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Greek News
2009 (from Yahoo news)
Remember
Athens 2004, the fires 2007, the riots of 2008
and the others news concerning Greece by clicking under the archives below
Greek news 2010
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Sunday the
28th of December 2009
 |
Bomb blast in Athens
Police in Greece say a bomb has exploded in
central Athens, damaging the offices of an
insurance company.
The blast occurred today outside the Ethniki
Insurance building in central Athens, damaging
offices on the lower floors of the building but
causing no injuries.
The building, on a busy street in central Athens,
is located next to a multiplex cinema which was
open at the time of the explosion. Police on
Monday said the blast followed a warning
telephone call to an Athens newspaper.
No group has claimed responsibility for the
attack. Far-left Greek militant groups have
stepped up bombing and shooting attacks this
year, with targets including banks, a private TV
station and the Athens Stock Exchange.
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Wednesday
the
23rd of December 2009
 |
Greek parliament to
adopt 2010 crisis budget
ATHENS (AFP) – Greece's parliament is set to adopt a crisis budget late
on Wednesday aimed at bringing order to the debt-hit country's chaotic
public finances and restore its badly dented credibility abroad.
The ruling Socialists, who hold a ten-seat edge in the 300-seat house,
are expected to carry the midnight vote on the 2010 plan that aims to
cut Greece's 30.5-billion-euro public deficit by 8.4 billion euros (12
billion dollars).
The Socialists, elected in October on an economy rescue ticket, have
already warned that the 2010 budget is the nation's "toughest" since the
restoration of democracy in 1974 after seven years of military rule.
The government is struggling to restore investor confidence and muster
funds to service an estimated 300-billion-euro debt following three
successive downgrades from international credit rating agencies this
month.
The budget aims to reduce the deficit from 12.7 percent of output to 9.1
percent in 2010, which would still exceed the limit of 3.0 percent for
countries that use the single European currency.
The Socialists pledged to cut waste in the bloated Greek civil service
and public sector and boost revenue through a crackdown on entrenched
tax evasion.
But the markets have shown little inclination to wait for reforms that
successive Greek governments have promised yet failed to implement.
And Greece's European Union peers are also losing patience with Athens,
which revised crucial economic figures twice in the last five years.
"Our credibility deficit is more important than the deficit in our
public finances," Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou told
parliament this week.
"People just don't believe us. 'We've heard the same talk for five years',
they say," the minister added.
Fears for Greece's ability to keep up with its massive debt mounted this
month after a solvency scare in the once-flourishing Gulf emirate of
Dubai.
Questions also arose about possible implications for the broader
eurozone, where several other countries are struggling with debt.
Mindful also of the reaction that austerity plans are likely to get from
Greece's powerful unions, the three main credit rating agencies have
shown their concern by cutting the country's sovereign debt grade.
Fitch and S&P lowered Greece's rating to BBB-plus from A-minus earlier
this month. On Tuesday, Moody's completed the triple downgrade with
another one-notch cut from A1 to A2.
Greece still has room for manoeuvre as the European Central Bank eased
its rating requirements for government bonds in the wake of the global
financial crisis, but the ECB is expected to restore the minimum A-minus
level in 2011.
Greece's second-largest union that represents some 200,000 civil
servants said it would strike in late January or early February to
defend its members' benefits which the government is targeting for cuts.
The government's new tax plans are expected to be finalised at that
time.
The opposition Conservatives, who were in power for the last five years,
say the government lacks a coherent plan and wasted precious time after
winning a snap election in October called by former PM Costas
Karamanlis.
New Conservative leader Antonis Samaras, who replaced Karamanlis after
the election defeat, will head the attack on the government later
Wednesday.
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Thursday
the
17th of December 2009
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Greece hit by strike after downgrade
ATHENS (AFP) – Strikes hit Greece on Thursday in response to a call for
a national protest against draft austerity measures just as government
plans to fight a debt crisis reeled from another credit downgrade.
As the Greek finance minister dashed between European capitals to
reassure investors and ministers in the EU and eurozone that the
government means business, thousands of school teachers, state hospital
doctors, dock workers and journalists went on strike. Related article:
Papaconstantinou to meet ECB VP
The national day of protest is being organised by Communist-led trade
unions, but two big unions led by allies of the governing Socialist
party have not joined in.
The protests are a new dilemma for a Socialist government struggling to
restore the country's credibility on financial markets and with the
European Union, where there are now fears for the solvency of other
indebted eurozone members and possibly for the cohesion of the eurozone.
Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou, on a crucial tour of leading
European capitals to rally support for Greece from governments, was
meeting British counterpart Alistair Darling in London before going on
to Frankfurt.
Prime Minister George Papandreou, under acute pressure from financial
markets, had outlined on Monday a crisis strategy to curb public sector
hiring, reduce civil servant benefits and overhaul the tax
administration.
The scale of the pressure on Greece, and of inherent tension within the
eurozone, is shown through the interest rate, or yield, that financial
markets are signalling they are demanding from Greece in return for
lending money by buying Greek government bonds.
The yield on the Greek 10-year bond rose to a high point of 5.736 at one
point early on Thursday, being quoted later at 5.722 percent, an
increase of 0.220 percentage points from the yield in afternoon trading
on Wednesday. The bond itself was being priced at 101.900 euros.
The latest yield is 2.536 percentage points higher than the rock steady
yield on the German eurozone benchmark 10-year bund.
And the Greek yield has risen with great speed from 4.411 percent on
October 8, four days after the government took office.
As the strikes, expected to spread to about 60 towns across the country,
got under way, the finance ministry said: "We take seriously each
international assessment that concerns and influences our country, but
we have our strategy and we're going to stick to it."
"Our response is clear, determined and guarantees tangible results," the
statement said.
But Papandreou's proposals have failed to reassure nervous financial
markets, while prompting warnings of fierce resistance from the
country's powerful unions.
Equally unimpressed was ratings agency Standard and Poor's, which on
Wednesday lowered Greece's long-term credit rating to BBB-plus from
A-minus and warned it could issue a further downgrade unless the
government managed to get its finances in order.
Reaction to the news on financial markets was sharp. The European single
currency that Greece shares with 15 other countries plunged to a three-month
low against the dollar, falling to 1.4460 dollars in morning trade in
Asia from 1.4533.
The BBB-plus rating is still considered investment-grade but is below
the European Central Bank's standard lending requirements. Another
credit rating agency, Fitch, downgraded Greece to BBB-plus from A-minus
last week.
Greece's public deficit is set to rise to 12.7 percent of output this
year, far above the eurozone limit of 3.0 percent. Debt, now at 300
billion euros (442 billion dollars) is also expected to come to 113
percent of gross domestic product in 2009 against an EU target of 60
percent.
Standard and Poor's (SP) said Greece's cost-cutting plans "are unlikely,
on their own, to lead to a sustainable reduction in the public debt
burden".
Reforms to cut public spending face "domestic obstacles that would
likely require sustained efforts over a number of years to overcome," it
added.
Gary Jenkins, an analyst at Evolution Securities investment bank, was
quoted by the Financial Times as saying that the downgrade "will cause
even more volatility for Greece's sovereign debt."
He added that the warning by Standard and Poor's that it could lower
Greece's credit rating further was "very bad news as it will create
further uncertainty regarding how low the rating can go."
"We think that volatility of Greek spreads is likely to persist until
the government effectively implements measures," analysts from French
bank BNP Paribas said in a note to investors.
"We are starting off with a huge credibility deficit and there's not
much we can do to change it immediately," Papaconstantinou said in an
interview with the Financial Times.
"Our big concern is how we buy some time. The kinds of things we've
started doing are a significant departure from the past, but they don't
produce results right away."
Despite the protests, Papaconstantinou said the country stood behind the
government's plans.
"We have a very clear sense that a majority of the population back this."
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Monday
the
07th of December 2009
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Greece Unveils Measures To Tackle Debt Crisis
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou announced a raft of austerity
measures Monday to rein in a soaring budget deficit in a bid to reassure
Europe and investors that he was taking emergency action to rescue the
country from the worst crisis in decades.
The announcement came as Greece's deficit stood at 12.7 per cent of the
gross domestic product, and its debt is estimated at ?300 billion, or
about $440 billion, more than 110 per cent of GDP.
It also came as Greek bond markets were thrown into disarray last week
when Fitch Ratings downgraded its credit rating on fears that the
country's soaring budget deficit and heavy debt might cause the country
to default. Earlier in October, Moody's Investors Service put Greece on
notice for a possible credit downgrade.
In his much-awaited speech to business and labor leaders, newly-elected
Papandreou vowed to reduce state spending by 10 per cent and to bring
the budget deficit to less than 3 per cent of GDP in 2013.
Noting that Greece faces the risk of sinking under its debt and that its
biggest deficit is the deficit of credibility, the Prime Minister said
markets want to see action, not words. He pledged that his new Socialist
government, elected in October, would take steps over the next few
months that are decades overdue.
"Greece, with so much potential, is in critical condition," Papandreou
said.
Spending cuts announced include reduced military spending in 2011 and
2012, slashed public sector bonuses and 10 per cent less for both social
security and the government's operating budget and salary caps for the
directors of public utilities.
Papandreou also called for taxes of up to 90 per cent on large bonuses
for private bankers, the closure of a third of Greece's tourist offices
abroad and the elimination of cost-of-living increases for some public
sector workers.
The newly-elected Socialist government will also introduce a new
progressive tax scale, crack down on rampant tax evasion and cut
bureaucracy to attract foreign investment. Also, it will introduce a
capital gains tax and restore inheritance and property taxes, which the
previous government had dispensed with.
Papandreou also called for reform of Greece's struggling pension system,
which according to some estimates will be bankrupt within a year. He
said starting in 2011, Greece would hire one new state worker for every
five who retired. One in four Greeks works for the state, a result of
decades of public-sector hiring to prevent social unrest.
Athens has been facing political pressure from the European Union (EU)
to sort out its financial mess and stick to deficit limits intended to
support the shared euro, whose credibility is as much at stake as that
of Greece.
The Greek deficit is now projected at four times the three per cent
limit imposed by the EU for euro currency countries. Athens has only met
the EU-mandated deficit ceiling once since adopting the euro in 2001.
The EU is reluctant to bail out Greece as that would seem to rewarding a
chronic violator of EU budget rules, and if they leave Greece to fend
for itself, or to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
that could spread the panic to Spain, Ireland and Portugal--all are
suffering from extra scrutiny in the bond markets.
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Monday
the
07th of December 2009
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Fresh violence erupts
at Athens demo
ATHENS (AFP) – Riot police clashed with stone-throwing youths in Athens on Monday as
violence marred a second day of demonstrations held to mark the fatal
shooting of a teenager by police a year ago.
Police charged the crowd
with tear gas and made 21 arrests after scores of youths, some as young
as 12, hurled stones at store windows and the security forces as some
5,000 demonstrators set off towards parliament.
"The message given is that
Athens (and) other major cities are not defenceless," government
spokesman George Petalotis told reporters.
Two of the youths were
arrested earlier for pelting a police station with stones
as thousands of students rallied to pay tribute to Alexis Grigoropoulos,
who was shot dead at age 15 last year, a police source said.
Two other police stations in
the suburbs of Agia Paraskevi and Kallithea were also pelted with
debris, police said.
Around 5,000 people joined
another demonstration in the northern city of Thessaloniki which
ran its course without major incident.
Some 6,000 officers were
deployed to prevent further trouble in the Greek capital after
demonstrations around the country turned violent at the weekend, with at
least 30 people injured and dozens arrested in Athens and other cities.
After the Monday protest
disbanded, police formed a massive cordon around the University of Athens
building -- which was seized by protesters on Sunday -- to prevent
another occupation.
Around 300 young people took
over buildings at Athens Polytechnic, making sorties to throw stones and Molotov cocktails at
police massed outside.
Greek law heavily restricts police powers to
intervene on campuses, effectively making them a safe haven for
protesters.
Cars and dustbins were set
alight outside the Polytechnic as the youths continued their protest.
By early evening the
protesters had left the building and traffic -- which had been suspended
in surrounding streets -- was flowing again.
The rector of Athens
University, Christos Kittas, was among those injured Sunday as dozens of
hooded youths broke into the building on the sidelines of a large
demonstration in Grigoropoulos' memory in the city centre.
Police said 26 officers and
four protesters were hurt in Sunday's clashes but reporters at the scene
of the violence said the total number injured could be higher.
Some protesters who did not
take part in the clashes accused police of excessive force.
Kittas, who was hospitalised
for head injuries and an irregular heartbeat,
remained in intensive care Monday but his condition has improved, the
director of Athens' Ippokratio Hospital told state television NET.
Another 125 people were
arrested over the weekend after protests in Athens and the cities of Thessaloniki, Patras,
Rhodes and Heraklion, a police source said, and 46 face charges.
Many of those arrested are foreign nationals,
including five Italians, four Albanians, a Pole, a Canadian, a Turk, a
Bulgarian, a Spaniard and a French national.
The police on Saturday
raided a Greek anarchist club which police said was used to manufacture
explosives. Two of the youths arrested at the club are the children of a
former socialist minister.
Windows were smashed and
several cars were damaged on Sunday in more than two dozen stores and
banks in Athens, Thessaloniki and other cities, although the damage was
limited compared to the riots that gripped the
country a year ago.
Ten people, including the
five Italians, are to face misdemeanour charges on December 16.
Students have occupied
scores of university faculties and schools to mark the teenager's
killing, according to staff unions.
Grigoropoulos was shot dead
on December 6, 2008, by a police officer who claimed
to have fired into the air whilst under attack from youths. His parents
had appealed for demonstrations to remain peaceful, media reports said.
A family memorial
service for the teenager was held early Sunday in the cemetery of Palio
Faliro. The policeman accused of his death is due to go on trial on January 20 charged
with homicide.
The trial was originally
scheduled for this month but judicial authorities postponed it and
relocated the proceedings to a town northwest of Athens.
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Sunday
the
06th of December 2009
|
Greece braces for teen killing demonstrations
ATHENS – On Sunday braced for demonstrations to mark the
anniversary of a teenager's killing by a policeman, with authorities on
the alert to avert a repeat of
riots that tore through several
cities last year.
Over 6,000 police will be on duty in
Athens alone as thousands set
to join protest marches in the capital and other cities commemorating
15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos' fatal shooting exactly a year ago.
Greece's recently-elected socialist government, mindful that the 2008
riots that caused millions of euros in damages badly discredited its
conservative predecessors, has warned protesters against resorting to
violence.
"We will not tolerate a repeat scenario of violence and terror in the
centre of Athens," Citizen's Protection Minister Michalis Chrysohoidis
said this week.
"We will not allow anyone to usurp the peaceful events and
demonstrations in Alexis Grigoropoulos' memory," said Chrysohoidis, who
oversees the police.
On Saturday, police carried out a series of raids in Athens and detained
more than 130 people after two cars were set fire to in the central
district of Exarchia, where Grigoropoulos was gunned down last year.
Twelve people, including five Italians and three Albanians, were
arrested over the torching of the cars and another 41 people were
arrested in the western district of Keratsini after briefly occupying
the local town hall.
In a separate raid in the same area, police arrested a further 22 people
in what they said was an anarchist hideout. Officers found two petrol
cannisters, sledgehammers and 13 gas masks on the premises, police said
"The search confirmed prior information that this location was used to
create explosives and launch attacks," a police statement said.
Around 500 people took part in protest marches in the northern city of
Thessaloniki
on Saturday night, local police said. Ten people, including an Albanian
and a Bulgarian, were arrested after the demonstration.
A series of demonstrations were planned on Sunday by
trade unions
and leftwing organisations in Athens, Thessaloniki and other cities
after a religious service at Grigoropoulos's grave in the suburb of
Palio Faliro.
Another demonstration by students and school pupils will be held on
Monday.
Students have occupied dozens of universities and schools to mark the
teenager's killing, according to staff unions.
Grigoropoulos was shot dead by a
police officer who claimed he fired into the air whilst
under attack from youths.
A few dozen foreign demonstrators are also believed to have travelled to
Greece for the commemoration, a police source said.
The policeman accused of the teenager's death is due to go on trial on
January 20
charged with homicide |
|
Monday
the 30th of November 2009
|
Somali pirates seize Greek tanker near
Seychelles
ATHENS (Reuters) – Somali pirates have seized a Greek-flagged oil
tanker near the Seychelles, more than 700 miles off the coast of
Somalia,
Greece's coastguard said on Monday.
The 300,294-dwt Maran Centaurus was sailing from Kuwait to the Gulf
of Mexico with a crew of 28 when it was seized early on Sunday.
"About nine armed pirates attacked the tanker and seized it, 700
miles off the Somali coast, near the Seychelles," said a coastguard
official
who requested anonymity.
The official said there were nine Greeks, two Ukrainians, one
Romanian and 16 Filipinos on board the tanker.
Maran Tankers Management, the Greek managing company, said the ship
was now heading toward the Somali coast. "We only know that
the crew is well," a company official who did not want to be
identified told Reuters.
A Greek navy frigate, taking part in the EU naval operation against
piracy in the region, was shadowing the tanker, the Greek Defense
Ministry
said.
Heavily armed gangs from Somalia have made tens of millions of
dollars in ransoms by seizing ships using the strategic shipping
lanes that
link Europe to Asia.
Somali pirates warned on Monday they would kill the crew of a
Chinese bulk carrier if China's navy attempted to wrest control of
the vessel
from them.
In a statement read to Reuters in Mogadishu over the phone, one of
the pirates holding the 25 crew members of the coal ship De Xin Hai,
seized in mid-October, said they had heard the Chinese navy was
planning a rescue mission.
"We are telling them not to gamble with the lives of the Chinese
teenagers in our hands. Honestly, we will kill if we are attacked,"
pirate Nur said,
reading the statement from on board the ship.
In New York, the U.N. Security Council extended by a year on Monday
its authorization for countries to use military force against
pirates off
Somalia. Anti-piracy operations have been conducted by the European
Union, NATO and individual states.
The council resolution also lamented legal weaknesses that hindered
the prosecution of suspected pirates after their capture and have
sometimes led to their release.
It urged countries fighting piracy to carry on their naval vessels
law enforcement officials known as "shipriders" from countries
willing to take
custody of pirates, in order to assist their prosecution.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said the importance
of the resolution "was underscored yet again today by the brazen
hijack" of the Maran Centaurus.
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|
Wednesday
the 18th of November 2009
|
Greece beats Ukraine
1-0 to qualify for World Cup
DONETSK, Ukraine (AFP) –
Greece reached the
World Cup finals on Wednesday with a
hard-fought 1-0
win over
Ukraine in the return leg of their
European zone play-off.
Panathinaikos striker Dimitris Salpingidis
netted the only goal of the match sending
Greece, the 2004 European
champions, into their second World Cup
finals after a 16-year absence.
Greece and Ukraine, who were deadlocked at
0-0 after the first leg in
Athens on Saturday, struggled to
impose
themselves early on in a match played on a
rain-soaked pitch of the half-empty,
50,000-seater Donbass Arena.
Ukraine skipper Andrei Shevchenko missed a
chance to put his team into the lead in the
eighth minute, when he failed
to send home a rebound after Greece 'keeper
Alexandros Tzorvas deflected
Alexander Aliev's shot.
Greece replied with a seven-metre header by
Celtic forward Giorgos Samaras, which went
just inches above the crossbar
from a well-struck
Giorgos Karagounis freekick.
Just after the half-hour mark Salpingidis
gave Greece the lead, beating Ukraine's
defenders on a breakaway and receiving
a razor-sharp pass from Samaras to score
past goalkeeper Andrei Pyatov.
After the break, the hosts continued to
press under the watchful gaze of
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
But Greece defended well, stifling the
hosts' attacks into fruitless long-range
shots.
Oleg Gusev missed Ukraine's last chance to
level in injury time, but his six-yard
rebound went wide after Tsorvas
deflected Yevgeny Seleznov's shot from the
edge of the box.
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|
Tuesday
the 17th of November 2009
 |
Mass
rally in Athens ends in clashes
Police clashed briefly with anarchists who threw molotov bombs and
stones against them on Tuesday evening in
the center of Athens, continuing a tradition that goes on for three
decades in Greece on November 17.
Thirty six years after a student uprising in Athens Polytechnic against
the military dictatorship which ruled Greece
then, more than 10,000 people took part in the annual mass demonstration
towards the American embassy.
Shouting slogans against war and imperialism, they paid tribute to young
people who died for democracy, carrying
a Greek flag which still bears the stains of blood of young heroes.
As it has happened many times in previous years, the rally ended
peacefully, but afterwards dozens of anarchists
attacked policemen with stones and Molotov bombs, destroying cars and
putting garbage boxes on fire in front of
Athens Police Headquarters at Alexandras avenue.
Police replied with teargas and according to the first estimates at
least 100 suspects were detained. More that 6,000
policemen were guarding the streets of Athens Tuesday amid fears of
violence.
|
Sunday
the 08th of November 2009
 |
World's oldest
submerged town, 5,000 years old
Archeologists say the world's oldest submerged town, located off the
southern Laconia coast of Greece,
dates back to 5,000 years ago.
Final Neolithic ceramics found during the five-year study project showed
that the city of Pavlopetri was at
least 1,200 years earlier than previously thought.
A collaborative team of experts at Nottingham University and the
Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities of the
Hellenic Ministry of Culture found 150 square meters of new buildings as
well as ceramics that show the city
was occupied throughout the Bronze Age - from at least 2800 to 1100 BCE.
The newly found buildings could be the first example of a pillar crypt
ever discovered on the Greek mainland,
ScienceDaily
reported.
“This site is unique in that we have almost the complete town plan, the
main streets and domestic buildings,
courtyards, rock-cut tombs and what appear to be religious buildings,
clearly visible on the seabed," said
underwater archaeologist at Nottingham University's Archaeology
Department, Dr. Jon Henderson.
"Equally as a harbor settlement, the study of the archaeological
material we have recovered will be extremely
important in terms of revealing how maritime trade was conducted and
managed in the Bronze Age."
The greatest part of the discovery made by the Pavlopetri Underwater
Archaeology Project is an Early Bronze
Age megaron - a large rectangular great hall.
The team has also discovered two new stone built cist graves found
alongside what appears to be a Middle
Bronze Age pithos burial.
“It is a rare find and it is significant because as a submerged site it
was never re-occupied and therefore represents
a frozen moment of the past," said Elias Spondylis, Ephorate of
Underwater Antiquities of the Hellenic Ministry of
Culture in Greece.
Researchers also produced a detailed plan of the town, which consisted
of at least 15 separate buildings,
courtyards, streets, two chamber tombs and at least 37 cist graves.
|
Wednesday
the 04th of November 2009
 |
Ban Ki-moon: Improve
immigrants' lives
ATHENS, Greece, - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Thursday made a
plea for strengthening global efforts to create
a better future for immigrants.
He told the third U.N.-supported Global Forum on Migration and
Development in Athens that immigrants were hurt by the
global financial crisis more than the population at large. He encouraged
nations to ensure their health, happiness and prosperity
were safeguarded.
Ban said vulnerable migrants such as women and children, who he said
suffer degradation, are pushed into forced labor,
prostitution and even organ removal to survive, the Athens News Agency
reported.
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou opened the conference Wednesday
telling the forum that all children born to immigrants
in Greece would automatically acquire Greek citizenship from now on.
"Growth and migration are inextricably linked," Papandreou said,
stressing the importance immigrants make to the
Greek economy.
It was unclear if the parents of these children would also acquire
citizenship, the Athens newspaper I Kathimerini reported.
European Commission Vice President Jacques Barrot told the gathering the
European Union would fund the creation and
operation of a system to efficiently process the asylum claims of
thousands of immigrants arriving in Greece. |
Saturday the 31st of October 2009
|
Bomb explodes outside ex-minister's home in Athens,
no injuries
A time bomb exploded early Friday morning at the entrance of the block
of flats former Minister of Education Marietta Giannakou
lives in Kato Patissia central Athensdistrict.
A second terrorist attack in just a four days time has shocked Greeks.
No injuries occurred, as the attackers this time, 20 minutes
before the explosion, made warning calls to Eleftherotypianewspaper and
Alter TV channel.
Just on Tuesday night, unidentified gunmen made 100 shots against a
police station at Agia Paraskevi northern Athens suburb,
injuring six policemen, two of them seriously.
Newly elected socialist government has vowed tough action against
guerrilla groups that have stepped up attacks against police and
politicians since last December, when a teenager was fatally shot by a
policeman in the centre of Athens.
In the new case, police rushed on the spot, evacuated the building and
blockaded the surrounding streets. As counter terrorism experts
investigate the remains of the bomb which damaged parked cars, searching
for clues that may reveal the identities of the terrorists,
politicians again condemn the attack.
In a first reaction by main opposition New Democracy party, in which
Giannakou is a member, spokesman George Koumoutsakos
said "this is a cowardly terrorist attack against a politician who has
the appreciation and love for all regardless of political affiliation.
It's a terrorist act that causes anger and condemnation of us all and
strengthens our resolve to join forces and efforts in the common fight
against terrorism."
In September, a few days before the Oct. 4 general elections, asimilar
attack was made outside the apartment of new Minister of Economy,
Competitiveness and Shipping Louka Katseli and her formerminister
husband Gerasimos Arsenis. On the same day, police arrested four
young people who are accused of being involved in the guerrilla group
who claimed responsibility for the attack.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for Friday's or Tuesdays attacks.
|
Tuesday the 27th of October 2009
Greek ship close to Turkey's
Aegean coast. |
At least
eight migrants have drowned after their boat crashed into rocks
off the island of Lesbos
The small vessel was carrying 19
illegal Afghan migrants from the nearby coast of Turkey.
Four women and four children drowned. A
fifth child was reported missing, presumed dead, the coast guard
said.
The survivors include one woman, one
child and eight men. One of the group, a Turkish national, has
been arrested on suspicion
of people trafficking.
Strong winds were blowing in the area
and by the time a Greek rescue helicopter and coast guard patrol
boats reached the scene,
eight people had drowned, authorities said.
Lesbos is one of the main points of
arrival for illegal immigrants and asylum seekers who risk their
lives in the hope of a better life
in the European Union.
Smuggling gangs charge asylum seekers
thousands of dollars to make the journey in unseaworthy vessels
to Greek islands nestling
close to Turkey's Aegean coast.
About 14,000 migrants arrived in Greece
by boat in the first half of 2009, according to EU border agency
Frontex.
The EU has pressed Turkey to take more
action to control the flow of illegal immigrants, dozens of whom
die in the crossing.
|
Tuesday the 27th of October 2009
 |
Six policemen injured in
terrorist attack at Athens police station
A
wide anti-terrorism probe is in progress in Athens on Tuesday night,
after the bloody terrorist attack which occurred against a police
station
in the northern suburb of Aghia Paraskevi around 10 p.m. local time (20:00
GMT).
Five policemen were injured, two of them seriously, when two
unidentified persons opened fire with AK- 47 assault riffles, the Greek
state
television said.
According to witnesses, the two attackers who wore helmets escaped on a
motorbike. An anti-terrorism squad rushed to the spot, collecting
important data, while policemen are searching for suspects around Athens.
The five policemen, among them a woman, were admitted to two hospitals,
together with a citizen, another woman, who suffered a shock.
Minister of Citizens' Protection Mihalis Chrysohoidis rushed to the
hospital after the incident. In an unusual move for Greek standards, the
minister announced a 600,000 euros bounty Monday, asking people's help
in the search of three men who are wanted for robberies and are
under investigation for terrorism links.
No group has claimed responsibility for the shooting. According to the
first estimates of experts speaking with anonymity to local media,
the methodology of the attack and the weapons used point to the
Revolutionary Struggle, a far Left guerrilla group that is connected
with
an attack against a policeman at Exarhia central Athens district earlier
this year.
|
Sunday the 25th of October 2009
 |
One dead, one missing after storms hit
Greece
ATHENS -
One man died and another was missing on Sunday,
after storms washed away roads and flooded homes and
farms
across Greece, officials said.
The body
of a 41-year-old man was recovered by the coast
guard near the central Greek city of Volos. He
drowned after strong winds
overturned his vessel, the coast guard said.
Another
man was missing after his car was swept away by a
river in the hardest-hit region of Pieria, about 240
miles north of the capital
Athens.
Fire
fighters rescued 10 people trapped in their homes in
northern and central Greece. Dozens of animals
drowned, as farms and crops
were damaged by the heavy rains.
"We've
received more than 250 calls about floods over the
weekend," said a fire brigade official who declined
to be named.
The
national road between Athens and the Peloponnese was
blocked due to mudslides, police said.
The
National Weather Service said storms were expected
to continue through the night and on Monday.
In
August, wildfires tore through Athens suburbs,
destroying thousands of hectares of forest and
forcing thousands to flee their homes.
The fires hurt support for the conservative
government, which lost to the Socialists in
elections earlier this month.
|
Thursday
the 22nd of October 2009
|
Olympic Flame Lit in Ancient
Olympia for Vancouver Winter
Games
ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece —
The flame for the Vancouver
Olympics was successfully
lit by the sun's rays in an
ancient ceremony
Thursday, heralding the
start of the torch relay for
the 2010 Winter Games.
The sun shone just enough
over the fallen temples at
the birthplace of the
ancient Olympics for a Greek
actress in a pagan priestess'
white
gown and sandals to focus
its rays on a silver torch
using a concave mirror.
The flame will burn at the
Feb. 12-28 Vancouver Games,
following a torch relay
across Canada and a shorter
run in Greece.
"More than just a sporting
event, the Games offer us a
unique moment to serve the
cause of humanity and
celebrate the human spirit,
" Vancouver Organizing
Committee CEO John Furlong
said.
Bad weather disrupted the
meticulously choreographed
ceremony for the last three
Winter Olympics — Turin,
Salt Lake City and Nagano —
and officials had to use backup flames kindled at rehearsals.
In addition to good weather,
Thursday's ceremony also
benefited from a lack of
protesters this time, even
though Vancouver relay
officials had
been worried that activists
would be on hand to protest
against seal hunting in
Canada.
Ahead of the 2008 Beijing
Games, pro-democracy and
Tibetan activists protesting
China's human rights record
unfurled a banner in
Olympia's
ancient stadium during the
lighting ceremony, and tried
to stop the torch relay in
several cities around the
world.
The protests led the IOC to
scrap international torch
relays, and dozens of police
were stationed at the
archaeological site
Thursday.
IOC president Jacques Rogge
said the Olympic torch
conveyed a global message
"of friendship and respect."
"The Olympic torch and flame
are symbols of the values
and ideals which lie at the
heart of the Olympic Games,"
Rogge said, as hundreds
of spectators looked on from
the stadium's grassy banks.
Greek giant slalom skier
Vassilis Dimitriadis, 31,
was the first torchbearer to
run out of the ancient
stadium after accepting the
flame
from Nafpliotou.
After an eight-day journey
across Greece, the torch
will be handed over to
Canadian officials at the
restored ancient
Panathenaean Stadium
in Athens on Oct. 29.
It will reach Canada on Oct.
30 for what organizers say
will be the largest ever
national relay, starting in
Victoria, British Columbia,
and involving
12,000 torchbearers.
Furlong said the Vancouver
organizing committee wanted
"to be sure no Canadian is
denied the right to dream
and celebrate."
Over 106 days, the relay
will span Canada, being
flown as far north as the
Alert forestry station in
Nunavut, which at some 500
miles from
the North Pole is the
northernmost permanently
inhabited place in the
world.
Although cauldrons were lit
during the ancient games,
held in Olympia from 776 B.C.
to 394 A.D, the torch relay
is a modern addition to the
Olympics.
It made its first appearance
during the 1936 Berlin Games,
and its Winter Games debut
was at the Innsbruck
Olympics in 1964.
|
|
Monday
the
12th of October 2009
|
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou walks with a World War Two veteran in
traditional dress
after the ceremony for the annual anniversary of the liberation of
Athens from Nazi occupation at the Acropolis
hill in Athens . Athens was liberated on October 12, 1944.
 |
|
Tuesday
the
06th of October 2009
 |
Papandreou sworn in as
Greece's PM
Greece's Socialist leader
George Papandreou has been sworn in as prime minister, after trouncing
the conservatives in a l
andslide election win.
Papandreou, a 57-year-old
former foreign minister and scion of one of Greece's top political
families, follows in the footsteps
of his father Andreas and grandfather
and namesake George, both of whom served several terms as prime
minister.
He was sworn in on Tuesday
by Greece's Orthodox Church leader Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens in a
ceremony at the
presidential mansion.
He is expected to announce
his cabinet appointments later on Tuesday.
The Socialists stormed to a
resounding election victory on Sunday, winning with 43.92 per cent
compared to the
conservatives' 33.48 per cent to end five years of
conservative governance. |
|
Sunday
the 04th of October 2009
|
Greece's Socialists to form new government
ATHENS, Greece – Greece's Socialist prime
minister-elect made final decisions Monday on his new Cabinet,
whose
main challenges
will be to revive the faltering economy and improve environmental
protection.
George Papandreou, 57, will announce his appointments after being
formally sworn in Tuesday, party officials said.
He won a crushing
electoral victory over the weekend.
With the economy expected to contract in 2009 after years of growth, and
a deficit likely to top 6 percent of GDP,
Papandreou has pledged
a stimulus package of up to euro3 billion ($4.38 billion) and says he
will limit borrowing by
reducing government waste and going after tax
dodgers.
International ratings agency Standard & Poor's said Greece's credit
rating could improve if the new government implements
a "clear, credible
and sustainable"
strategy to address the country's debts. S&P added that the Socialists'
clear victory
could help them tame the debt burden.
And political analyst Anthony Livanios said Papandreou's economic policy
could work.
"I do believe (it's) a credible plan that focuses on reinvigorating the
small entrepreneur, on putting the tax system in better order
... and (Papandreou)
plans to incorporate the best and the brightest of Greek society in his
economic team," Livanios said.
The new Cabinet, which will be sworn in Wednesday, is expected to be
considerably leaner than conservative Costas Karamanlis'
outgoing one.
But the Socialists have pledged to create a separate environmental
portfolio — an issue particularly resonant in
a country that has
suffered a series
of devastating forest fires over the past three summers.
Papandreou, who was formally invited Monday to become the new prime
minister, has warned Greeks they face tough times.
"Nothing is going to be easy," he said late Sunday. "It will take a lot
of hard work ... And we don't have a day to lose."
Papandreou, a former foreign minister whose father and grandfather were
both prime ministers, led his Panhellenic Socialist
Movement, or PASOK,
to victory over Karamanlis' conservatives, who had been in government
since 2004.
The campaign was fought almost exclusively on economic issues. But the
conservatives already had been badly damaged
by a string of economic
scandals
that soured many voters and contributed to the party's worst electoral
showing ever on Sunday.
Near-final results, with 99.83 percent of votes counted, showed
Papandreou's party with 43.92 percent support.
Karamanlis' New Democracy
took
33.48 percent.
Karamanlis, 53, who five years ago became the youngest prime minister in
modern Greek history, resigned as leader of the
party founded 35 years
ago
by his late uncle and former prime minister, Constantine Karamanlis.
The results gave PASOK a solid parliamentary majority, with 160 of
Parliament's 300 seats. New Democracy will hold 91 seats,
and the communist
KKE party, in third with 7.54 percent of the vote, has 21 seats. The
nationalist LAOS party has 15 seats,
with 5.63 percent of the vote, and
another
left-wing party, SYRIZA, won 13 seats with 4.59 percent.
Papandreou's victory Sunday, along with a recent win by socialists in
Portugal, bucks a trend in which conservatives have surged in Europe's
powerhouse economies.
|
|
Wednesday the
23rd
of
September 2009
 |
Explosion in Athens, no injuries
ATHENS - GREEK police on Wednesday detained four people suspected of
taking part in a string
of bomb attacks, hours after a device exploded outside the home of a
socialist party member
in Athens, causing only minor damage.
The explosion, which caused no injuries, took place less than two
weeks before a parliamentary
election which polls see the opposition socialists winning.
'Police raided an apartment and took in custody four Greeks
suspected of taking part in bomb
attacks this year,' a police spokesman said. Police could not
confirm whether the people
arrested were suspected of taking part in Wednesday's attack.
The device exploded in front of the apartment where Louka Katseli, a
PASOK representative for
economic affairs, lives, at the fourth floor of a building in the
central Athens Kolonaki area,
smashing windows and slightly damaging the door.
The incident is the latest in a series of gas canister and bomb
attacks by leftist and anarchist
groups that have rocked Greece since the police shooting of a
teenager sparked the country's
worst riots in decades in December.
Earlier this month, a bomb went off outside the Athens stock
exchange market causing extensive
damage to the building. At the same time a home-made bomb exploded
outside a government
building in the northern city of Thessaloniki, causing minor damage.
The Revolutionary Struggle guerrilla group has claimed
responsibility for the Athens bombing,
while the Fire Conspiracy Cells group said it was behind the
Thessaloniki attack.
|
|
Sunday the
6th
of
September 2009
|
Greece heads for early election in October
ATHENS, Greece – The early election that
Greece's embattled
conservative prime minister has
called for
next month — just halfway through his
four-year term — will be a risky bid to
shore up enough support to
reform the country's faltering economy.
Costas
Karamanlis'
New Democracy party holds a tenuous
one-seat majority in
Parliament and has been
trailing in
opinion polls for the past year. The
government has been battered by a series of
financial scandals
and has come under criticism for its
handling of widespread
riots in December and, more recently,
a major
wildfire that burned the outskirts of the
capital this summer.
He
said he needed a fresh mandate to push
through painful but essential
economic reforms during the
global
financial crisis.
Greece
has seen a sharp rise in unemployment and a
rapidly falling economic growth this year,
with the
jobless
rate reaching 9.3 percent in the
first three months of the year and the
International Monetary Fund predicting the
country will enter recession in 2009, with
the economy shrinking by 1.7 percent.
"We
have two difficult years ahead," Karamanlis
said. "2010 in particular will be crucial
for the course of the economy."
Karamanlis, 52, insisted his hand had been
forced by the opposition Socialists, who had
threatened to force an election
in March when the 300-member Parliament
votes for Greece's new president. A
successful candidate would require a
three-fifths majority, or 180 seats — an
amount impossible for the governing New
Democracy party to raise alone.
"In
difficult times, stability and a moderate
climate are needed to promote essential
policies, something that would be
impossible in a climate of electioneering,
of social and political tension," Karamanlis
said after a meeting with
President
Karolos Papoulias on Thursday to
formally present his case for early
elections.
But
Karamanlis, who won a second-year term after
calling another early election in 2007, has
seen his popularity steadily
decline since last September. Some analysts
say that the financial scandals above all
else undermined his appeal among
voters.
One of
the largest was a land-swap deal with a
powerful Greek Orthodox monastery in which
investigators found high-value
state property was traded for cheaper
monastery land at a cost to the state of
about euro100 million.
"It's
not so much the December riots as various
scandals which affected the image of the
prime minister," said Theodoros
Livanios, political and
social research director at Opinion
Market Research. "Rightly or wrongly, when
the prime minister
was elected, he was elected on a banner of
transparency, of (anti-corruption), of
something different. There it seems he
disappointed a significant section of voters."
With
New Democracy trailing the opposition
PASOK party by as much as 6 percentage
points in a poll last weekend,
Karamanlis faces a tough battle to stay in
power.
"Clearly
now New Democracy is entering the home
stretch towards the polls in second place
and with, in
opinion polls
at least, a significant distance from
PASOK," Livanios said. "We're
awaiting the next few days with great
interest to see
to what extent this climate will become
entrenched or whether it will be overturned
and to what extent."
|
|
Wednesday the
2nd
of
September 2009
 |
Bomb damages Athens stock exchange, one
hurt
ATHENS (Reuters) – A car bomb blew up
outside the Athens stock exchange on
Wednesday, damaging
the building extensively and slightly
wounding one woman, in what police suspect
was a new attack by
a leftist or anarchist group.
The
Athens bourse opened normally despite
the blast, which blew out windows on several
floors of the
building and hurled debris hundreds of
meters (yards) away, setting eight nearby
vehicles ablaze.
Police
said a home-made bomb exploded at the same
time outside a government building in the
northern
city of
Thessaloniki, causing minor damage
but no injuries. It was not clear if the two
attacks were connected.
Leftist and anarchist groups have carried
out several attacks on police and businesses
since December
2008, when the
police shooting of a teenager sparked
Greece's worst
riots in decades. Police suspect
one such group planted the bourse bomb.
"All
evidence shows it was a terrorist attack,"
said police spokesman Panayiotis Stathis, as
anti-terrorist
police gathered evidence from the
cordoned-off area and checked video footage.
"We have no claim of
responsibility yet."
An
anonymous caller warned a Greek newspaper of
the attack, whose apparent aim was to damage
the
building but not people. The injured woman
was a cleaner working in a nearby building.
Police
said the makeshift
time bomb contained about 15 kg (33
lb) of
explosive material, planted in a
white
van on a side street beside the exchange. A
nearby car dealership, other
businesses and four apartments
were also damaged.
Inside
the stock exchange, offices were strewn with
broken glass and desks covered with debris,
Reuters
TV images showed.
"It's
the biggest amount of explosives planted in
a car ever to blow up in Greece," said a
police official who
declined to be named.
Police
said the bomb resembled those planted by the
leftist
Revolutionary Struggle, Greece's most
militant
group, which emerged in September 2003 after
the capture of the
November 17 group.
In
2007 it fired a grenade at the U.S. embassy,
hitting its facade, and earlier this year it
shot and seriously
wounded a
police officer outside the Culture
Ministry.
The
Athens stock exchange opened at 0730
GMT and stocks were trading down by 1.44
percent at 1345
GMT.
Athens and Nicosia share a
trading platform.
"The
major blast that occurred outside the Athens
exchange has hurt the building but that has
not affected at
all the operation of our market,"
Athens Stock Exchange Chairman Spyros
Kapralos told Reuters.
Leftist and anarchist guerrilla groups have
claimed responsibility for several attacks
this year on businesses, cars
and police, culminating in the assassination
of a policeman in his car in June by the
Rebel Sect group.
Imitating the November 17 group, which
killed 23 Greeks and foreigners in 27 years
but avoided hurting bystanders,
other Greek guerrilla groups usually strike
at night when businesses are closed to avoid
alienating the public.
|
|
Tuesday the
25th
of
August 2009
|
Massive
wildfire near
Athens nearly
put out
ATHENS, Greece –
With a wildfire
contained after
raging for days
near
Athens,
the Greek
government faced
a different kind
of firestorm
Tuesday as
opposition
parties
and media
lambasted its
response to the
blaze
as inadequate.
Firefighters
patrolled
smoldering areas
north and east
of the capital
Tuesday,
guarding against
flareups
while assessing
the damage.
At least 150
homes have been
damaged,
officials said,
while thousands
of hectares of
pine forest,
olive grove,
brush and
farmland have
been destroyed.
Experts warned
it would take
generations to
replace the
forests,
and that many
were burnt
beyond the hope
of natural
regrowth.
It was the most
destructive
blaze in decades
in the Attica
region, and the
worst in
Greece
since the 2007
wildfires that
burned for more
than two months
and killed 76
people while
laying waste
275,000 hectares
(679,500 acres).
Officials have
not said how the
fire was started
Friday night.
Hundreds of
forest blazes
plague Greece
every
summer and some
are set
intentionally —
often by
unscrupulous
land developers
or animal
farmers seeking
to expand their grazing land.
Main opposition
Pasok party
leader George
Papandreou
called the
devastation "a
crime."
"This
destruction is
totally
inexcusable
because it could
have been
avoided,"
Papandreou said.
"It would have
been avoided had
a lesson been
learned from
(the fires of)
2007."
Papandreou
accused the
government of
failing to
coordinate its
response, not
taking decisive
action against
rogue
developers and
not making
proper use of
volunteers.
Throughout the
four-day fight,
volunteers tried
to beat back the
flames with pine
branches,
buckets of water
and
garden hoses,
while several
local mayors
were sharply
critical of the
help they
received from
the government.
The conservative
government
defended its
effort in
fighting the
fire, which
involved
water-dropping
aircraft from
Italy,
Cyprus
and France.
Government
spokesman
Evangelos
Antonaros said
the effort had
been "well-coordinated."
The government
said Tuesday it
would provide
financial aid to
the owners of
legally built
homes that were
destroyed
or damaged in
the fires.
Greek newspapers
said, however,
that the
government had
learned nothing
from the 2007
wildfires, and
had failed to
improve
fire protection
measures
and equipment
from two years
ago.
"Fatal errors
and omissions,"
the conservative
daily
Kathimerini
said in a
front-page
headline. "The
same mistakes
were
repeated all over ... lack of coordination, a faulty assessment of the
situation,
delays and
infighting."
Opposition
papers were even
more critical.
The daily
Eleftherotypia
headlined one
story on the
fires with "The
Criminal State."
Another daily
Ta Nea
wrote "It's the
pine trees'
fault!" — a
headline mocking
Monday's
statement by
Antonaros that
said "Pine
trees may be
beautiful but
they impede
firefighting
efforts."
The fire broke
out Friday night
in a mountainous
area near the
town of Marathon
— site of one of
ancient
history's most
famous
battlegrounds.
For days a pall
of smoke hung
over
Athens,
cloaking capital
in an eerie
brown half-light.
Most of Mount
Penteli, which
separates
Athens from the
Marathon plain,
was scorched to
its 1,109-meter
(3,638-foot)
peak.
Before
firefighters
managed to
contain the
flames Monday,
some 21,000
hectares (51,890
acres) of
pine forest,
olive grove and
farmland had
been destroyed,
according to the
European Forest
Fire
Information
System.
Some 500
firefighters,
assisted by 300
soldiers,
patrolled the
area Tuesday, a
firefighting
spokesman said.
From the air,
three
planes and one
helicopter were
dropping water
on the remaining
flames, after 19
aircraft
involved Monday
unleashed some
14,000
tons of water on
the Athens
blaze.
A fire was still
burning Tuesday
near villages on
Evia island,
east of the
capital, and
another to the
northwest near
the coastal town
of Porto Germeno
was under
partial control,
the spokesman
said.
Communist Party
leader Aleka
Papariga said
the government
had been
"ineffective and
disorganized" in
responding to
what she
claimed was an
organized move
by land
speculators.
"The government
must account for
... the lack of
a master plan,
the delay in
acquiring
adequate
equipment to
fight the fires
from
the air and the
lack of trained
personnel."
|
|
Sunday the 23th of
August 2009
Ntrafi suburb of Penteli mountain in Athens
Residents watch a
forest fire in the Anthousa suburb of
Athens
|
Tens of thousands flee raging
wildfires in Greece
ATHENS, Greece – A raging wildfire raced
down a mountain slope in
Greece toward the
town of Marathon
on Sunday, nearing two ancient temples while
despairing residents pleaded for
firefighters and equipment
that were nowhere to be seen.
Tens of thousands of residents of Athens'
northern suburbs evacuated their homes,
fleeing in cars or on foot.
Several houses were destroyed as the fire
advanced across an area more than 31 miles
(50 kilometers) wide.
More than 90 wildfires have ignited since
Saturday across Greece, and six major fires
were burning late Sunday.
The Athens fire began on Mt. Penteli, which
divides
Athens from the Marathon plain, and
has spread down
both sides of the mountain.
Driven by gale-force winds, the blaze grew
fastest near Marathon, from which the modern
long-distance
foot race
takes its name.
"If they do not come right now, the fire
will be uncontrollable. Please, bring two or
three
fire engines at least ...
for God's sake," Vassilis Tzilalis, a
resident of the seaside resort of Nea Makri,
near Marathon, told TV channel Mega.
One resident, Nikos Adamopoulos, said he had
driven over a large part of the area and saw
no firefighters.
"The Museum of Marathon is being encircled
by fire and flames are closing in on (the
archaeological site of)
Rhamnus," he told The Associated Press.
Rhamnus is home to two 2,500-year-old
temples.
The mayor of Marathon said he had been "begging
the government to send over planes and
helicopters" to no avail.
"There are only two fire engines here; three
houses are already on fire and we are just
watching helplessly,"
mayor Spyros Zagaris told Greek TV.
Zagaris was among several local leaders who
accused the government of having no plan to
fight the fire.
Finance Minister Yiannis Papathanassiou
responded: "This is not the time for
criticism under these tragic conditions.
We are fighting a difficult fight." Another
official said emergency workers were
exhausted.
"The firefighters, soldiers and volunteers
fighting the fire are tired and their
equipment is being used constantly and there
is fatigue there too," said
deputy Interior Minister Christos
Markoyiannakis.
Other officials said help was on the way.
Two planes were expected from France, and
Cyprus was sending a helicopter,
four fire engines and 60 firefighters,
fire brigade spokesman Yiannis
Kapakis said.
The Ministry of Defense announced that
Austria will send six planes and
helicopters.
Opposition politicians have been restrained
in their criticism so far.
But both Communist Party leader
Aleka Papariga and Giorgos
Karatzaferis, head of populist right-wing
Popular Orthodox Rally,
said the government had learned nothing from
the catastrophic fires of August 2007, when
70 people died and several villages
were totally destroyed in southern Greece.
A shift in wind helped halt the flames in
the town of
Agios Stefanos, an Athens suburb on
the opposite side of the mountain
from Marathon. Most of its 10,000
inhabitants had evacuated Sunday afternoon.
By nightfall, the town was empty,
authorities said.
The nine helicopters and 14 planes that
operated during the day, including two
planes sent from Italy, dumped some 4,000
tons
of water on the fire, but apparently without
much success. Television showed airplanes
and helicopters dropping water on
a forest outside Agios Stefanos — and the
fire re-igniting moments after they left.
About 58 square miles (37,000 acres) of
pine forest, brush and olive groves
have burned. The forests around Athens'
northern
suburbs have helped the fire spread.
"The
pine cones are like projectiles —
they cover long distances, too, and spread
the fire around," said Avraam Pasipoularidis,
mayor of the northern suburb of Drossia. "Everything
around me is burning."
Authorities evacuated two large children's
hospitals, as well as campsites and homes in
villages and outlying suburbs threatened
by blazes that scattered ash across
Athens. The flames also approached a
large monastery on Mt. Penteli.
Many feared heavy afternoon traffic as
Athens residents returned from their summer
holidays, but people heeded calls to
postpone
their return to allow firefighters room to
moved around.
Elsewhere in
Greece, serious fires were reported
on the islands of Evia and
Skyros in the
Aegean Sea and
Zakynthos
in the west. Another large fire that started
Saturday in the town of Plataea, 40 miles
(63 kilometers) northwest of Athens,
was spreading unchecked in western
Attica. |
|
Saturday the 22th of
August 2009
|
Greece
Declares State of Emergency Over Fire North of Athens
Greece declared a state of emergency as a major forest fire northeast of
the capital Athens was fanned toward homes by high winds.
The region affected was eastern Attica,
according to Margaritis Mouzas, head of the country’s Civil Protection
Agency,
according to
a statement posted on its Web
site. The situation is “difficult” because the fire’s in a forest
containing a number of homes,
Fire Department spokesman Ioannis Kapakis said in televised statement on
state TV NET.
Twelve aircraft were involved in battling the
blaze, at Grammatikos, about 40 kilometers northeast of the capital, as
well as seven
helicopters, 53 fire engines and a force of 160 firefighters, assisted
by 50 additional firefighters and the air force.
Reinforcements were expected, Kapakis said, and
he also called for residents to assist those who need to evacuate the
immediate
area. Early in the day, the high winds sent smoke from the fires over
downtown Athens.
Greece suffers dozens of fires daily over the
summer period with most being brought under control in a matter of hours.
Two years ago this month, scorching temperatures and high winds combined
to cause over 250 blazes,
which killed 65 people and destroyed 250,000 acres of forest and
farmland.
The country declared a national emergency on Aug. 25, 2007, deploying
nearly 15,000 firefighters to put out the flames.
The blazes fires left 2,500 people homeless.
Kapakis said fires were also affecting the
islands of Skyros and Zakynthos.
|
|
Thursday the 20th of
August 2009
|
Fire rages near
Athens, threatens homes
A wildfire raged close to a village near the
Greek capital Athens, sending people fleeing
from their homes and workplaces
and damaging
buildings. More than 100 fire
fighters with 25 fire engines and five
helicopters battled the flames in an industrial
area near Magoula, about 20km northwest of
Athens, while strong winds fanned the blaze.
Residents and workers with hoses and buckets
filled with water stood by, while a warehouse
and two trucks were on fire,
a witness said.
"There are strong winds in the area. We are
concerned because the fire is raging near
factory warehouses," a fire officer said.
Gale-force winds fanned more than 50 blazes
across Greece, the fire brigade said, urging
people to avoid activities that could
trigger a
fire.
Another fire burning in central Greece, near the
town of Astakos, had damaged at least two houses,
officials said.
About 30 fire fighters, 11 fire
engines and three aircraft were trying to tame
the flames.
Wildfires are frequent in Greece during the
summer, often caused by high temperatures,
drought or arson.
Hundreds of fires have
scorched swathes of forest land across the
country since the beginning of August.
Greece saw its deadliest wildfires in memory in
2007, when blazes on the island of Evia and the
southern Peloponnese
peninsula raged for more
than 10 days, sweeping through dozens of
villages and killing 65 people.
|
|
Monday the 17th of
August 2009
|
Wildfire rages in Greece for second day
ATHENS (Reuters) -
A big forest fire raged out of control
for a second day in central Greece on
Tuesday but was no longer threatening
local villages after the winds that fanned it changed direction, the fire
brigade said.
Wildfires, mostly
triggered by high temperatures, drought
or arson, are frequent in Greece during
the summer. Greece declared a state
of emergency in 2007 during a 10-day
blaze that killed 65 people.
"We are still
fighting to bring the blaze under
control," a fire brigade spokesman said.
"It has changed direction and no
villages
are threatened
any more," he said.
On Monday,
locals used hoses to fight the flames at
the village of Prodromos, about 100 km
(62 miles) west of the capital Athens.
Children and
elderly residents were rushed to the
village square as a safety precaution,
the local mayor told Greek radio.
Two fire-fighting
planes, four helicopters, 26 fire
engines and about 90 firefighters were
operating in the area, the fire brigade
spokesman said.
|
|
Wednesday the 5th of
August 2009
|
Former Greek
junta minister Makarezos dies aged 90
ATHENS, Greece –
Nikolaos Makarezos, one of the
leaders of the
military dictatorship that ruled
Greece from 1967-1974,
has died at age 90.
Colonel Makarezos, the
junta's chief economic policymaker
who served as
deputy prime minister and minister
for coordination
under dictator
George Papadopoulos, died Monday,
Greek media reported. He was buried Tuesday.
Makarezos was
arrested after the fall of the dictatorship
in 1974 and sentenced to death for treason —
a sentence later commuted
to
life imprisonment. He was released in
1990 on the grounds of poor health.
Together with
Colonel Papadopoulos and Brigadier
Stylianos Pattakos, Makarezos was a
ringleader of the military coup that seized
power on April 21, 1967. Democracy was
restored in 1974 after an abortive Athens-backed
coup in Cyprus that led to Turkey
invading the island. |
|
Friday the 1st of
August 2009
 |
ATHENS,
(Reuters) - Greece will vaccinate its entire population of
12 million against the H1N1 swine flu pandemic which has
swept around the world in weeks, killing hundreds of people,
the country's health minister said on Friday.
The Mediterranean country,
which receives about 15 million tourists every year, has
confirmed more than 700 swine flu cases
and no deaths, but world health experts say the true number
of cases globally is far higher as only a few patients get
tested.
"We decided that the entire population, all citizens and
residents, without any exception, will be vaccinated against
the flu
" Health Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos said after a
ministerial meeting.
Greece has already earmarked
40 million euros for vaccines and has placed orders with
Novartis, Glaxo and Sanofi for
8 million vaccine doses, to be received gradually by January.
Vaccine experts say people
will likely need two doses of vaccine to be protected from
H1N1 swine flu, so Greece would
need a total of 24 million doses to vaccinate its entire
population. Other countries are taking similar steps.
"Greece will order 16 million
more doses from the same companies in the future," a health
ministry official who declined
to be named told Reuters. "We are only waiting for the
European Union's approval to start vaccinating everyone."
The European Medicines Agency
has begun reviewing pandemic flu vaccines under development,
aiming to get them
approved before the flu season starts, sometime in September.
The health ministry official
said children, the elderly and ailing would be the first to
be vaccinated.
About 800 people have died
worldwide since the outbreak of the flu in April.
|
|
Wednesday the 28th
of July 2009
 |
Greek fire-fighters contain blazes near
Athens More than 150 fire-fighters
aided by water-dropping planes and helicopters battled two big blazes
fanned by strong
winds in the Aspropyrgos and Ano Liosia areas northwest of the capital,
officials said.
No homes were threatened and the fires were
under control late Tuesday.
Earlier, authorities closed sections of an
Athens highway for more than an hour, disrupting traffic to the city's
international airport.
Officials said two fire-fighters were lightly
injured when their truck overturned on the way to a smaller blaze east
of the capital. It was soon extinguished.
The Fire Service issued warnings for greater
Athens, other eastern parts of the country, and the island of Crete,
after temperatures reached 43 degrees Celsius in parts of the country over
the weekend.
Greece earlier this month introduced wide-ranging
fire fighting measures, including tougher penalties for arsonists
and broader powers to evacuate fire-stricken areas.
Massive blazes in southern Greece two years ago
killed more than 70 people.
Two more fires were also contained Tuesday on
the western island of Zakynthos and the eastern island of Samos.
A separate fire on Zakynthos on Sunday damaged
a nature reserve and prompted the coast guard to evacuate
70 people from a beach cut off by the blaze.
Authorities say they suspect arsonists started
the blaze
|
|
Sunday the 26th of
July 2009
 |
More than 50 wildfires break
out across Greece
ATHENS, Greece (AP) - More than 50
wildfires broke out Sunday in Greece, fanned by high
winds.
The largest was a brush fire
that ignited early in the evening on the western island
of Zakynthos and is raging
unchecked.
The area where the fire is
burning is a breeding ground for the endangered
loggerhead sea turtle. It also trapped
some 70 beach-goers, both Greek and foreign, who were
evacuated by boats.
Winds are expected to pick up
Monday, reaching up to 74 kilometers per hour (46 mph),
leading authorities to
warn of a high probability of more fires.
|
|
Wednesday the 15th
of July 2009
 |
Greek island
takes olive tree census
ATHENS (AFP) – Scientists are trying to
catalogue hundreds of
olive trees, some more than 1,000
years old
on the
Greek island of Crete in a bid to
save them from abandonment amid falling
olive prices, an agronomy i
nstitute said on Wednesday.
Olives have for centuries been a
Cretan staple and a major source of income
but falling prices threaten the trees
as the crop is unprofitable.
Some of trees date
back more than 1,000 years, as old as
Greece's famed archaeological
treasures, scientists say
"We want to determine the age of these
natural monuments and protect them,"
Dimitris Lidakis, director of Crete's
School of Agronomy told AFP.
Hundreds of olive
trees have already been cleared for
construction, prompting the environmental
initiative organised
by some 30 associations and supported by the
local technical institute.
Organiser Bella
Lasithiotaki said there was one
olive tree in the northern village of
Vrysses in Rethymno prefecture
that was more than 1,000 years old, with a
trunk around 20 metres (66 feet) in
circumference.
Another four trees
of the same age have been located in the
neighbouring prefecture of Iraklio, the
semi-state
Athens
News Agency reported.
On a visit to
Greece last year,
Chinese President Hu Jintao visited a
Crete archaeological cooperative
where he
helped workers picking olives.
|
|
Sunday the 05th of
July 2009
 |
Iran freed a Greek
journalist
Iran on Sunday freed Iason Athanasiadis, a Greek
journalist who had been reporting for The Washington
Times
when he was arrested more than two weeks ago.
Iranian state television
quoted a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Hasan
Qashqavi, as saying that
Mr. Athanasiadis had been released under the
framework of ties between Iran and Greece, the
Associated
Press reported.
The freelance journalist
was detained June 17 at the Tehran airport as he
prepared to leave Iran in the aftermath
of disputed June 12 presidential elections.
Greek authorities, who had
taken the lead in negotiating the release, confirmed
that the reporter had been freed.
"I am deeply satisfied over
the release of Iason Athanasiadis. . . . [We were]
in constant, close contact with the
Iranian Foreign Ministry," Greek Foreign Minister
Dora Bakoyannis said Sunday, according to the AP.
The Greek Foreign Ministry
said the reporter "will depart Tehran within the day,"
the news agency added.
|
|
Friday the 03rd of
July 2009
|
Bomb damages McDonalds restaurant in Athens, police suspect
far-left extremists
ATHENS, Greece - A time bomb
exploded outside a McDonalds restaurant in central
Athens early Friday, causing
extensive damage in what Greek authorities suspect was
an attack by resurgent far-left terrorists.
Police said the bomb went off
at 4:37 a.m. (0147 GMT) in the central Ambelokipi
district, when the fast food restaurant
was closed. Anonymous warning calls made to two Athens
newspapers before the attack allowed officers to cordon
off the area before the explosion, and there were no
injuries.
The blast shattered windows in
nearby shops and apartment blocks, leaving broken glass
and dead pigeons on pavements.
There was no immediate claim of
responsibility, but police spokesman Panagiotis Stathis
said police suspect a group that
calls itself Revolutionary Struggle.
The group, which the U.S.
designated as an international terrorist organization in
May, has carried out more than a dozen
bomb and shooting attacks since 2003, including a
bloodless 2007 rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy in
Athens.
In January, the group claimed
responsibility for a shooting attack that severely
wounded a riot policeman guarding a ministry
building in central Athens.
Stathis said Friday's attack
was clearly aimed at the McDonalds restaurant.
"The McDonalds restaurant was
definitely the target," Stathis said. "The bomb was
placed under a wheelchair ramp outside it.
The warning call also named the restaurant."
Shortly afterwards, an
incendiary device consisting of camping gas canisters
exploded outside an Athens immigration policy
centre, while a similar device went off outside the
office of former public order minister Sifis Valyrakis.
Neither of those attacks
caused any injuries.
Greek militants have stepped up
attacks following the fatal police shooting of an Athens
teenager in December, which sparked
the country's worst rioting in decades.
In the bloodiest incident so
far, gunmen shot dead an anti-terrorist officer guarding
a witness in Athens on June 17.
Small anarchist groups have
also intensified arson attacks on symbols of wealth and
state power, to protest government social
and economic policies.
|
|
Friday the 19th of
June 2009
 |
Greece's
Acropolis Museum to open
ATHENS (AFP) – Greece's Acropolis Museum
will finally be unveiled on Saturday, an
ultra-modern glass building at the foot
of the ancient citadel originally intended
to be open in time for the 2004 Olympics.
Designed by celebrated
Franco-Swiss architect
Bernard Tschumi, it offers panoramic
views of the stone citadel and showcases
sculptures from the golden age of
Athenian democracy in the fifth
century BCE.
The three-level
building set out over a total area of 25,000
square metres (270,000 square feet) will
display more than 350
artefacts and sculptures that were
previously held in a small museum atop the
Acropolis.
"After several
adventures, obstructions and criticism, the
new Acropolis Museum is ready: a
symbol of modern Greece that
pays homage to its ancestors, the duty of a nation to its
cultural heritage," Greek Culture
Minister
Antonis Samaras told journalists.
The first floor of
the museum holds a series of objects
including antique ceramics, bas reliefs and
sculptures.
The Caryatids,
columns sculpted as females holding up the
roof of a porch on the southern side of the
Erectheum temple,
dominate the top of a glass ramp leading up
the second floor, on which sculptures from
the Temple of Athena and the
Propylaea entrance to the Acropolis will be
displayed.
The third floor,
with natural light streaming in, contains a
reconstruction of the Parthenon Marbles. It
is based upon several
elements that remain in
Athens as well as copies of the
marbles still housed in the
British Museum in London, which are
differentiated by their white colour.
Greece has long pursued a campaign
for the return of the priceless friezes,
removed in 1806 by Lord Elgin when Greece
was occupied by the Ottoman Empire and which
the British Museum refuses to repatriate.
"For the first time
visitors can see all of the friezes together
and understand the problem of the dispersion
of the pieces
between London and Athens," said museum
president Dimitris Pantermalis.
British Museum officials were
nevertheless invited to the opening of the
new museum and were set to attend, although
they
insisted there was no change of position on
the return of the priceless artefacts.
"The museum is a
catalyst for the repatriation of the friezes
that were taken away and looted," said
Samaras.
Since 1974
successive Greek governments have tried to
get a new museum built, but it was only
after Tschumi's design
won a fourth competition in 2001 that
construction got under way.
The new museum was
intended to open in time for the 2004
Olympic Games in Athens, but that
target date fell by the
wayside due to technical and bureaucratic
hurdles.
Not the least of
them was the discovery of the remains of
ancient buildings under the proposed site of
the museum on
the southern slope of the
Acropolis. The problem was resolved
by incorporating the ruins into part of the
museum's display.
The museum, built
on a budget of 130 million euros (180
million dollars), can welcome up to 10,000
visitors per day.
|
|
Wednesday the 18th
of June 2009
|
ATHENS, Greece - Gunmen killed an anti-terrorist
policeman guarding a witness in central Athens
on Wednesday in a
brazen escalation of domestic militant attacks
prompted by massive riots in December.
The death of 41-year-old
Nektarios Savvas, whose body was riddled with
more than 18 bullets, is the first killing
attributed
to terrorism in Greece for several years.
"There was no warning,
no telephone calls," police spokesman Panagiotis
Stathis said. "This was a cold-blooded murder."
The officer had been
guarding the home of a key witness in the trial
of the now defunct far-left Greek terrorist
group Revolutionary
Popular Struggle, known by its Greek acronym ELA.
There was no evidence to suggest the gunmen
attempted to approach
the witness' home, and authorities believed the
officer was the target.
In 2004, four people
were sentenced to 25 years in prison for being
involved with ELA, but all have appealed. The
witness
Savvas was guarding had testified in both the
original trial and the appeals case, which is
expected to continue for several months.
There was no immediate
claim of responsibility, but police matched
bullets from the scene to a gun used in previous
attacks
by Greece's newest terrorist group, Sect of
Revolutionaries. The group emerged earlier this
year in the aftermath of massive
riots in December triggered by the fatal police
shooting of a teenager. It pledged to avenge the
boy's death, bursting onto the
scene in February with a gun and grenade attack on an Athens police
station that caused no injuries.
Greece has seen a wave
of domestic terrorist attacks since the riots,
many targeting the police. But most have been
late-night
bombings or shootings that have caused no injuries.
"From one minute to the
next, after the events of December, the police
force was suddenly on the ropes, in a situation
where
all of its actions were viewed in a negative
context," Stathis said.
Greek terror groups
have been active in Greece for decades, but have
never aimed for mass casualties. They modeled
themselves
more on the 1970s European radical groups that
carried out targeted killings, such as Italy's
Red Brigades or Germany's
Red Army Faction.
Most such organizations
are now defunct in the rest of Europe, but they
endured in Greece, where they emerged from
resistance to the country's 1967-74 military
dictatorship that left a legacy of deep-rooted
mistrust of authority. They have
sought to portray themselves as urban revolutionaries who champion the
poor and fight for the oppressed, and to espouse
anti-capitalist, anti-American and anti-European
Union rhetoric.
Sect of Revolutionaries
had vowed to kill policemen in particular, as
well as prominent journalists and politicians.
Police, "like the
doughnuts that they eat, are no good without a
hole in the middle," the group had said in a
crudely
written proclamation claiming responsibility for
its first attack.
At the time, experts
had said the statement was noteworthy for the
lack of any serious attempt to project a
political ideology.
"We don't do politics,
we do guerrilla warfare," the group said in its
statement.
Greece's conservative
government denounced Wednesday's shooting as a "cowardly
murderous attack."
Police said at least
three gunmen opened fire on the officer who was
sitting in an unmarked car in the residential
Patissia district at about 6:20 a.m. (0320GMT).
Witnesses described hearing motorcycles speeding
away shortly
after the shooting, while Stathis said forensic
experts had collected at least 24 bullet
casings.
Coroner Philippos
Koutsaftis said Savvas suffered multiple gunshot
wounds to the body and head, and had not had
time to draw his gun.
"He was carrying a gun
which was holstered. He was hit many times by
shots that appear to have been fired at
close range," Koutsaftis said.
Savvas died at the
scene. Television footage showed him slumped
over in the driver's seat of the dark-colored
unmarked
vehicle as authorities cordoned off the area
|
|
Tuesday the 16th of
June 2009
 |
Greece's first
wildfires sweep Athens area
ATHENS, Greece, June 16 (UPI)
-- Firefighters Tuesday
brought under control
wildfires sweeping pine
trees on Mount
Hymettus outside Athens and
on nearby Evia Island, Greek
authorities said.
More than 100 firefighters,
along with eight water-dropping
planes and two helicopters,
Monday began extinguishing
the fires,
which were fanned by strong winds.
State prosecutors opened an
inquiry into the cause of
the fires -- the first of
the season in Greece, the
Athens News Agency
reported.
The blazes broke out at
midday Monday in open land
covered with low vegetation
and bushes in the posh Ano
Glyfada district
in the southern Athens
coastal region.
|
|
Sunday the 07th of
June 2009
|
Greece’s Ruling Party Defeated in European
Parliament Elections
Greece’s ruling New Democracy party was defeated in elections for the
European Parliament, heightening pressure
on Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis to call early elections.
The main opposition socialist Pasok party yesterday won 36.7 percent of
the vote compared with 32.7 percent for
the New Democracy party, with 91 percent of the vote counted, the
Interior Ministry said on its Web site. The Communist
Party of Greece was third strongest, with 8.2 percent of the vote.
Karamanlis’s government has trailed the socialists, led by George
Papandreou, for nearly a year, hurt by corruption scandals
and unpopular tax measures amid a worsening economic outlook.
Karamanlis, whose party has 151 seats in the 300-seat
national parliament, has refused continuous calls from the opposition for
early elections over the economy.
“Pasok has demanded elections for some time to free the country from
policies that drag us down and insult us all,”
Papandreou said. “Today, this demand has become a popular demand. It is
the message of the polls. The prime minister
can no longer obstruct Greeks from a change of course.”
Karamanlis said the high number of Greeks who didn’t vote, about one in
two, was a more important indicator of the election
result.
“The election result doesn’t satisfy us, of course,” he said. “It’s
clear that a significant number of New Democracy
voters chose to protest, mainly by not voting.” He pledged “more
effective leadership” to lead the country through the
economic crisis.
With the second-highest debt in the European Union after Italy, and
under the European Union’s watch for running
continuous budget shortfalls, Greece’s government can’t increase
spending to alleviate the impact of the global
financial crisis.
Gross domestic product contracted 1.2 percent from the previous three
months and expanded 0.3 percent from a year
earlier, according to figures announced last week, the slowest pace of
annual growth since 1993.
|
|
Friday
the 26th of May 2009
 |
Muslims in fresh Athens demo over alleged
Koran insult
ATHENS (AFP) – More than 1,000 Muslim
migrants and leftists demonstrated in Athens
Friday over an alleged police
insult to the
Koran, a week after two similar
protests degenerated into clashes with anti-riot
police.
The
protest was called by leftist and anti-racist
groups after a police officer allegedly tore
up some sheets of paper with
extracts from the Muslim holy book belonging
to an Iraqi migrant during an identity check
last week.
"We want this
officer put on trial, and we ask the
government to protect our prayer sites in
Athens," said Zuri, a Moroccan
protester.
"But we intend to
set a good example and refrain from
violence, Islam is a
religion of peace," he said.
Scores of police on
foot and on motorbikes were mobilised to
maintain order and keep the migrants who
marched on
parliament from coming into contact with a
few dozen neo-Nazi militants staging a
street gathering a few blocks away.
The far-right group
was commemorating the
fall of Constantinople, capital of
the
Byzantine Empire, to the Ottoman
Turks in 1453.
Greece's main
Muslim and migrant organisations distanced
themselves from the migrant demonstration,
preferring to
take judicial action instead.
"Our problems can
be solved by dialogue, not demonstrations,"
said Ahmet Moavia, head of the Greek
Migrants' Forum.
"The real agenda is
migrants' rights in
Greece which include issues of
religion," he told AFP.
"Muslim Arabs will
not participate because there is a political
agenda which has nothing to do with Islam,"
said Naim El Gadour,
chairman of the Muslim Union of Greece.
"We filed a
complaint against the officer, we chose the
path of justice and peace and we will adhere
to it."
Rights groups
report an increase in racist attacks on
migrants in Athens in recent weeks. Last
weekend, unknown assailants
set fire to a basement flat housing a mosque
and injured five men from
Bangladesh sleeping inside.
More than a dozen
migrants and police were injured last week
in clashes that marred two days of Muslim
rallies over the alleged
insult to the
Koran.
Scores of cars and
a handful of shops had their windows smashed.
Police made 46
arrests at the time.
Muslim groups have
demanded an apology over the incident which
the government has so far failed to give.
Calls to identify the officer who allegedly
tore the Koranic verses have also been
ignored.
Community elders
also note that Greece has failed to honour
years of pledges to build a mosque and a
cemetery in
Athens where over 100,000 Muslims live.
There are around
one million migrants legally living in
Greece, roughly nine percent of the
country's population, most of them
from neighbouring
Albania.
Another
80,000-100,000 migrants are believed to be
residing in the country illegally according
to the interior ministry.
|
|
Tuesday
the 26th of May 2009
 |
British 'naughty nuns' arrested in Crete
were members of football club
British 'naughty nuns' arrested in Crete were members of football club
Men aged between 18 and 65 were on annual trip
with Sunday league team from Bristol when they were detained by police
The 17 British tourists arrested in Crete while dressed as "naughty nuns"
over the weekend were all members of a
football club, it was reported today.
The men, aged between 18 and 65, were on an annual trip with the Hanham
Athletic Sunday league team, from Bristol
when they were detained by police in Malia, a resort known for rowdy and
drunken behaviour during the summer. |
|
Saturday the 23rd of May 2009
 |
Clashes break out in Greece over Koran
incident
The Muslim Union of Greece says that during police checks at a Syrian-owned
coffee shop, an officer took a
customer's Koran, tore it up, threw it on the floor and stomped on it.
Police have launched an investigation.
About 1,500 Muslims marched through Athens to protest against the
incident, chanting "Allah is great," carrying
banners reading "Hands off immigrants" and holding up copies of Islam's
holy book.
"They started throwing rocks and sticks at police guarding parliament
and the officers responded with tear gas and
percussion bombs," a police official said.
The protesters pulled up pavements, smashed about a dozen shop windows
and damaged cars, leaving some overturned
in the middle of streets. Bus stops and traffic lights were destroyed
and shocked tourists ran into hotels on the central
Syndagma Square for cover.
Police said 46 protesters were arrested. Seven Muslims and another seven
policemen were injured and brought to hospital
for treatment. About 75 cars, five stores and one bank were damaged,
according to a police statement.
"We want to live here in peace, we don't want trouble but we want the
policeman to be punished," said a 30-year-old
illegal Egyptian immigrant who identified himself as Said.
It was the second protest since the reported incident. On Thursday,
about 1,000 immigrants, many from Syria, Pakistan
and Afghanistan, marched to centrally located Omonia Square, smashing
several shop windows and five cars.
The Muslim Union, representing thousands of immigrants in Athens, said
it had filed a lawsuit against the unidentified policeman.
"Police told us they need more time for the internal investigation so we
went ahead and filed a suit," union president
Naim Elghandour told Reuters.
Deputy Public Order Minister Christos Markogiannakis said that the
incident was isolated and that it didn't justify the
immigrants' violent outburst.
"We call on the economic migrants who live in Greece to respect the rule
of law and we point out that the state won't allow
such extreme behaviour,"
Markogiannakis said in the statement.
Thousands of immigrants, many from Muslim countries, cross into Greece
illegally every year seeking a better life in the West
Trapped in legal limbo, most have no jobs, live in squalid conditions
and are often arrested for minor crimes.
On May 9, members of a rightist group attacked immigrants in Athens,
sending at least three to hospital. Rights groups
accuse predominantly Orthodox Christian Greece of not doing enough to
protect immigrants.
Greece says the burden of being the main entry point for illegal
immigration into Europe is too heavy to bear alone and
has asked its EU partners for help.
|
|
Tuesday the 26th of May 2009
 |
Greek court annuls first gay weddings
Athens - A Greek court on Tuesday annulled the first set of gay
marriages which took place last summer on the tiny
eastern Aegean island of Tilos. The Court of First Instance on the
island of Rhodes, under the judicial jurisdiction of which
Tilos falls, decided to annul the civil weddings of two couples performed
by Tilos Mayor Tassos Aliferis in June 2008
considering them "illegal."
Vassilis Hirdaris, a lawyer for the two couples
told the German Press-Agency dpa, that they will take their case to the
country's Supreme Court and the European Court of Justice.
"The civil marriage law does not specify gender -
thus these marriages cannot be annulled and the courts ruling goes
against the Constitution of Equality of Gender."
"There is a need to adapt the law to suit the
modern state of society," he added.
The mayor had performed the civil ceremonies for
the two couples, one gay and one lesbian, in defiance of the
Minister of Justice, the Greek Orthodox Church and a prosecutors ban to
stop them from taking place as well
Aliferis was later charged with breach of duty
by a prosecutor. The charges, which carry a maximum five-year prison
sentence, were later dropped.
The ceremonies were conducted after a lesbian
organization in Greece said it had discovered a loophole in a 26-year-old
civil marriage law that would allow gays to marry legally.
The group, OLKE, said a 1982 law legalizing
weddings and civil ceremonies refers only to participating "persons,"
without specifying gender.
The Justice Ministry recently introduced civil
partnership legislation granting legal rights to unmarried couples,
but gays are not included in the law.
Gays are protected under Greek
anti-discrimination laws, but gay groups complain they still face
widespread discrimination,
both in public and at work.
Greece's powerful Orthodox Church is staunchly
opposed to granting gays legal rights and accepting common law marriages.
|
|
Sunday the 26th of April 2009
 |
Acropolis museum
to open in June
ATHENS (AFP) – The
ultra-modern Acropolis museum, situated
below the ancient landmark that defines the
Greek capital Athens,
will belatedly open in June, Greek Culture Minister
Antonis Samaras said Sunday.
"We are preparing a
jewel of a museum whose opening on June 20
will be a major, global event," said Samaras
after giving
European Commission President Jose Manuel
Barroso a guided tour of the venue.
The three-level
museum, with a total area of 25,000 square
metres (270,000 square feet), includes a
section reserved for the
disputed Parthenon Marbles, currently at the
British Museum in London.
Greece is pursuing a campaign for the
return of the priceless friezes, removed in
1806 by Lord Elgin when Greece was occupied
by the Ottoman Empire, which the British Museum refuses to repatriate.
Designed by Franco-Swiss
architect
Bernard Tschumi, the Acropolis museum
was supposed to open in time for the 2004
Olympic Games in Athens, but that
target date fell by the wayside due to
technical and bureaucratic hurdles.
Controversial plans
for a lavish opening ceremony and global
promotional launch -- at an estimated to
cost six million euros
(7.9 million dollars) -- were scrapped
earlier this year.
Barosso said after
his visit: "I believe that Greeks should be
proud of this excellent museum. It is one of
the world's most
important for our heritage, the heritage of
Europeans but also of
world culture."
|
|
Friday the 18th of April 2009
|
Orthodox Christians to celebrate Easter
On Sunday, area Eastern Orthodox churches will celebrate Christ's
resurrection. The holiday comes one week after thousands
of midstate Christian churches of the Western rite celebrated Easter.
The Orthodox Easter is based on a decree of the Council of Nicea in the
year 325, said Christopher Radanovic, the vice president
of St. Nicholas Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church in Oberlin.
"Pascha, or Easter, must be celebrated on the Sunday following the first
full moon of the vernal equinox and always after the
Hebrew Passover," he said. "This maintains the biblical sequence of
events of the crucifixion and resurrection."
|
|
Friday the 10th of April 2009
 |
At least 3 injured in school
shooting in central Athens
An unprecedented school shooting was reported just before 8 am local
time Thursday morning in central Athens, with three
students injured, one seriously.
According to Athens News Agency, no information was given yet on the
fate of the gunman who is also a student of the
Manpower Employment Organization's (OAED) vocational training
programmes.
The suspect also reportedly shot himself. The incident took place at a
facility on Petrou Ralli street, in downtown Athens.
All of the injured were taken to a nearby hospital.
The incident would mark the first time a spree-type shooting by a
student occurs in a Greek school.
|
|
Friday the 3rd of April 2009
|
Two Greek policemen shot in Athens
ATHENS, Greece, April 3 (UPI) -- A man shot and wounded two Greek police
officers Friday in Athens' Kypseli residential
district and fled the scene on a motorbike, authorities said.
The two officers were taken to a hospital. One, 30, was was critically
wounded in the neck and the other, 26, suffered light
head injuries. the Athens News Agency reported.
The assailant approached the officers and fired from close range while
they were trying to arrest another man who reportedly
planned to steal a car in Kypseli's Grava neighborhood.
The two officers wore vests and helments.
After the shooting, the two men collected the officers' weapons and cell
phones and drove away on a motobike |
|
Thursday the 2nd of April 2009
 |
General strike against spending cuts 2 days
ago
ATHENS - Greek public services closed down and transport was
disrupted across the country Thursday as thousands
of workers went on strike to protest government spending cuts.
Up to 10,000 people marched peacefully through central Athens shouting
"No compromise! Capitalism must pay for the crisis!"
in a Communist-affiliated protest.
About another 10,000 took part in a separate demonstration to parliament
held later by the country's two biggest umbrella unions,
GSEE and ADEDY, representing the private and public sectors. That protest
also ended peacefully.
The nationwide general strike shut down all government offices and state
schools, while state hospitals functioned with
emergency staff.
Air traffic controllers started a three-hour work stoppage at noon (0900
GMT), halting all flights to and from Greek airports.
The country's largest airline, Olympic Airways, canceled 140 flights.
Most ferry and railway schedules were also canceled, while public
transport in Athens was disrupted.
Journalists also joined the strike, keeping news programs off the air
and preventing Friday's newspapers from being published.
About 8,000 people also demonstrated in the northern city of
Thessaloniki in two separate marches.
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis' conservative government this month
announced a salary freeze for many civil servants
and a one-off tax increase on higher-income earners. The move angered
unions, which said high-earning businesses should
shoulder the burden. They also oppose a government decision to let
struggling businesses relax labor rules.
The conservatives, who hold a one-seat majority in parliament and trail
the main opposition Socialists in opinion polls, are
struggling to cope with the economic downturn.
Although the global crisis has not yet hit hard in the form of
bankruptcies and mass layoffs, Greece has scaled down its 2009
growth forecast to 1.1 percent from 2.7 percent. The deficit is forecast
to reach 3.7 percent of gross domestic product in 2009.
The European Commission has told the government to rapidly bring the
deficit under 3 percent by the end of 2010 and control
spending to reduce overall debt, which at about 94 percent of GDP is one
of the highest in the EU.
In December, Greece suffered its worst riots in decades after the fatal
police shooting of a teenager in Athens. The unrest
triggered a surge in anarchist and far-left violence.
|
|
Friday the 20th of March 2009
 |
Explosion occurs in Athens district of Ambelokipi
An explosion occurred at 9:30 p.m. local time Thursday night at the
intersection of Alexandras and Koniari streets in the
Athens district of Ambelokipi, and no injury has been reported.
Athens News Agency reported that the cause of the explosion has not yet
been determined.
The building where the explosion occurred houses the Public Estate
Corporation.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion fell on
far-left militant groups which have carried out
bomb and gun attacks in Athens in recent weeks.
One militant group, the Revolutionary Struggle, emerged in 2003and is
well-known by the public after launching a
rocket attack against the U.S. Embassy in Athens in 2007, which caused
minor damage without injuries.
It has claimed responsibility for a bomb attack against a Citibank
branch in Athens this month.
Since a 15-year-old boy was killed by police last December, Athens has
witnessed a series of protests and bomb
attacks amid the worst riots in the country for decades.
|
|
Friday the 13rd of March 2009
|
Vandals attack banks, stores in central
Athens
A
group of hooded vandals, reportedly self-styled anarchists, attacked
several storefronts Friday belonging to banks
and parked cars in the most fashionable area in the upscale Athens
district of Kolonaki.
The suspects appeared suddenly, throwing stones, pieces of woodand other
objects, local media reported.
Minor damages were reported.
It is reported that a similar attack happened Friday in the second
largest city of Thessaloniki, leaving several banks
damaged.
"Athens' city centre is, once again, at the mercy of the destructive
mania perpetrated not only by the 'known unknowns'
but also known hooded individuals," Athens Mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis said
in a statement.
Kaklamanis said the government was obliged to "promptly and effectively"
protect the city's history and citizens'
properties through the use of tough measures "which translate the phrase
'in a democracy each individual can say
what they like, but cannot do whatever they like' into action."
Hours after the self-styled anarchists vandalized stores and banks in
central Athens, government spokesman
Evangelos Antonaros condemned all acts of violence and any actions that
led to the damage of private property.
|
|
Monday the 9th of March 2009
 |
Bomb goes off
at Citibank branch in Athens
A violent left-wing group is believed to be responsible for an
explosion at a Citibank branch in Athens, Greek
investigators said Tuesday.
Revolutionary
Struggle has been blamed for a series of bombings since 2003.
The bomb went off
in the early morning Monday at the branch in Filothei, a
northern suburb of the capital,
Kathimerini reported. While the explosion caused considerable
damage to the first floor of the building and to
two cars parked outside, no one was hurt.
Police believe the
bomb was set off manually, not with an automatic timer, using a
100-foot cable connected to
a car battery. Investigators say that Revolutionary Struggle used a
similar device in the past.
Last month, a car
bomb outside Citibank in Kifissia, another suburb, failed to
detonate.
After the failed attack in Kifissia, they
used a simpler and safer mechanism so that they would not have a
second
consecutive failure on their hands, a high-ranking police
source told Kathimerini. The fact that it
is an attack
against what is essentially the same target and in a nearby area
raises suspicions that it was the work of
Revolutionary Struggle.
|
|
Friday the 27th of February 2009
 |
Guard given suspended sentence for Greek escape
ATHENS, A Greek court convicted a prison guard of misdemeanor negligence
charges Thursday in failing to stop the
helicopter escape of two convicts, but the guard won't serve any jail
time.
The prison guard was released from custody after court handed him a
three-year suspended sentence. Three other
guards arrested after Sunday's breakout were cleared of all charges.
A police manhunt was under way to capture
bank robber
Vassilis Paleokostas and convicted murderer Alket Rizaj.
Both were whisked out of the
Korydallos prison in western
Athens in a helicopter rented and then hijacked at gunpoint
by their accomplices. The pair staged an almost identical escape from
the same prison in 2006.
The Justice Ministry has suspended eight prison guards over the
jailbreak, which embarrassed Greece's government
and prompted a prison policy overhaul.
Authorities believe prison employees may have been bribed to assist the
escape. Justice Minister Nikos Dendias has
ordered an examination of the bank accounts of all guards in the section
where Paleokostas and Rizaj were held.
Paleokostas, 42, has been charged with kidnapping a prominent
industrialist last year while on the run after his first
helicopter escape, and police believe the fugitive managed to stash away
much of the multi-million-euro ransom paid.
Rizaj, 34, was serving a life term for murder. He has also been charged
with carrying out two
contract killings while on
the run after the June 2006 helicopter escape. He was recaptured that
September.
|
|
Thursday the 26th of February 2009
|
Greek police
clash with youths in central Athens
ATHENS (Reuters) -
About 30 youths clashed with police in
central Athens on Thursday damaging cars
and shops,
hours after a march to parliament,
police said.
Since the fatal
shooting of a 15-year-old in December, a
wave of protests fuelled by anger at
economic hardships and
scandals has rocked Greece's ruling
conservatives clinging to a one-seat
parliamentary majority.
Hundreds of
protesters on Thursday, chanting "state
terrorism won't pass" and waving red
flags, walked to parliament
from the central Exarchia district,
where police shot dead a teenager three
months ago triggering the worst riots in
decades.
After the
protest, youths set garbage bins on fire
and threw stones and firebombs at police
causing damages to more than
20 cars and four shops in the centre of
Athens. Riot police responded with tear
gas.
"They threw
stones and firebombs at police, who
replied with ... tear gas," said a
police official who declined to be named.
"Shops and cars have been damaged".
Greece's public
workers who staged a 24-hour nationwide
strike this week protesting against low
salaries and pension
reforms have said the government's economic policy amid the global crisis
only burdens the poor.
|
|
Sunday the 22th of February 2009
The helicopter arrested |
2 escape Athens prison by helicopter, for
2nd time
ATHENS, For the second time in their lives, two robbers escaped from a
high-security prison Sunday by scaling a rope
ladder to a hovering helicopter amid a gun battle with guards.
The men remained missing late Sunday night. They had been scheduled to
appear before a magistrate today about their
first escape — from the same prison — three years ago.
The shaken government quickly dismissed three Justice Ministry officials,
and the prime minister scheduled an emergency
meeting of part of his cabinet today to discuss the country's prisons.
"This was an insult which I will not accept ... I will take measures as
harsh as necessary," Justice Minister Nikos Dendias
announced.
Vassilis Paleokostas, 42, and Alket Rizaj, 34, were picked up by a
helicopter that flew over the courtyard of Athens'
Korydallos prison Sunday afternoon. They climbed a rope ladder thrown to
them by a woman passenger, the Justice
Ministry said.
Guards on the ground opened fire and the woman fired back with an
automatic rifle, authorities said. No injuries were reported.
Police said an elderly couple found the helicopter abandoned near a
highway north of Athens, with its fuel tank leaking from
a bullet hole.
The pilot was bound and gagged, with a hood over his head. He told
police the helicopter was chartered by a couple who
said they wanted to go from the town of Itea in central Greece to Athens.
The couple had chartered the helicopter a
number of times in the previous weeks.
This time, the pilot said, the couple threatened him with an AK-47 rifle
and a grenade and forced him to fly to the prison.
Despite their previous escape, the two inmates had been allowed to take
their daily walk on the prison grounds together
on breaks from solitary confinement.
Their first escape by helicopter was on June 4, 2006. That operation had
been masterminded by Paleokostas' elder brother
Nikos, himself a convicted criminal who escaped from the same prison in
1990 during a mass breakout.
The elder Paleokostas was recaptured and is still in jail. He has been
convicted of 16 bank robberies.
Rizaj, an Albanian immigrant, was also recaptured in September 2006,
while Vassilis Paleokostas was captured in
August 2008.
While on the run, Paleokostas is suspected of masterminding the June
2008 kidnapping of a prominent Greek
industrialist, Giorgos Mylonas, who was held for 13 days until his family
paid a ransom.
Police are investigating whether Rizaj was involved in contract killings
during the three months after his previous escape.
Dendias, the justice minister, announced that he had asked for and
obtained the resignations of the general secretary of
the ministry, the inspector-general of prisons and the head of the
Korydallos prison.
|
|
Wednesday
the 04th of February 2009
|
Gunmen attack
Greek police station in Athens
ATHENS, Greece – A suspected left-wing
terror group attacked a
police station in
Athens Tuesday, shooting at the
building
and throwing a
hand grenade, a month after a similar
attack seriously wounded a policeman.
Anti-terrorist police
were investigating the pre-dawn shooting in
the
Korydallos district of western Athens,
in which three
attackers wearing hoods and helmets opened
fire on the station, police spokesman
Panagiotis Stathis said. They also threw
a hand grenade that did not explode. No
injuries were reported.
Last month,
domestic terrorist group
Revolutionary Struggle claimed
responsibility for a Jan. 5 shooting that
seriously
wounded a 21-year-old riot policeman in
central Athens. The group is possibly best
known for firing a
rocket-propelled
grenade into the U.S. Embassy in
Athens in 2007. Washington offered a $1
million reward for information leading to
the
capture of Revolutionary Struggle members.
Stathis said police
were investigating a claim of responsibility
made in an anonymous telephone call to a
local newspaper
shortly after Tuesday's attack. He did not
say which group the caller claimed to
represent, but Greek media said the call was
made in the name of Revolutionary Struggle
about an hour after the shooting.
A police statement
said 19 bullet casings of two different
calibers were found at the scene and were
being analyzed, and that the
assailants had opened fire from a distance
of about 15 meters (16 yards).
Stathis said
earlier that several 9 mm bullet casings had
been recovered — the same caliber as an
MP5 submachine gun used
in the past by Revolutionary Struggle.
The group, which
first appeared in 2003, issued a statement
after the Jan. 5 shooting vowing to continue
attacks. It said its actions
were a response to the
fatal police shooting of a 15-year-old
boy in Athens on Dec. 6 that sparked the
worst
riots
Greece had seen
in decades.
"The December riots
were a good message for what will follow,"
the group had said in its statement, which
called for social revolution
and violence against all forms of authority.
It also claimed
responsibility for shooting at a riot police
bus Dec. 23, in which nobody was injured,
and for an attempted bombing
on Oct. 24 of the Greek offices of oil giant
Royal Dutch Shell PLC in Athens. In
the past, Revolutionary Struggle had
criticized
the police for being heavy-handed, and had
vowed to retaliate against any form of
police suppression.
Greece has been
troubled by terrorist violence in recent
decades, but cracked down on violent groups
before the 2004
Olympic
Games in Athens.
|
|
Wednesday
the 28th of January 2009
|
Farmers begin lifting blockades across
Greece, borders still closed
Athens - Farmers protesting falling commodity
prices began lifting dozens of roadblocks across Greece on Thursday
after accepting an emergency aid package by the government but hundreds
others continued to block main border
crossings. In the past week and a half, thousands of farmers used their
tractors to create more than 70 roadblocks
along all the main highways across Greece.
Some farmers' unions in southern and central Greece began removing their
tractors from main highways after accepting
the package but other farmers at border crossings with Bulgaria and
Turkey and in the agricultural city of Larissa
stayed in position.
Reports in recent days said the border were being opened to traffic for
a few hours every day.
The farmers are demanding tax rebates and subsidies from the government
in the wake of falling prices for their goods
and sinking EU subsidies. They estimated that their income levels had
declined by a quarter in the past 10 years.
The conservative government has offered an aid package totalling 500
million euros (650 million dollars) and has said
the current financial crisis leaves them no room to offer more.
The government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis
has taken a beating in the past few months
as public discontent over low wages and rising unemployment triggered
some of the worst riots the country has seen
in December.
Many critics say Karamanlis, whose party has a one-seat majority in
parliament, may be forced to follow on the heals
of Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde who resigned earlier this week
after a wave of street protests toppled his coalition.
|
|
Thursday the
15th of January 2009
 |
Greek Police
Protest Rise In Violence
ATHENS (AFP)--Roughly 500 Greek policemen took to the streets in Athens
Thursday to demonstrate against a surge in violence
across the country
sparked by police blunders.
The policemen, some in uniform, gathered in Syntagma Square in central
Athens under a banner "No to violence" at the behest
of two police
unions.
Some carried banners that read in English: "Behind each police uniform
there is a human life," as union heads appealed for
a police service that is " efficient, respects human rights and stays out of political
and partisan games."
The protest came after nearly two weeks of violence across Greece
sparked by last month's fatal shooting of 15-year-old Alexander
Grigoropoulos by an officer.
Also on Thursday the far-left group Revolutionary Struggle threatened
fresh attacks on police, after claiming responsibility for firing
on
three officers in Athens earlier this month, in which a young policeman
was gravely injured.
The elusive group, considered Greece's most dangerous extremist
organization, said it fired on police to avenge Grigoropoulos' death.
Left-wing politician Manolis Glezos, who attended the Athens rally along
with a number of lawmakers, urged the police to put
their house in order
|
|
Wednesday the
7th of January 2009
|
Greek militant group claims attacks on
police Police say the Greek
militant group Revolutionary Struggle has claimed responsibility for
recent attacks on police in Athens.
Police said Wednesday that the group sent a statement to the weekly
Pontiki newspaper saying it carried out a Dec. 23 shooting
attack on a
riot police bus and a separate Jan. 5 shooting at police in which one
officer was seriously wounded.
The attacks followed Greece's worst riots in decades. They were sparked
by a fatal police shooting of a teenager last month.
Two years ago, the far-left Revolutionary Struggle fired a
rocket-propelled grenade into the U.S. Embassy in Athens.
|
|
Wednesday the
7th of January 2009
New Finance minister Yannis
Papathanassiou |
Government Reshuffle in Greece in Wake of
Riots ATHENS — Shaken by scandals,
public protests and a surge in extremism, Prime Minister Kostas
Karamanlis of Greece on
Wednesday replaced
his finance minister, who was
one of his closest aides, and eight other cabinet ministers in a
sweeping cabinet shake-up.
Mr. Karamanlis won re-election 16 months ago, vowing to press ahead with
economic and social reforms. But in recent months,
a number of scandals
and weeks of violent protests triggered by the police shooting of a
teenage boy in December have damaged
Mr. Karamanlis’s popularity, with
the Socialist Pasok Party taking the lead in opinion polls for the first
time in nine years.
The scandals have included a controversial land swap
deal and the conviction of a senior government aide for attempting
to
harbor a criminal in a major drug-dealing case.
Mr. Karamanlis’ New Democracy party holds a one-seat majority in
Greece’s 300-seat Parliament.
Despite the cabinet overhaul, Mr. Karamanlis left seven of the 16
ministerial posts in the cabinet untouched, including the posts
of
ministers of defense, foreign affairs and interior whose handling of the
December riots was widely criticized.
The protests, the worst show of civil unrest in decades, caused $ 1.3
billion in damage by militant youth who rampaged through
Athens and
other city centers burning and destroying scores of businesses.
Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos tendered his resignation after
the riots but Mr. Karamanlis asked him to remain in place.
On Wednesday, however, Mr. Karamanlis replaced Mr. Pavlopoulos’ deputy
who is in charge of the Greek police, appointing
Christos Markoyannakis,
a senior lawmaker who served as senior security official in the run up
to the Athens 2004 Olympics.
The finance minister, George Alogoskoufis,
was replaced by his deputy, Yannis Papathanassiou.
Opposition lawmakers criticized the shake-up. “Unfortunately, in this
reshuffle, one person remained in his position: the prime minister,”
said
George Papakonstantinou, a Pasok spokesman. “The country needs a
new government to escape this crisis.”
|
|
Tuesday the
6th of January 2009
|
Epiphany
Orthodox believer
Georgios Mihailidis, from Kavala, Greece,
retrieves the wooden cross from the
waters of the Golden Horn water
course
in Istanbul, Turkey.
Greek Orthodox men braved the cold
winter weather to dive into Istanbul's
Golden horn, in a race to
retrieve the
wooden cross, which was thrown into the
water by the Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader
of
the World's Orthodox Christians, in a
traditional ceremony commemorating
Epiphany.
|
|
Monday the
5th of January 2009
|
Same rifle used in 2 attacks on police
ATHENS, Gunmen sprayed Athens riot
police with automatic weapons fire early Monday, seriously wounding
a
policeman in an escalation of violence that erupted last month when a
teenager was killed in a police shooting.
The teenager's death on Dec. 6 sparked Greece's worst riots in decades,
with masked protesters frequently attacking
police with gasoline bombs
and rocks. But none had caused serious injury.
Monday's pre-dawn shooting targeted a police unit guarding the Culture
Ministry in downtown Athens, police spokesman
Panagiotis Stathis said.
It was the second such attack against police. On Dec. 23, gunmen fired
two automatic rifles at a riot police bus passing a
university campus
outside the city center, but none of the 20 or so officers on board were
injured.
Anti-terrorist police are investigating both shootings.
The wounded policeman, 21-year-old Diamandis Matzounis, was hospitalized
in critical but stable condition after six hours
of surgery, Health
Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos said. He suffered two bullet wounds, one
to the thigh and the other near
the shoulder, hitting several vital
organs, the hospital said in a statement.
Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos described the attack an attempt
to undermine democracy.
"Those who attacked Diamandis Matzounis targeted democracy and order,"
Pavlopoulos said after visiting the wounded man.
"They will soon realize that democracy is strong and our society is
safeguarded," he said, adding that "no bullet and no murderer"
could
undermine the police force's morale and sense of duty.
A police official said two men, one with a Kalashnikov-type automatic
rifle, had sprayed bullets at the police unit in Exarchia
a downtown
area of bars and restaurants that is considered an area favored by
radicals.
"They wanted to kill someone in uniform. They sprayed our colleagues
with gunfire," said Stratos Mavroidakos, the head
of a police officers'
association.
"People were instigated into taking this action by the prevailing
climate," Mavroidakos said, referring to the near daily violent
demonstrations in which youths chanting "cops, pigs, murderers" have
clashed with riot police, set up burning street
barricades and torched
banks and stores.
"This is what happens when you have 12-year-old children at
demonstrations calling police 'murders' ... These events have
set us
back 20 years," he said.
After Monday's 3:05 a.m. (0105 GMT) attack, patrol cars and riot police
buses blocked access to much of Exarchia
well into the morning, and forensic investigators in white coveralls collected evidence from the
site of the shooting.
A police statement said authorities detained 72 people during the
initial search for suspects.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting.
After the Dec. 23 attack against the riot police bus, an anonymous
caller had claimed responsibility on behalf of a previously
unknown
group. It was unclear whether the claim of responsibility was reliable.
At least six serious attacks have been carried out by little-known
domestic radical groups in the past five years, including
two bombings
and the fatal shooting of a policeman by gunmen who stole his automatic
weapon.
|
|
Thursday the
1st of January 2009
|
Happy New Year 2009 ! Kali Kronia !
Kronia Polla !!! |
|