ATHENS, Greece: Police clashed in Athens Friday with protesting firefighters demanding job contracts in the wake of massive wildfires.
One firefighter was hurt by a stun grenade and five others were detained after police fired teargas and water cannon to disperse the demonstrators.
The protesters, wearing their firefighting uniforms, blocked traffic outside the newly-created Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Ministry north of the capital.
Massive fires this summer burned more than 1,000 square kilometers (385 square miles) of forest on the island of Evia and in southern Greece, as heatwaves scorched southeast Europe. Hundreds of firefighters from European Union nations and nearby countries came to Greece to support the effort.
In the wake of the fires, the government created the new climate crisis ministry, headed by the Cypriot-born former European Union Commissioner Christos Stylianides.
On Friday, protest organizers said some 2,000 firefighters have short-term contracts, renewed every five years or less.
“People talk about climate change and we know from science that it’s happening. That means we need better resources to deal with its effects,” Alexandros Farandakis, head of the contract workers’ firefighting association, told the AP.
Greece has more than 15,000 firefighters during the summer months, about 5,000 of them on short-term contracts or hired seasonally.
“Contract firefighters put their heart and soul into the effort to battle the fires over the summer,” Farandakis said. “They have repeatedly been promised proper jobs. But they have been deceived. I don’t know what kind of disaster has to happen — more fires? More floods? — for the message to get through.”
The government says it is reviewing the country’s firefighting capability, including equipment and staffing levels. It spent 500 million euros ($578 million) on a relief effort for people who lost their homes and businesses in the fires this summer, an amount roughly equivalent to the annual firefighting budget.
Speaking at the UN climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland this week, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the intensity of the fires was a consequence of climate change.
“We are already getting a glimpse of the dramatic effects of global warming. This summer, having experienced a record-breaking streak of days with temperatures over 40 degrees (Celsius, 104 Fahrenheit), we had to deal with forest fires of unprecedented intensity,” Mitsotakis said.
“That’s why ... we created a climate crisis ministry, and I emphasize the term ‘crisis’.”
Greek firefighters clash with police at climate ministry
https://arab.news/nag6b
Greek firefighters clash with police at climate ministry
- One firefighter was hurt by a stun grenade and 5 were detained after police fired teargas and water cannon to disperse the demonstrators
- Protesters, wearing their firefighting uniforms, blocked traffic outside the newly-created Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Ministry
Iran hacking group claims attack on US medical company
- It issued an open warning to what it described as “Zionist leaders and their lobbies,” adding: “This is only the beginning of a new chapter in cyber warfare.”
WASHINGTON: An Iran-linked hacking group claimed responsibility on Wednesday for a sweeping cyberattack on US medical technology giant Stryker, saying it had wiped more than 200,000 systems and extracted 50 terabytes of data in retaliation for military strikes on Iran.
“Our major cyber operation has been executed with complete success,” Handala said in a statement, describing the attack as retaliation for what it called “the brutal attack on the Minab school” and for “ongoing cyber assaults against the infrastructure of the Axis of Resistance.”
The group said it had shut down Stryker offices in 79 countries and that all extracted data was “now in the hands of the free people of the world.”
It issued an open warning to what it described as “Zionist leaders and their lobbies,” adding: “This is only the beginning of a new chapter in cyber warfare.”
Founded in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Stryker is a global medical device giant with some 56,000 employees and $25.12 billion in 2025 revenues, making everything from orthopedic implants and surgical instruments to hospital beds and robotic surgery systems.
The Handala group later posted that it had also carried out an attack on Verifone, which specializes in electronic and point-of-sale payments.
The outages began shortly after 0400 GMT on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Windows devices — including laptops and mobile phones connected to Stryker’s networks — were remotely wiped.
