling by the bloc’s highest court, claiming its own constitution has precedence over the EU laws it vowed to follow when it joined the club in 2004, although it now appears to have backed down.Farther north and politically opposite, Denmark’s leftist government is also feeling legal heat over its recent decision to return hundreds of Syrian immigrants to Damascus, a move critics say violates basic human rights and could set a dangerous precedent for other deportations.Along with a year of battling COVID-19 and its economic fallout, the EU is also grappling with a more existential threat, as its founding principles of democracy, rule of law and human rights face multiple challenges from within, in ways, some observers say, the 27-member bloc is unprepared to meet.Referring to Hungary and Poland, among others, French President Emmanuel Macron recently warned of a creeping “anti-liberal conservatism” undermining EU values “and what has built the core of our Western liberal democracy for centuries.”“The EU has been all about democracy from the start,” said Sebastien Maillard, director of the Paris-based Jacques Delors Institute think tank.“The fact member states are challenging this is a major threat, because the EU is a legal construction. It has no army. Its only power is a legal power,” he said.As questions mount about the bloc’s ability to save itself — “The EU Watches as Hungary Kills Democracy,” The Atlantic magazine wrote last year, echoing other analyses — it is now sharpening its defenses.European leaders are speaking out against dissident members, some observers say, in ways they rarely did before. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, is mulling new financial penalties against key offenders.Not enoughYet for many, these steps are insufficient.”For me, Hungary has no place in the EU anymore,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in June, while Luxembourg’s Foreign and European Affairs Minister Jean Asselborn suggested a referendum over its EU membership.A less dramatic rebuttal, this time targeting Poland, may come later this month.  The commission has given Warsaw until Aug. 16 to comply with a European Court of Justice ruling against its system for disciplining judges it claims undermines judicial independence, or face fines — a dollars-and-cents reprisal it may increasingly use against other rule-of-law violators, reports suggest.Poland initially pushed back strongly. Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro warned in an interview his country should not remain within the EU “at any price,” accusing the bloc of “blackmail.”  But in a turnabout hours later on Friday, deputy prime minister and ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said Warsaw would drop the disciplinary system in its current form.Last month, Brussels also launched legal proceedings against both Poland and Hungary for measures it claims violate the rights of LGBTQ people. A key target is new Hungarian legislation banning the presentation of LQBTQ issues to minors. In a first step, Hungary began restricting children’s books promoting gay and gender-change content.Brussels still has plenty of champions. In June, 17 European leaders signed an open letter calling on the bloc to fight LGBT discrimination.“I’ve never seen this kind of letter before by heads of state or government, analyst Maillard said, “They don’t like doing this. But this time they did.”The commission is also probing allegations Israeli spyware was used against EU media. Hungary is the only member state named in a broad media investigation into potential users of the Pegasus software.“I really hope things will happen here, but it’s unclear how much,” said Scott Marcus, senior fellow at Brussels-based economic policy institute Bruegel. “In the case of Hungary, this probably just gets added to a long litany of complaints, so I don’t think it changes the underlying situation very much.”Financial penaltiesThe commission’s July rule-of-law report, an annual member state assessment launched last year, found a raft of concerns about Hungary and Poland in areas such as press freedom, judicial independence and corruption. It also faulted other states, including Western members such as Austria and Italy, although on a lesser scale.Separately, rights lawyers are threatening Denmark’s leftist government with legal action over its efforts to return Syrian asylum seekers to Damascus on grounds it is safe — a move rights groups such as Amnesty International denounce and reject.The EU Commission is expected to further flex its financial muscles, conditioning some funding on countries’ democratic performance. Yet some believe such measures are insufficient, and European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova appeared to rule out such a quid-pro-quo in releasing billions of dollars in coronavirus recovery funds.“I don’t think this money should be used as blackmail,” she told France’s Le Monde newspaper.“The EU should … end its naiveté,” Le Monde wrote in a separate editorial, endorsing conditionality measures but urging stronger action against rule-of-law offenses, including sanctions against individuals wrongfully enriching themselves with EU funds.Yet the most drastic options appear unlikely, if not impossible. There is no mechanism for ousting errant member states, and efforts to suspend their voting rights risk being difficult. Moreover, after Brexit, there is little EU appetite to further diminish its ranks, analysts say. Sanctioning an entire population, rather than its government, is also unfair.“Viktor Orban will not be there forever, so I don’t think that kind of threat is helpful,” said analyst Maillard of Hungary’s hardline prime minister. “We have to have unity with all our diversity and differences.”  
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Haiti’s justice system is still struggling to find a judge willing to investigate the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, a full month after he died.”It is a sensitive, political dossier. Before agreeing to investigate it, a judge thinks about his own safety and that of his family,” one judge told AFP.”For this reason, investigating magistrates are not too enthusiastic about accepting it,” this judge told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity out of safety concerns.Several magistrates have told the dean of the Court of First Instance in Port-au-Prince that they are not interested in working on the shocking July 7 assassination of Moise at the presidential residence by a commando team, this judge said. Moise’s wife, Martine, was wounded but survived.Senior Magistrate Bernard Saint-Vil has sought to reassure these judges, telling them he has asked the government to guarantee their safety and has requested bodyguards.Saint-Vil said early this week that he would announce on Thursday the name of the investigating magistrate chosen to take on the case, but in the end he could not because no judge wanted the job.Police say they have arrested 44 people in connection with the killing, including 12 Haitian police officers, 18 Colombians who were allegedly part of the commando team and two Americans of Haitian descent.The head of Moise’s security detail is among those detained in connection with the plot allegedly organized by a group of Haitians with foreign ties.Moise, an unpopular leader, had been ruling the impoverished and disaster-plagued nation by decree, as gang violence spiked and COVID-19 spread.Police have issued wanted-persons notices for several other people, including a judge from Haiti’s highest court, a former senator and a businessman.Prosecutors have also issued summons for an opposition party leader, the head of Moise’s own party, and two Haitian preachers who had spoken out publicly against the late president.
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Flames swept through a town near Athens overnight and hundreds of people were evacuated by ferry from the island of Evia as wildfires burned across Greece for a fifth day Saturday.On Evia, east of the capital, a fire that began Tuesday quickly burgeoned into several fronts, ripping through thousands of hectares (acres) of pristine forest across the northern part of the island and forcing the evacuation of dozens of villages.More than 400 wildfires broke out in the last 24 hours, with the biggest fronts still burning in Evia, the second-biggest Greek island, and areas in the Peloponnese including Ancient Olympia, the site of the first Olympic Games.Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called it a “nightmarish summer,” adding the government’s priority “has been, first and foremost, to protect human lives.”Resurgent Wildfires in Greece Burn Homes, Threaten MonumentsGreek, European Union officials describe huge fires as consequence of climate change 
The fire on Mount Parnitha on the outskirts of Athens, which forced the evacuation of thousands of people since late Thursday, had receded by Saturday afternoon, but winds were forecast to strengthen, meaning a high threat remained they would flare again. 
“Under no circumstances can we be complacent,” Deputy Civil Protection Minister Nikos Hardalias said during an emergency briefing. “We are fighting a very big battle.”
 
 
Wildfires have erupted in many parts of the country amid Greece’s worst heatwave in more than 30 years, tearing through swathes of forestland, destroying homes and businesses and killing animals. 
On Friday night, strong winds pushed the fire into the town of Thrakomakedones north of Athens, where it burned homes. Residents had been ordered to evacuate and there were no immediate reports of casualties. 
The blaze left behind burned and blackened houses and cars among scorched pine trees. A cloud of smoke hovered over the capital. 
“[It’s] really bad,” said Thanasis Kaloudis, a resident of Thrakomakedones. “All of Greece has burned.”
 
Neighboring Turkey also is battling what President Tayyip Erdogan says are the worst wildfires in its history, and five fires were still burning there Saturday.
 
That number was slightly lower than in recent days. In the Mediterranean resort of Manavgat, where the first fires broke out 10 days ago, rain showers helped firefighters to extinguish the last flames. 
Further west in the Aegean province of Mugla, four fires were still blazing as a sustained, dry heatwave continued, while another fire burned inland in Isparta.
 Eight people have died in fires that have ravaged Turkey’s southwestern coastal regions, burning tens of thousands of hectares, and forcing thousands of residents and tourists to leave homes and hotels. Escape by ferry 
Greece has received reinforcements from Cyprus, France and Israel to fight the blaze near Athens, assisted by the army and water-bombing aircraft. Germany is sending 216 firefighters and 44 vehicles expected to arrive in three to four days, the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance tweeted Saturday.
 Hundreds of people, including many elderly residents, were evacuated by ferry late Friday from the town of Limni as the sky turned an apocalyptic red. 
One man died Friday in Athens after being injured by electricity pylon, and at least nine others have been injured, authorities said. 
The government planned to reimburse people affected by the fires, and said it would designate the burned land as areas for reforestation, Mitsotakis said. 
Residents in suburbs north of Athens have been forced to leave in a hurry with the few belongings they can take. 
“Our business, our home, all of our property is there. I hope they don’t burn,” Yorgos Papaioannou, 26, said Friday, sitting in a parking lot with his girlfriend as ash fell around them from the smoke-filled sky.
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Wildfires in Greece raged into the night burning more forest and homes in the northern outskirts of Athens and other parts of the country and forcing more evacuations as more international aid was on the way.Authorities struggled with 154 wildfires across the country on Friday with the biggest fronts still burning in the north of Athens, the island of Evia and areas in the Peloponnese including Mani, Messinia and ancient Olympia, the site of the first Olympic Games.”We are facing another, more difficult night,” Deputy Civil Protection Minister Nikos Hardalias told reporters. “Wildfires of unprecedented intensity and spread, all our forces are fighting the battle day and night to save lives, together with volunteers.”In the northern part of the island of Evia near Athens, the coast guard evacuated 650 people by boat as wildfires burned through forestland all the way to the shore for the fourth day.As night approached, firefighters kept battling a continuous resurgence of blazes in the north of Athens which, fanned by strong winds, threatened to engulf the lake of Marathon and go up Mount Parnitha.Greece, like much of the rest of Europe, has been grappling with extreme weather this summer. A weeklong heatwave — its worst in 30 years — has sparked simultaneous wildfires in many parts of the country, burning homes and killing animals as flames tear through thousands of acres of land.The fire, which broke out on Tuesday, burned around the main highway linking Athens to northern Greece and hundreds of firefighters with water-bombing aircraft battled to contain it.A 38-year-old man was killed on Friday by a falling electricity pylon in a suburb north of Athens, the hospital where he was treated said.In neighboring Turkey, authorities are battling the country’s worst-ever wildfires. Flames sweeping through its southwestern coastal regions forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people. In Italy, hot winds fanned flames on the island of Sicily this week.Police went door to door on Friday urging people to leave their homes north of Athens. Authorities ordered the evacuation of more suburbs in the north of Athens as the blaze advanced, burning more homes, cars and businesses.”We are witnessing a catastrophe of historic proportions and climate change is the basic cause,” said Alexis Tsipras, leader of Greece’s main political opposition. “We must support our frontline fighters and all who lost the efforts of a lifetime in a few minutes.”Fiery disasterTemperatures have been over 40 degrees Celsius all week and little let up came on Friday with high winds spreading the flames further.The Athens power grid operator announced staggered power cuts in the surrounding region to ensure there were no major outages in mainland Greece.In Gytheio in the southern Peloponnese, a coast guard vessel rescued 10 people from a beach as a blaze there flared. Locals made desperate calls for firefighting aircraft.More foreign help was on the way with Switzerland sending three helicopters, joining other countries, including France, Cyprus, Israel, Sweden and the Ukraine who sent firefighters and water-bombing aircraft, the civil protection minister said.The U.S. Navy was sending a P-8 aerial reconnaissance aircraft to support firefighting efforts.In the Peloponnese, where firefighters saved Ancient Olympia from a fire this week, the flames left behind scorched earth and dead animals.”A catastrophe,” said farmer Marinos Anastopoulos. “The fire came around midday with swirling winds and homes were burned, a lot of animals burned to death. Rabbits, sheep, dogs, everything.” 
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While Ukraine’s president prepares for a visit to Washington, Kyiv is accepting COVID-19 vaccines from China and has signed a major infrastructure agreement with Beijing to cooperate on roads, bridges and railway projects. Some experts worry China is attaching strings to the ventures, as VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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About 40 migrants were feared dead after a boat carrying about 50 people traveling from Western Sahara to Spain’s Canary Islands capsized, a Spanish nongovernmental organization said on Friday.”Tragedy: forty-two people, among those thirty women, eight children and four men, died when a boat capsized off the coast of Dakhla,” tweeted Helena Maleno of Caminando Fronteras, which monitors migratory flows.Official sources, quoted by the Spanish newspaper El Pais, said the number of people feared dead was 30.Maleno said 10 people survived and were picked up by fishermen.The accident happened when the migrant boat set out in bad weather on Tuesday, but details had only emerged on Friday.From Jan. 1-July 31, at least 7,531 people reached Spain’s Canary Islands from Western Africa, according to Spanish government figures, a 136% rise compared with the same period in 2020.Caminando Fronteras claims that during the first six months of 2021, 2,087 migrants died or disappeared as they tried to make the perilous voyage by sea to Spain from Western Africa.
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European Union ministers will hold emergency talks on what they view as a Belarusian pressure campaign of illegal migration against EU nations, according to Agence France-Presse.The bloc has accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of encouraging new migrants to cross the border in reaction to Poland’s decision to provide refuge to Belarusian athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who refused to return home from the Tokyo Olympics.Slovenia, which currently serves as rotating president of the EU, said the talks would take place virtually on August 18, AFP reported.In addition to the EU’s 27 member states, representatives of the Frontex border guard agency, the European Asylum Support Office and Europol were also invited.The EU meeting was announced as Poland and Lithuania reportedly called on European institutions to help them deal with the surge in illegal migration from Belarus.In the statement Friday, Poland and Lithuania called on the European Commission, Frontex, EASO, other EU member states and non-EU partners to explore solutions to EU migration and asylum issues, according to the Associated Press.In the past two days, 133 illegal migrants were stopped at the Belarusian-Polish border, compared to 122 in all of 2020, a spokesperson for the Poland Border Guard said, according to AP.Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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The Vatican Museums began requiring visitors Friday to present a so-called Green Pass, a digital certificate proving they have been vaccinated, tested negative or recovered from COVID-19 using a digital or paper certificate.The Green Pass is an extension of the European Union’s COVID-19 certificate, designed to make travel, as well as entry into certain venues, easier.Early Friday, tourists could be seen waiting to enter the museums to have QR codes scanned. The pass can be downloaded as a smartphone app, and is available in a paper version.The Vatican implemented its rules the same day the surrounding country of Italy implemented mandatory use of the pass to access places like bars and restaurants, gyms, theaters, museums, sporting events, and concerts.France was the first EU nation to make proof of immunity mandatory to access a range of services and venues.The Italian government announced Thursday it will widen the Green Pass requirement to all teachers, university students and long-distance transport beginning September 1. Some information in this report was provided by the Associated Press, Reuters and the French news agency, AFP. 
 
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Two Belarusian coaches have been stripped of their Tokyo Olympics accreditations over an alleged attempt to force a sprinter to fly home, an incident that drew international condemnation.The International Olympic Committee on Friday said it had removed the accreditations of Artur Shimak and Yury Maisevich and they had left the Olympic Village.The body said this week that it was investigating the pair over their role in the case of Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who sought protection at a Tokyo airport to avoid being put on a plane home.She said she feared for her life if forced back to Belarus, which has been wracked by political upheaval and a crackdown on dissent after disputed elections that returned strongman Alexander Lukashenko to power last year.Tsimanouskaya is one of more than 2,000 Belarusian sports figures who signed an open letter calling for new elections and for political prisoners to be freed.But her trouble in Tokyo came after she posted on her Instagram, criticizing her coaches for entering her into a race without informing her first.The IOC said the two coaches “will be offered an opportunity to be heard” but that the measures against them were taken “in the interest of the well-being of the athletes” from Belarus who are still in Tokyo.Tsimanouskaya, 24, arrived in Warsaw on Wednesday after being granted a humanitarian visa, saying she was “happy to be in safety.”The row blew up after Tsimanouskaya, who was entered in the 100- and 200-meter races, complained about being entered into the 4×400-meter relay without being consulted.She said she was “surprised that the situation became such a political scandal because it started out as a sporting issue,” adding that “she was” not thinking about political asylum in EU member Poland.“I just want to pursue my sporting career,” Tsimanouskaya said.The alleged attempt to return Tsimanouskaya to Belarus has prompted condemnation, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accusing Minsk of “another act of transnational repression.”In power since 1994, Lukashenko sparked international outrage in May by dispatching a fighter jet to intercept a Ryanair plane flying from Greece to Lithuania to arrest a dissident on board.Belarus has also been in the crosshairs of the IOC since last year. Lukashenko and his son Viktor have been banned from Olympic events over the targeting of athletes for their political views.Shortly before the Tokyo Games, Lukashenko warned sports officials and athletes that he expected results in Japan.“Think about it before going,” he said. “If you come back with nothing, it’s better for you not to come back at all.” 
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A resurgent wildfire burned homes north of Athens, and blazes across southern Greece forced more evacuations Thursday as weather worsened and firefighters in a round-the-clock battle strove to save a former royal palace and the birthplace of the ancient Olympics.In a dramatic scene as flames approached, fire crews went house to house to escort residents out of homes 20 kilometers (12½ miles) north of the capital. The fire threatened the power supply to parts of the capital after damaging the transmission network, officials said, adding that fire crews with more than 700 people were working through the night.Greek and European Union officials described the huge fires as a consequence of climate change.Fueled by the worst heat wave in decades, the blazes drew closer to a summer palace at Tatoi outside Athens once used by the former Greek royal family, as well as a major archaeological site in southern Greece that was the birthplace of the ancient Olympics.Late Thursday, officials said both sites appeared to be in no immediate danger.’Simply impossible’ task”Our priority is always the protection of human life, followed by the protection of property, the natural environment and critical infrastructure. Unfortunately, under these circumstances, achieving all these aims at the same time is simply impossible,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in an evening televised address. The wildfires, he said, display “the reality of climate change.”A burned hotel during a wildfire in Lalas village, near Olympia town, western Greece, Aug. 5, 2021. Wildfires rekindled outside Athens and forced more evacuations around southern Greece as weather worsened.Earlier, he visited Tatoi, as well as Ancient Olympia, where flame-lighting ceremonies for the modern summer and winter Olympics are held every two years. Earth movers were being used to create big fire breaks around the ancient site.As additional support arrived from Greece’s military and EU countries, water-dropping planes and helicopters swooped over blazes near the capital, in central Greece, on the island of Evia, and near ancient Olympia to the south.Ninety-nine new fires were reported, while more than 50 villages and settlements were evacuated, including a beachside campsite and hotels on Evia, where boats were used to transport stranded vacationers to safety.Turkey, AlbaniaA heat wave baking southeast Europe for a second week has also triggered deadly fires in Turkey and Albania and blazes across the region.North Macedonia’s government on Thursday declared the country in a state of crisis for the next 30 days because of wildfires.The EU commissioner for the environment, Virginijus Sinkevicius, said the fires and extreme weather globally over the summer were a clear signal for the need to address climate change.”We are fighting some of the worst wildfires we’ve seen in decades. But this summer’s floods, heat waves and forest fires can become our new normality,” he wrote in a tweet.”We must ask ourselves: Is this the world we want to live in? We need immediate actions for nature before it’s too late.”A convoy of firetrucks use a road during a wildfire in Lalas village, near Olympia town, western Greece, Aug. 5, 2021.The EU bolstered assistance from member states and partners to Greece, sending firefighters, water-dropping planes and helicopters from Cyprus, France, Sweden, Romania and Switzerland. Help from the Netherlands and other EU members was also heading to fire-stricken countries in the region.In an emergency measure, public access to Greek forests at risk of fire will be limited through August 9.Greece’s Civil Protection Agency said the fire threat across southern Greece would increase further Friday, with windy weather forecast for parts of the country, despite an expected slight dip in temperatures that reached 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) earlier this week. The heat wave was described as Greece’s worst since 1987.Armed forces’ roleDefense Minister Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos said the armed forces would expand their role in fire prevention, with ground patrols, drones and aircraft over areas vulnerable to wildfires.Outside Athens, a forest fire that broke out on the northern fringes of the capital Tuesday and damaged or destroyed scores of homes rekindled, triggering fresh evacuations, threatening homes and sending thick smoke over the capital.The EU Atmosphere Monitoring Service said smoke plumes from the region’s wildfires were clearly visible in satellite images, adding that the estimated intensity of the wildfires in Turkey was at the highest level since records started in 2003.The fires in Greece have not caused any deaths or serious injuries. But Greek scientists said the total destruction in just three days this month exceeded 50% of the average area burned in the country in previous years. An Athens Observatory report said an estimated 6,000 hectares (14,800 acres) went up in smoke between Sunday and Wednesday, compared with 10,400 hectares in the whole of last year.The causes of the Greek wildfires were unclear, but authorities say human error and carelessness are most frequently to blame.
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Russia begins mass military exercises with its Central Asian allies Tajikistan and Uzbekistan near the Tajik border with Afghanistan this week.  The maneuvers come against the backdrop of a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan – and rapid territorial gains by its adversaries in the Afghan Taliban. For VOA from Moscow, Charles Maynes reports.  Camera: Ricardo Marquina-Montanana, Producer: Marcus Harton
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A Belarusian Olympic sprinter told reporters Thursday she was advised by family members not to return home because she was being criticized by the Belarus media, who reported that she was mentally ill.Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, 24, arrived in Warsaw, Poland, late Wednesday. Polish authorities granted her a humanitarian visa to seek political asylum earlier this week after she alleged her team’s officials were trying to force her to fly home to Belarus against her wishes.At a news conference, Tsimanouskaya told reporters that after she posted a message on social media earlier this week criticizing how she was being handled by her coaches, members of the Belarus coaching staff, along with other men, came to her room in the Olympic village and told her she had “some injury” and had to go home.Tsimanouskaya said she was told if she did not, there be “some problems for her in her country.” She said as she gathered her things, her grandmother called and warned her not to return home, saying television reports said the sprinter had mental problems, and that she might be put in a hospital or jailed. At the Tokyo airport, Tsimanouskaya sought help from Japanese police, translating a plea on her phone and showing it to them.As the drama unfolded, European countries offered to help her, and she ended up at the Polish Embassy, where she received a humanitarian visa. Many Belarusian activists have fled to Poland to avoid a brutal crackdown by President Alexander Lukashenko’s government.Tsimanouskaya told reporters she had not decided about seeking political asylum. She said her husband would be joining her in Poland later Thursday, and they would make a decision. She said she wanted to continue her sports career and support freedom in her country. Belarus has been wracked by political upheaval and a crackdown on dissent after disputed elections that returned Lukashenko to power last year.Tsimanouskaya was one of more than 2,000 Belarusian sports figures who signed an open letter calling for new elections and for political prisoners to be freed.
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A heat wave in southern Europe, fed by strong hot winds from North Africa, has contributed to the outbreak of wildfires across the Mediterranean, including in Italy, Greece, Spain and Turkey. Firefighters in Italy have been deployed from all regions to battle blazes raging in many areas of the country, destroying thousands of hectares of forests. The high temperatures in southern Italy have prompted health ministry officials to put some areas of the country on red alert, like Sicily. Fires have been raging on the island and in other parts of Italy for days with authorities struggling to contain the fast-spreading blazes that have charred thousands of hectares of forests.Authorities deployed thousands of firefighters and water-dropping planes from across Italy, but due to the scale of the fires, the EU has also had to send in resources.In Sardinia, 20,000 hectares of forests were destroyed, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate. The fires damaged farmland and livestock, businesses and homes, and there is concern about losses to the island’s biodiversity.Christian Solinas, president of the Sardinia region, calls the fires an “unprecedented disaster.”  Residents spoke of apocalyptic scenes.In Sicily, fires are still raging in different areas with the flames having also reached the southern city of Catania on the eastern coast. Here, too, many residents were forced to leave their homes and police had to intervene by sea to save some 200 people stranded at beach resorts because of the fires and heavy smoke. Catania airport had to temporarily close due to the smoke.A view of a fire at Le Capannine beach in Catania, Sicily, Italy, July 30, 2021, in this photo obtained from social media. (Credit: Roberto Viglianisi/via Reuters)Also hard hit is the region of Abruzzo, where flames devoured a pine forest in Pescara, on the Adriatic coast, sending tourists and residents to the hospital after inhaling smoke.Authorities say many of the fires were cause by people and have already made some arrests. Speaking on Italian TV, Pescara mayor Carlo Masci called the events in his area truly dramatic and said those responsible must pay.Masci describes it as an attack on the heart of the city, the green lung of Pescara, its tradition, its history, its roots. The mayor says the blazes developed in various parts and the winds fueled the massive flames. He adds that he had never seen anything like this before and people were practically encircled by the fires.Like in other parts of Italy, Masci said the impact on the local environment was incalculable with the whole area of the Dannunziana Reserve, the city’s large pine forest, destroyed. He said it hurt to see all those skeletons of the trees.
 
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British police have arrested 11 people as part of an investigation into the online racist abuse directed at some of the Black players in the England soccer team following their defeat in last month’s Euro 2020 final.Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka were the targets of the abuse after they missed spot-kicks in a penalty shootout with Italy which settled the July 11 final after the game finished as a 1-1 draw.The incident prompted a police investigation and drew wide condemnation from the England captain, manager, royalty, religious leaders and politicians.The UK Football Policing Unit said 207 posts on social media were identified as criminal, of which 123 accounts belong to individuals overseas and 34 from the United Kingdom.”There are people out there who believe they can hide behind a social media profile and get away with posting such abhorrent comments. They need to think again,” Chief Constable Mark Roberts, National Police Chiefs’ Council Football Policing Lead, said in a statement.”We have investigators proactively seeking out abusive comments in connection to the match and, if they meet a criminal threshold, those posting them will be arrested.”Our investigation is continuing at pace and we are grateful for those who have taken time to report racist posts to us.”A Twitter Inc spokesperson said last month they had removed more than 1,000 tweets and permanently suspended a number of accounts, while Facebook Inc said it too had quickly removed abusive comments.
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The Mexican government sued U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors Wednesday in U.S. federal court, arguing that their negligent and illegal commercial practices have unleashed tremendous bloodshed in Mexico.The unusual lawsuit was filed in Boston. Among those being sued are some of the biggest names in guns, including Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc.; Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc.; Beretta U.S.A. Corp.; Colt’s Manufacturing Company LLC, and Glock Inc. Another defendant is Interstate Arms, a Boston-area wholesaler that sells guns from all but one of the named manufacturers to dealers around the U.S.The manufacturers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The Mexican government argues that the companies know that their practices contribute to the trafficking of guns to Mexico and facilitate it. Mexico wants compensation for the havoc the guns have wrought in its country.The Mexican government “brings this action to put an end to the massive damage that the defendants cause by actively facilitating the unlawful trafficking of their guns to drug cartels and other criminals in Mexico,” the lawsuit said.Mexico’s figuresThe government estimates that 70% of the weapons trafficked to Mexico come from the U.S., according to the Foreign Affairs Ministry, and that in 2019 alone, at least 17,000 homicides were linked to trafficked weapons.The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the U.S. firearm industry’s trade association, said in a statement it rejected Mexico’s allegations of negligence.”These allegations are baseless. The Mexican government is responsible for the rampant crime and corruption within their own borders,” said Lawrence G. Keane, the group’s senior vice president and general counsel. The Mexican government is responsible for enforcing its laws, he said.FILE – A security guard stands outside the Glock Inc. headquarters in Smyrna, Ga., Oct. 8, 2014. Glock is one of the gunmakers Mexico sued on Aug. 4, 2021, in U.S. federal court.The group also took issue with Mexico’s figures for the number of guns recovered at crime scenes and traced back to the U.S. It said traces were attempted on only a small fraction of the recovered guns and only on the ones carrying a serial number, making them more likely to have originated in the U.S.Alejandro Celorio, legal adviser for the ministry, told reporters Wednesday that the damage caused by the trafficked guns would be equal to 1.7% to 2% of Mexico’s gross domestic product. The government will seek at least $10 billion in compensation, he said. Mexico’s GDP last year was more than $1.2 trillion.”We don’t do it to pressure the United States,” Celorio said. “We do it so there aren’t deaths in Mexico.”Goal: Reduce homicidesForeign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said the lawsuit was another piece of the government’s efforts against guns. “The priority is that we reduce homicides,” he said. “We aren’t looking to change American laws.”Mexico did not seek the advice of the U.S. government on the matter but advised the U.S. Embassy before filing the lawsuit.Steve Shadowen, the lead attorney representing Mexico, said that in the early 2000s, about 30 U.S. cities brought similar litigation against gun manufacturers, arguing that they should be responsible for increased police, hospitalization and other costs associated with gun violence.As some cities started winning, gun manufacturers went to Congress and got an immunity statute for the manufacturers. Shadowen said he believes that immunity doesn’t apply when the injury occurs outside the United States.”The merits of the case are strongly in our favor, and then we have to get around this immunity statute, which we think we’re going to win,” he said. “That statute just simply doesn’t apply. It only applies when you’re in the United States.”He said he believes it is the first time a foreign government has sued the gun manufacturers.Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California-Los Angeles and an expert on gun policy, called Mexico’s effort a “long shot.””It is a bold and innovative lawsuit,” he said. “We haven’t seen anything like this before. The gun manufacturers have enjoyed broad immunity from lawsuits for now two decades.”FILE – The Beretta U.S.A. facility is shown in Accokeek, Md., Aug. 4, 2014. Beretta is one of the U.S. gunmakers sued by Mexico on Aug. 4, 2021.He said he had not seen arguments that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act applies only to damages in the United States.The sale of firearms is severely restricted in Mexico and controlled by the Defense Department. But thousands of guns are smuggled into Mexico by the country’s powerful drug cartels.There were more than 36,000 murders in Mexico last year, and the toll has remained stubbornly high, despite President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s pledge to pacify the country. Mexico’s nationwide murder rate in 2020 remained unchanged at 29 per 100,000 inhabitants. By comparison, the U.S. homicide rate in 2019 was 5.8 per 100,000.El Paso shootingIn August 2019, a gunman killed 23 people in an El Paso Walmart, including some Mexican citizens. At that time, Ebrard said the government would explore its legal options. The government said Wednesday that recent rulings in U.S. courts contributed to its decision to file the lawsuit.It cited a decision in California allowing a lawsuit against Smith & Wesson to move forward, a lawsuit filed last week against Century Arms related to a 2019 shooting in Gilroy, California, and the $33 million settlement reached by Remington with some of the families whose children were killed in the Newtown, Connecticut, Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in 2012.Winkler of UCLA mentioned the Sandy Hook lawsuit as one that initially few people thought would go anywhere.”The plaintiffs in that case made an innovative and bold argument, too,” he said. “They argued that the immunity statute does not prevent these gunmakers from being held liable where they act negligently.””Over the past year or so, we’ve seen some cracks in the immunity armor provided by federal law,” Winkler said. “Even if this lawsuit moves forward, it will be extremely difficult for Mexico to win because it will be hard to show that this distribution process or their distribution practices are a manifestation of negligence on the part of the gunmakers.”
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China has lodged a stern representation with Britain’s BBC about its reporting of the floods in Henan and its statement on how foreign journalists were being treated, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.The head of communications for the BBC World Service declined to comment.The broadcaster had said in a statement last month that the Chinese government should take immediate action to stop attacks that endanger foreign journalists.The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China had said journalists from several media outlets covering the floods were harassed online and by local residents. Some journalists received death threats, it said.”The BBC statement is inverting black and white,” China’s foreign ministry said on its official website.It said the BBC reports on the Henan floods were an attack on the Chinese government, and were “prejudiced,” without giving further details.The death toll from last month’s floods in Henan rose to 302 as of Monday, officials said, triple the figure of 99 that was reported last week, with most of the fatalities reported in the provincial capital, Zhengzhou.
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Britain’s top military commander, General Nick Carter, said Wednesday that Western powers need to retaliate for a suspected Iranian drone strike on an oil tanker, which killed a British security guard and the ship’s Romanian captain — otherwise Tehran will feel emboldened.Speaking to the BBC, Carter, chief of the British Defense Staff, said if a regime of deterrence is not restored in the Gulf, there will be more attacks and a higher risk of “miscalculation” by Iran. “What we need to be doing, fundamentally, is calling out Iran for its very reckless behavior,” he said.FILE – Britain’s Chief of Defense Staff General Nick Carter speaks during a remote press conference, inside 10 Downing Street in central London, April 22, 2020, in this handout image released by 10 Downing Street.Iran has vehemently denied playing any role in the July 29 drone strike on the MV Mercer Street off the coast of Oman. The vessel is Japanese-owned but managed by London-based firm Zodiac Maritime, which in turn is owned by Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer. The British government and the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden have accused Iran of being behind the deadly drone strike with Britain’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, labeling it “unlawful and callous.”FILE – Britain’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Dominic Raab walks outside Downing Street in London, Britain, Feb. 3, 2021.Earlier this week, he added, “We believe this attack was deliberate, targeted and a clear violation of international law by Iran. Iran must end such attacks, and vessels must be allowed to navigate freely in accordance with international law.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday there was “no justification for this attack, which follows a pattern of attacks and other belligerent behavior,” adding, the U.S. is “confident” Iran carried out the attack, using multiple drones. The Israeli government Wednesday publicly accused an Iranian military officer, Saeed Ara Jani, of overseeing the strike, alleging Ara Jani heads the Revolutionary Guards’ drone unit. “For the first time ever, I will also expose the man who is directly responsible for the launch of suicide UAVs [unmanned vehicles] — his name is Saeed Ara Jani,” Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said.”The UAV command conducted the attack on the Mercer Street. Saeed Ara Jani plans and provides the training and equipment to conduct terror attacks in the region,” Gantz added in a briefing to ambassadors from member states of the U.N. Security Council.Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Saeed Khatibzadeh, described “as totally suspicious the reports of successive security incidents involving vessels in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman” and warned “against any effort to create a vicious atmosphere to pursue certain political goals.”In a tweet, he reaffirmed Iran’s “strong commitment to regional stability & maritime security,” and said, “Iran stands ready to offer assistance in case of any maritime accidents.”The drone strike blasted a hole in the oil tanker’s bridge when the vessel was 159 kilometers from Al Duqm port in Oman, according to British and U.S. officials, who say they are coordinating a possible response to the assault. What form the retaliation will take or when is not clear.FILE – The Liberian-flagged oil tanker Mercer Street is seen off Cape Town, South Africa, Jan. 2, 2016.In his interview with the BBC, Carter said, “We have got to restore deterrence because it is behavior like that which leads to escalation, and that could very easily lead to miscalculation and that would be very disastrous for all the peoples of the Gulf and the international community.”Carter’s remarks came as Iranian hijackers were accused of boarding another oil tanker off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday before leaving the vessel 24 hours later, Britain’s Royal Navy reported.Britain is due to raise the issue of the Mercer Street incident formally at a U.N. Security Council meeting scheduled for Friday.  Raab tweeted that the U.K. has written to U.N. Security Council President T.S. Tirimurti, alongside Romania and Liberia, “to raise Iran’s attack on MV Mercer Street.” He added, “The Council must respond to Iran’s destabilizing actions and lack of respect for international law.”Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday said during a Cabinet meeting, “We know, at any rate, how to convey the message to Iran in our own way.”The U.S. State Department initially said the attack involved “one-way explosive UAVs,” otherwise known as suicide drones. Previously, shipping attacks in the Gulf have more often than not involved limpet mines, which can be placed on the hull of a target vessel. The switch in tactics is being seen by Western diplomats and Israeli defense experts as a major escalation in a shadow war between Iran and Israel.Israeli Defense Minister Gantz on Monday accused Iran of intensifying aggression in the Gulf. He told the Knesset, or parliament, that there are ”hundreds of Iranian UAVs in Iran, Yemen, Iraq and other countries.” He added, “We will act to remove any such threat.” 
 
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The World Health Organization says more than 700 health care workers and patients were killed, more than 2,000 injured, and hundreds of health facilities destroyed in countries of conflict between 2018 and 2020.A three-year analysis was carried out in 17 conflict-ridden countries and territories, including Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria, Mozambique, the occupied Palestinian territories, and Myanmar.New data show that health care continues to be under attack. So far this year, the World Health Organization has recorded 588 incidents in 14 countries with emergencies, causing 114 deaths and 278 injuries of health care workers and patients.   The WHO’s director of health emergencies interventions, Altaf Musani, says the impact of those health care attacks goes well beyond claiming lives. He says the ramifications are significant and alarming, especially considering the ongoing COVID-19 response.   “Their impact reverberates on health care workers’ mental health and willingness to report to work, equally, on communities’ willingness to seek health care, and also drastically reduces resources for responding to a health crisis, amongst others,”  Musani said. Musani says the ripple effect of a single incident is huge and has a long-lasting impact on the system at large. When health facilities are destroyed, he says, they need to be rebuilt.    When health care workers are killed or wounded, he says a vital work force must be reinforced. Building back those vital systems, he says, requires years of costly investment, years in which people in need are underserved.“During the pandemic, more than ever, health care workers must be protected, must be respected,”  Musani said. “Hospitals and health care facilities, including the transportation of ambulances should not be used for military purposes. Essential conditions for the continued delivery of vital health care must be given the necessary space.”   Musani notes any reduction in capacity will interrupt services and deprive vulnerable communities of urgent care.   The WHO is calling on all parties in conflicts to ensure safe working spaces for the delivery of health care services. It says people caught in emergency situations must be able to safely access care, free from violence, threat, or fear.
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A Belarusian Olympic sprinter who said she faced punishment if she returned to her country departed Japan Wednesday on a flight bound for Austria. Krystsina Tsimanouskaya was scheduled to land in Vienna Wednesday afternoon. She is then expected to travel on to Poland, where the government has offered her a humanitarian visa. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki posted Tuesday on Facebook that he had spoken with Tsimanouskaya and that she should be able to live in Poland without obstacles. Polish authorities granted Tsimanouskaya a humanitarian visa to seek political asylum on Monday after she alleged her team’s officials were trying to force her to fly home to Belarus against her wishes.Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya arrives at the Polish embassy in Tokyo, Japan, Aug. 2, 2021. Tsimanouskaya told officials in Tokyo she feared she would not be safe in Belarus from the autocratic government of President Alexander Lukashenko.  “They made it clear that upon return home I would definitely face some form of punishment,” she told The Associated Press in a Tuesday videocall interview. “There were also thinly disguised hints that more would await me.”  Her departure from Tokyo comes days after she provoked backlash in state-run media in Belarus by criticizing how official were managing the Belarusian Olympians. On her Instagram account, Tsimanouskaya said she was put on the country’s 4×400 relay team even though she has never raced in the event.    The Belarus National Olympic Committee has been led for more than 25 years by Lukashenko and his son, Viktor.    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Lukashenko government was trying to force Tsimanouskaya to leave the Games “simply for exercising free speech.” Some information in this report came from the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.  
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More than 500 firefighters struggled through the night to contain a large forest fire on the outskirts of Athens, which raced into residential areas Tuesday, forcing thousands to flee. It was the worst of 81 wildfires that broke out in Greece over the past 24 hours, amid one of the country’s most intense heatwaves in decades.Civil Protection chief Nikos Hardalias said the fire north of Athens was “very dangerous,” and had been exacerbated by strong winds and tinder-dry conditions thanks to the heat that reached 45 Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in the area.No severe injuries were reported, and authorities said several buildings had been damaged, but no detailed breakdown was available. The cause of the blaze was unclear.”We continue to fight hour by hour, with our top priority being to save human lives,” Hardalias said. “We will do so all night.””These are crucial hours,” Hardalias said. “Our country is undergoing one of the worst heatwaves of the past 40 years.”The wind dropped later Tuesday, and the regional governor for greater Athens, Giorgos Patoulis, said this could allow the fire to be tamed after water-dropping aircraft resume operations at first light Wednesday.”If the winds don’t grow, it can be brought under control by the early morning so the planes can provide the final solution,” he told state ERT TV.A firefighting plane drops water over a fire near holiday homes in Costa village in the Argolida region, in Southeastern Greece during a developing wild fire, July 20, 2015.The blaze sent a huge cloud of smoke over Athens, prompting multiple evacuations near Tatoi, 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) to the north and forcing the partial closure of Greece’s main north-south highway. Residents left their homes in cars and on motorcycles, often clutching pets, heading toward the capital amid a blanket of smoke.One group stopped to help staff from a riding school push their horses into trucks to escape the flames.Fire crews went house to house to ensure that evacuation orders were carried out, and 315 people were escorted to safety after calling for help. Authorities said nobody was listed as missing, and Greek media said six people required treatment for breathing complaints.As the heat wave scorching the eastern Mediterranean intensified, temperatures reached 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 Fahrenheit) in parts of the Greek capital. The extreme weather has fueled deadly wildfires in Turkey and blazes in Italy, Greece, Albania and across the region.Wildfires also raged in other parts of Greece, prompting evacuations of villages in Mani and Vassilitsa in the southern Peloponnese region, as well as on the islands of Evia and Kos, authorities said. A total 40 blazes were raging late Tuesday.The fires prompted Greek basketball star Giannis Antetokounmpo to cancel celebrations planned in Athens for the NBA championship he won recently with the Milwaukee Bucks.”We hope there are no victims from these fires, and of course we will postpone today’s celebration,” Antetokounmpo wrote in a tweet.Earlier, authorities closed the Acropolis and other ancient sites during afternoon hours. The site, which is normally open in the summer from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., will have reduced hours through Friday, closing between midday and 5 p.m.A Ch-47D Chinook helicopter is watched by a paddleboarder as it fills up with water while firefighting near Lambiri Beach at Patras on Aug. 1, 2021.The extreme heat, described by authorities as the worst in Greece since 1987, has strained the national power supply and fueled the wildfires.The national grid operator said the power supply to part of the capital was endangered after part of the transmission system, damaged and threatened by the fires, was shut down.Seven water-dropping planes and nine helicopters were involved in the firefighting effort near Athens, including an aircraft leased from Russia. They ceased operations after dark for safety reasons.The Greek Fire Service maintained an alert for most of the country for Tuesday and Wednesday, while public and some private services shifted operating hours to allow for afternoon closures.Hardalias appealed to the public for high vigilance.”Because the heatwave will continue in coming days, please avoid any activity that could spark a fire,” he said.
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Haiti will hold elections this year despite setbacks, Provisional Electoral Council (KEP) President Guirlande Mesadieu told VOA Creole.  “We will hold elections. We will hold a referendum,” Mesadieu said. She admitted that the current September 26 date may have to be pushed back.  Despite some political groups’ attempts to pressure the KEP to put election plans on hold after President Jovenel Moise’s assassination in July, Mesadieu said the council is determined to respect the presidential decree, which called for a referendum and general elections this year.  FILE – A picture of the late Haitian President Jovenel Moise hangs on a wall before a news conference by interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 13, 2021.”We, as members of the electoral council, would be acting irresponsibly if we were to decide unilaterally to hold a referendum but not general elections, or general elections and not a referendum. So, everything in the (presidential) decree is what we are focused on,” she told VOA. The United States and the international community have repeatedly called on Haitian officials to hold general elections to restore crippled democratic institutions, such as the Parliament, and begin resolving major issues.In an interview Tuesday with VOA, Julie Chung, acting assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, reiterated that message.  “I think it’s a critical time for the people of Haiti to come together with consensus and to listen to the voices of all stakeholders to build that pathway to free and fair elections as soon as is technically feasible,” Chung told VOA.The assistant secretary said U.S. Special Envoy for Haiti Daniel Foote stayed in the country after attending Moise’s funeral to meet with Haitian officials and civil society representatives and “hear their voices.”   FILE – U.S. Special Envoy Daniel Foote meets with National Police Chief Leon Charles, U.S. Ambassador Michele Sison and a police official in Haiti over the weekend, in this image posted by the national police on Twitter on July 24, 2021.But Andre Michel, spokesperson for the Democratic and Popular Sector, said the opposition wants a dialogue to select a new transitional government and a new electoral council to organize the elections. “There must be an electoral council that is credible, an electoral council that is honest and is made up of representatives from all sectors of society,” Michel said during a press conference Tuesday.But Mesadieu told VOA the KEP will not stop working while it waits for such a dialogue.  “So, whatever people are discussing doesn’t really concern us, because we are not part of those discussions. What is clear is that if there is some sort of political accord that would allow more people to participate in the election, it will be a pleasure for us to accommodate that,” she said. “If you’re asking us to just sit idle and wait for a political accord, we’ll just keep working. If there is a political accord, it will happen while we are moving forward.”  Before Moise’s death on July 7, the opposition was unsuccessful in its attempts to agree on a consensus government and a path forward.  Mesadieu admits the KEP faces multiple obstacles as it works to organize elections.  “Of course it’s tough, because we are living in the country, and we have to deal with reality. Politics, security, the environment — all those things have repercussions on our work,” Mesadieu told VOA.It is unclear how far the September 26 election date would be pushed back, but Mesadieu said the KEP is committed to seeing its mission completed. Jacquelin Belizaire, Jorge Agobian and Renan Toussaint in Port-au-Prince contributed to this report.
 
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