Kurds rally in Turkey, Greece demanding recognition at Syrian peace conference

ANKARA, Turkey - A Turkish news agency says about 3,000 Kurds have rallied to demand that Syrian Kurds' right to self-rule be recognized at an upcoming peace conference.

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Another Two Suicides on Greek Islands

Greek ReporterAnother Two Suicides on Greek IslandsGreek ReporterGreek Police and Forensic Surgeon, Mr. Lambrinos, are carrying out an investigation to confirm the cause of death. Mr. Lambrinos was alerted the moment he returned from Leros where he had traveled in order to examine the body of the 20 year-old girl ...

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Helping hand: Greece and Pakistan need to work closely, says envoy

The Express TribuneHelping hand: Greece and Pakistan need to work closely, says envoyThe Express TribuneAfter China, Denmark and Germany, Greece Ambassador to Pakistan Petros Mavroidis has said that the two countries need to improve their commercial and economic relations and promote bilateral trade by taking advantage of new business opportunities.Greece, Pakistan to improve eco relations: envoyPakistan Daily TimesMavroidis for promoting Pak-Greece trade tiesAssociated Press of Pakistanall 3 news articles »

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Seven Arrests in Greece over Baby Trafficking

NaharnetSeven Arrests in Greece over Baby TraffickingNaharnetPolice in central Greece on Saturday said they had arrested seven people including five Bulgarians for attempted baby trafficking. "A police operation prevented the illegal adoption of a ten-day-old baby for the sum of 5,000 euros ($6,800)," police in ...Greek Police Arrest Baby Trading SuspectsGreek Reporterall 2 news articles »

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Greece Vows Defense Contract Oversight

ATHENS – The Greek government said it will overhaul contract awarding procedures and place defence contracts under increased parliamentary oversight following a corruption scandal in which at least 10 high-ranking military officers have been implicated for taking bribes to approve contracts for foreign arms manufacturers. Retired Vice Admiral Vassilis Martzoukos appealed to the government to […]

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SYRIZA Presidential Block Could Spur Elections

ATHENS – The leader of Greece’s major opposition party Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) said he will stymie the nomination of Greece’s symbolic but critical President next year, a move that could force early elections he said would bring his party to power and topple the pro-austerity government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. Alexis […]

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Golden Dawn Sues Its Prosecutors

ATHENS – The far-right Golden Dawn party is suing three senior judicial officials leading an investigation into the party’s alleged criminal activity, following the imprisonment of its leader and five other lawmakers charged with membership of a criminal organization. Golden Dawn spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris said that the action was taken against a public prosecutor and […]

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Political Unity Against Terror Threats

ATHENS – In a rare show of coming together, Greece’s otherwise bitter political rivals across the board have condemned what was called a terrorist act, the sending of bullets in the mail to the country’s central banker and a prominent journalist. Central Bank Governor Giorgos Provopoulos received an envelope containing two 7.65 mm bullets and […]

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Global Hunt For Postbank Suspects

ATHENS – Greek law enforcement officials have gotten the help of international agencies in finding businessman Kyriakos Griveas and his wife Anastasia Vatsika after Interpol issued an international “red notice” for their arrest in connection with the Hellenic Postbank (TT) corruption case. An arrest warrant against the couple, who live in London, was issued by […]

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Northern Greece to Have its Own Public Television Channel, Kapsis Says

Northern Greece is to have its own public television channel with nationwide coverage, based in the city of Thessaloniki, said the Deputy Minister for Public Television, Pantelis Kapsis. “Based on the operational plan of the board of New Hellenic Radio, Internet and Television (NERIT), there is scope for setting up a second nationwide channel and a general […]

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Defense Scandal Prompts More Oversight

The Greek government said it will overhaul contract awarding procedures and place defence contracts under increased parliamentary oversight following a corruption scandal in which at least 10 high-ranking military officers have been implicated for taking bribes to approve contracts for foreign arms manufacturers. Retired Vice Admiral Vassilis Martzoukos appealed to the government to reorganize the […]

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Political Rivals Condemn Terrorist Threats

Setting aside their political differences, Greece’s bitterly-divided parties have condemned what was called a terrorist act, the sending of bullets in the mail to the country’s central banker and a prominent journalist. Central Bank Governor Giorgos Provopoulos received an envelope containing two 7.65 mm bullets and a threatening note signed by a previously unknown group […]

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'No one fails' in Father Vieron's Greek class

The offbeat, witty retired Greek Orthodox priest Father Nicholas Vieron described the requirements for his class: “Students don’t have to study in my class.

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Can Privatization Save the Treasures of Ancient Greece?

Can Privatization Save the Treasures of Ancient Greece?TIMEMiller has a solution, which he says will generate jobs and protect Greece's vast archaeological wealth from the ravages of an economic crisis which has closed down ancient sites, shuttered museums and caused looting to surge. In a detailed proposal ...

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Kerry praises Greece for tough economic choices

Zee NewsKerry praises Greece for tough economic choicesZee News"I want to congratulate Greece on assuming the EU presidency, and we look forward very much to working with them in that role, but also in continuing the path towards economic recovery," the top US diplomat said. "We know that it has been very, very ...Beetroot Designed Greek Presidency LogoGreek ReporterCrisis: disappointment urges thousands of Greeks to migrateANSAmedSecretary of State John KerryHellenic News of AmericaEkklesiaall 11 news articles »

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Secret history: murder in a trailer park

Justin St Germain was 20 when his mother was shot dead by her husband in a trailer park in Arizona. He spent the next decade refusing to be defined by his 'trailer trash' past. But his lie began to destroy him

I was riding my bike home from class when a plane roared overhead, a green A-10 flying so low I could read its markings. I took my eyes off the road to watch it cross the sky. I'd been living in Tucson for a year, and hardly noticed the planes any more as they flew to and from the air force base. But it had been nine days since the towers fell and we were all newly conscious of planes. I was 20 years old. I knew the world had changed, but I didn't know how much.

I rode my bike recklessly, hopping kerbs and cutting across yards on my way to the rented house I shared with my brother, sweating through my shirt in the liquid heat. When I remember that bike ride, it's always beautiful: a bright, expansive sky, tyres whizzing on the road. A mile, a few minutes of my life, but in my memory it lasts for ever, and I remain that young man riding his bike, never reaching that front porch. That moment is golden, it's gone, it's a myth, but I remember it.

When I reached our driveway, I got off my bike to check the mail. The screen door flew open and my brother emerged, red-faced and weeping, phone in hand, struggling to speak. I had never seen him anything like that before, so I knew what he was going to say. He let the screen door slam behind him. I dropped my bike in the yard. He bent at the waist and pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand, still holding the phone in the other. I hoped he'd never find his voice. "She's dead."

"Who?" I had the sense of being watched, as if I would be expected to ask.

"Mum," he said. "Mum's dead." He turned and walked inside.

I climbed the porch steps, and stood on the threshold. Josh walked around our living room. He told the person on the phone that he had to go and hung up.

"Who was that?"

"Connie." She and her husband, Bob, were our mother's best friends. "She was supposed to meet them for lunch and didn't. Bob went to the property and found her."

"What do you mean, found her?" The heat pressed against my back. I couldn't go inside until I made sense of this feeling: not shock, not grief – those would come later – but recognition, as if I had always known this moment would come.

"She got shot."

Soon after we learned that our mother was dead, my brother and I went to a bar. Josh had called our grandparents, who lived in Philadelphia. Grandpop said he'd book the first flight he could, but air travel was snarled from the attacks nine days earlier. I called my dad in New Hampshire. I told him she was dead and a long pause ensued, one in a litany of silences between my father and me, stretching across the years since he'd left and the distance between us. Finally he said she was a good person, that he'd always cared for her. He asked if I wanted him to fly to Arizona. I said he didn't have to and hung up.

"What now?" I asked.

Josh kept his eyes on the menu and shook his head. "There's not much we can do."

"Should we go out there?"

"We can't. The property is a crime scene."

I asked if we should talk to the cops and he said he already had, that we were meeting with Detective Freeney on Monday. I asked about a funeral and he said the coroner had to do an autopsy first. There was a long pause. My mother and her parents always said Josh was more like my father, difficult to read. I got more from my mother, they said, the dark and heavy brows, the temper, the heart on my sleeve. But if I was like my mother, why was I so numb?

"Do you think Ray did it?" I asked. The police couldn't find our stepfather or the pickup truck he and my mother owned. He was the only suspect, but I didn't want to believe it.

Josh waited a while to respond. "We'll know for sure when they find him."

"You think he'd come here?" I asked. Ray knew where we lived. He'd been to the house a few times, with our mother, staying on the pullout couch in the living room.

"The detective mentioned that. He said he doubted it, but to keep an eye out."

Late that night, I said a prayer for the first time in months. I didn't pray for my own safety; I knew better than to rely on God for that. Instead, I got up off my knees, pulled a long, grey case out of my closet, laid it on the bed and flipped the catches. Inside lay a rifle, a gift from my father on my 13th birthday, an old Lee-Enfield bolt-action. I lifted it out of the case, loaded it, chambered a round and rested it against the wall by my bed. Then I tried to sleep, but every time a car passed, I sat up to peek out the window, expecting to see Ray.

After a few sleepless hours, I got up and went to my desk. I kept a journal in which I wrote to the future self I imagined. I would write about how dislocated I felt after moving from Tombstone, a town of 1,500 people to Tuscon, a city 30 times that size, how I felt like an impostor at university, was failing half my classes. I wrote about Mum, how she'd gone crazy after I moved out, how she and Ray had sold our trailer outside Tombstone and gone touring the country with their horses, and how she'd leave rambling messages on our answering machine at 5am, saying how much she loved and missed us.

I thought I should write something about that day, so the future me never forgot how it had felt to be 20 and motherless. But I didn't know what to say. I was in my first literature class, and I'd just written a paper on Henry James's The Beast In The Jungle. So I did what any English student would: I quoted someone else.

"My mother is dead. The Beast has sprung."

My mother always had shitty taste in men. My father is my father by name and blood, but not by role: he left when I was two. Her fourth husband, Max, was the only one I would really call a stepdad, because I hated him with all my heart and he wished I didn't exist. Max was the first man I ever saw abuse her, and then bring her back again and again, until I thought she'd never leave him. When she finally did, I hoped she had wised up.

Then she dated an army man, who taught me how to drive. He'd talk about how my mother didn't love him like he loved her, and I would sometimes give advice. But I never told him the one thing I had begun to fear was true: that if he wanted her to love him, he would have to hurt her. I came home from school one day and he was gone. Later, she let it slip that he'd been married the whole time. When she introduced me to Ray, this drawling, dull-eyed cop, I figured she'd get sick of him soon enough. The first time he stayed the night, I didn't speak to her for days. When she brought him home again anyway, I started to worry.

My mother loved to tell the story of how Ray had saved her. She met her fifth and final husband by calling the police. I heard her tell the story over and over, and it grew more dramatic every time. She was managing a Mexican restaurant, when one day a tourist, a big, angry man, started harassing her. He grabbed her arm. She pulled away, ran to the back room and called the cops. Ray showed up, wrestled the man to the ground, cuffed him, dragged him outside to his police car. Then he came inside and asked my mother her name.

"My hero," Mum would say, only half joking. "It was love at first sight." She'd look over at him all dewy-eyed, and he'd blush and give a sheepish grin. The story never made much sense to me. A customer grabs her, and none of the employees intervenes, not even Adonis, the hulking Greek waiter? If the customer was so big and so mad, how did Ray, at five nine and 150lb, bring him down so easy? And why would Mum – a single mother of two boys, a former army paratrooper, the toughest woman I've ever known – have been afraid enough to call the cops? The mother I knew would have grabbed the order spike off the counter and stabbed that son of a bitch. She didn't take any shit from men unless she was in love with them. But that was the story they stuck with.

We left to visit the trailer in two cars: Josh rode with Grandpop, and our housemate Joe rode with me in my truck, which we would need to haul anything of my mother's that we wanted to keep. I was the only one of us who knew the way.

A strip of yellow police tape held the gate shut. Mum and Ray had bought the trailer as a temporary place to live while they researched plans to build a rammed-earth house – another of their crackpot ideas – and it was where they'd lived together, with no running water and no air-conditioning, just a gas generator. Of all the homes she'd had, all the temporary places with temporary men, the worst was where she died.

Josh went first, opening the door and ducking through the entrance. I filled my lungs with fresh air and followed him. Inside, it was dim and warm. The smell wasn't as bad as I'd expected, musty and rich and a little sour. The cupboards and drawers had been emptied, their contents scattered across the countertops and floor.

To my left a narrow hall led to the bathroom. To my right was the bed. I followed the buzzing of the flies. The mattress was gone, removed by the police. Past the headboard, a shelf stretched beneath the sloping roof of the trailer. The flies had gathered on the shelf. As I walked closer, I saw a large shadow that spread across the wood. The dark patch was a rough circle a few feet in diameter. There was nothing else it could have been, but I didn't believe that it was blood, because there was too much. I touched the surface of the stain and my fingers came back caked with a brownish paste. I rubbed my fingertips together; it turned to powder and stained my skin. Where the pool was darkest, I noticed clumps of brown hair, and fragments of something I didn't want to identify.

A fly alighted on a photo album at the edge of the pool. I reached without thinking and picked it up. The caked blood around it flaked, and a piece of hair clung to the pewter cover until I brushed it away. It was my mother and Ray's wedding album. I put it back on the shelf. Nearby lay a toppled bottle of holy water, also stained with blood. I put it in my pocket.

I took the family Bible, a few trinkets I'd made or given her long ago, and all of the photo albums except the one stained with her blood.

In a few weeks we'd sell my mother's land, 40 acres of empty desert, a shed full of ugly furniture, a barn full of mouldy hay and a travel trailer where someone had been murdered, as a package deal at a bargain price.

During those months when Ray was missing, while my attention lapsed in a lecture, I'd sometimes find myself daydreaming about what he might be doing at that moment. I'd imagine that he was holed up in the mountains, hunting deer. Or I'd see him parked at the end of our street, staking out our house, the embers in his pipe painting his face red. On 9 December, a New Mexico state policeman called Detective Freeney and told him he'd found a man's decomposing body in a red Ford pickup, next to a suicide note and a driver's licence for Duane Raymont Hudson. Freeney must have called Josh, and Josh must have told me, and I must have been relieved. But I don't know for sure how I reacted, because I can't remember anything about the moment I learned that Ray was dead, and I didn't write a word about it in my journal. I must have thought that I could finally forget.

My mother fades a little more each day: I can't picture her face, can't remember a time when she was alive. She didn't like to think or talk about the past, a trait I inherited. Nearly a decade now since she died, and all that's left of her are a few relics and my own suspect memories.

I moved to California two years ago, and I've found a better life: a career, a woman who loves me, smart and successful friends. I eat organic, have a coffee grinder and a housemate from France, hang out at used bookstores and lesbian bars and literary readings. I should be happy. But this life feels like a lie, because it's built on one. When I moved here, I denied my mother, lied about her death, tried not to think of her. I thought I was leaving all that behind. It worked, for a while.

Then, one night, I found myself talking to a friend, Laura. She asked about my mother. I'd told her long before that she'd died in a car accident. "My stepdad shot her." For a moment, Laura didn't say anything, just stared searchingly at my face. "That's awful," she said, and left it at that. Soon afterwards, we started dating. It wasn't like I'd feared it would be; she didn't ask a lot of questions or define me by my past.

Afterwards, I wondered why, after lying about my family to everyone in California, I had blurted my secret to a woman I liked at a party. It didn't make sense, but it wasn't a surprise; lately I'd felt the walls around the past crumbling, sensed something stalking me again. For years now I've denied my mother's murder, always trying to be some different kind of man – normal, stable, calm. I've hoarded the rage in my heart, and it manifests in the destructive ways rage does: chronic chest pain, failed relationships, an exaggerated response to threats. I expect the people I care about to die at any moment, and I don't make plans for the future, because I don't believe in it; in order to do that, I'd have to understand the past.

I rented a guesthouse in Tucson for the summer and contacted Detective Freeney and my mother's ex-partners in the hope of finally finding out what really happened. One of her exes, Brian, had pulled together all the police reports and gave me copies. I found myself lying on the guesthouse floor, sweating and drunk and alone, wondering what the hell I was doing. The documents lay unread on the coffee table, full of facts and dates and names. I did a shot of tequila to steel myself, then sat on the floor and read it all.

I read that on 9 December 2001, Agent Bishop of the New Mexico state police got a call from his sergeant around noon: a ranger in Caballo had found a dead man in a truck. The vehicle was registered to Deborah St Germain and Duane Raymont Hudson, of Tombstone. As Bishop approached and circled the truck, he noted the make, model and plate, the empty water tank, mud on the tyres, the tinted windows open a couple of inches, the sunscreen blocking his view through the windshield, and the mobile phone antenna jutting above the rear window. He smelled a strong odour coming from inside the truck.

Bishop peered through the window and saw a body on its back, partially covered by a sheet. On the centre console between the front seats he saw an open spiral notebook with writing on the page. A driver's licence and a wedding band sat on top of the note.

The report also includes a copy of the suicide note. It's hard to read, spattered with black dots of various sizes, blood and brain matter. As near as I can tell, it says: "I can no longer endure the pessimistic and fatalistic demeanour of my life. Nor can I continue to live a life of falsehoods and lies. The constant negative attitude has caused so much mental strain and anguish that I have reached a point of no return.

"I have once again failed in life. I failed in my Marine Corps career, my law enforcement career, my first marriage and fatherhood, and now my second marriage. My actions have set my fate and destiny and also expedited them.

"I have ruined many lives and I am sorry."

The first time I read it, I thought: what a crock of shit. He doesn't admit what he did, doesn't use any of the words: murder, wife, mother. He doesn't even say her name. On the second read I noticed the details. The inflated diction; I guess he had been reading. The wire spine of the notebook is on the right; he began the note on the back of a page. What was on the front, the rough draft?

There are no clues left, no mystery to solve. I know what happened. I just don't know why.

She would have been facing west. It was warm that day, 90F at noon; the windows of the trailer were open, and through them she saw the mottled hills, rising and falling into the distance. Outside, the door of the truck slammed shut.

The trailer door opened. A shaft of light, a breath of wind, a boot thumping on the step. She ignored him. They had fought about something, said things that couldn't be unsaid.

He said something or he didn't. She replied or she didn't. I hope he hesitated before he raised my mother's gun and pointed it at her back, hope it was hard for him to become that man. If she sensed what was coming, she didn't turn around.

A tug at her shoulder. A crack split the room. Another. The pain arrived an instant later, in her shoulder, in her chest, spreading, ricocheting. She had known pain, but this was fresh and terrible.

She slumped against the shelf. Her world went slow. He must have said something then, but I doubt she grasped his words. She must have felt what I do, words failing. Once she'd known what love meant, had said the word in vows, and she'd used it again and again, meaning something different every time, until it brought her here, to a place without a name, with a man she didn't love any more, and now the words were done. Only acts remained. She was going to die.

His boot heels beat on the floor as he approached. She whirled and raked her nails across his face. He shoved her away. She landed face down on the shelf and knew that he was aiming. She never would have thought he'd shoot her in the back.

In that last moment she must have felt it all acutely. Pain. The sun on her back. The tang of gunpowder on her tongue. A shred of desert through the window. The last swell of hope: if she could talk him down, it was only her shoulder, she could call an ambulance, she might still live. She must have thought of her parents, her brother, her horses. God.

And her children. Where we were. How we'd hear. What we'd do without her, the men we would become. Her hopes for us, the weddings and grandkids she would miss. The bond we had. Reading to us in the womb before we knew the words. As a shadow arm rose on the wall, as she braced for the bullet, she would have tried to speak to her sons. We might not hear her now. We might not think we could. But she believed that one day we would hear her voice again, and know that she had never left us.

FamilyParents and parentingGun crimeDeath and dyingtheguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Ukrainian president approves strict anti-protest laws

Viktor Yanukovych signs bills passed by parliament that western governments have called anti-democratic and wrong

The Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich has signed into force a set of tough new laws that ban virtually all forms of anti-government protests despite an outcry from western governments that have criticised them as anti-democratic.

The presidential website listed the laws, which were rushed through parliament by Yanukovich's supporters on Thursday.

Yanukovich triggered major pro-Europe rallies in the former Soviet republic when he walked away from signing a landmark free trade deal with the European Union in late November in favour of closer economic ties with Russia, Ukraine's Soviet-era overlord.

These rallies rapidly spiralled into mass anti-government protests that brought hundreds of thousands on to the streets of the capital, Kiev.

Several hundred protesters are still camped out in the main Independence Square and on the city's main thoroughfare. Several hundred others are camped out 300 metres away in City Hall.

Heavy-handed action by riot police to break up the protests in December failed and brought condemnation from the United States and Europe.

The new laws ban any unauthorised installation of tents, stages or amplifiers which have all been features of the protests that play out day and night on Kiev's Independence Square. People and organisations who provide facilities or equipment for such meetings will also be liable to a fine or detention. The laws foresee prison terms of up to 15 years for "mass violation" of public order.

Apart from targeting public protests, the laws also are similar to Russia's on registration of foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs), categorising them as "foreign agents" if they are funded from abroad.

Yanukovich's decision to speedily sign the laws seemed certain to add tension to a new rally in Kiev which the opposition has called for Sunday.

Though the protests do not appear to have threatened Yanukovich's grip on power, an indication of tensions within his close entourage came with an announcement that he had sacked his powerful chief-of-staff, Serhiy Lyovochkin.

The president's office gave no reason for the move.

Lyovochkin was rumoured to have wanted to step down shortly after riot police dispersed student protesters with stun grenades and batons on 30 November, a move which brought tens of thousands out on to the streets the next day. But these reports were subsequently officially denied.

Ukraine's foreign minister Leonid Kozhara on Friday rebuked the west over its criticism and said it was "considered in Kiev as meddling in the internal affairs of our state", according to a ministry statement.

Kozhara, it said, made his comments during a meeting with the EU's ambassador to Kiev, Jan Tombinski, and US ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt.

"I am deeply concerned by the events in Kyiv (Kiev)," Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, said in a statement, adding that the legislation was "restricting the Ukrainian citizens' fundamental rights".

The German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the course taken by Yanukovich was "a dead end ... Repression is no answer to a contentious, political debate".

In Washington, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the move was disturbing and wrong.

"The steps that were taken yesterday are anti-democratic, they're wrong, they are taking from the people of Ukraine their choice and their opportunity for the future," Kerry told reporters after a meeting with his Greek counterpart.

"We will continue to stay focused on this issue, but this kind of anti-democratic maneuvre is extremely disturbing and should be a concern to every nation that wants to see the people of Ukraine be able to not only express their wish but see it executed through the political process," he added.

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Anarchist linked to guerrilla group given time to prepare defense

Anarchist Costas Sakkas, who was granted conditional release in July after going on hunger strike to protest the fact that he had been held in detention for two-and-a-half years, faced a prosecutor on Friday following his arrest by members of Greece's ant... ...

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Blue chips head south as small-caps inch up at end of week

The Greek bourse presented a mixed picture at the end of the week’s last session on Friday, with the benchmark slipping slightly on a blue chip decline while rising stocks outnumbered losers thanks to the gains posted by most small-caps. The Athens Exchan... ...

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Trial of two Greeks charged with murder of Pakistani man suspended

The trial of two men charged with the murder of Pakistani national Luqman Shahzad in January, 2013, in Petralona, central Athens, was suspended on Friday after members of anti-fascist organizations attacked the suspects in the courtroom. The trial was pos... ...

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Boutaris denies lashing out at German envoy to Greece

Thessaloniki Mayor Yiannis Boutaris has denied reports he made demeaning comments about a German envoy in Greece that effectively accused the official of squandering public money. Reports in Greek media on Thursday said that Boutaris accused Hans-Joachim ... ...

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Interpol after suspect couple in Hellenic Postbank case

A global hunt is under way for Greek businessman Kyriakos Griveas and his wife Anastasia Vatsika after Interpol issued an international “red notice” for their arrest in connection with the Hellenic Postbank (TT) corruption case. An arrest warrant against ... ...

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SYRIZA to block new president in a bid to force elections in 2015

The possibility of Greece holding snap general elections by early next year grew on Friday after SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras made it clear in Parliament that his party would oppose any candidate put forward by the government to take over from President K... ...

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Parties condemn terrorist threats against central banker, journalist

Greek parties across the political spectrum on Friday condemned a terrorist threat against the country’s central banker and a prominent journalist. Central Bank Governor Giorgos Provopoulos received an envelope containing two 7.65 mm bullets and a threate... ...

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Construction in Greece showing signs of recovery

Construction in Greece showed signs of recovery in October as Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) data published on Friday revealed an 8.7 percent rebound in the volume of private building activity in the country, although that was not enough to affec... ...

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NBG to issue 200 mln in mortgage loans in 2014

National Bank of Greece has set a target of increasing the number of new loans to be issued this year by lending over 200 million euros to households considered to have a healthy financial status, compared with about 100 million euros used for the issue o... ...

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Cash to be channeled to healthy firms

Banks expect 2014 to bring sweeping changes to the corporate map of Greece, as the reduced cash flow and the exhaustion of the fat created in the growth years mean that lenders and enterprises will have to make radical decisions. According to estimates by... ...

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Putting themed tourism on the right track

This country’s sports legacy makes the combination of culture and history with physical exercise an added attraction that Greece cannot afford to ignore. Themed tourism offers benefits that mass tourism doesn’t, including high added value and repeat visit... ...

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Search for Greece bank robbery suspect

Search for Greece bank robbery suspect13WHAM-TVGreece, N.Y. - Greece Police are searching for a man who robbed a bank in Greece Friday afternoon. Police said a man handed a note to a teller the JP Morgan Chase Bank on Dewey Avenue, demanding money. The suspect received an undisclosed ...Greece police: Chase bank robbed on Dewey Ave.Rochester Democrat and ChronicleGreece Police investigating bank robbery on Dewey AvenueNews 10NBCall 5 news articles »

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Cypriot Ghost Town’s Ecological Rebirth

DERYNEIA, Cyprus (AP) -  Time virtually stopped in 1974 for the Mediterranean tourist playground of Varosha. When Turkey invaded Cyprus in the wake of a coup by supporters of union with Greece, thousands of residents fled, and chain-link fences enclosed a glamorous resort that it’s said once played host to Hollywood royalty like Elizabeth Taylor. […]

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Bullets Sent To Provopoulos, TV Presenter

ATHENS – Counter-terrorism police are investigating bullets in envelopes that were mailed to Bank of Greece Governor Giorgos Provopoulos and Mega TV presenter Yiannis Pretenderis amid new fears of violence and political unrest in the country. The incidents came a day after Provopoulos told a parliamentary committee that the economy is recovering but that the […]

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Venizelos, Kerry In D.C. Meet

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Greek Foreign Minister/Deputy Prime Minister/PASOK Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos met with US Secretary of State John Kerry here for talks on concerns relating to American policy about Greece and internationally. The talks dealt with a range of issues of national interest to Greece, which now holds the rotating European Union Presidency for […]

The post Venizelos, Kerry In D.C. Meet appeared first on The National Herald.

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NYT: Greek Elites Are Starting to Feel the Pain

Greek ReporterNYT: Greek Elites Are Starting to Feel the PainGreek ReporterThe American newspaper notes that Greeks protest to the unfairness of the austerity measures passed by the Greek government, raising taxes and trimming salaries for average Greeks, while leaving top-ranking state officials unaccountable for their part ...In Greece, Elites Are Starting to Feel the PainNew York Timesall 3 news articles »

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Greek President Papoulias Will Finish His Term, March 2015

An official statement issued by the office of the Greek President of the Republic, Karolos Papoulias, has denied speculation of a possible early departure from the Presidency. According to the statement, “The President of the Republic Karolos Papoulias will complete his term, finishing in March 2015.” Papoulias has been the President of the Hellenic Republic since […]

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Store Employees On Strike Regarding Sunday Opening

The Federation of Greek Private Employees (OIYE) has decided to strike in response to Sunday store opening. For the upcoming Sunday opening on January 17, OIYE has announced a 24-hour strike covering all of Greece and has called for a strike round-up at Syntagma Square in Athens. In its announcement, the Federation was critical of […]

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Athens Municipality Honors Theodoros Angelopoulos

It has been two years now since the death of Greek film director Theodoros Angelopoulos. The city of Athens Youth and Sport Organization will screen on Friday, January 24, the film “Athens, Return to the Acropolis” in Syntagma Square, Athens, Greece. The film documents the views of the director about Athens, the city in which he […]

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21 Greek Public Sector Bodies May Be Abolished

It is rumored that the Greek Ministry of Administrative Reforms is planning on submitting a new legislative bill that will turn Greece’s public sector upside down. The bill includes the abolition of 21 public sector bodies, part of the Ministry’s effort to make the sector more efficient. The rumored closures and mergers will result in about […]

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Poll: Vote of Confidence to Greek Justice, Yes to the Euro

A new poll carried out by Greek Statistical Service MRB Hellas for Greek news-portal newsit.gr reveals that the Greek people have faith in the judicial system and want to stay in the eurozone. The results of the poll indicate that the majority of the Greek population casts a positive vote in relation to the European […]

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Beetroot Designed Greek Presidency Logo

Could it ever be possible for a beetroot to turn upside down the world of design and to gain the respect of the European Union? In fact, it is! Beetroot creative design group from Thessaloniki, Greece, was selected from among other companies and commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to design the logo and […]

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Theatre Play Reveals Unknown Greek Vampire History

It may seem unbelievable, but there were vampires in Greece! The engaging theatrical performance by Konstantinos Dellas and his theater company “boulouki,” narrates the story of Greek vampires, based on reports in medieval and modern Greek literature. “The Greek Vampire,” currently playing at the Municipal Theater of Piraeus, attempts to shed light on these mythical beings. […]

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Stournaras and Tsipras Argue over Banking Scandals

The Greek Minister of Finance, Yiannis Stournaras and the leader of the main opposition SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, had an intense argument in Parliament on Friday morning, after the opposition leader posed a question to the Greek Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras about the recent banking scandals. Stournaras answered that there is still a lot to be done and spoke of “an unprecedented purge“ which […]

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Greece: Man sentenced to jail for blasphemy

Athens - A man who created a Facebook page poking fun at a revered Greek Orthodox monk has been sentenced to 10 months in prison in Greece after being found guilty of blasphemy. Thousands of Greeks took to social networking sites to protest against the ...

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Greece: Far right party sues senior prosecutors

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party is suing three senior judicial officials leading an investigation into the party's alleged criminal activity, following the imprisonment of its leader and five other lawmakers charged with membership of a criminal organization.

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Greek-American George Stephanopoulos First to Interview Putin

Greek-American ABC News journalist George Stephanopoulos is the first U.S. broadcaster to have a sit-down with Russian president Vladimir Putin in the run-up to next month’s Winter Olympics in Sochi. The host of “Good Morning America” and ...

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Greece police: Chase bank robbed on Dewey Ave.

13WHAM-TVGreece police: Chase bank robbed on Dewey Ave.Rochester Democrat and ChronicleGreece Police are investigating a robbery at the JP Morgan Chase Bank at 2900 Dewey Avenue this afternoon. According to police, the suspect entered the bank around 1 p.m. and handed a teller a note requesting money. He fled the bank as a passenger in ...Search for Greece bank robbery suspect13WHAM-TVGreece Police investigating bank robbery on Dewey AvenueNews 10NBCall 5 news articles »

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