FIREFIGHTERS in Greece, backed by water-dropping planes and helicopters, were yesterday battling a wildfire burning through a protected nature reserve on the island of Evia.
The six planes and five helicopters are concentrating on areas where access to the island’s dense pine forest, which includes canyons, is difficult by land. More than 250 firefighters, dozens of soldiers and volunteers are battling the wildfire which broke out in the early hours of Tuesday.
A state of emergency was declared for the area on Tuesday, when strong winds hampered firefighting and carried smoke from Greece’s second-largest island as far as the capital Athens, almost 50 miles to the south.
The winds died down yesterday and authorities expressed cautious optimism about the progression of the fire, although it had still not been brought under control.
Hundreds of people have been evacuated from four villages and a monastery and around 28sq km had been burnt by midday yesterday.
PRIME minister of Italy Giuseppe Conte has pledged that a new crossing for the Italian port city of Genoa will be ready by April, replacing the Morandi bridge that collapsed a year ago killing 43 people. A ceremony was held in Genoa yesterday marking the anniversary of the tragedy.
The cause of the collapse has not yet been determined, but prosecutors are investigating poor maintenance and possible design flaws in the 51-year-old structure.
A COURT in Sweden has found American rapper ASAP Rocky guilty of assault for his role in a street brawl in Stockholm.
The artist, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, earlier pleaded self-defence and said he had tried to avoid a confrontation with two men who he said were persistently following his entourage on June 30. When he appeared at a previous hearing at Stockholm District Court, the rapper said one of the men picked a fight with one of his two bodyguards.
But the court has now ruled Mayers, 30, and his two co-accused bodyguards “were not in a situation” where they were entitled to self-defence and that they “assaulted the victim by hitting and kicking him”.
The victim, 19-year-old Mustafa Jafari, was struck in the back of the head with a bottle but “it could not be established by whom,” he said.
But the three defendants were “convicted of assault and sentenced to conditional sentences”. That means they face no prison sentence in Sweden unless they commit a similar offence in the country again.
The trio, who had returned to the US prior to the verdict and were not legally obliged to be present for it, were also ordered to pay a total of 12,500 Swedish kronor (£1078) in compensation.
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