Pages

Welcome, 77 artists, 40 different points of Attica welcomes you by singing Erotokritos an epic romance written at 1713 by Vitsentzos Kornaros

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Eurobank buys Greece's postal bank


Eurobank buys Greece's postal bank
FRANCE 24
A man walks past a Eurobank's branch in central Athens on April 8, 2013. Eurobank, one of Greece's biggest lenders, on Saturday acquired the country's postal bank, one day after purchasing Proton Bank, the Greek financial stability fund said.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.france24.com

Thousands queue in Russia to see religious relic

Around 65,000 people have queued for hours in Saint Petersburg to see a religious relic brought from Greece, officials said Saturday, in the latest sign of the Russian Orthodox Church's influence in post-Soviet Russia.

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.foxnews.com

Greece picks Eurobank to buy Postbank ahead of mid-July deadline


Yahoo!7 News

Greece picks Eurobank to buy Postbank ahead of mid-July deadline
Reuters
ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's bank rescue fund picked Eurobank EFGr.AT to buy New Hellenic Postbank as part of consolidation in the sector and to meet a condition for the next tranche Greece's bailout, it said after a board meeting on Saturday.
Greek bank rescue fund picks Eurobank to buy Postbank: sourceGlobalPost

all 3 news articles »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.reuters.com

Greek Cypriot leader seeks more EU aid

The cost of bailing out Greek Cypriot Administration has exceeded estimations. Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades asked for more money from Brussels ahead of a key meeting by Eurozone finance ministers.European Union finance ministers adopted a 10 billion Euro bailout package for the Greek Cypriot Administration. According to the EU sources, the Greek Cypriot leader asked the Bloc to provide ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

Greece teen charged with DWI after high-speed crash on 390


Greece teen charged with DWI after high-speed crash on 390
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
A Greece teen was accused of driving drunk after a fiery, high-speed rollover crash on Route 390 in Greece Friday morning. Taylor Hartman, 18, was charged with driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor, and numerous traffic infractions, according to New ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.democratandchronicle.com

Exclusive: The Vampire Diaries Taps Greek Alum, HIMYM Actress for Season 5


Exclusive: The Vampire Diaries Taps Greek Alum, HIMYM Actress for Season 5
TV Guide
Kendrick Sampson (Greek's Woodchuck) and Olga Fonda (HIMYM, Nikita) have been tapped to recur on the upcoming season, TVGuide.com has learned exclusively. Add new fall shows to your watchlist. Sampson will play Jesse, a fellow student who Elena ...

and more »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.tvguide.com

Schaeuble to sign investment deal in Athens

During his visit to Athens next Thursday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is to sign an agreement for government-owned development bank KfW to provide capital for the creation of an investment fund in Greece, Kathimerini understands.The fund, set to be called the Institution for Growth in Greece, will have initial capital of 500 million euros. Of this, 350 million euros will come from ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

Greece Needs More Aid Or More Austerity

(AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) Greek municipality workers chant slogans in Athens on July 12 during a protest, against new austerity cuts that could lead to the firing of 27,500 public sector employees to meet demands of international lenders putting up rescue bailouts. ATHENS -- Greece has scraped through its biggest political and financial challenge this year by securing a tranche of aid from ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

Troika Wants Greece To Cut Priests? Pay

The Greek government is being squeezed by international lenders to slash the salaries of about 9,500 priests to meet demands from international lenders to keep reducing expenditures, which could lead to resistance from the Church and clerics. There is no separation of Church and State in Greece. According to a report in the newspaper Parapolitika, representatives of the lenders revived the ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

Traffic restrictions lifted in central Athens

As of Monday traffic restrictions in the inner ring of the Greek capital are being suspended for the summer.Normally, only vehicles with license plates ending in an odd number are allowed to enter the central Athens zone on odd days, while those with even numbers are allowed on even days.The restrictions are expected to come back into effect in early ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

Athens Mayor Kaminis Voice Against Extremism

Greek-American George Kaminis has found that being Mayor of Athens is a challenge as he tries to steer a path for what's best for the city while running a gauntlet of opposition from the left and the right. For that, he's been assaulted twice. ATHENS - On June 4, George Kaminis, the mild-mannered mayor of Athens, visited Greece's Minister of Citizen Protection, Nikos Dendias, to ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

Mandatory HIV tests blasted by British journal

Respected medical journal The Lancet published an editorial on Saturday criticizing the Greek government for reintroducing a regulation that gives authorities the right to force people that may be carrying infectious diseases to undergo tests and ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

Elytis? Works Exhibited In Plaka

Manuscripts, working notebooks, rare photographs, film and sound material and paintings from the personal archives of Nobel Laureate poet Odysseus Elytis will be housed and exhibited in a building in Plaka, Athens. The two floor building on the corner of Dioskouroi and Polygnotou roads will be called Elytis' House and will include accurate representation of the office of the Greek poet and ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

New Greek Public TV Has Old Look

Roviros Manthoulis' 1960 classic I kyria dimarchos (Madame mayor) was selected as the debut broadcast on Greece's new public television station DT, but he said he would sue for damages, ENet English reported, calling the new operation a "despicable channel" and likening it to "prostitute." A black-and-white Greek movie from the 1960's may have been an unusual ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

Man kills father injures relative in Volos

Police in Nea Ionia, in Volos, central Greece, on Saturday arrested a 53-year-old man for allegedly stabbing his 85-year-old father to death as well as injuring another relative, aged 57, with a knife.According to police reports the suspect had mental ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

Real Greek Yogurt

Adda Kessissoglou, 5, with a customer at Kesso Foods, her family's Greek yogurt shop in East Elmhurst, Queens. She was making it long before it became a craze. When Fotini Kessissoglou opened Kesso Foods, a pint-size Greek yogurt factory and shop in East Elmhurst, Queens, in 1986, she had no way of knowing that her country's ultra-thick, strained staple would someday become an ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

World?s Wrestlers In Olympia To Save Sport

A decision by the International Olympic Committee – which is located in Switzerland and not Greece, home of the Olympics – to strike one of he most ancient and revered original sports – wrestling – from the games as of 2020 in favor of more modern events isn’t sitting well with practitioners and devotees who are going to the sport’s birthplace to protest. On ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

Papapetrou helps Greece to 77-74 win against Lithuania at U20 European ...


Papapetrou helps Greece to 77-74 win against Lithuania at U20 European ...
TexasSports.com
TALLIN, Estonia - University of Texas sophomore forward Ioannis Papapetrou posted 19 points to help Greece to a 77-74 victory against Lithuania in pool play action on Saturday at the Sportland Under-20 European Championship. Papapetrou converted ...

and more »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.texassports.com

Greeks split on reforms, public sector job cuts: opinion poll

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greeks are split on whether public sector job cuts demanded by the country's international lenders for continued bailout funding are necessary and most remain downbeat on the economy's prospects, an opinion poll showed on Saturday.




READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.reuters.com

PASOK?s Papoutsis Gets World Bank Job

Now that he’s Greece’s Deputy Prime Minister in the government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, the New Democracy Conservative leader, PASOK Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos has reportedly succeeded in getting one of his own, Christos Papoutsis, to be the country’s representative at the World Bank. The newspaper Kathimerini reported that Venizelos got the post for ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

After the onset of the economic crisis and the events in Greece it became clear who really dominates in the EU. Germany has become the undisputed leader of all decision-making processes within the EU. It dictates its conditions and makes demands. Obvious

After the onset of the economic crisis and the events in Greece, it became clear who really dominates in the EU. Germany has become the undisputed leader of all decision-making processes within the EU. It dictates its conditions and makes demands. Obviously, not everyone is pleased with this state of affairs, and some EU members are dissatisfied. In southern European countries affected by the ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

Erdo?an's chief adviser knows what's behind Turkey's protests ? telekinesis

From Lufthansa to the CIA, Turkey's government has come up with some worrying conspiracy theories to explain Gezi Park

It has to be said that when the Turkish government began to flail around for the "real reasons" behind the Gezi protests, their initial conspiracy theories lacked imagination – the CIA, Europeans jealous of their economic success, unspecified foreign forces in cahoots with terrorists, Twitter, the "interest rate lobby", and, of course, the international Jewish conspiracy. What would a search for a scapegoat be in Turkey (or indeed Greece) without our old friends the Elders of Zion?

Since it was obviously inconceivable that the Turkish people themselves – knowing they were living through a golden age of good governance, piety and profit – would ever take to the streets, there must have been a plot.

Well now we have the answer – it was all a giant telekinetic attack by dark forces to discredit Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, because he had made Turkey a "model for the world". Quite rightly, the man who made this astonishing discovery, YiÄŸit Bulut, has just been made ErdoÄŸan's chief adviser. No, this is not a joke. Telekinesis, you may have noticed, is a Greek word.

Ministers, and the majority of Turkey's media, have been outdoing each other for the last month with outrageous theories and often outright lies to mask ErdoÄŸan's staggering mishandling of a minor planning dispute over an Istanbul park that brought millions on to the streets in protest at his authoritarian style and police violence against demonstrators.

His ruling AK party has variously claimed that the Gezi protests were the work of CNN or the BBC and even Reuters (after one of the agency's reporters asked ErdoÄŸan an "unapproved question"). In one faked newspaper interview, CNN's Christiane Amanpour "confessed" to starting the protests "for money". Fingers were also pointed at leading liberal journalists, some of whom have since been sacked by media owners afraid of incurring further government wrath (Turkey is already the world's No 1 jailer of journalists).

More shocking even than the smearing of those killed by police is that ErdoÄŸan's AK party – once a slick media machine – can still not put a consistent conspiracy story together. It has to be said that Egypt's military coup has not helped the mood of Turkish Islamists – or that in a self-fulfilling prophecy amid so much nuttiness, Turkish bond rates have near doubled in as many months.

What all the many theories lacked – apart from facts, which would "be shortly announced" but never were – was a protean element: something that would lift the whole puzzling debacle of ErdoÄŸan thrashing his own and his country's reputation over a scraggy patch of grass out of the rational altogether and into another dimension.

Step forward Bulut – TV presenter, commentator, and climber of many greasy poles – who until Gezi was best known for his inordinate use of hair oil. Having got his astral ball rolling by declaring that the protests were paid for by the German airline Lufthansa, afraid that "100 million passengers would be diverted from Germany to Turkey" by a controversial monster airport ErdoÄŸan wants to build near Istanbul, Bulut then took flight.

Turkey's enemies, he claimed, were planning to assassinate ErdoÄŸan – by telekinesis. "There is work going on in many centres in the world to kill ErdoÄŸan from afar through methods like telekinesis," Bulut told TV viewers last month. This week Bulut became ErdoÄŸan's official eminence grise.

Utterly mad it may sound, but there may be method to it – a message to diehard religious supporters that ErdoÄŸan's erratic, confrontational behaviour may be because he is engaged in a life-or-death struggle behind the scenes.

Should Turks be worried? They should if this offers a glimpse of Erdoğan's own state of mind. At a mass rally in Istanbul at the height of the protests, he compared himself to Adnan Menderes, the first elected Turkish leader who was hung by the military on a short rope on the prison island where the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan is now held.

Since then, rather than building bridges, ErdoÄŸan has been busy tightening his grip and settling scores – the latest being robbing engineers and architects who so irritated him over Gezi Park of their overseeing role in planning.

Yet in reality the greatest danger to ErdoÄŸan has always been ErdoÄŸan himself and the company he keeps – from his property tycoon son-in-law to his old KasimpaÅŸa pals who go everywhere with him and once locked him inside his armoured Mercedes outside a hospital when he passed out during Ramadan. Only five years ago his new chief adviser was attacking him and his party as a "fascist" threat to Atatürk's secular republic. As a hopeless nostalgic for the Ottoman empire, ErdoÄŸan might be wise to remember that far more sultans died at the hands of their retainers than ever did in battle.


guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.guardian.co.uk

Greece Wants Germany To Pay For WWII

As Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras continues to enjoy good relations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country is footing much of the bill for two international bailouts of Greece but who has insisted on austerity measures in return, Greece is also preparing to press Germany for WWII reparations. The new head of the Legal Council of the State, who is due to be appointed soon, will ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

Greek Mayors Shut Services In Protest

Angry they weren’t consulted over a government plan to start firing public workers in some of the lowest-paid sectors: janitors, school crossing guards, municipal police and teachers – mayors from across Greece said they shut down their town halls and municipal services from July 15-17 in protest. The Parliament on July 16 is set to vote on a package of some 100 reforms demanded by ...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.greekherald.com

Cooking On The Couch: Making Greek Cuisine With Maria Loi


Cooking On The Couch: Making Greek Cuisine With Maria Loi
CBS Local
Cooking On The Couch: Making Greek Cuisine With Maria Loi. July 12, 2013 12:45 PM. View Comments. Filed under. Cooking, Recipes, The Couch, The Couch Video. Related tags. Cooking, Food, Greek Food, Recipes, The Couch, WLNY. More Couch ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT newyork.cbslocal.com

Alpina plans Greek yogurt plant expansion in Batavia


Alpina plans Greek yogurt plant expansion in Batavia
Buffalo News
Alpina Foods plans to purchase 10 acres of land adjacent to its new 40,000-square-foot Batavia Greek yogurt plant, located within the Genesee Valley Agri-Business Park, laying the groundwork for a potential future expansion at the site. The new ...

and more »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.buffalonews.com

Turn Greek Yogurt Into a Low-Cal Dessert


Turn Greek Yogurt Into a Low-Cal Dessert
FitSugar.com
Yogurt isn't just for breakfast! If a cold and sweet bowl of ice cream is what you crave, swap it out for a creamy bowl of nonfat Greek yogurt topped with these delicious flavor combinations. Grab a spoon and dig into these desserts that are low in fat ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.fitsugar.com

Greek mayors to shut down halt services in protest at austerity measures


Press TV

Greek mayors to shut down halt services in protest at austerity measures
Fox News
Greek mayors to shut down halt services in protest at austerity measures. Published July 12, 2013. Associated Press. ATHENS, Greece – Mayors from across Greece say they will suspend municipal services for three days next week to protest planned new ...
1000s of Greek workers hold anti-austerity demo in AthensPress TV

all 8 news articles »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.foxnews.com

Greek Shipping Scion Drops Anchor in Soho


Greek Shipping Scion Drops Anchor in Soho
New York Observer
Leon Patitsas is no Aristotle Onassis, but that doesn't mean the Greek shipowner can't get a small slice of Manhattan of his own. The London-born scion of the prominent Hellenic shipping family (no self-respecting shipping scion, after all, would deign ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT observer.com

Visitors to the Mediterranean warned of an increase in jellyfish

Overfishing has reduced competition for food, allowing jellyfish whose stings can cause pain and nausea, to thrive

Holidaymakers are being warned by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to take local advice in several Mediterranean countries as jellyfish numbers rise along coastlines popular with tourists in Greece, Spain and Malta. Jellyfish numbers have been rising consistently in the Mediterranean, and researchers warn that the increase in numbers poses a hazard to swimmers, fishing and the marine environment.

The FCO said: "We have been alerted to large numbers of jellyfish in the Mediterranean this summer, especially in a number of key holiday destinations for UK tourists. We have updated our travel advice for a number of Mediterranean countries to reflect this issue."

Up to 150,000 people are treated for jellyfish stings in the Mediterranean each year. The worst-hit coastlines this summer have been in Greece, Spain, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, Israel and Lebanon. The FCO recommends that swimmers speak to local authorities and follow their advice on where and when to swim.

Barcelona Institute of Marine Sciences researcher Josep María Gili told the Guardian in June that jellyfish represented a growing problem, both in the Mediterranean and across the world.

Climate change and over-fishing have been linked to the rise in numbers. Natural predators of the jellies, such as the ocean sunfish, have been declining in one of the most heavily exploited bodies of water on Earth.

Mediterranean JellyRisk programme co-ordianor Stefano Piraino told the BBC : "We are overfishing the oceans, which means we are catching all the big fish so the fish population is being reduced and we eliminate competitors and leave more food for the jellyfish."

The problem is further compounded by jellyfish feeding on the larvae of fish species. Scientists believe that human interventions that change the shape of the coastline and affect currents could also provide ideal breeding zones that encourage blooms.

There are no deadly jellyfish in the Mediterranean, but there are a number whose stings can cause pain and mild reactions. The mauve stinger (Pelagia noctiluca), which has been detected in vast swarms off the coast of Spain, can cause pain, burning, nausea and muscle cramps.


guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.guardian.co.uk

Portugal's borrowing costs rise after Socialist leader rejects bailout terms

Opposition head António José Seguro causes market turmoil as he calls for deal with Brussels to be renegotiated

Portugal's opposition Socialist party spooked financial markets and pushed up the government's cost of borrowing after it demanded Lisbon renegotiate the terms of its bailout deal with Brussels.

The news came as Fitch became the third ratings agency to strip France of its AAA rating, to AA+. In Portugal, the Socialist leader, António José Seguro, said he was ready to discuss a pact with the prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, but any coalition needed to agree that austerity measures agreed with Brussels had failed. "We have to abandon austerity politics. We have to renegotiate the terms of our adjustment programme," Seguro told parliament. "The prime minister has to recognise publicly that his austerity policies have failed."

The political turmoil has already forced Lisbon to request a delay in the eighth review of the bailout by its creditors, initially due to start on Monday, until the end of August or early September.

The delay drove up yields on Portuguese government bonds, which determine Lisbon's borrowing costs, with 10-year yields surging 90 basis points to 7.87%.

The euro stayed relatively calm, maintaining its value against sterling at just over 86p, as the markets viewed Portugal's problems as self-contained and affordable under existing bailout programmes.

The bad news coming out of Portugal was offset by Ireland's efforts to shrug off the financial crisis, which received a boost after Standard & Poor's said its debt burden may fall faster than expected.

The credit ratings agency maintained the BBB+ rating on Dublin's sovereign bonds but upgraded the outlook from stable to positive.

The upgrade comes before a planned year-end exit from its international bailout, and backs its status as Europe's strongest bailed-out economy amid the political turmoil in Portugal and Greece.

"The outlook revision reflects our view that Ireland's general government debt burden is likely to decline more rapidly, as a percentage of GDP, than we had previously expected," S&P said in a statement.

"Ireland's economic recovery is under way."

Greece is braced for a general strike next week while Portugal faces the collapse of its coalition government and a general election next year.

The president, Anibal Cavaco Silva, threw Portugal into disarray this week by refusing to allow the premier to heal a rift in the ruling coalition with a controversial cabinet reshuffle, calling for a cross-party agreement to last until the end of the bailout programme in June 2014, to be followed by early elections.

The Socialists have blamed the government's austerity drive under the €78bn (£67bn) bailout for pushing Portugal into its biggest economic slump since the 1970s and unemployment to record levels of around 18%.

"More time is something which we have always fought for. More time so our adjustment curve is not so steep and we can relieve sacrifices families and businesses have to make," Seguro, whose party leads in opinion polls, said.


guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

    



READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.guardian.co.uk