Europe

The European Union's largest wildfire since the bloc started keeping records more than two decades ago showed no signs of abating Wednesday in northeastern Greece despite the efforts of a multinational firefighting force on the ground and a fleet of water-dropping aircraft.

A forest fire in Greece is the largest recorded in the European Union, said a spokesman for the European Commission, quoted by "Guardian" and "AFP".

Eleven aircraft and a helicopter from the EU fleet have been sent to help fight the fire north of the city of Alexandroupolis along with 407 firefighters, Balazs Ujvari said on Tuesday.

Twelve major fires have burned more than 60,000 hectares in seven years, claiming a third (33%) of Attica's forests, according to the updated analysis by the National Observatory of Athens' Meteo service of data provided by the EU's Copernicus Rapid Mapping Service and the European Forest Fire Observatory (EFFIS).

A disheartening picture emerges when confronted by the statistics for the course of this year's fire season, according to the analysis of the data of the European Forest Fire Information System by meteo.gr.

An earthquake of magnitude 5.2 struck eastern Turkey on Thursday, the European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) said.

The quake was at a depth of 11 km (6.84 miles) the EMSC said. [Reuters]

Despite some efforts to downplay the Rhodes wildfire disaster, the 20,66 hectares of forest and farmland that burned have left an indelible mark on the island.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is riding high after extorting Europe and forcing not only Sweden but also NATO to humiliate themselves as supplicants caving to extortion. For the first time, NATO has accepted in its documents Turkey's terrorism label for organizations neither NATO nor Europe consider to be terrorists.

In an effort to address Turkish objections to Sweden's accession to NATO, senior officials from Türkiye, Sweden and Finland will gather in Brussels today for a crucial meeting.

A majority of EU countries have rejected a push by Europe's big telecoms operators to force Big Tech to help fund the rollout of 5G and broadband in the region, people familiar with the matter said.

Europe's leading LGBT rights organisation, ILGA-Europe has criticised Serbia and Turkey for their handling of LGBT community rights in its latest Rainbow Map and Index.

The report says the pushbacks LGBT communities are facing in these countries "can also be seen in the challenge to freedom of assembly amid the rise of anti-democratic forces".