Category Archives: Greece

Acropolis closed during hottest hours as earliest-ever heatwave of year hits Greece

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Temperatures expected to reach 43C in Athens and across country, prompting school closures and health warnings

The Acropolis, Greece’s most visited tourist site, was closed to the public during the hottest hours of Wednesday as the season’s earliest-ever heatwave swept the country, prompting school closures and health warnings.

The culture ministry had said the Unesco-listed archaeological site in Athens would close from midday to 5pm (09.00 to 14.00 GMT), with temperatures expected to reach 43C (109F) on Wednesday and Thursday.

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‘You don’t forget these things’: Symi’s residents on aftermath of Michael Mosley’s death

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Fears of negative press outweighed by sadness and disbelief after TV presenter’s body was found five days after he went missing

“Thank God we found him.” Seated in his black leather office chair, surrounded by icons, oil paintings, photographs, medals and models ships, Lefteris Papakalodoukas, Symi’s longtime mayor, is clearly relieved.

It’s 9am and almost 24 hours have elapsed since the body of the TV presenter Michael Mosley was found lying in a gulley of rocks and thistle only metres from the sea, beneath the perimeter fence of a beach bar.

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Michael Mosley: TV presenter found dead on Greek island, wife confirms

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Dr Clare Bailey says her husband ‘almost made it’ after his body was found close to a coastal resort in Symi

The wife of the British TV presenter Michael Mosley has confirmed the “devastating” news that her husband has been found dead on the Greek island of Symi.

Dr Clare Bailey said she and the couple’s four children took comfort in the fact that he “had almost made it”, after his body was found close to a coastal resort on Sunday.

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Michael Mosley’s wife says ‘we will not lose hope’ as new footage emerges

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Video is believed to be one of last two sightings before British TV doctor left village of Pedi on Greek island

The wife of the British TV doctor Michael Mosley, who has gone missing on the Greek island of Symi, has said her family “will not lose hope” as the search for her husband continues.

Mosley, known for his appearances on The One Show and This Morning, disappeared during a walk in the north-east of the island on Wednesday.

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Search for Michael Mosley resumes with helicopter and sniffer dogs

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Local police scour Greek island of Symi two days after TV doctor and columnist went missing

The search for the TV doctor and columnist Michael Mosley has resumed on the Greek island of Symi, two days after he went missing.

Local police have confirmed that officers with sniffer dogs are scouring the island after they paused the search-and-rescue operation for the 67-year-old Briton on Thursday night.

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TV doctor Michael Mosley goes missing during holiday in Greece

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Agent says columnist and presenter has been missing since he went for a coastal hike on Greek island of Symi

A search is under way for the TV doctor and newspaper columnist Michael Mosley, who went missing after going on a coastal walk on the Greek island of Symi.

The 67-year-old, known for his appearances on The One Show and This Morning, was last seen when he set off hiking along St Nicholas beach at 1.30pm local time (1130 BST) on Wednesday. His wife, Dr Clare Bailey, alerted authorities after he failed to return by 7.30pm, but they were unable to locate him overnight.

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Greek police detain nine Egyptians despite dismissal of shipwreck charges

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Lawyer criticises ‘inhumane’ treatment of men who were accused over deadly sinking of vessel crossing from Libya

Greek police have been accused of the “inhumane” treatment of nine Egyptian men after placing them in detention despite a court throwing out charges against them over a deadly shipwreck.

Police said on Thursday they were placing the men in custody as it was thought they could flee the country, two days after a tribunal in the southern city of Kalamata dismissed charges against them due to a lack of jurisdiction.

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Charges dropped against nine Egyptians over 2023 migrant shipwreck off Greece

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Greek court says it has no jurisdiction to hear case as disaster happened in international waters

A Greek court has thrown out charges against nine Egyptian men accused of causing one of the Mediterranean’s deadliest shipwrecks, ruling it has no jurisdiction over the case because the disaster was in international waters.

The three-member tribunal, sitting in the southern city of Kalamata, announced the decision as migrant solidarity supporters rallied outside in support of the defendants. Inside the courtroom there was applause and whoops of delight.

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Mediterranean migrant boat disaster: men on trial are ‘scapegoats’, say lawyers

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Survivors of shipwreck that killed 600 people not ‘real smugglers’, say defenders, with inquiry into coastguard’s role also incomplete

Nine men accused of causing one of the deadliest shipwrecks to have taken place in the Mediterranean are “scapegoats” who should never have been prosecuted, defence lawyers have said, as their long-awaited trial opens in Greece.

The Egyptian suspects, who have been held in pre-trial detention since the 14 June disaster last year, are appearing in court in the southern city of Kalamata on Tuesday.

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Extra virgin olive oil prices tipped to top £16 a litre next month

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Price rise for mass-market types expected as global production falls to lowest level in more than 10 years

Olive oil prices are set to climb further this year – heading to more than £16 a litre for a bottle of extra virgin – amid a drop in global production to the lowest level in more than a decade.

Lower production in Greece, Morocco and Turkey as part of the natural cycle of olive growth is expected to offset an improving situation in Spain and Italy, where trees have suffered from extreme heat and drought in recent years as the climate crisis wreaks havoc on harvests.

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Prison release of Golden Dawn founder angers Greek anti-fascists

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State prosecutor reportedly opposed release of neo-Nazi Nikos Michaloliakos four years into 13-and-a-half-year sentence

The unrepentant founder of Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, who insisted followers addressed him as the Fuhrer, has been released from prison four years into a sentence of 13 and a half years, having been convicted of operating a criminal organisation that posed as a political party.

Nikos Michaloliakos, a Holocaust denier and admirer of Adolf Hitler, was allowed to return to his home in Athens this week although his “conditional discharge” was only made public on Thursday.

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Greek court drops espionage charges against aid workers

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Accused were arrested in Lesbos and accused of facilitating illegal entry of migrants into the country

A Greek court’s decision to drop criminal charges against dozens of international aid workers accused of espionage and facilitating the illegal entry of migrants into the country has been met with jubilation.

A three-member judicial council convening on the north Aegean isle of Lesbos ruled there was insufficient proof to pursue the case against 35 mostly German nationals.

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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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