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

Thursday, February 11, 2016

NATO To Deploy Warships Between Greek Islands And Turkey

Audio for this story from All Things Considered will be available at approximately 7:00 p.m. ET. NPR's Ari Shapiro interviews Ivo Daalder, former ambassador to NATO and currently president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, about how NATO can help ...


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Stanley Morgan Survey Finds That 9 out of 10 Greeks Do Not Plan to Redeposit Their Money With Greek Banks

Since the start of the crisis, Greeks have withdrawn many billions of euros from the nation’s banks and nearly all of them do not plan to redeposit their money with Greek banks, according to a survey by Stanley Morgan. The survey was conducted by Stanley ...


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Euro Area Sees Progress on GREECE, Staff Deal Possible in Weeks

Talks between GREECE and its creditors are progressing and a review of the country's bailout program could be completed in the coming weeks, ...


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GREECE'S 500-euro-note bank run

In 2015 alone deposits in GREECE declined by 40 billion euros, with banks estimating that at least 20 billion of that went into safe deposits and ...


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IMF comments on GREECE

IMF comments on GREECE - say Grexit fears could resurface. Thu 11 Feb 2016 21:03:49 GMT. Author: Eamonn Sheridan | Category: News.


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IMF Warns of Renewed `Grexit' Fears Without Credible GREECE Plan

GREECE will face renewed fears that it will exit the euro area unless the nation's government and European creditors come up with a credible plan to ...


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Stricken GREECE in more chaos as farmers angry over austerity make 74 road blocks

Yiannis Zacharias, a blockade organiser in northern GREECE, said: "They are asking farmers to pay higher taxes even if they have no income .


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Should You Retire in Greece This Year?

This past November, the New York Times reported that Greece’s debt-to-gross-domestic-product (GDP) ratio stood at over 150% through the fourth quarter of 2014. The unemployment rate is 25.6%, compared to the European Union average of 9.8%. Despite ...


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As Refugees Perish, Greek Graveyards Fill

Aid workers on the Greek island of Lesbos say they are struggling to bury the increasing number of bodies of refugees that have been recovered or washed up ashore in recent months. The graveyards are all full, they say, yet as tens of thousands of people ...


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Greek Cypriot leader says time for 'sobriety' on UN peace process

[A picture provided by the Cypriot government's Press and Information Office shows President Nicos Anastasiades (C) addressing the parliament in Nicosia on February 11, 2016]President Nicos Anastasiades addressed parliament Thursday to try to convince Cypriots that a UN-backed peace deal is possible for the divided island, in a rare move by a Greek Cypriot leader.


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Greek gov't braces for borders closure prospect: officials

Baku-APA. The Greek government is bracing for the prospect of borders' closure over the handling of the refugee crisis, according to two top cabinet ministers, APA reports quoting Xinhua. They assured that Greece will be able to deal with the thousands of ...


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The Trio: GREEK System

A gold-finished GREEK key base and finial sets this table lamp by The Natural Light apart from the crowd. Available through select designers from ...


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St. Thomas University welcomes students from GREECE

Leaders from South Florida's Greek community descended upon St. Thomas University on Monday to celebrate its outreach efforts to attract students ...


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CAT who risked its life crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe revealed

Nicknamed Dias after the modern Greek name for Zeus, volunteer Ashley Anderson is hoping she can track down the cat's original owners who she believes have now settled somewhere in Europe.


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Erdogan threatens to send millions of refugees in Turkey to Europe

[Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attends the opening session of the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) at Le Bourget, near Paris, France, November 30, 2015. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann ]Thomson Reuters Ankara (AFP) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday threatened to send the millions of refugees in Turkey to European Union (EU) member states, as NATO agreed to deploy ships to the Aegean Sea to ease the migrant crisis. In a speech in Ankara, Erdogan stepped up his denunciations of Western policy in the refugee crisis, confirming he had threatened EU leaders at a summit meeting in November that Turkey could say "goodbye" to the refugees. But in a separate move, NATO agreed to send a naval group "without delay" to the Aegean to crack down on the people smugglers who have helped hundreds of thousands of migrants cross to EU territory in the last year. Alarm is growing in EU capitals that thousands of migrants are still crossing the Aegean daily from Turkey after over a million made the perilous journey last year. But Turkey, already home to some three million refugees, is also under EU and UN pressure to take in tens of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing regime advances in the Aleppo region. Erdogan sought to turn the tables on the EU by saying Turkey had every right to turf the refugees out of the country if it so wished. "We do not have the word 'idiot' written on our foreheads. We will be patient but we will do what we have to. Don't think that the planes and the buses are there for nothing," Erdogan said. [A Turkish Gendarme leads a group of refugees to buses to prevent them from sailing off for the Greek island of Chios by dinghies, at a beach in the western Turkish coastal town of Cesme, in Izmir province, Turkey, December 1, 2015. REUTERS/Denizhan Guzel ]Thomson ReutersGreek website euro2day.gr had earlier this week reported that at the G20 summit in Antalya in November Erdogan had angrily threatened to EU Commission president Jean Claude Juncker that Turkey could send the refugees to Europe. The website had quoted Erdogan as telling Juncker: "We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and put the refugees on buses." "I am proud of what I said. We have defended the rights of Turkey and the refugees. And we told them (the Europeans): 'Sorry, we will open the doors and say 'goodbye' to the migrants'," Erdogan said in his speech Thursday.  'SHAME ON YOU!' [Aleppo Syria Bombing]Thomson ReutersHe also lashed out at UN calls on Turkey to take in tens of thousands of Syrian refugees from Aleppo region massed on the border with Turkey, saying the United Nations has spent less than half a billion dollars in the crisis. "Shame on you! Shame on you!" said Erdogan, saying the UN should be telling states to take in refugees from Turkey. Turkey is already hosting 2.5 million refugees from Syria's civil war and hundreds of thousands from Iraq and is increasingly bitter it has been left to shoulder the burden.  Erdogan said Turkey had already spent some nine billion dollars on hosting the refugees since Syria's almost half decade civil war began.  The EU has agreed to give Turkey three billion euros in financial aid for the refugees but the funds have yet to be handed to Turkey, two-and-a-half months after they were agreed. "The three billion euros is not in our budget, where has it gone?" asked Erdogan. "It's for refugees!"  'NATO TO COUNTER TRAFFICKING' The NATO deployment follows a request this week by alliance members Germany, Greece and Turkey for assistance in tackling Europe's biggest migrant crisis since World War II. Speaking after NATO defence ministers approved the mission, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO is "now directing the standing maritime group to move into the Aegean without delay and start maritime surveillance activities". The group comprises three ships that are currently under German command. [NATO ships]Thomson ReutersHe emphasised: "This is not about stopping and pushing back (refugee boats)... but about critical surveillance to help counter human trafficking and criminal networks." According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), by February 7, 70,365 migrants arrived by sea in Greece from Turkey, an average of 2,000 a day. It said 319 perished on the way. In the latest tragedy in the Aegean, Turkish security forces Thursday found the body of an eight-year-old girl washed up on the shore close to Didim in the Aydin region. The girl had been dead for some 15 days, had no clothes and her body was starting to rot, the Radikal online daily said. 


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'This is set to get worse': Saudi Arabia says it has made a 'final' decision to send troops into Syria

[Saudi military spokesman Ahmed Al-Assiri]Screenshot/BBC Saudi Arabia has made a "final" decision to send ground troops into Syria to fight ISIS, the spokesman of the Saudi-led coalition force in Yemen told reporters on Thursday. Brig. Gen. Ahmed Al-Assiri said that Riyadh was "ready" to join the US-led anti-Islamic State coalition in Syria, according to Saudi news agency Al Arabiya. He noted, however, that the coalition — which has largely targeted the militants with airstrikes — has not given its final approval on the Saudis' decision to send ground troops. ISIS also goes by the names the Islamic State and Daesh. "We are representing Saudi's [decision] only" in sending troops, Assiri said. Assiri signaled for the first time last week that Saudi Arabia would be ready to send ground troops into Syria if its coalition allies — including the US, Turkey, and the UK — asked them to. "The kingdom is ready to participate in any ground operations that the coalition (against ISIS) may agree to carry out in Syria," Assiri told Al Arabiya TV news last Thursday. The Guardian later reported that the Saudis may be prepared to deploy thousands of ground troops into Syria. Some experts, however, were immediately skeptical over how much the Saudis would really be willing to contribute to the fight. "The Americans are pushing the Gulf states hard. But to be clear, if it happens at all, it's going to be like support for bombing — essentially symbolic," said geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer, president of the world's largest political-risk consultancy, Eurasia Group. [kerry saudi arabia]Screenshot/BBC Bremmer told Business Insider on Thursday: The Saudis won't send significant numbers — they already stretched with an uphill and losing struggle in Yemen — and they won't want to be on the front lines, as Saudi troops in Syria would be fighting and killing other Sunnis (and indeed other Saudi Sunnis). That would be unprecedented, and enormously unpopular. Even so, Saudi Arabia's growing international isolation — and the rising regional influence of its biggest rival, Iran — has led the kingdom to "double down" on protecting its interests, according to an analysis of the world's top 2016 risks released by Eurasia Group last month. That includes the kingdom's interests in Syria, where Saudi-backed rebel groups are currently battling Iran-backed Shiite militias and Hezbollah forces loyal to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Saudi Arabia is locked in two other proxy wars with Iran in Yemen and Bahrain. [Sayyda Zeinab, Syria]Screenshot/BBC Saudi Arabia's relations with Iran hit a new low in January after the Saudis executed a prominent Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, leading Iranian protesters to ransack and set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran. The kingdom cut off all diplomatic ties with Iran shortly thereafter. Washington's response to the spat between Saudi Arabia — a longtime US ally — and Iran, with which the Obama administration recently secured a historic nuclear deal, was not as supportive of the Saudis as the kingdom would have hoped. Indeed, as the Saudis continue to balk at the US's decision to lift nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, Washington has shown few, if any, signs that it intends to prevent Syria from becoming a Russian-Iranian sphere of influence. [putin assad]Screenshot/BBC As such, just as Russia intervened in Syria under the guise of fighting ISIS to project its own power in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia may use the fight against the group as an excuse to enter Syria's battlefield — and take the task of containing Iran's expanding influence in the region into its own hands. "Everybody is looking for the Americans to step up," Bremmer said. "And the US isn't going to do a fraction of what the Russians are prepared for militarily. So this is set to get worse." Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, for his part, reportedly warned that foreign intervention in Syria could spark "a new world war." Meanwhile, in his interview with Al Arabiya last week, Assiri jabbed at Russia and Iran's apparent lack of commitment to fighting ISIS on the ground in Syria. "Increasingly, it seems that none of the forces on the ground in Syria (besides rebel groups) is willing to fight ISIS," Assiri said. He added: "The Assad regime, Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah are preoccupied with fighting Bashar al-Assad's opposition with one ostensible goal: to keep Bashar al-Assad in power, irrespective of the cost in innocent Syrian lives." NOW WATCH: An AT&T spokesperson and former refugee is now helping Syrian refugees in Greece


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Greek Orthodox Priest Charged with Theft to Receive Plea Deal

Greek Orthodox priest James Dokos, from Chicago, was accused of stealing 110,000 dollars from a church trust fund, in 2014. Now, almost two years later, a plea deal will be offered to the priest on February 22, one day before the trial was scheduled to ...


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Car Crashes in Greece the Highest in EU

The number of deaths resulting from car crashes in Greece reaches 1,600 while over 20,000 were injured last year. On a daily basis, five people die, five are left quadriplegic, ten are left paraplegic, 60 are injured and tens of thousands of euros in ...


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Opa! Winter Greek Fest is here

Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window) Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) ROCHESTER, Minn, – The dead of winter a local community comes ...


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Greece native quietly makes run at Olympic marathon berth

True to form, Jeff Eggleston has been hunkered down on rural roads outside Boulder, Colorado, nowhere to be found, days before the biggest race of his life. One of the country’s top marathoners, the Greece Arcadia (2003) and University of Virginia (2007 ...


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Vermont company to supply Greek yogurt for USDA program

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) -- A Vermont-based dairy company has been selected as one of the suppliers of Greek yogurt for the USDA National Lunch Program for April, May and June. The Brattleboro Reformer reports (http://bit.ly/1muT3Ge) Brattleboro's ...


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UPDATE 1-EU's Moscovici confident Greek reform review to end in March

"It is still possible to conclude the (Greek) review before Easter," which this year is at the end of March, EU Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici told a news conference after a regular meeting of euro zone finance ministers in Brussels. "Progress has ...


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Greece at the Center of Today’s Eurogroup Meeting

Greece is once again at the center of today’s Eurogroup in Brussels as there is urgent need to examine the course of negotiation talks between the Greek government and its creditors. The first meeting in Athens between the two sides ended on a sour note ...


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Cyprus president: peace talks headway on governance, economy

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Peace talks aimed at reunifying ethnically split Cyprus have made significant progress on how power will be shared with breakaway Turkish Cypriots and how the economy will function under a federation, the country's president said Thursday. Briefing lawmakers at a special parliamentary session, Nicos Anastasiades said he and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci have also agreed after nine months of negotiations on the legal ways to deal with property lost during Turkey's 1974 invasion that followed a coup aiming at union with Greece. "The aimed-for solution must be a product of an honorable compromise that will create conditions of mutual respect and won't permit the imposition of the minority over the majority and naturally vice versa," said Anastasiades. Anastasiades spent a sizeable portion of his speech rebuffing critics who either oppose or have expressed serious misgivings with the federal model under negotiation, which they fear could legitimate the island's ethnic divisions and strip Greek Cypriots of rights.


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Syrian saved from tip of submerged boat unsure of future

BALIKESIR, Turkey (AP) — A Syrian man saved in a dramatic rescue operation following a migrant boat accident says his goal was to reach Germany but now he is unsure of his future. Pelan Huseyin, 20, was rescued by a Turkish coast guard helicopter Monday as he clung to the tip of an almost submerged boat which sank in the Bay of Edremit on its way to the Greek island of Lesbos.


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Greece, creditors still weeks away from bailout targets deal

A farmer changes oil in his parked tractor during a protest at a vital point, on a road that links the international airport with the southern and eastern suburbs of the Greek capital, in Koropi, near Athens, Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2016. Farmers in northern ...


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Nato launches naval patrols to return migrants to Turkey

Military alliance sends three warships, backed by planes, to intercept migrants and refugees in admission from EU that it is failing to cope with flow of people Nato has sent a patrol of three warships to intercept migrants trying to reach Greece by sea and send them back to Turkey, as Europe steps up efforts to contain the refugee crisis. The mission has been agreed and ordered to the Aegean sea in less than 24 hours, an extremely rapid move for the alliance. Nato normally spends months deliberating over decisions and agreeing details. Continue reading...


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The Truth About Sex Robots

Of course, this isn’t the first time people have lusted after artificial human entities – you can find that story all the way back to the Greek myth of Pygmalion.


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GREECE Worried for the NATO Campaign Against Refugees

11 de febrero de 2016, 09:15Athens, Feb 11 (Prensa Latina) GREECE expressed its concern due to the proposal made by the North Atlantic Treaty ...


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EU pressures GREECE as hotspots are not yet operational

The European Commission strongly recommended GREECE to take urgent measures to improve conditions for asylum seekers upon their arrival in ...


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Eurogroup's Dijsselbloem urges GREECE to do more on pensions

BRUSSELS Feb 11 Talks with GREECE on reforms are progressing but more needs to be done on pensions reform, fiscal issues and the setting up of a ...


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Sexual assault course teaches Greek women to be confidential reporters and confidants for sisters

"CARE Sisters" is a program that trains women in each Panhellenic chapter to be peer-to-peer mentors and educators on topics related to sexual violence. The program was created in response to controversy surrounding Greek live and sexual assault.


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The final agreement of Greek Petroleum and the Iranians

Athens, February 11, 2016/ Independent Balkan News Agency By Olga Mavrou ELPE or Hellenic Petroleum, the biggest oil  refiner of Greece, will pay in the next 10 days  the first instalment of its 600  millions euro debt to Iran, that is  100 millions euro. As was agreed a few days ago in Iran,  the Greek […]


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Central Europeans need to do more to help refugees, UN agency says

[Syrian refugees on a dinghy drift in the Aegean sea off the Greek island of Kos in Greece]The United Nations agency for refugees called on central European countries to overcome public opposition and give more help to refugees from war-torn regions. The UNHCR made its plea on Thursday, before a summit of the Visegrad group - Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia -opens in Prague on Monday. The group opposes European Union efforts to distribute asylum seekers across the EU and instead wants to emphasise securing the EU's external borders.


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Greek hotspot is good, its efficiency to be seen

… Greece in the future. Zaoralek said after a meeting with his Greek counterpart Nikos Kotzias today that the Greeks have promised …


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Hearts & Hugs: Eurogroup loves …Greece! What happened?

I have no idea whether these warm Eurogroup feelings towards Greece have something to do with the upcoming Valentine. Most probably not. But Dijsselbloem & Co had rather some praise for Greece and not the usual sour expressions in their faces. Eurogroup Chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem upon arriving: “The Greek program […]


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Cypriot president says peace talks make progress but work needed

[Cyprus President Anastasiades addresses the session 'Reuniting Cyprus' at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos]Peace talks in ethnically split Cyprus have shown progress on several fronts, but disagreements persisted and work was still required before a blueprint could be put to a public vote, the country's president said on Thursday. On-off peace talks between estranged Greek and Turkish Cypriots have shown promise since the election of a moderate Turkish Cypriot leader, Mustafa Akinci, in early 2015. "In spite of the remarkable progress achieved, time is needed before presenting a comprehensive solution to the people," President Nicos Anastasiades told Cyprus's parliament.


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Pharma's woes: profits, policies and patients

Pfizer criticises Nice policies and the budget freeze, saying the sick are suffering. But are wonder drugs always the answer? It’s not a great day to take the heat off Jeremy Hunt, just as he’s trying to force the endgame in his dispute with the not-so-junior doctors. As with most industrial disputes neither side has a monopoly of virtue, so let’s skip to another corner of the galactic health empire over which Emperor Jeremy and his Darth Vader, Simon Stevens, rule. What, on planet Earth, is Pfizer up to? You may have read the US pharmaceutical firm’s complaints about NHS England’s drugs policy – we’d be better off getting cancer in Scotland or even Greece, says its UK boss – in Thursday’s Telegraph or on Radio 4’s Today. But it was all in the Guardian last week, part of the paper’s epic This is the NHS series. Continue reading...


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PRODUCTION: GREEK Minds at Work in Development

NICOSIA: Director-producer and founder of Tetraktys Films Ltd, Stavros Papageorgiou is developing the 60 minute documentary GREEK Minds at Work, ...


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GREEK bond yields rise further on nervous markets

Yields on 10-year GREEK government bonds rose to 11.4 percent on Thursday from 10.9 percent the previous day, and Portuguese yields tightened to ...


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Russian Tourism: GREECE started issuing 3-year multiple entry visas

As stated at a press conference in St. Petersburg, Consul General of GREECE in St. Petersburg Panagiotis Beglitis, visas for children under 18 years ...


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Nato orders fleet to deploy in Aegean Sea 'to help end Europe's refugee crisis'

It comes after GREECE declared Turkey a "safe third country", giving it the legal framework to turn back asylum-seekers and to actively deport those who ...


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GREECE mulling whether to send back asylum seekers to Turkey

GREECE is considering whether to declare Turkey a "safe third country" which would allow it to send back asylum seekers picked up in the Aegean Sea, ...


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NATO Warships Ordered to Aegean to Deter Human Smuggling

Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, said on Thursday the warships, now under German command, are ordered into the Aegean Sea to conduct naval patrols to help end the smuggling of migrants between Turkey and Greece. The decision is based on a joined request by Germany, Greece and Turkey. Ships from NATO Standing Maritime Group 2


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Greek Stock Market Tumbles Again, But Losses Are Minimized Due to Political Announcement

Athens Stock Exchange continued its week-long steep slide today as the general index fell 1.8% to 441 units, while halfway through the day it was down 6.35%. The banking index continued to register the biggest losses in Athens Stock Exchange, falling sharply today by 5.6%. According to analysts, the announcement made by Eurogroup chief Jeroen


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Alternate FM Xydakis meets with Hungary’s Interior Minister, SándorPintér, Minister of State ...

The Alternate Foreign Minister for European Affairs, Nikos Xydakis, had successive meetings in Budapest yesterday, 10 February, with Hungary’s Interior Minister, SándorPintér, Minister of State for European Affairs, TakácsSzabolcs, and Deputy Foreign Minister for security and international cooperation affairs, Dr. IstvánMikola, completing his tour of Central European countries.During his meetings, Mr. Xydakis briefed his colleagues in detail on Greece’s positions and actions regarding the refugee crisis.


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Deputy FM Mardas meets with the Italian Ambassador to Athens, Luigi Marras (Foreign Ministry, ...

Ahead of the upcoming visit to Athens of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs International Cooperation, Paolo Gentiloni, Deputy Foreign Minister Dimitris Mardas met at the Foreign Ministry today with Italian Ambassador Luigi Marras.The agenda for the meeting included the potential for further enhancement of economic cooperation between the two countries, given that Italy is Greece’s second largest trade partner. Following the example of cooperation with France, the creation of a corresponding roadmap was discussed. Also considered were the potential for assisting the actions of the Greek-Italian Chamber of Commerce in Greece, the development of new actions via...


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2 alleged human smugglers on trial over Aylan Kurdi's death

BODRUM, Turkey (AP) — Two suspected people-smugglers went on trial in Turkey on Thursday accused of causing the death of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi — whose drowning put a human face on the Syrian refugee crisis — and four other people. The image of the boy's lifeless body lying face down on a Turkish beach galvanized world attention on the refugee crisis, graphically illustrating the magnitude of the suffering, the lives destroyed and the treacherous journeys the migrants risk. The two have been charged with human smuggling and causing the deaths of five people "through deliberate negligence." The man said he was not a smuggler but a migrant who had been instructed to by Abdullah Kurdi to stay back and keep an eye on a Turkish smuggler who had the migrants' money until the group reached Greece. In return, the EU pledged money to help improve the condition of refugees, and to grant political concessions to Turkey, including an easing of visa restrictions and the fast-tracking of its EU membership process.


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NATO launches sea mission against migrant traffickers

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO ships are on their way to the Aegean Sea to help Turkey and Greece crack down on criminal networks smuggling refugees into Europe, the alliance's top commander said on Thursday.


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HMCS Fredericton to join NATO mission in Aegean Sea

Source: www.cbc.ca - Thursday, February 11, 2016 NATO has ordered three warships to move immediately to the Aegean Sea to help stop 'human trafficking and criminal networks' operating between Turkey and Greece. Canada will send HMCS Fredericton to join NATO's anti-smuggling mission. All Related


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