Civil defense

Tightened security measures are in place at the airports in Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and Bourgas after yesterday's false bomb threats.

Greece does not have the fortune of sharing a border with a country like Denmark or Luxembourg.

Air raid sirens are to sound on Monday morning as the Hellenic Air Force General Staff (GEA) conducts a test. 

The sirens are to sound between the hours of 10 a.m. and noon. 

The public is advised that the air-raid drill is simply a preparedness exercise and should not cause any alarm.

The European emergency number 112, which could have contributed to timely evacuations ahead of the deadly storms that pummeled Halkidiki on Wednesday night, will be up and running at the end of 2019, Digital Governance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis announced Friday, during a visit to the operation center of the General Secretariat of Civil Protection.

Australia's most populous state of New South Wales on Tuesday imposed water restrictions for the first time in a decade with dam levels at just over 50% due to a prolonged drought, reported Euronews.

The country's east coast has suffered through two years of below average rainfall, devastating agricultural production and stoking a political debate over the impact of climate change.

The findings of Tuesday's report on the deadly fires that killed 100 people and destroyed parts of eastern Attica last July highlighted the complete lack of organization, coordination and efficiency in the country's state services.

Police ordered the evacuation of the branch of National Bank off Syntagma Square near central Athens on Monday after an anonymous caller phoned in a bomb threat which turned out to be a hoax. 

Members of the police's bomb disposal unit were dispatched to the scene to search for any suspicious devices but found nothing. 

French police have detained a woman at a hospital in Dunkirk after she made a bomb threat and sparked a security scare, reported Reuters. 

Police said in a statement that the woman made the threat after entering the hospital's emergency care unit.

Hospital workers alerted the police, who sealed off the area and deployed a bomb-disposal team.

Meke Lake in the Central Anatolian province of Konya, known as the "world's largest evil eye amulet," is almost on the brink of extinction, experts have warned. The unique crater lake with a giant volcanic cone in its middle, has almost completely dried up because of the ongoing drought due to global warming as well as incorrect irrigation techniques, according to experts.

The German government said Wednesday it will compensate thousands of farmers whose harvests have suffered as a result of this year's extreme drought, which many experts have linked to climate change.