Category Archives: Greece

Greek diaspora newspaper calls for departure of US ambassador to Athens

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An editorial accused envoy Geoffrey Pyatt of ‘cheerleading’ for Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, and interfering in the country’s internal affairs

Relations between Athens and Washington have rarely been better, but neither that nor the leftist government’s unexpected love-in with America, has stopped members of the Greek diaspora from calling for the departure of the US envoy widely credited with boosting ties.

Related: US throws diplomatic support behind Macedonia name change

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Greek PM stops for selfie on goodwill trip to North Macedonia

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Alexis Tsipras arrives in Skopje on first official visit after settling decades-long dispute

The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has begun a historic visit to his newly named neighbour of North Macedonia two months after brokering a landmark deal to end a row that spawned almost three decades of hostility between the two countries.

In the first official trip by a Greek premier since the former Yugoslav republic proclaimed independence in 1991, Tsipras touched down in the capital, Skopje, pledging to consolidate the mutual trust that for so long has eluded the two Balkan nations. He then posed for a selfie with his North Macedonian counterpart, Zoran Zaev.

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Tourists urged to avoid riding donkeys up Santorini’s steep steps

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Greek island’s famous donkeys found to have spinal injuries, saddle sores and exhaustion

Put yourself in their hooves: that is the message holidaymakers will be asked to consider before deciding to ascend the 600 steps that zigzag up the cliffs of Santorini on the back of a donkey.

After several summers of the fabled isle’s equine population being forced to bear the brunt of overweight tourists, activists, in collaboration with the cruise-line industry, have finally taken action. The result is an unprecedented initiative to sensitise travellers to the stress placed on the animals when compelled to make the vertiginous climb with perilously heavy human cargo.

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Europe’s south and east worry more about emigration than immigration – poll

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Exclusive: Survey of 14 countries show some Europeans now favour “emigration controls”

Southern and eastern European countries are more concerned about emigration than immigration, according to a wide-ranging survey of attitudes in 14 EU countries.

In Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, Hungary and Romania, six countries where population levels are either flatlining or falling sharply, more citizens said emigration was a worry than immigration, according to the poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

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‘More plastic than fish’: Greek fishermen battle to clean a cruel sea

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In a new scheme, fishermen are paid €200 a month to recycle waste found in nets rather than dump it in polluted waters

The fish market at Keratsini comes alive at night. Under floodlights, crews in rubber waders and boots wash down the decks of boats moored in the harbour, repair nets dangling from cranes, and put on ice the shrimp, calamari, mullet and hake that are their latest pickings.

Recently other things – objects that might never have been pulled from the sea – have also supplemented hauls. “We’re talking about lots of waste, lots of garbage,” says Dimitris Dalianis. “We’re finding it almost everywhere.”

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Christchurch suspect: Europe investigates possible far-right links

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Officials in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria examine Brenton Tarrant’s travels before attack

Authorities in Europe are working to establish whether the man suspected of carrying out the most deadly terrorist attack in New Zealand’s history had any links to far-right groups on the continent.

Since Friday, officials in Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece have begun formal investigations into the alleged gunman’s extensive travel through Europe in the years before he moved to New Zealand.

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Greece defies church with step towards first crematorium

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Cemeteries are overcrowded and Greeks’ nearest option for cremation is Bulgaria

Greece has moved a step closer to opening its first crematorium, passing a decree that paves the way for a facility to be built in Athens despite persistent criticism from the Orthodox church.

The prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, described the measure as “one of the most important and necessary reforms”, and the city’s mayor, Giorgos Kaminis, said it was a “landmark step”.

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‘Not everything’s for sale’: Greeks mobilise as new hotels obscure Acropolis views

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Athens’ tourism boom capitalises on building regulations relaxed in the economic crisis

The 10-storey hotel at 5 Falirou street in Athens was always going to stand out. Built to impress, its handsomely modernist wood-panelled facade added a contemporary touch to the streetscape of the otherwise lacklustre popular Makriyanni area beneath the Acropolis.

But as local residents watched it go up over the winter, they became ever more concerned. By February, when it had reached 31.5 metres, the hotel was the tallest building in the neighbourhood and had started to impede what had once been uninterrupted views of the Parthenon and the 5000BC monument’s fortified walls.

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EU declares migration crisis over as it hits out at ‘fake news’

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European commission combats ‘untruths’ over issue after row with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán

The European commission has declared the migration crisis over, as it sharpened its attack on “fake news” and “misinformation” about the issue.

Frans Timmermans, the European commission’s first vice-president, said: “Europe is no longer experiencing the migration crisis we lived in 2015, but structural problems remain.”

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Former Melbourne bikie leader Amad Malkoun injured in Athens car blast

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Authorities believe bomb attack might have been carried out by an organised crime gang

The former Melbourne bikie leader Amad “Jay” Malkoun has been seriously injured in an apparent car bomb attack in Athens.

Malkoun, who was previously Victorian head of the Comancheros, was attempting to start his Mercedes outside a gym in the upmarket suburb of Glyfada on Friday when the blast occurred.

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Greece races to move refugees from island likened to a ‘new Lesbos’

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Migration minister warns camp on Samos where hundreds of children live in squalor is six times over capacity

Greek authorities are scrambling to house almost 4,000 people crammed into an overflowing migrant camp in Samos, as aid groups warn of a “humanitarian disaster” on one of Europe’s forgotten frontlines.

Likening Samos to a “new Lesbos,” the country’s migration minister warned of a race against the clock to find suitable accommodation for the ever growing number of people trapped in a reception centre now six times over capacity.

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The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea review – Lynchian psychodrama in the sun

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Criminal undercurrents in a sleepy Greek backwater provide the pretext for a disquieting spectacle of strangeness

A drumbeat of anxiety and impending violence thuds insistently from this opaque, disquieting spectacle from Greek film-maker Syllas Tzoumerkas – who has previously directed challenging films such as Homeland (2010) and A Blast (2014) and was screenwriter on the excellent male-midlife breakdown satire Suntan (2016).

Tzoumerkas’s movie goes out on a creaking limb of weirdness. It’s a bizarre, occasionally almost Lynchian film, alienated and alienating, interspersed – initially, at any rate – with dream-visions of biblical scenes in the burning sun. Its borderline preposterous narrative may simply be the pretext for its tableau of strangeness and bacchanal of dysfunction.

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Greek MPs ratify Macedonia name change in historic vote

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Majority back move amid angry cries of ‘traitors’ from nationalists who oppose deal

MPs in Greece have ratified a historic accord that allows the country’s northern neighbour Macedonia to change its name.

In a roll-call vote, punctuated by angry cries of “traitors” from nationalists opposed to the deal, 153 MPs voted in favour of the pact.

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Greek PM wins confidence vote after Macedonia name crisis

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Alexis Tsipras secures majority as opposition claims deal with Skopje is ‘nationally damaging’

The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has won a confidence vote in parliament, clearing a major hurdle for Greece’s approval of an accord to end a dispute over Macedonia’s name and averting the prospect of a snap election.

Tsipras called the confidence motion after his rightwing coalition partner Panos Kammenos quit the government on Sunday in protest at the name deal signed between Athens and Skopje last year.

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Putin says US wants to ‘assert dominance’ in Balkans as Macedonia changes name

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Russian president claims alleged increase of western influence is ‘destablising’

Vladimir Putin has weighed into the row over Macedonia’s name-change, accusing the US and its allies of destabilising the Balkans by “asserting their dominant role” in the region.

The Russian president criticised what he described as deliberate efforts to increase western influence in a part of the world Moscow has long regarded as falling within its own orbit.

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Macedonia’s parliament votes to accept new name

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Country will become Republic of North Macedonia when Greece ratifies agreement

Macedonia’s parliament passed an amendment to the constitution on Friday to rename the country Republic of North Macedonia in line with an agreement with Greece to put an end to a 27-year-old dispute.

The two countries struck the deal on the new name in June, but Macedonia will start using it only after the parliament in Athens also ratifies the agreement.

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Oxfam condemns EU over ‘inhumane’ Lesbos refugee camp

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Violence so bad that women wear nappies at night to avoid leaving tents, report says

The EU has been strongly criticised over conditions in Greece’s largest refugee camp, where Oxfam reported women are wearing nappies at night for fear of leaving their tents to go to the toilet.

The British-based NGO described the increasingly dangerous state of the EU-sponsored Moria camp on the island of Lesbos, where a 24-year-old man from Cameroon was found dead in the early hours of Tuesday as temperatures fell below freezing.

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