Leftwing opposition leader who was PM during eurozone crisis says party needs ‘profound renewal’
Alexis Tsipras, the former student activist who rose to become Greece’s first radical leftwing prime minister, has resigned as leader of Syriza four days after the party’s crushing defeat in general elections.
Eight years after taking Europe by storm, Tsipras said he was stepping down to make way for a new leader who could oversee Syriza’s “profound renewal”.
Continue reading...Kyriakos Mitsotakis of centre-right New Democracy party wins second term as prime minister but unheard-of group delivers shock
Greece’s general election has propelled a far-right group called the Spartans, a previously unheard-of political force, into the Athens parliament with the help of an imprisoned, neo-Nazi leader of the now-disbanded Golden Dawn party.
While the centre-right politician Kyriakos Mitsotakis has won a second term as prime minister, the Spartans have emerged as the fifth biggest group in the 300-seat parliament.
Continue reading...Kyriakos Mitsotakis of centre-right New Democracy party says he now has ‘strong mandate’ to modernise nation
Greece’s new prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, vowed to immediately press ahead with his ambitious reform programme after winning a decisive victory in the general elections on Sunday.
The New Democracy leader said his commanding 24-point lead over the leftist main opposition Syriza party had given him a “strong mandate” to modernise a country long seen as resistant to reform.
Continue reading...Disparity between rescue responses has sparked debate in Pakistan about double standards
Anees Majeed, who lost five relatives in the boat that sank off Greece on 14 June, watched in disbelief and growing anger as a frantic, multimillion-dollar rescue effort played out for five other men lost at sea last week.
Like thousands of others across Pakistan, Majeed, a law student from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, grieved at funeral prayers without a body to bury. At least 350 Pakistani citizens were on the overcrowded craft, the interior minister, Rana Sanaullah, confirmed on Friday.
Continue reading...Poverty drove young men from small Kashmir town to board ill-fated fishing trawler, say families
The last time Mohammed Yousaf talked to his son, Sajid Yousaf, on 8 June, the son was waiting anxiously in Libya for smugglers to pack him and hundreds of others on to a boat bound for the other side of the Mediterranean.
Six days later, the overcrowded fishing trawler sank off the coast of Greece. Sajid, 28, a shopkeeper and father of two from the small town of Khuiratta in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, is among the hundreds missing, presumed dead.
Continue reading...Suspected people smugglers to appear in court in Kalamata, as police in Kashmir announce 10 arrests
Nine suspected people smugglers are to appear before a Greek court accused of piloting the fishing trawler that sank off the coast of Greece last week leaving hundreds missing and presumed dead in one of the Mediterranean’s worst boat disasters.
Greek authorities have said 78 dead and 104 survivors – mostly from Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt and Pakistan – were brought ashore after the overcrowded boat sank about 50 miles (80km) off the southern Greek town of Pylos early on Wednesday, days after it set sail from Tobruk in Libya heading towards Italy.
Continue reading...UN calls for urgent action to prevent further tragedies as police believe up to 500 people remain missing
Greek authorities have rejected claims that a fishing boat that sank in the Mediterranean this week with the loss of potentially hundreds of lives capsized after the coastguard attempted to tow it, as the UN called for urgent action to prevent further tragedies.
Authorities have confirmed 78 deaths and said 104 survivors – mostly from Syria, Egypt and Pakistan – had been brought ashore, but police believe as many as 500 are missing. Witnesses have reported that up to 100 children were in the ship’s hold.
Continue reading...Nine suspects expected to face court as search enters third day and initial response to disaster is criticised
Rescuers have launched the third and final day of their search for survivors of one of the Mediterranean’s worst boat disasters, as authorities detained nine suspected people-smugglers and criticism of Greece’s initial response mounted.
The Greek coastguard said on Friday a helicopter, a frigate and three smaller vessels were searching waters 50 miles (80 km) from the southern town of Pylos where the fishing boat, reportedly carrying between 400 and 750 people, sank on Wednesday.
Continue reading...As anguished family members arrive in Kalamata, search operation continues with negligible progress
Hope dies last and for Kassem Abo Zeed it was running out fast. Hope was the force that had led him to board a plane from Hamburg and fly to Greece after he heard that a boat carrying his wife had capsized off the country’s southern coast.
But by 2pm on Thursday, 36 hours after the blue fishing trawler packed with migrants and refugees had sunk in one of the worst maritime disasters in recent Greek history, hope was fading in a way he had prayed would never happen.
Continue reading...Women also said to have been in the hold, amid fears 78 so far confirmed dead could rise into the hundreds
Survivors from an overcrowded fishing boat that capsized and sank on Wednesday off the Greek coast in one of the worst disasters in the Mediterranean in recent years have told doctors and police that women and children were travelling in the hold of the vessel.
Seventy-eight people have been confirmed dead, but there are fears the number of victims could run into the hundreds.
Continue reading...Hundreds more feared missing from overcrowded fishing vessel that reportedly sailed from Libya for Italy
At least 78 people have died and hundreds more are feared missing in the deadliest refugee shipwreck off Greece this year.
The victims, nearly all of them men from Afghanistan and Pakistan, drowned when the large trawler they were travelling in capsized off the southern Peloponnese.
Continue reading...Babis Anagnostopoulos received a 27-year sentence for smothering his wife in Athens
The Greek pilot who killed his British wife, Caroline Crouch, in a crime he tried to pin on ruthless foreign robbers, has unexpectedly announced he will drop an appeal to overturn his life sentence.
Babis Anagnostopoulos said he had elected “for extremely serious reasons” to put a stop to appeals court proceedings under way since May, without further explanation.
Continue reading...Scott Seddon, 26, from Liverpool was being filmed by his partner as the tragedy happened off coast of Rhodes
The partner of a British tourist who died when he was struck by lightning while paddleboarding off Rhodes had beseeched him to return to shore when the storm hit.
Scott Seddon’s girlfriend repeatedly shouted “come out” when it became clear the 26-year-old from Liverpool was struggling in the waters off Agathi beach. The woman, who has not been named, was on land filming Seddon, an accomplished sportsman, with her mobile phone as the tragedy unfolded.
Continue reading...Local media say man, 26, was being filmed in sea off Agia Agathi beach in Rhodes when lightning struck water nearby
An investigation has been launched into the death of a British man who was reportedly struck by lightning while paddleboarding in Greece.
The unnamed man was in the sea off the beach in Agia Agathi, Rhodes, as his girlfriend filmed him from the beach, according to local media.
Continue reading...Ioannis Sarmas appointed to replace outgoing prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis after inconclusive ballot
Greece will hold fresh elections on 25 June, with the country led by a caretaker government headed by a senior judge until the vote, after an inconclusive ballot last weekend.
The president, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, appointed Ioannis Sarmas, 66, to replace the outgoing prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whose centre-right New Democracy party triumphed over the leftist opposition in Sunday’s poll but failed to secure a parliamentary majority.
Continue reading...Prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s party on 40% share against Syriza on 20%, with more than 90% of votes counted
Greece’s general election has failed to produce a winner despite the centre-right party of the incumbent prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, clinching 40% of the vote with more than 90% of ballots counted.
New Democracy was leading with a 20-point margin – 40.8% – over the leftist main opposition Syriza party which was trailing at just over 20.1% – a difference rarely seen since the collapse in 1974 of military rule. Even in Crete, a socialist bastion, the rightwing party had fared unexpectedly well.
Continue reading...Economic resurgence may not be enough to win Kyriakos Mitsotakis a new term in Sunday’s election
With the Acropolis behind him, Kyriakos Mitsotakis ascends to the podium amid thunderous music and the cackle of whistles and horns. It is the last rally of the last day of his re-election campaign before polls open on Sunday, and the prime minister is in a combative mood.
“Do we want stability or continuous uncertainty?” he asks. “That is the dilemma we are being called to answer.” It is a question that has dominated an election that Mitsotakis once thought he had in the bag.
Continue reading...Kyriakos Mitsotakis says on visit to Lesbos he has kept his promise to protect land and sea borders
Less than 10 days before Greeks go to the polls, the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has sought to emphasise the impact of his centre-right government’s “tough but fair” migration policy.
In a campaign trip to Lesbos, the Aegean island bearing the brunt of Europe-bound migratory flows, the leader claimed he had kept his promise to protect land and sea borders, with the arrival of asylum seekers radically reduced.
Continue reading...Non-binding vote bans surveillance software after concluding Hungary and Poland used it to track journalists and opponents
The EU needs tighter regulation of the spyware industry, a European parliament special committee has said, after concluding that Hungary and Poland had used surveillance software to illegally monitor journalists, politicians and activists.
A special European parliament committee voted on Monday for a temporary ban on the sale, acquisition and use of spyware while the bloc draws up common EU standards based on international law. The moratorium would be lifted only on strict conditions, including independent investigations into the abuse of spyware in the EU.
Continue reading...Crackdown on Hellenes and its Golden Dawn leader Ilias Kasidiaris could cause more problems than it solves
For two years Ilias Kasidiaris, a convicted leader of the now disbanded neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, has used social media to address supporters from Domokos prison in central Greece.
Month after month the former MP has railed against the inability of the “corrupt political regime” to govern the country in a stream of hate-filled speeches. For his 134,000 subscribers on YouTube, the exhortations are a lifeline to Kasidiaris and the Hellenes, the small nationalist party he set up shortly before being handed a 13-and-a-half-year prison term for his role in Golden Dawn. And they seem to be paying off.
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