- Retegui hat-trick fires five-star Atalanta to hammering of Genoa
- Heavyweights Australia, England off to World Cup winning starts
- Visiting UN refugee agency chief decries 'terrible crisis' in Lebanon
- Spinners come to party as England defeat Bangladesh at T20 World Cup
- Search continues for missing in deadly Bosnia floods
- Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- France's Auradou whistled on Pau return in Perpignan loss amid ongoing rape case
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Arsenal hit back in style after Southampton scare
- Hezbollah heir apparent Safieddine out of contact after strikes
- Liverpool stay top of Premier League as Arsenal, Man City win
- In dank Tour of Emilia, Pogacar shines in rainbow jersey
- DR Congo launches mpox vaccination drive, hoping to curb outbreak
- Trump returns to site of failed assassination
- Careless Leverkusen held to Bundesliga draw
- O'Brien's 'superstar' Kyprios posts landmark win on Arc weekend
- Liverpool suffer Alisson injury blow
- Habosi helps Racing beat Vannes before Auradou's playing return
- Thousands march in London in support of Palestinians, 1 year after Oct 7
- Israel readying response to Iran missile attack
- Schutt, Mooney help Australia beat Sri Lanka in Women's T20 World Cup
- Liverpool extend Premier League lead with win at Palace
- Djokovic 'shakes rust off' to make third round of Shanghai Masters
- 'Imperfect' PSG fighting on all fronts - Luis Enrique
- Struggling Pakistan look to thwart adaptable England
- Child 'trampled to death' in asylum seekers' Channel crossing: minister
- Gauff fights back to set up Beijing final against Muchova
- Guardiola claims Premier League won't delay season for Man City
- Israel to mark October 7 attack as Gaza war spreads
- Gauff fights back to reach China Open final
- Recovering Stokes ruled out of first Pakistan Test
- Hezbollah battles troops on border as Israel pounds Lebanon
- Alcaraz, Sinner breeze into third round of Shanghai Masters
- Bagnaia wins Japan MotoGP sprint to cut Martin's lead
- Alcaraz breezes into third round of Shanghai Masters
- Gaza cultural heritage brought to light in Geneva
- 'Bullet for democracy': Trump returns to site of rally shooting
- Italy targets climate activists in 'anti-Gandhi' demo clampdown
- South Korean cult-horror series 'Hellbound' returns at BIFF
- Nepalis fear more floods as climate change melts glaciers
- Honduras arrests environmentalist's alleged murderer
- Padres pitcher Musgrove needs elbow surgery
- Supreme Court lets stand rules to curb mercury, methane emissions
- Boston beat Denver in NBA exhibition season opener, but Jokic says omens are good
- Chagos diaspora angry at lack of input on islands' fate
- Biden says 'not confident' of peaceful US election
- US trade chief defends tariff hikes when paired with investment
- Lukaku stars as Napoli beat Como to hold Serie A top spot
- Ohtani set for MLB playoff debut as Dodgers face Padres
- Pogba's drug ban cut to 18 months from four years
Turbine 'torture' for Greek islanders as wind farms proliferate
Until a few years ago, Agii Apostoli was a picturesque seaside village on the eastern coast of Evia, drawing a modest income from tourism and fishing.
Now it is ringed by towering wind turbines whose night lights and whirring sounds are tantamount to daily "torture", locals say.
"Longterm visitors ask us, why did you allow this crime to take place?" laments Stamatoula Karava, a local employee involved in a local cultural association.
With their aviation lights flashing through the night in the surrounding hills, the turbines "have completely ruined the view," she says.
Evia, 80 kilometres (50 miles) east of Athens and Greece's second largest island after Crete, was among the first of the country's regions to host wind farms some two decades ago.
But they have since mushroomed, mainly in the more sparsely populated south of the island, environment groups say.
The municipality of Karystos alone, with an area of 672 square kilometres, has more than 400 turbines, some of them along the area's main road.
The oldest ones have now fallen into disuse, yet there are no plans to remove them and recycle their parts, says Chryssoula Bereti, who chairs the Karystos anti-wind farm front.
"It's a scandal," she fumes.
In line with EU clean energy targets, Greece has reduced its once-overwhelming reliance on lignite for electricity production to around 10 percent currently.
Forty percent of Greek power plants are now gas-fired and 30 percent run on renewable resources, of which 18 percent are wind turbines.
Hydroelectric plants and imports account for the remainder.
According to the Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE), Greece's power production watchdog, the maximum capacity of wind turbines in the country increased more than sixfold between 2019 and 2021 to 8,205 MW.
With its propensity for high winds, Evia is a natural location for wind farms, notes RAE chairman Athanasios Dagoumas.
But critics say that this expansion has gone too far.
"Wind turbines have been installed on mountain peaks, in forests, near archaeological sites, on islands, in protected habitats... it's as if energy production is the only possible activity in this country", says Dimitris Soufleris, a lawyer and spokesman of the environmental association of the Evia town of Kymi.
"We cannot have so many wind farms in Greece," he told AFP.
- 'We can't sleep' -
In past months, protests against wind farm development have been held in Agrafa, central Greece, as well as the islands of Andros, Skyros and Tinos.
Soufleris notes that another 18 turbines are scheduled to be installed near Agii Apostoli.
Nikos Balaskas, a local engineer whose house in Agii Apostoli is less than 400 metres (450 yards) from the nearest wind turbine, has sued the company.
"As an engineer, I'm not opposed to green energy. But there have to be standards. This is torture, we can no longer sleep for the noise," he said.
There are similar concerns in the nearby coastal town of Styra, where another 14 wind turbines are to be located.
"This is going to cause enormous damage to our region," says local hotel chairwoman Afroditi Lekka, noting that thousands of hikers visit the area annually.
In response to the mounting criticism, the conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis last month announced that six mountain ranges in central Greece, the Peloponnese, Crete and the island of Samothrace would be given additional protection status against future energy infrastructure development.
"Planned licences in these areas were withdrawn," says RAE's Dagoumas.
Similar steps have also been taken in the north of Evia, which was devastated by wildfires this summer, he adds.
RAE's Dagoumas notes in the past two years solar parks have overtaken wind farm investments owing mainly to "the implementation of a new automatic system" that facilitates the application for the investors and lower average cost.
"The wind farms cannot been implemented everywhere, it has to be high wind capacity, for the photovoltaics there is much more space for them", he says.
B.Godinho--PC