Pages

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

Friday, March 4, 2016

Bureaucratic nightmares keep refugees stuck at borders

Papers clutched tightly in their hands, hundreds of frantic refugees clamor for the attention of Greek police to fix documents the Macedonian authorities on the other side of the border rejected as potential forgeries — sometimes for problems as seemingly capricious as whether the color of the ink used to sign them is black instead of blue.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.washingtonpost.com

GREEK mythology of Ajax, Persephone collide on ancient coin

A circa 382 to 356 B.C. silver stater from Lokris Opuntii in ancient Greece highlights e-auction No. 14 by Davissons Ltd., closing March 30.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.coinworld.com

Notes on the great Syrian exodus: ‘Epic in scale, inconceivable until you witness it’

Booker prize winner RICHARD FLANAGAN visits Lebanon, Greece and Serbia to report on the plight of the 5 million Syrians fleeing their country. ‘Forced to choose between life and death,’ he writes, ‘they choose life’ “Yesterday was the funeral,” Ramadan says. “It was very cold. We make sure Yasmin always has family around her.” Yasmin wears a red scarf, maroon jumper and blue jeans. She is small and slight. Her face seems unable to assemble itself into any form of meaning. Nothing shapes it. Her eyes are terrible to behold. Blank and pitiless. Yet, in the bare backstreet apartment in Mytilini on the Greek island of Lesbos in which we meet on a sub-zero winter’s night, she is the centre of the room, physically, emotionally, spiritually. The large extended family gathered around Yasmin – a dozen or more brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews, nieces, her mother and her father, Ramadan, an aged carpenter – seem to spin around her. Continue reading...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.theguardian.com

Greek Drama

I am told by a reliable Greek co-worker that everything is Greek. Everything. And yet when I swung into the office with a paper bag from Humboldt Soup Company (1019 Myrtle Ave., Eureka), there was some panic — from the Greek Panikos, incidentally — as ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.northcoastjournal.com

FM Poposki asks Greece to quit dumping migrants at Macedonian border

… ;, the Foreign Minister added. Top Greek authorities meet on Friday to …  pressure might be decreased on Greece, on its external border, because …  crossing through Macedonia coming from Greece and reaching Germany, Austria and …


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT world.einnews.com

Refugee issue not just for Turkey, Greece

… a problem for Turkey and Greece, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu … his Greek counterpart Nikos Kotzias following their meeting at the Greek Foreign … has enormous humanitarian consequences for Greece and Turkey," the Turkish …


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT world.einnews.com

The Latest: Greece seeks 'major' border patrol boost

PARIS (AP) — The Latest on the flow of refugees and other migrants into Europe (all times local): 9:30 p.m. Greece says it will seek a "major enhancement" of international assistance to patrol its sea border with Turkey during a highly anticipated ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.newser.com

Tusk voices solidarity with Greece ahead of European Union refugee summit

European Council President Donald Tusk told would-be illegal economic migrants Thursday not to come to Europe, while Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called for sanctions to be imposed on EU states that refuse to take in their share of people.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT fayetteadvocate.com

'The Situation Is Overwhelming': NGOs Struggle To Help Stranded Refugees At Macedonia's Border

Tensions in the Greek town of Idomeni intensified this week after Balkan countries dramatically limited the number of migrants and refugees who can cross their borders. Now, international aid organization Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières or MSF, warns that the bottleneck is placing new strains on the NGOs working at the Greece-Macedonia border to provide aid to the thousands of migrants and refugees stranded there.  "This very moment, over 11,000 refugees -- mainly from Syria and Iraq -- are stuck here, and the situation is overwhelming," MSF communications manager Vicky Markofela told HuffPost Greece. Thousands of migrants and refugees are arriving in Greece every day from countries in Africa and the Middle East, hoping to continue on to northern Europe. Up until recently, Macedonia allowed Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis to cross the border from Greece, but the country reversed that decision last month and now allows only a handful of Syrians and Iraqis across each day.  As a result, up to 30,000 migrants and refugees are now stuck at the border, up to 12,000 of them living in a makeshift camp in Idomeni that only has the capacity for 2,000 people, according to Greek officials. Greece’s migration minister said that he expects the overall number of migrants and refugees stranded in the country to increase to 70,000 this month.   Frustrated with what seems a hopeless situation, many migrants and refugees staged protests near the border last week -- and have attempted to break through border fences that keep them from crossing into Macedonia.  On Feb. 29, Macedonian police responded with tear gas to disperse the demonstrators. According to Reuters, at least two people collapsed as a result.  Markolefa says she witnessed women holding their children in tears that day, afraid that the tear gas would be poisonous -- or worse, fatal. > We have treated more than 100 patients who have been victims of > police violence. > Vicky Markofela, Doctors Without Borders Tensions between migrants and security forces have been dangerous for some time, Markolefa said. MSF has been treating refugees and migrants for injuries caused by police, including a 6-week-old infant, the organization said on Twitter.  “We have treated more than 100 patients who have been victims of police violence, and we have recorded more than five cases where people were attacked by dogs unleashed by Macedonia police," Markolefa said.  > This little girl is one of the many we treated following the tear > gassing at #Idomeni. The youngest was 6 weeks old. > pic.twitter.com/7WzXJAtJ4D > — MSF Sea (@MSF_Sea) February 29, 2016 The overcrowding at the camp has also led to massive shortages. Around 1,500 migrants and refugees lack tents and must sleep out in the cold with blankets, Markolefa said.  "The queue for food is more than 150 meters long," she added. "All the weight for feeding and helping these people has fallen on NGOs. The authorities stick with documenting them." According to Markolefa, many refugees and migrants in Idomeni are burning whatever they can find to keep warm. Respiratory infections are spreading, she said. Cases of physical and psychological trauma are also on the rise.  Facing its own social and economic crisis, the Greek government has been struggling to help the thousands of people arriving on its shores each day. Thanks to E.U. pressure, Greek authorities are stepping up efforts to register people entering the country and temporarily accommodate them, but international and volunteer organizations are still carrying out much of that work.  MSF is calling for an immediate solution from the E.U. "We want to strongly express our concern for the health of those people who feel helpless and are in desperate need for safety," Markolefa said. Panagiotis Rigas, another MSF employee, offered a bleak analysis: "This situation is unacceptable both for Greece and the E.U. It is impossible to sustain our infrastructure." _This post first appeared on_ HuffPost Greece. It has been translated into English and edited for clarity. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.huffingtonpost.com

Tusk to migrants: Stop coming to Greece

Earlier Thursday, Tusk told officials in Athens that Europe had little chance of resolving the crisis without full respect of controls on the external borders of Europe's passport-free Schengen area - signaling pressure on Athens to do more to separate ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT senegal-actu.com

How much do you know about Greece? Take our quiz.

Javascript is disabled. Quiz scoring requires Javascript.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.csmonitor.com

Signs of Deep Decay

  To paraphrase the poet Seferis: at every turn, Greece is drowning. Drowning in the tsunami caused by the government, the economy, and the refugee crisis. The country is increasingly becoming something between Argentina (economically) and Venezuela (politically). First, the “easy” points. The Troika, which controls the disbursement of 5.7 billion euros to Greece, provided […]


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.thenationalherald.com

Bulgaria: Mass inspections of GREEK fresh produce imports

The Bulgarian Agency for Food Safety (NVS) has started conducting mass checks of incoming fresh fruits and vegetables in the border checkpoints on ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.freshplaza.com

GREEK Finance Minister: Review of GREEK programme will be completed soon

GREEK Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos on Thursday expressed his optimism that a review of the GREEK programme will be completed soon.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.tornosnews.gr

Turkish authorities just seized control of the country's largest newspaper

[zaman turkey]Murad Sezer /Reuters ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish authorities seized control of the country's largest newspaper on Friday, state-run media said, in a widening crackdown against supporters of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, an influential foe of President Tayyip Erdogan. Administrators have been appointed to run the Zaman newspaper at the request of an Istanbul prosecutor, state-run Anadolu Agency reported. Officials were not immediately available to confirm the reports. The move against Zaman came hours after police detained prominent businessmen over allegations of financing what prosecutors described as a "Gulenist terror group", Anadolu reported. Erdogan accuses Gulen of conspiring to overthrow the government by building a network of supporters in the judiciary, police and media. Gulen denies the charges. The two men were allies until police and prosecutors seen as sympathetic to Gulen opened a corruption probe into Erdogan's inner circle in 2013. "It has been a habit for the last three, four years, that anyone who is speaking against government policies is facing either court cases or prison, or such control by the government," said Abdulhamit Bilici, editor-in-chief of Zaman. "This is a dark period for our country, our democracy." Zaman is Turkey's biggest selling newspaper, with a circulation of 650,000 as of the end of February, according to media-sector monitor MedyaTava website. Hundreds of supporters gathered in the rain outside Zaman's Istanbul office where they waved Turkish flags and carried placards reading "Hands off my newspaper" and "Free media cannot be silenced", live footage from Cihan, a broadcaster owned by the same parent as Zaman, showed. MEDIA FREEDOM [turkey]Murad Sezer /ReutersThe crackdown on Zaman comes at an already worrying time for press freedom in Turkey. Two prominent journalists from the pro-opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper are facing potential life sentences on charges of endangering state security for publishing material that purports to show intelligence officials trucking arms to Syria. Authorities have seized and shut down opposition media outlets associated with the Gulen movement before. The state deposit insurance fund said this week an Islamic bank founded by Gulen followers might be liquidated within months. Gulen's movement has adherents in the United States, Africa and Asia, where it runs private schools and says it promotes interfaith dialogue. Earlier on Friday police detained Memduh Boydak, chief executive of furniture-to-cables conglomerate Boydak Holding, as well as the group's chairman Haci Boydak and two board members, Anadolu reported. Haci Boydak and Memduh Boydak were accused of being members of the "Gulenist terror group" and providing it with financial support, Anadolu said. Board members Murat Bozdag and Erol Boydak were accused of spreading the group's propaganda on social media, it said, adding that all were detained at home. Nobody from the company, based in the central Turkish city of Kayseri, was available to comment Erdogan has accused Gulen of operating a "parallel state structure" bent on toppling him. Government officials have also accused Gulen's followers of having ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Gulen denies such links and describes the PKK as a terrorist group. NOW WATCH: IAN BREMMER: Greece is headed for a humanitarian disaster


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.businessinsider.com

New Fences on the Old Continent: Refugee Crisis Pushes Europe to the Brink

Even as Chancellor Merkel continues pursuing a deal with Turkey, Austria and its Balkan neighbors to the south have taken things into their own hands. With fences going up across the region, Greece is in trouble and the EU can't figure out what to do. _By SPIEGEL Staff_


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.spiegel.de

Ben Quilty's haunting drawings of refugees from Syria – in pictures

The Australian artist Ben Quilty travelled to Lebanon, Greece and Serbia as a guest of World Vision, visiting refugee camps with the author Richard Flanagan – who has written about plight of the 5 million Syrians fleeing their country. Quilty drew the people he met, and gave children in the camps crayons and paper so they could draw their memories of Syria and the images that haunt their dreams Continue reading...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.theguardian.com

Tusk: 'European consensus' emerging to tackle migration crisis

Ahead of a key summit with Turkey, the European Council president said a "comprehensive strategy" is near. Ankara has agreed to "accelerated relocation" to move migrants from Greece to Turkey, according to Tusk.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.dw.com

Planning application submitted for new GREEK restaurant in Exeter

A planning application for a new GREEK Restaurant in Pinhoe has been submitted to Exeter City Council. The application for the two floor ...


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

GREEK state-run TV head: Tsipras does not try to manipulate his public image

He is a strong supporter of GREEK Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. In the Greece of the economic crisis, which has been a nightmare for the country since ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.todayszaman.com

Cyprus' first public gay wedding takes aim at prejudices

LARNACA, Cyprus (AP) — The newlyweds wanted to go all-out with their wedding celebrations. All the trappings of a traditional Cypriot wedding were on display; the huge line of well-wishers with cash-filled envelopes in hand, a band playing the latest Greek pop hits and the mandatory roasted pork.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT uk.news.yahoo.com

Cyprus Heads Toward Exiting Its Bailout

Cyprus is expected to finish its nearly three-year-old financial bailout this month, leaving Greece as the only eurozone member that still needs rescue loans.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.wsj.com

Meeting of Greek Political Leaders Ends With a Convergence of Sorts Over Ways to Tackle Migration Crisis

The President of the Hellenic Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos chaired a special meeting today with the leaders of the Greek political leaders at the presidential mansion. The meeting was held upon the request of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras who wished to inform opposition leaders — bar the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn — of the latest developments


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com

Turkey needs to stop or significantly cut migrant flow

Turkey needs to stop or significantly reduce the number of illegal migrants crossing into Europe and a readmission agreement between Ankara and Brussels must go into full effect by June 1, an EU envoy said on Friday. "A very important date will be the first of June, when all provisions of the Turkey-EU readmission agreement will have to apply and be fulfilled," Hansjorg Haber, head of the EU delegation to Turkey, told a news conference in Istanbul. "In the meantime, it is important to improve the application of the existing bilateral readmission agreement with Greece and Bulgaria.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT uk.news.yahoo.com

Greece’s Theodoridis new interim UEFA chief

… last Friday. Theodoridis, a 50-year-old Greek citizen, had been Infantino’s …


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT world.einnews.com

A Team Of Refugees Will Compete In Rio Olympics

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (Reuters) - A team of refugees that will compete at this year's Rio de Janeiro Olympics could number as many as 10 athletes, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach on Wednesday. The team, which was officially approved by the IOC Executive Board and called Team of RefugeeOlympics Athletes (ROA), will be made up from a pool of 43 prospective Olympians, already identified by the IOC and supported with funds to train. Nomination criteria included sporting level, official United Nations-verified refugee status and personal situation and background, the IOC said. "We have no target," Bach said when asked how many athletes would be in the team. "It depends very much on the sporting qualifications. This team may end up between five and 10 athletes maybe." Hundreds of thousands of refugees, many from Syria, have crossed via Turkey and Greece into Europe. The plight of those fleeing conflict, as well as economic migrants escaping poverty, has polarized opinion in Europe, with the amount of new arrivals stretching the European Union's asylum system. "By welcoming ROA to the Olympic Games in Rio, we want to send a message of hope to all therefugees of the world," Bach said. "Having no national team to belong to, having no flag to march behind, having no national anthem to be played, these refugees will be welcomed to the Olympic Games with the Olympic flag and with the Olympic anthem," he said. ROA will be housed in the athletes' village along with all other national teams and will enter the stadium as the penultimate team at the opening ceremony, ahead of the host nation. "This team will be treated during Olympics like all the other teams," Bach said. "It will enjoy all the privileges like the other teams and athletes." The athletes and the sports they will compete in will be named at the next IOC executive board meeting in June.   (Editing by Ed Osmond) -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.huffingtonpost.com

It Is High Time for EU to Stand Up to Creeping Illiberal Democracy in Europe

[2016-03-04-1457109612-3952411-Porban.jpeg] The Founding Fathers of the European Union (EU) believed that economic integration was the key to political prosperity in Europe. They integrated the coal and steel industries of Germany and France to disincentivize the main Continental European rivals from starting a Third World War. Since the modest start in 1951 the EU has grown into the most powerful regional bloc in the world, today counting 28 member states with a total population of 500 million people. Despite the massive transformation of the EU, in terms of both competencies and territories, the underlying goal remains the same: ensure peace on the continent by furthering liberal democracy through economic integration. While the EU has always had some internal problems, such as the endemic corrupting in founding member state Italy, it overall did a good job at improving democracies in the member states and, particularly, in the aspiring member states. Using EU membership as the juicy carrot, it bolstered liberal democratic oppositions in aspiring new member states in East Central Europe, most notably Croatia and Slovakia, and forced through some important political changes (though much less so in Bulgaria and Romania). Since the Great Recession shook its foundations, and for the first time led to serious questions about the future of (further) European integration, the EU has lost much of its interest in liberal democracy, instead reducing its mission increasingly to saving neoliberal economics and itself. Although the EU didn't create the rise of illiberal democracy on the European continent, its ambivalent and opportunistic position towards illiberal democrats has enabled it to grow into what has become a serious threat to the European project itself. Today the European continent counts (at least) three powerful illiberal democrats. The most powerful is President Vladimir Putin, who has dominated Russian politics for the past decades. While Putin and his cronies are currently facing some economic sanctions, these only came after the military annexation of Crimea. For much of his reign Putin has been fêted by key European leaders, including powerful former prime ministers like Silvio Berlusconi, Tony Blair, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Gerhard Schroeder. All were happy to forgive Putin for his authoritarian sins to further economic business interests, while using a largely imaginary ultra-nationalist threat to justify their support for "the lesser evil." Putin used this EU support to establish an iron grip on Russian politics and society and, when he finally lost most of his friends and protection within the EU, to start supporting anti-EU parties like the National Front (FN) in France and the Jobbik in Hungary. The situation is not that different in Turkey, where Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan came to power more than a decade ago, and quickly became a darling of EU politicians because of his claimed support for neoliberal economics and moderate Islamic politics. It didn't take long to see that ErdoÄŸan might not be an Islamist, but he isn't a liberal democrat either. After marginalizing the internally divided secular opposition, he turned to the last remaining counter-power, the Islamic Gülen movement, which had helped him come to power. Using the full force of the now authoritarian state, including dodgy economic and legal pressure, the vast Gülen network of powerful individuals and institutions has been almost completely marginalized. Today an Istanbul court, like most tightly controlled by the regime, appointed a board of trustees (of ErdoÄŸan cronies) to take control of its main newspaper, _Today's Zaman_, one of the last remaining critical media voices in the country. This comes on top of a recent surge in anti-opposition actions and intimidation under the guise of counter-terrorism and under the correct assumption that major international actors will not criticize the regime because they depend on Turkey in their fight against ISIS (US) or against refugees (EU). Unlike Greece, which is bearing the brunt of the refugee crisis but is at the same time scolded by the EU for not doing enough to stop them from keeping them in Greece, Turkey has used the refugee crisis as a bargaining chip in the increasingly tense negotiations with the EU. In exchange for keeping the vast majority of Syrian refugees in the underfunded camps in Turkey, the EU pays the ErdoÄŸan regime €3 billion and weakens its position to criticize the authoritarian turn in Turkey -assuming it actually wants to do that, which, from evidence of the past years, seems not really to be the case. The third major illiberal democrat in Europe is Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, who has been turning his country into an illiberal democracy since regaining power in 2010. Like ErdoÄŸan and Putin, he gathered EU support by supporting neoliberal economics and, when criticized, pointing to the alleged bigger threat of the far right Jobbik party. In the first years Orbán focused almost exclusively on transforming his own country: rewriting the constitution, weakening institutional checks and balances, harassing opposition, and using economic and legal pressure to domesticate the media - very similar to his role models in Russia and Turkey. While there was some push-back from the EU with regard to banking and media reform, crafty politicking and political protection by the powerful European People's Party (EPP) ensured that Hungary's transformation into an illiberal democracy was hardly affected. But as the EU was too occupied with fighting the economic crisis and saving the big banks, Orbán was not just transforming Hungary, he was inspiring illiberal democrats in other countries - including governments in Croatia, Poland, and Slovakia - and plotting a challenge to "multicultural" Europe. The refugee crisis and terrorist attacks of 2015 gave him the opportunity to mount that challenge, which has been very successful so far and is still growing. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's open approach to refugees is practically dead, and the once most powerful woman in Europe is now facing mounting critique in Germany, including in her own party. At the same time, Orbán has been able to unify the four Visegrad countries to oppose the EU redistribution plan and has become a major challenger to Merkel within the EPP. It is high time that the EU learns its lessons and changes its ambivalent and opportunistic approach to illiberal democracy in Europe. First and foremost, illiberal democracy is not just a threat from the margins, i.e. the far right (e.g. FN) and far left (e.g. Syriza), but it comes from some of the most powerful players in European politics. Second, sometimes the cure is worse than the cause - a strong illiberal democratic actor is more threatening to liberal democracy than a weak anti-democrat actor. Third, illiberal democracy cannot be contained by just letting it grow within its own country. If left unopposed, it will spread. The case of Orbán shows this most forcefully. Fourth, and final, an opportunistic approach to mainstream illiberal democrats undermines the more forceful approach to marginalized illiberal democrats. How can the EU elite hope to convince voters that parties like FN and UKIP pose a fundamental threat to the European liberal democracy when they are willing to work with equally illiberal democratic politicians like ErdoÄŸan and Orbán? -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.huffingtonpost.com

Here's What Happened In The World While Donald Trump Was Talking About His Penis

While business mogul and GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump stood on a debate stage Thursday night talking about his penis, a number of significant things were happening around the world that will eventually demand the attention of whoever is elected to the White House.  As Trump, the likely Republican nominee, assured the American people that there was, in fact, "no problem" with the size of his package, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un made a nuclear bomb threat against the U.S. and South Korea. Kim said the country's "nuclear warheads need to be ready for use at any time," responding angrily to recent United Nations sanctions intended to cripple North Korea's nuclear program. Meanwhile, the most significant refugee crisis in Europe since World War II approached its boiling point. The Associated Press reported that 10,000 people were sleeping in tents around a refugee camp in Greece that can only take in 2,000. Migrants from Syria, some of whom lost their family members during the treacherous boat trip to Greece, are losing hope of finding a better life. "Hope can't stay in places like this," Hala Haddad, a 19-year-old English literature student from Syria, told AP. "The only thing that's here is desperation and misery." Trump is not likely to help these refugees, as he suggested banning all Muslims entering the U.S. He did not waver on this position during the GOP debate Thursday night, but he did assure American voters of penis size -- and not for the first time. In other news, a new video from the self-described Islamic State surfaced on Thursday showing an orphanage where the group claims to be training children as the next generation of jihadi fighters. Iran invited American company Boeing to discuss modernizing its fleet of aircrafts -- a move that the New York Times called "the first tangible results of a less-hostile climate between the United States and Iran since a landmark international agreement on Iran’s disputed nuclear activities took effect in January." And a new study published in British medical journal The Lancet on Thursday found that the effects of climate change on India's food supply are projected to starve 135,000 people to death by the year 2050 if something isn't done about the crisis. While these and other global developments were eclipsed Thursday night by a debate about Trump's johnson, they were not lost on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trudeau said in an interview with "60 Minutes," just hours before the GOP candidates took the stage, that "it might be nice if [Americans] paid a little more attention to the world."  To be fair, Trump did not entirely ignore the rest of the world on the debate stage. He said he would coerce American soldiers to break domestic and international law by waterboarding and torturing suspected terrorists. But in the green room after the debate, he returned to the more important issue of the evening: whether the size of his "hands" were smaller than those of a reporter standing by.  "Lemme see your hands -- see?" Trump said. "I have good-sized hands, and, they say, very beautiful."  -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.huffingtonpost.com

Refugee Crisis Soaks Up Foreign Aid Funds

Sixty million people fled their homes last year as migrants, refugees and displaced persons, overwhelming the global humanitarian system created after World War II to cope with survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. "We are entering a new stage - no one knows where it is going," said the former senor US official in charge of foreign aid, Andrew Natsios. Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans, Sudanese, Pakistanis, Algerians, Moroccans and others -- fleeing war, persecution and poverty -- have paralyzed governments from Greece to Germany as the numbers continue to climb: one million fled to Europe without papers last year and 100,000 more arrived in the first two months of this year. Many thousands are stuck in Greece - which they can reach by a three or four mile dash in small boats from Turkey. But nations further north such as Hungary, Macedonia, Austria and Croatia don't want the migrants to enter, fearing a costly burden on their economies as well as a clash of culture between Muslim migrants and Christian Europeans. This was highlighted in Cologne, Germany on New Year's Eve when hundreds of Arabs and other migrants attacked 1,000 women, groping them sexually. Natsios, former administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), told a Washington audience of experts Feb. 23, that the migrants "are numbers not seen since World War II." He said the biggest portion, some 10 million internally displaced or refugee Syrians, are fleeing a five-year civil war driven by three great former empires vying for influence in Syria: Russia, Turkey and Iran. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3227436/Syrian-refugees-turned-Lesbos-war-zone-residents-claim-migrants-chant-f-Hungarian-police-amid-fears-ISIS-using-crisis-enter-Europe.html Millions more are fleeing their homes in Africa due to Islamic fundamentalism such as Boko Haram in Nigeria; and due to ethnic rivalry in South Sudan, Sudan, Somalia and Burundi. "The order since World War II is unraveling," said Natsios. He was particularly concerned that wealthy nations have cut back on aid donations, perhaps feeling overwhelmed by the cost as well as the expectation that today's refugees will likely spend up to 25 years in camps, dependent on food and other international aid. Natsios also said he worries that the US government will pull the plug and end funding for 15 agricultural research stations around the world. These facilities spawned the 1960s Green Revolution that created miracle wheat - tripling production per acre. The cut in agricultural research comes as the world needs to double food production by 2050 to deal with the growing world population. He called for improving and expanding US foreign aid to deal with humanitarian crises, both from natural disasters such as drought, tsunamis and storms as well as from man-made crises such as wars and ethnic cleansing. US foreign assistance is dispensed not just only through the $22 billion USAID annual budget but by billions more spent by the departments of Defense, State, Treasury, Commerce, Health, and a dozen other agencies. Natsios also offered a fierce defense of the more than $115 billion in U.S. aid spent in Afghanistan by all US agencies since 2002, even though the special inspector general for Afghanistan recently reported that much of what aid built is ether crumbling or rendered unusable due to conflict and corruption. "The risk of fraud, waste, and abuse of reconstruction funds in Afghanistan is growing, even as the ability to exercise effective oversight is increasingly constrained" since most U.S. forces began to withdraw in 2014, said the inspector general. "AID did not fail in Afghanistan," said Natsios, who said that some projects failed to produce benefits because the Defense department told him where to spend the money and on which projects. "You can't subordinate development to defense and diplomacy." He called on the incoming US president to reorganize foreign aid under USAID leadership through executive order as soon as he or she is inaugurated - before cabinet officers are installed and are able to fight to retain control over aid budgets. "To reform foreign aid, abolish it and start over," he said. He also called for aid experts not to be rotated to new countries every two years and instead stay five or even 10 years in a country, building "personal relationships" vital to work in the Third World. Note: Ben Barber's recent photojournalism book GROUNDTRUTH: Work, Play and Conflict in the Third World, includes dozens of photos taken while he covered Afghanistan and Iraq for USAID's newsletter Frontlines. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.huffingtonpost.com

Greece: Song presentation on 10 March

ERT, the Greek national broadcaster has confirmed that it will be premiering the 2016 Greek Eurovision entry on 10 March. The official premiere of the 2016 Greek Eurovision entry is scheduled to be held on Thursday 10 March at 11.30 CET at Studio E, ERT ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT esctoday.com

Refugees Find Greek Field of Dashed Dreams

The fields on the outskirts of a northern Greek town on FYROM's border have become the flashpoint in Europe's massive refugee crisis, the size of which the continent has not seen since World War II.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.thenationalherald.com

Refugee camp on Greek-Macedonian border grows exponentially; Macedonia limits entry

The pace of migrants trying to travel through the Balkans to northern Europe continues unabated. The most recent crisis point is at the border between Greece and Macedonia. More than ten thousand people are now stuck in a quickly expanding and ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT fsrn.org

Cyprus Heads Toward Exit, Leaving Greece as Last Bailout Member

NICOSIA, Cyprus—In a rare piece of good news for the crisis-racked European Union, Cyprus is about to finish its financial bailout, leaving neighboring Greece as the only country in the eurozone that still needs rescue loans. Eurozone finance ministers ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.wsj.com

Ancient Greece Coming Together in the Carolinas

The section of stamped concrete would be in the entryway to the Hellenic Center, serving as a focal point for community events. The slab was stamped using the Brickform Paladiano Stones of Athens. A Gray Antique Release and touch up tools from Brickform ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.forconstructionpros.com

The living nightmare of migrants arriving in Greece

In this week's Perspectives, we follow reports from around Europe on the plight of migrants arriving in Europe. Greece is only a transit point for…


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.euronews.com

Greek Minister of Interior Confident That Pension Bill Will Pass

Greek Minister of the Interior and Administrative Reconstruction Panagiotis Kouroumblis expressed his confidence that the government will be able to pass the bill for overhauling Greece’s pension system during an interview to the radio station Athens 9.84.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com

TAP awards onshore construction contracts for Albanian and GREEK sections

The joint venture comprised of Italian Bonatti S.p.A and GREEK J&P AVAX S.A has been awarded the EPC contract for two lots in northern Greece.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT en.trend.az

Refugee bottleneck at northern GREEK border.

With the border to Macedonia closed, an impromptu camp is growing daily in the GREEK border village of Idomeni. Will GREEK authorities be able to ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.dw.com

Hopes fade for new Syrian friends camped at GREEK border

GREEK authorities have responded with the military setting up three camps near Idomeni with a capacity of 12,500. Some 35,000 men, women and ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.unhcr.org

Greek Police: 1,096 Unaccompanied Refugee Children Missing

According to Hellenic Police, the unaccompanied missing refugee children in Greece in 2014 and 2015 amount to 1,096, as 1,481 were reported missing and 385 were found. Greek police say that out of the 1,096 children missing, only 16 are girls. It is also clarified that these figures include refugee children who were reported missing


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com

Foreign Ministry Condemns Provocative Statements of Slovak Prime Minister

It is obvious that the Slovak Prime Minister, just a few days before the elections in his country, wants to invest his election campaign with vitriol and human drama, said Greek Foreign Ministry in an announcement on Friday. “We are unable to witness his delirium and understand how he hopes, if re-elected, to carry out


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com

European press round up: What to expect from EU-Turkey summit?

With thousands of migrants stuck in Greece and the next EU-Turkey summit this upcoming Monday, March 7, the migrant crisis stayed on top of the news in Europe. There was even speculation about new paths some refugees heading to Europe are trying out. On Wednesday (March 2), the EU launched a new refugee emergency support […]


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT euranetplus-inside.eu

Volunteers help migrants at Greek crisis bottlenecks

Refugees queue in a line to receive food from volunteers at the refugee camp in Idomeni, Greece, as they wait to be allowed to cross the border with FYROM, 29 February 2016. Macedonian police fired tear gas at hundreds of migrants after they stormed a ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

European Commission awards 3.5M euro emergency funding to Greece for reception facilities for migrants and refugees

The European Commission said on March 4 2016 that it has awarded 3.5 million euro in emergency funding to Greece. The funding will help cover the running costs for human resources in the First Reception Centres that will be set up on the Greek islands of ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT sofiaglobe.com

Greek Village Residents Protest Against Refugee Camp by Plowing Site Field

The villagers of Athyra in northern Greece decided to protest against the establishment of a refugee camp in their area by plowing the field intended for camp site. The action took place on Thursday night at Athyra, in the Pella region, with locals plowing ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com

Border restrictions on Balkan route 'ruining' Europe

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has accused Austria and Balkan countries of "ruining Europe" by imposing border restrictions to slow the flow of migrants heading north from Greece. Austria angered Greece by not inviting it to a meeting of Balkan leaders in Vienna last week to coordinate a slew of border restrictions. Some 30,000 migrants are now stranded in Greece, waiting for Macedonia to reopen its border so they can continue their northward trek, mostly to Germany.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT uk.news.yahoo.com

TAP awards some EPC-contracts on projects in Greece and Albania

… some EPC-contracts on projects in Greece and Albania Baku, Fineko/abc … for two lots in northern Greece. The sections cover approximately 360km … pipeline river crossing at the Greek-Turkish border, where TAP will be …


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT world.einnews.com

Tsipras says Greece can’t stop migrants headed for northern Europe

BERLIN: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Friday his country can't stop migrants who want to head to northern Europe, and sharply criticised Balkan countries for shutting their borders. "How can we stop people if they want to keep going?" Tsipras ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.brecorder.com

European Commission gives Greece May 12 deadline to register all refugees & migrants

Europe will set Greece a deadline of May 12 to register all migrants in an orderly fashion or face more border controls, EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told a German newspaper on Friday. The border controls could be extended if Greece would miss the deadline. In an interview with German […]


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.keeptalkinggreece.com

Syrian human traffickers responsible for Aylan Kurdi's death are CLEARED of negligence

The youngster and four others - including his brother and mother - drowned last year when their boat capsized during the ill-fated journey from Bodrum to the Greek island of Kos.


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