With a massive wildfire now contained after raging for two days near Athens, the Greek government was facing a different kind of firestorm today as media lambasted its response.

EXHAUSTED Greek firefighters battled around the clock for the fourth day to try and contain massive blazes north of Athens yesterday.

Exhausted Greek firefighters battled around the clock for the fourth day to try and contain massive blazes north of Athens today.

Massive wildfires raging north of Athens spread today despite a lull in the gales that have been fanning them.

A partial drop in gale-force winds early today offered hard-pressed Greek firefighters a brief respite from the wildfires which have raged for two days north of Athens.

Dozens of wildfires broke out across Greece, torching olive groves, cutting off villages and sending residents fleeing as one of the largest blazes swept perilously close to the capital's northern suburbs.

Greek authorities have declared a state of emergency as a major wildfire burned unchecked north-east of Athens, threatening homes and villages. Many residents fled on foot.

A man said to have been keeping weapons and military-style gear in his hotel room and car appeared in a Florida court accused of threatened to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

A boating woman who was killed when a stingray jumped out of the water in the Florida Keys and hit her face died of skull fractures and brain injuries, not from the animal’s poisonous barb, a medical examiner said.

A woman who was killed when a stingray jumped out of the water in the Florida Keys and hit her face died of skull fractures and brain injuries, not from the animal’s poisonous barb, a medical examiner said today.

LEGEND has it that in the first ever marathon, the Greek soldier Pheidippides ran all the way from the city of Marathon to Athens to announce that his country had won the war against Persia in the battle of Marathon.

Greece’s president today described the fires ravaging his country’s forests as a national catastrophe, as thousands of firefighters – hundreds of them brought in from other countries – fought to control blazes that have burned nearly 500,000 acres.

EXPLORATION firm Island Oil & Gas says it has made a significant gas discovery off the Cork coast.

Hurricane Rita strengthened to a dangerous Category 3 storm early today, sparing the Florida Keys but prompting mandatory orders to once again evacuate New Orleans as well as the Texas city of Galveston.

Officials today ordered residents to evacuate from the lower Florida Keys as a strengthening Tropical Storm Rita headed toward the island chain, threatening to grow into a hurricane with a potential eight-foot storm surge.

FIVE people were killed, a family of five was missing at sea and more than a million homes and businesses lost power after Hurricane Katrina crashed ashore in southern Florida early yesterday.

BLACKENED bodies, tattered luggage and smouldering debris lay scattered among the pine trees in a scenic Greek valley after the Helios Airways flight slammed into a mountainside and filled the air with acrid smoke.

Greece’s worst plane crash, in which 121 people died yesterday, appeared to have been caused by a sudden drop in oxygen.

A CYPRIOT airliner carrying 121 people into a hill near the ancient city of Marathon yesterday, killing all passengers and the six crew members on board.

Blackened bodies, tattered luggage and smouldering debris lay scattered among the pine trees in a scenic Greek valley today after a Helios Airways flight slammed into a mountainside and filled the air with acrid smoke.

The Greek government appealed for calm today, fearing a public backlash against immigrants following the bungled bus hijacking by two Albanian gunmen.

TWO armed men who hijacked a bus in Greece and threatened to blow it up surrendered last night and released the six remaining hostages.

Bus hijackers tonight set a Thursday morning deadline for Greek authorities to deliver a ransom of €1m, threatening to blow up the vehicle and six remaining hostages if they did not receive the money.

Passengers were still being held on a Greek commuter bus tonight by two armed Albanians whose bungled hijack stalled where it began when the driver escaped with the ignition keys.

A bus with 26 commuters on board was hijacked as it travelled from Marathon to Athens by two armed men, believed to be Albanians, today,

Hijackers who stormed a Greek bus with about 27 people aboard early today released four prisoners as negotiations got underway.

A Greek bus with 26 people aboard was hijacked today by two men, reportedly Russians, who demanded to be taken to Athens airport, police and government officials said.

Hijackers stormed a Greek bus with about 27 people aboard early today, firing at police who surrounded it.

Hurricane Ivan battered the Cayman Islands with ferocious 150mph winds today, threatening a direct hit as it flooded homes and ripped up roofs and trees.

OIL and gas company Petroceltic, which changed its name from Ennex last year, said yesterday that it had signed a deal to take a 40% stake in two exploration sites in Italy.

PUBLICLY-QUOTED exploration company Providence Resources will raise up to €18 million after getting approval from shareholders for a new fundraising round yesterday.

RAMCO ENERGY’S failure to solve gas production problems at its Seven Heads gas field off the Cork coast resulted in a 20%-plus loss in the value of its shares on the London Stock Exchange.

Eleven Cubans trying to sail to Florida in a 1950s Buick car converted into a tailfinned boat have been intercepted at sea by the US Coast Guard and are to be sent back home.

Providence Resources has been granted a 12-month extension on its Blackrock Licensing Option to the end of 2004 by the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources.

A small plane has crashed into the Federal Reserve Bank Building in Miami.

A student pilot, on his first solo flight from a Florida airport, stole the plane and flew to Havana, crash landing the Cessna on a rocky coastline.

The International Olympic Committee has backed Greek organisers of the 2004 games over plans to build a rowing venue near the ancient battleground of Marathon.

Environmentalists are planning a major protest campaign to stop Athens 2004 organizers from building an Olympic rowing centre on marshlands next to the ancient battleground of Marathon.