Category Archives: Greece

Athens swallowed up by orange haze from Sahara dust storm

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Authorities in Greece warn the dust concentrations can reduce sunlight and visibility, while increasing levels of fine pollution particles pose health risks

Clouds of dust blown in from the Sahara covered Athens and other Greek cities on Tuesday, one of the worst such episodes to hit the country since 2018, officials said.

A yellow-orange haze smothered several regions after days of strong winds from the south, limiting visibility and prompting warnings from the authorities of breathing risks.

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EU ministers warned not to relax support for Ukraine amid requests for air defence aid

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Member states warned at meeting not to be complacent but ministers stop short of pledging Patriot missiles

EU ministers have been warned against “relaxing” support for Ukraine but stopped short of new pledges to supply air defence systems that Kyiv is urgently seeking to defend itself against relentless Russian bombardment.

The Ukrainian government has said it is running out of US-made Patriot air defence missiles as Russia intensifies attacks on infrastructure and cities.

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Greece becomes first European country to ban bottom trawling in marine parks

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The law will come into force in national parks within two years and in all of the country’s marine protected areas by 2030

Greece has become the first country in Europe to announce a ban on bottom trawling in all of its national marine parks and protected areas.

The country said will spend €780m (£666m) to protect its “diverse and unique marine ecosystems”.

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‘A message of peace’: Olympic flame begins its journey to Paris

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Torch lit in ruins of ancient Olympia, Greek birthplace of Games, starting 3,100-mile relay that will end in July

A taste of the drama and beauty of this summer’s Paris Olympics has unfolded in the foothills of Greece with the lighting of the flame that will illuminate the world’s biggest sports event.

In a ceremony held amid the ruins of ancient Olympia, the birthplace of the Games 2,800 years ago, the flame was kindled by performers dressed as priestesses, though this year because of weather conditions the torch was not ignited as usual in a parabolic mirror – which focuses the sun’s rays – but from a flame lit during a rehearsal.

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EU asylum and migration pact has passed despite far right and left’s objections

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Long-awaited package of measures marks victory for Europe’s centre albeit with ‘doubts and concerns’ over implementation

Almost a decade in the making, the EU’s new migration and asylum pact suffered so many setbacks, stalemates and rewrites that when member states finally announced a deal last year, its passage through parliament seemed assured.

That was, however, to ignore the objections of Europe’s resurgent far-right parties, who felt it was not tough enough (and, perhaps, hoped to profit at the ballot box from allowing the current chaos around migration to continue).

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Endangered Greek dialect is ‘living bridge’ to ancient world, researchers say

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Romeyka descended from ancient Greek but may die out as it has no written form and is spoken by only a few thousand people

An endangered form of Greek that is spoken by only a few thousand people in remote mountain villages of northern Turkey has been described as a “living bridge” to the ancient world, after researchers identified characteristics that have more in common with the language of Homer than with modern Greek.

The precise number of speakers of Romeyka is hard to quantify. It has no written form, but has survived orally in the mountain villages around Trabzon, near the Black Sea coast.

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Wall-to-wall bouzouki? Greece plans quota of local music to be played in hotel lobbies and other public spaces

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Tourist and creative industries react angrily to ‘curb on freedom of expression’

Greek music in hotel lobbies, Greek tunes in lifts, Greek melodies in casinos, shopping malls, airport lounges and ports.

If the Athens culture ministry has its way, tourists from around the world should prepare for a holiday soundtrack that is decidedly Hellenic in tone.

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‘Pushed to the limit’: the tiny Greek island in people smugglers’ sights

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Fears of a new migration route grow as more than 800 people land on Gavdos, population fewer than 70, in a few months

Even by the standards of small Greek islands, Gavdos is tiny. In a population of fewer than 70 people, there are just two families with four children. The rest “are all old people mostly living alone”, its mayor, Lilian Stefanaki, explains.

It is a micro-world that in the depths of winter is served by a single school, a bakery, two mini-markets and four kafeneia cum tavernas. The remote island – separated from the coast of Crete by frequently unpredictable waters in the Libyan Sea – is watched over by Efsevios Daskalakis, who for much of the year is its sole police officer.

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Olive oil becomes most wanted item for shoplifters in Spain

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Gangs steal ‘liquid gold’ amid shortages and surging prices after extreme weather damages harvests

Olive oil has become the most stolen product in supermarkets across Spain, with organised criminal gangs targeting the “liquid gold” to resell on the hidden market, according to new figures.

Olive oil is now the most shoplifted product in regions that account for 70% of the country’s population, the Financial Times reports.

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Russian missiles strike near Zelenskiy and visiting Greek prime minister

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Russian forces ‘don’t care’ whether targets are military or civilians, says Zelenskiy; Greek PM describes experience as ‘very intense’

A deadly Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa appeared to land near President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and visiting Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who described the moment of the bombardment as “intense”.

The attack on port infrastructure on Wednesday killed five people and left an unspecified number of wounded, according to Ukraine’s navy.

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Long-buried Atlas statue raised to guard Temple of Zeus in Sicily once more

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Eight-metre statue dating from fifth century BC restored and assembled piece-by-piece to be displayed in Valley of the Temples

A colossal statue of Atlas that lay buried for centuries among ancient ruins has been reconstructed to take its rightful place among the Greek temples of Agrigento in Sicily, after a 20-year research and restoration project.

The statue, standing at 8 metres (26ft) tall and dating back to the fifth century BC, was one of nearly 38 that adorned the Temple of Zeus, considered the largest Doric temple ever built despite never being completed.

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Watchdog urges EU rescue rules change after migrant boat disaster off Greece

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Ombudsman says papers show EU agency made four offers to help Greece with surveillance of boat that sank, but got no response

The rules governing the EU’s border and coastguard agency Frontex must be urgently revised if Europe is to avoid a repeat of last year’s tragedy off the coast of Greece in which about 600 people are thought to have died, an official investigation has found.

In one of the worst disasters in the Mediterranean sea in recent years, the Adriana, a dangerously overcrowded fishing trawler en route to Italy from Libya, capsized and sank in the middle of the night near Pylos on 14 June. Only 104 survivors were rescued and 82 bodies recovered after the ship, estimated to have been carrying more than 750 people, sank off the Peloponnese.

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Strikes and protests bring Greece to halt on anniversary of deadly train crash

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Protesters gather in cities to demand justice for victims of collision, which killed 57

Tens of thousands of people have joined protests in Greece, with strike action bringing the country to a standstill, on the first anniversary of a deadly train crash blamed on decades of poor railway management.

As church bells tolled in memory of the 57 men and women who lost their lives in an accident deemed entirely preventable, protesters gathered in major cities to demand justice for the victims.

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Europe live: Ursula von der Leyen rejects cooperation with extremist parties

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European Commission president says she will never work with parties such as AfD or National Rally, no matter how big a vote they secure in European elections

Campaign Corner: Slovakia

As the campaign kicks off for the June European elections, more parties are presenting their candidates.

We believe that this is an attempt to take over the agricultural protest movement by extreme and irresponsible groups, possibly under the influence of Russian agents.

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Greece becomes first Orthodox Christian country to legalise same-sex marriage

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Lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament voted for the bill drafted by centre-right government despite church officials’ objections

Greece has become the world’s first Christian Orthodox nation to legalise same-sex marriage after the Athens parliament passed the landmark reform amid scenes of both jubilation and fury in the country.

In a rare display of parliamentary consensus, 176 MPs from across the political spectrum voted in favour of the bill on Thursday. Another 76 rejected the reform while two abstained from the vote and 46 were not present.

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‘A brilliant start’: gay Greeks eager for MPs to legalise same-sex marriage

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Parliament is expected to pass bill on Thursday but the rancour it has caused shows country’s entrenched social conservatism

Viktoria Kalfaki can still vividly remember the moment she and her wife, Christina Leimoni, realised they would have to fight for their family’s right to exist. The couple, both senior tech company executives who had returned to Greece after years in London, were in hospital with their daughter.

“Niovi was two and sick with bronchitis,” said Kalfaki, who heads the public sector division of Google Cloud in Athens. “Naturally we both wanted to be with her but when the doctors asked ‘Who is the mother?’ and they heard ‘We both are’, their response was ‘That’s legally not possible’ and they refused to let Christina in. There was a terrible scene as she argued and implored but they were adamant. Only I, as Niovi’s birth mother, could be with her.”

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Human rights court finds failings in Greece tourist rape inquiry

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Lawyer for complainant hails ‘moral victory’ after court says proceedings ‘fell short of required standards’

A woman who claimed Greek authorities failed to conduct an effective investigation into her allegation of rape has won a resounding victory at the European court of human rights.

Almost three years after lodging the case, the complainant, from West Yorkshire, was said to be delighted after learning that the Strasbourg-based tribunal had criticised Greece over criminal proceedings that it said had “fallen short of the required standards”.

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Courts reprimand Spain, Greece and Hungary over treatment of child asylum seekers

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Rights of lone minors were not protected, with some deported and others left homeless for months

Spain, Greece and Hungary have been rebuked by courts for failing to protect the rights of children.

It adds to a string of recent rulings that have reprimanded countries across Europe over the treatment of lone minors who are seeking asylum.

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Greece found to have violated Syrian refugee’s right to life by firing on vessel

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European court of human rights orders Athens to pay €80,000 to family of Belal Tello, who died after 2014 incident

The European court of human rights has ruled that Greece violated a Syrian refugee’s right to life when coastguards fired more than a dozen rounds at the people smugglers’ boat he was on nearly a decade ago.

The Strasbourg-based court ordered Greece to pay €80,000 (about £68,000) in damages to the wife and two children of Belal Tello, who was shot in the head as Greek coastguards attempted to halt the boat he was travelling in. Tello died in 2015, after months in hospital.

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‘Parthenon of Macedonia’: site where Alexander the Great was proclaimed king reopens

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Thousands flock to see the Palace of Aigai, the largest surviving classical Greek building, after 16-year reconstruction completed

For 2,170 years it had lain in ruins: a palace that symbolised the golden age of antiquity, three times bigger than the Parthenon, unprecedented in architectural ambition, unparalleled in beauty.

It was here in 336BC that the king of ancient Macedonia, Philip II, was murdered; and here in the great peristyle – or columned courtyard – around which its banqueting halls coalesced that his 20-year-old son, Alexander the Great, would be proclaimed king, a moment that would change the course of history.

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