Category Archives: Greece

Coronavirus live news: Europe reporting 26,000 new cases a day; South Korea warns of ‘nationwide pandemic’

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WHO says European countries registering an average of 26,000 new cases a day; Germany records 1,707 new infections; South Korea has week of triple figure daily cases; India records highest daily infections yet

The coronavirus pandemic has reignited debate in Germany about cutting the working week to four days to help preserve jobs during and after the economic shock.

But the idea remains highly controversial.

Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray, I’ll be running the global coronavirus blog for the next few hours.

Please do get in touch with any story suggestions or personal experiences you’d like to share.

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Greek military put on high alert as tensions with Turkey rise

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Dispute over exploration of energy reserves in eastern Mediterranean escalates

Greece has placed its military forces on high alert, recalling its naval and air force officers from holiday, as tensions with Turkey over exploration of potentially lucrative offshore energy reserves escalate in the eastern Mediterranean.

With Ankara dispatching the Oruç Reis, a drillship escorted by gunboats, to conduct seismic research in contested waters, Athens stepped up calls for Turkey to stop the “illegal” activities, intensifying a diplomatic offensive that has prompted the US, EU, France and Israel to express growing anxiety over the situation.

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Five ‘safe and legal’ asylum alternatives to cut Channel crossings

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Experts offer other options as UK government seeks to reduce numbers crossing in boats

The government insists the way to reduce the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats is to prevent the vessels from leaving France in the first place or by intercepting the boats and returning those attempting to make a crossing.

But humanitarian groups and refugee and asylum experts argue the way to reduce the number of attempted crossings is to offer alternative “safe and legal” routes to the UK to claim asylum.

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Coronavirus in Europe: France extends mask use as Greece says it is in second wave

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WHO says virus has shown no seasonal pattern and tells western Europe to react fast

Face masks have become compulsory in more than 100 Paris streets and tourist areas, Greece is “formally” in a second wave and new outbreaks are causing alarm in Italy and Spain as coronavirus infections continue to pick up again across Europe.

The Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control called on member states that are seeing an increase in cases to reinstate control measures, warning of a “true resurgence” in several countries and a “risk of further escalation” across the continent.

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Greek floods: death toll rises as rescue teams search for survivors

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At least eight people dead after storm sparks flash floods on island of Evia

The body of a man missing after a storm sparked flash floods on the Greek island of Evia over the weekend has been recovered, Greece’s coastguard has said, bringing the death toll from the storm to eight.

Rescue crews had been searching for the 72-year-old since Sunday when he was reported missing after flooding swept away cars and sent residents of some villages scrambling to their roofs to await rescue.

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Greece’s refugees face healthcare crisis as Lesbos Covid-19 centre closes

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Patients on island camps face long wait for specialist help and mental health services, while in Athens others are left destitute

In a fresh blow to refugees and migrants experiencing dire conditions in Greece, frontline medical charity Médecins San Frontières (MSF) on Thursday announced it has been forced to closed its Covid-19 isolation centre on Lesbos after authorities imposed fines and potential charges.

From the island of Lesbos to the Greek capital of Athens, asylum seekers and recognised refugees, some with serious medical conditions, are unable to access healthcare or see a doctor as treatments are disrupted by new regulations.

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Thessaloniki’s Jews: ‘We can’t let this be forgotten; if it’s forgotten, it will die’

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New centre in Greek city will be lifeline for small community, mostly descendants of Iberian exiles

Five centuries after they were expelled from Spain and eight decades after they were almost annihilated in the Holocaust, the small community of Sephardic Jews that lives on in the Greek city of Thessaloniki is looking to its past to help safeguard its future.

On Tuesday, Thessaloniki’s Jewish community signed a deal with the Spanish government’s Instituto Cervantes to create a small centre where people will be taught modern Spanish while also learning about Sephardic culture and the exiles’ still-spoken language, Ladino.

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Erdoğan leads first prayers at Hagia Sophia museum reverted to mosque

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Turkish president recites Qur’an at monument as Greece declares day of mourning

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has led worshippers in the first prayers in Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia since his controversial declaration that the monument, which over the centuries has served as a cathedral, mosque and museum, would be turned back into a Muslim house of worship.

The Turkish leader and an entourage of senior ministers arrived for the service in the heart of Istanbul’s historic district on Friday afternoon, kneeling on new turquoise carpets while sail-like curtains covered the original Byzantine mosaics of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

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Greece braces for rise in refugees as relations with Turkey worsen

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Migration ministry ‘concerned Turkey may use migrants as instrument to exert pressure’

Greece is stepping up preparations for a possible increase in migrants and refugees reaching the Aegean islands from Turkey, as police arrested six alleged people smugglers at the weekend.

The ability of traffickers to circumvent the vast flotilla of naval ships and coastguard patrols conducting border surveillance in the area has reinforced fears of a surge in migrants arriving at a time of dangerously deteriorating ties between the two countries.

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Sun, sea, safety: Greece woos Europe’s pensioners with 7% income tax rate

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Athens offers generous tax incentives to lure retirees – and boost its own struggling economy

Most countries want to attract the young and the willing – entrepreneurs with ideas, students looking to learn, people prepared to do the jobs locals turn down. Greece, though, has decided on a different approach, by making a play for Europe’s retirees.

“The logic is very simple: we want pensioners to relocate here,” says Athina Kalyva, head of tax policy at the Greek finance ministry, who has helped design a scheme to get people to do just that. “We have a beautiful country, a very good climate, so why not?”

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Court ruling paves way for Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia to revert to mosque

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Status of Unesco-listed 1,500-year-old building has been hotly debated for decades

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has formally converted Istanbul’s crowning architectural jewel, the Hagia Sophia, from a museum into a mosque – a politically charged decision that has drawn international criticism but delighted his conservative base.

Turkey’s highest administrative court, the council of state, paved the way for the move after it ruled unanimously on Friday to annul a 1934 cabinet decree that stripped the 1,500-year-old building of its religious status.

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Stanley Johnson defends trip to Greece, saying he had to make villa ‘Covid-proof’ – video

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The prime minister’s father, Stanley Johnson, has defended travelling to his villa in Greece amid growing condemnation by saying that he was making the property ‘Covid-proof’. Interviewed by Greek media outside his mountain villa in Pelion overlooking the Aegean sea on Saturday, Johnson senior said: ‘I don’t know what the reaction of the British public is. I’ve been, you know, not particularly … I came here to have a quiet time, to organise the house, and so I’m not 100% up to speed’

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Stanley Johnson says Greece visit is essential to ‘Covid-proof’ villa

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Boris Johnson has refused to criticise his father over trip to holiday home during lockdown

The prime minister’s father, Stanley Johnson, has defended travelling to his villa in Greece amid growing condemnation by saying that he was making the property “Covid-proof”.

Government guidelines state that British nationals should avoid all but essential travel, but his son Boris has refused to criticise the trip and, on Friday, suggested the media should raise the issue directly with his father.

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Johnson’s father’s visit to Greece ‘could erode trust in guidelines’

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Trip by Stanley Johnson could weaken message on Covid-19 rules, warns Sage adviser

The decision by the prime minister’s father to travel to his Greek villa in apparent breach of Foreign Office guidance has been criticised by a government scientific adviser.

Boris Johnson has refused to condemn his father, Stanley, for flying to Greece, despite current advice for British nationals to avoid all but essential international travel.

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Global report: first tourists arrive in Greece as Brazil passes 60,000 deaths

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Spain and Portugal reopen border as global tourism industry predicted to lose up to £2.6tn

The first tourist flights in four months landed on the Greek island of Crete, and Spain and Portugal reopened their land border as European countries continued to ease travel restrictions, as Brazil recorded 60,000 deaths.

A charter plane carrying 172 passengers from Hamburg landed at Heraklion airport on Crete at 8am, minutes after another aircraft had arrived from the Czech Republic, re-establishing the island’s air links with the outside world.

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US visitors set to remain banned from entering EU

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Agreed shortlist of permitted countries also excludes Russia, Brazil and India

Most visitors from the US are set to remain banned from entering the European Union because of the country’s rising infection rate in a move that risks antagonising Donald Trump.

In an attempt to save the European tourism season, a list of 15 countries from where people should be allowed into the EU from 1 July has been agreed by representatives of the 27 member states.

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Britons to be allowed to holiday abroad from July via ‘air bridges’

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Ministers also expected to end policy of quarantining arrivals to the UK for 14 days

Overseas holidays will be given the green light from early next month, with the government expected to suspend the 14-day quarantine period for a series of countries and also to set up so-called air bridge arrangements for overseas destinations.

While the full list of countries involved is still being confirmed, the initial phase of travel opening up is expected to involve European nations including France, Greece, Spain and possibly Portugal, with other potentially more distant locations to follow.

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‘We want to stay’: refugees struggle to integrate in Greece after camp life

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Asylum seekers discharged from island holding centres are given little support to find accommodation and work

It never occurred to Sarah Husseini that one day she might think of Moria camp with something approaching affection. The 22-year-old Afghan spent two years in the infamous holding facility on Lesbos and, throughout, her young daughters were “sick, sick, sick”.

But then she, her husband Ali and their two toddlers were instructed to board a ferry to Piraeus and their world changed. “The UN told us ‘the government wants you to leave, you have papers now, you can’t stay here any more’,” she says, explaining why she has ended up semi-destitute in central Athens.

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‘Boats arrive, people disappear’: one Greek’s search for missing refugees

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When asylum seekers seen landing on Chios vanished, a local journalist’s investigation put him at odds with authorities

When Ioannis Stevis moved back to his native island of Chios after a long career in journalism he could not have imagined that his retirement project would eventually put him at odds with his own government.

But the local online news service he created, Astraparis, ended up bearing witness to one of the most significant stories in recent European history: the ongoing refugee crisis.

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Global report: China detects highest daily case rise in months

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Partial quarantine remains in Beijing; European countries continue to open borders to neighbours

China detected its highest number of daily coronavirus cases in months on Sunday, locking down parts of Beijing in a warning of the difficulties of avoiding a resurgence of the pandemic as Europe prepared to open more borders and loosen restrictions this week.

A wholesale food market in the Chinese capital, where traces of the virus were detected, was closed at the weekend. Nearby housing estates were also placed under quarantine after authorities detected 36 new coronavirus cases in the city and another 19 across the country.

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