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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

Monday, June 26, 2017

Green light from the Greek Supreme Court for the Itanos Gaia investment in Crete

Shares in luxury resort developer Minoan Group plc soared on Monday after it won a long legal battle over its Itanos Gaia project in Crete. The appeals against the presidential decree that granted land use approval for the project were dismissed by Greece ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.tornosnews.gr

Antetokounmpo reveals dream to beat the USA playing for Greece

ATHENS (AP) — Giannis Antetokounmpo is dreaming big. He wants to beat the United States wearing Greek team colors. “I’ll be the next one to beat them. I’ll be waiting for them somewhere,” the Milwaukee Bucks star said before leading a team in an ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.tornosnews.gr

Top 5 stories from the past week

Lawsuit claims Iowa State GREEK community targeted sexual assault survivor- A lawsuit has been filed claiming the GREEK community targeted a sexual ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.iowastatedaily.com

Poll: GREECE didn't get what it wanted at Eurogroup

The survey, conducted on June 21-23, suggested that 71.5 percent believe GREECE didn't get what it wanted from the Eurogroup, compared to 13 ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.ekathimerini.com

ECB Head Mario Draghi Puts QE on Hold

“Until sufficient details are given on debt-related measures, serious concerns remain about the sustainability of Greek government debt,” noted ECB head Mario Draghi. In a letter responding to a question by Mr. Nikolaos Choudis on whether a debt sustainability analysis has been made by the ECB and what the conclusions were, Mr. Draghi said that […]


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com

Greek Grilled Eggplant

Go Greek and win Meatless Monday. Preheat grill to 375º. Place eggplant, cut-side up, on a baking sheet and sprinkle each side with salt. Let sit, 30 minutes. Pat eggplant halves dry and brush with oil. Place each half on grill, cut-side down, and grill ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.delish.com

Report: Greek café named Best Bakery in Texas

Patricia and Tasos Pantazopoulos adorable café ‘Anonymous’ located in suburban Sugar Land, was named the best bakery in Texas from a Buzzfeed article recently published in America. They received the award due to exceptional customer reviews by ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.tornosnews.gr

Great week cruising the Greek Islands!: Rhapsody of the Seas Cruise Review by Andy/Carol

The Cabin was more than adequate and had sufficient storage. The bed was really comfortable and we enjoyed peaceful nights with no outside noise at all. The room service was first class and the air conditioning was extremely good.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.cruisecritic.com

ECB chief Draghi rules out GREECE joining QE soon

The president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, said Monday that GREECE will not join its quantitative easing program (QE) until ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.ekathimerini.com

French is the new GREEK (yogurt); Pandora CEO may step down

General Mills has unveiled a new yogurt product, called Oui by Yoplait, that it hopes will cause a ferment in the marketplace the way GREEK yogurt did ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.sfgate.com

Girl, 15, drowns in hotel swimming pool in Crete

… a hotel swimming pool in Crete. The teenager was discovered dead … resort village Stalida on the Greek island on Sunday afternoon, local …


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT world.einnews.com

Blame the ancient Greeks for the selfie stick

… the rocky shores of Ancient Greece, which was bad for farming … runaway individualism, Storr explains. Ancient Greece was the birth of Western … really do agriculture in Ancient Greece. It was made up of … and get ahead in Ancient Greece you had to be this …


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Greek benchmark bond yields fall to their lowest level since the global financial crisis

… ;s. However, analysts doubt that Greece will stop becoming an economic … raised Greece's outlook from stable to positive and upgraded Greece … believe that Greece will need a fourth rescue. "Greek debt dynamics …


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Minoan Group shares rocket after winning legal battle in Crete

… its Itanos Gaia project in Crete. The group's shares … in Crete were dismissed following the decisions taken by the Greek Conseil … ;As a result of the Greek Supreme Court's decision …


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Does failed IMF prescription for Greece work for Sri Lanka?

We preach that Sri Lanka is a Democratic Socialist Republic and practice social-market economy. One of the measures to see the role of government in the social sector is to look at the total tax collection from the rich and the subsidies afforded to the ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.dailymirror.lk

Why it’s time to bring back the great British stork

The last breeding pair of these magnificent birds nested in Edinburgh in 1416. Elsewhere, they are a shining example of how people and animals can peacefully coexist The most inspiring sight I witnessed during a recent trip to northern Greece was entering small villages and finding white storks in huge nests plonked on telegraph poles and the occasional church tower. The ancient Greeks invented the idea that these magnificent black-and-white birds deliver newborn babies via the story of Gerana and Hera (Gerana is turned into a stork by the goddess Hera and the image of Gerana seeking to retrieve her baby son in her beak has stuck with us), and many European peoples have believed that storks nesting on homes brings good luck. Continue reading...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.theguardian.com

Nigerian-born Antetokounmpo returns to Greece, promises to help youths

Giannis Antetokounmpo, Greece’s home-grown NBA All-Star, made an emotional return to the city he grew up in and promised to help children in Greece and Africa make it in life. With his brother Thanasis, who plays for the Spanish club MoraBanc Andorra ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT sunnewsonline.com

Five Greek MPs in Albanian Parliament

Five out of eight Greeks who ran in Albania‘s Sunday elections managed to get elected, with Vangelis Dules, President of the Human Rights Party winning marginally in the Democratic Party ballot in the region of Avlonas. However, the Greek participation ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT eu.greekreporter.com

Greece woman accused in two-year-old’s death pleads guilty

A Greece woman pleaded guilty following the death of a two-year-old back in 2001. On Monday, Rene Bailey pleaded guilty to assault in the death of Brittney Sheets. The young girl died while at Bailey's home daycare in Greece in 2001. A jury found Bailey ...


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Coming Next to Your Fridge: French Yogurt

There's GREEK yogurt, Icelandic yogurt and Australian yogurt. Now, the U.S. maker of Yoplait says it want to bring even more culture to the dairy case.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.usnews.com

Garbage piling up GREEK cities as sanitation workers' protest enters 2nd week

An Athens prosecutor launched on Monday a probe into whether anyone should be charged of putting into risk public health, GREEK national news ...


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Bulgaria and Greece to speed up gas Interconnector Project

The gas interconnector is of strategic importance to both countries


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The “Game of Thrones” Peloponnese-style! (PHOTOS)

Eight must-see castles in the most underrated Greek destination


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Greek rubbish crisis mounts

Striking refuse workers in Greece have staged further protests in a bitter dispute over jobs and short-term contracts. The near two week walkout has led to rubbish piling up on the streets of Athens and other cities as baking summer temperatures soar.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.euronews.com

Foreign Ministry announcement on the irredentist nature of the redevelopment project at a central square in Tirana

We condemn the placement, in Tirana's redeveloped central square, of stones from various regions of the Balkans, including from the Greek region of Filiates. These stones, on which their regions of origin are inscribed, constitute a work that symbolizes the "unity of Albanian territories" and is clearly a state action that cultivates and conceals irredentism. It is yet another provocation from the Albanian government, which is openly undermining good neighbourly relations. This is tangible proof of the central support for irredentist tendencies against the countries bordering Albania, given that the names of regions of various Balkan states are literally etched in stone. The Foreign Ministry has proceeded and is proceeding to all of the necessary representations, notifying friends, partners and international organizations with regard to the matter. Respecting the election process in our neighbouring country, we have not, until today, issued any public announcement that might be misinterpreted as or distorted into interference in the pre-election process. This in no way means that we will tolerate conduct that is inconsistent with the European spirit of peaceful coexistence and cooperation and that flagrantly violates the fundamental principle of maintaining good neighbourly relations, which is one of the key prerequisites for Tirana's European course. Even today, unfortunately, dangerous and obsolete mindsets of the previous century are undermining the region's progress and prosperity, creating a stone obstacle to Albania's European future.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.mfa.gr

A World of Winless War: US Special Ops Forces Deployed to 137 Nations in 2017

[US Army pilots engage in a training exercise near Camp Buehring, Kuwait. (Photo: Sgt. Harley Jelis / US Army)]US Army pilots engage in a training exercise near Camp Buehring, Kuwait, July 8, 2014. (Photo: Sgt. Harley Jelis / US Army) The tabs on their shoulders read "Special Forces," "Ranger," "Airborne." And soon their guidon -- the "colors" of Company B, 3rd Battalion of the US Army's 7th Special Forces Group -- would be adorned with the "Bandera de Guerra," a Colombian combat decoration. "Today we commemorate sixteen years of a permanent fight against drugs in a ceremony where all Colombians can recognize the special counternarcotic brigade's hard work against drug trafficking," said Army Colonel Walther Jimenez, the commander of the Colombian military's Special Anti-Drug Brigade, last December. America's most elite troops, the Special Operations forces (SOF), have worked with that Colombian unit since its creation in December 2000. Since 2014, four teams of Special Forces soldiers have intensely monitored the brigade. Now, they were being honored for it. Part of a $10 billion counter-narcotics and counterterrorism program, conceived in the 1990s, special ops efforts in Colombia are a much ballyhooed American success story. A 2015 RAND Corporation study found that the program "represents an enduring SOF partnership effort that managed to help foster a relatively professional and capable special operations force." And for a time, coca production in that country plummeted. Indeed, this was the ultimate promise of America's "Plan Colombia" and efforts that followed from it. "Over the longer haul, we can expect to see more effective drug eradication and increased interdiction of illicit drug shipments," President Bill Clinton predicted in January 2000. Today, however, more than 460,000 acres of the Colombian countryside are blanketed with coca plants, more than during the 1980s heyday of the infamous cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. US cocaine overdose deaths are also at a 10-year high and first-time cocaine use among young adults has spiked 61% since 2013. "Recent findings suggest that cocaine use may be reemerging as a public health concern in the United States," wrote researchers from the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in a study published in December 2016 -- just after the Green Berets attended that ceremony in Colombia. Cocaine, the study's authors write, "may be making a comeback." Colombia is hardly an anomaly when it comes to US special ops deployments -- or the results that flow from them. For all their abilities, tactical skills, training prowess, and battlefield accomplishments, the capacity of US Special Operations forces to achieve decisive and enduring successes -- strategic victories that serve US national interests -- have proved to be exceptionally limited, a reality laid bare from Afghanistan to Iraq, Yemen to the Philippines.  The fault for this lies not with the troops themselves, but with a political and military establishment that often appears bereft of strategic vision and hasn't won a major war since the 1940s. Into this breach, elite US forces are deployed again and again. While special ops commanders may raise concerns about the tempo of operations and strains on the force, they have failed to grapple with larger questions about the _raison d'être_ of SOF, while Washington's oversight establishment, notably the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, have consistently failed to so much as ask hard questions about the strategic utility of America's Special Operations forces. SPECIAL OPS AT WAR "We operate and fight in every corner of the world," boasts General Raymond Thomas, the chief of US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM or SOCOM). "On a daily basis, we sustain a deployed or forward stationed force of approximately 8,000 across 80-plus countries. They are conducting the entire range of SOF missions in both combat and non-combat situations." Those numbers, however, only hint at the true size and scope of this global special ops effort. Last year, America's most elite forces conducted missions in 138 countries -- roughly 70% of the nations on the planet, according to figures supplied to TomDispatch by US Special Operations Command. Halfway through 2017, US commandos have already been deployed to an astonishing 137 countries, according to SOCOM spokesman Ken McGraw.  Special Operations Command is tasked with carrying out 12 core missions, ranging from counterinsurgency and unconventional warfare to hostage rescue and countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Counterterrorism -- fighting what the command calls violent extremist organizations (VEOs) -- may, however, be what America's elite forces have become best known for in the post-9/11 era. "The threat posed by VEOs remains the highest priority for USSOCOM in both focus and effort," says Thomas. "Special Operations Forces are the main effort, or major supporting effort for US VEO-focused operations in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, across the Sahel of Africa, the Philippines, and Central/South America -- essentially, everywhere Al Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are to be found..." More special operators are deployed to the Middle East than to any other region. Significant numbers of them are advising Iraqi government forces and Iraqi Kurdish soldiers as well as Kurdish YPG (Popular Protection Unit) fighters and various ethnic Arab forces in Syria, according to Linda Robinson, a senior international policy analyst with the RAND Corporation who spent seven weeks in Iraq, Syria, and neighboring countries earlier this year.  During a visit to Qayyarah, Iraq -- a staging area for the campaign to free Mosul, formerly Iraq's second largest city, from the control of Islamic State fighters -- Robinson "saw a recently installed US military medical unit and its ICU set up in tents on the base." In a type of mission seldom reported on, special ops surgeons, nurses, and other specialists put their skills to work on far-flung battlefields not only to save American lives, but to prop up allied proxy forces that have limited medical capabilities. For example, an Air Force Special Operations Surgical Team recently spent eight weeks deployed at an undisclosed location in the Iraq-Syria theater, treating 750 war-injured patients. Operating out of an abandoned one-story home within earshot of a battlefield, the specially trained airmen worked through a total of 19 mass casualty incidents and more than 400 individual gunshot or blast injuries. When not saving lives in Iraq and Syria, elite US forces are frequently involved in efforts to take them. "US SOF are... being thrust into a new role of coordinating fire support," wrote Robinson. "This fire support is even more important to the Syrian Democratic Forces, a far more lightly armed irregular force which constitutes the major ground force fighting ISIS in Syria." In fact, a video shot earlier this year, analyzed by The Washington Post, shows special operators "acting as an observation element for what appears to be US airstrikes carried out by A-10 ground attack aircraft" to support Syrian Democratic Forces fighting for the town of Shadadi. Africa now ranks second when it comes to the deployment of special operators thanks to the exponential growth in missions there in recent years. Just 3% of US commandos deployed overseas were sent to Africa in 2010. Now that number stands at more than 17%, according to SOCOM data. Last year, US Special Operations forces were deployed to 32 African nations, about 60% of the countries on the continent. As I recently reported at VICE News, at any given time, Navy SEALs, Green Berets, and other special operators are now conducting nearly 100 missions across 20 African countries. In May, for instance, Navy SEALs were engaged in an "advise and assist operation" alongside members of Somalia's army and came under attack. SEAL Kyle Milliken was killed and two other US personnel were injured during a firefight that also, according to AFRICOM spokesperson Robyn Mack, left three al-Shabaab militants dead. US forces are also deployed in Libya to gather intelligence in order to carry out strikes of opportunity against Islamic State forces there. While operations in Central Africa against the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a brutal militia that has terrorized the region for decades, wound down recently, a US commando reportedly killed a member of the LRA as recently as April.  SPRING TRAINING What General Thomas calls "building partner nations' capacity" forms the backbone of the global activities of his command. Day in, day out, America's most elite troops carry out such training missions to sharpen their skills and those of their allies and of proxy forces across the planet.  This January, for example, Green Berets and Japanese paratroopers carried out airborne training near Chiba, Japan. February saw Green Berets at Sanaa Training Center in northwest Syria advising recruits for the Manbij Military Council, a female fighting force of Kurds, Arabs, Christians, Turkmen, and Yazidis. In March, snowmobiling Green Berets joined local forces for cold-weather military drills in Lapland, Finland. That same month, special operators and more than 3,000 troops from Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom took part in tactical training in Germany. In the waters off Kuwait, special operators joined elite forces from the Gulf Cooperation Council nations in conducting drills simulating a rapid response to the hijacking of an oil tanker. In April, special ops troops traveled to Serbia to train alongside a local special anti-terrorist unit. In May, members of Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Iraq carried out training exercises with Iraqi special operations forces near Baghdad. That same month, 7,200 military personnel, including US Air Force Special Tactics airmen, Italian special operations forces, members of host nation Jordan's Special Task Force, and troops from more than a dozen other nations took part in Exercise Eager Lion, practicing everything from assaulting compounds to cyber-defense. For their part, a group of SEALs conducted dive training alongside Greek special operations forces in Souda Bay, Greece, while others joined NATO troops in Germany as part of Exercise Saber Junction 17 for training in land operations, including mock "behind enemy lines missions" in a "simulated European village."  #WINNING "We have been at the forefront of national security operations for the past three decades, to include continuous combat over the past 15-and-a-half years," SOCOM's Thomas told the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities last month. "This historic period has been the backdrop for some of our greatest successes, as well as the source of our greatest challenge, which is the sustained readiness of this magnificent force." Yet, for all their magnificence and all those successes, for all the celebratory ceremonies they've attended, the wars, interventions, and other actions for which they've served as the tip of the American spear have largely foundered, floundered, or failed.  After their initial tactical successes in Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, America's elite operators became victims of Washington's failure to declare victory and go home. As a result, for the last 15 years, US commandos have been raiding homes, calling in air strikes, training local forces, and waging a relentless battle against a growing list of terror groups in that country. For all their efforts, as well as those of their conventional military brethren and local Afghan allies, the war is now, according to the top US commander in the Middle East, a "stalemate." That's a polite way of saying what a recent report to Congress by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction found: districts that are contested or under "insurgent control or influence" have risen from an already remarkable 28% in 2015 to 40%. The war in Afghanistan began with efforts to capture or kill al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Having failed in this post-9/11 mission, America's elite forces spun their wheels for the next decade when it came to his fate. Finally, in 2011, Navy SEALs cornered him in his long-time home in Pakistan and gunned him down. Ever since, special operators who carried out the mission and Washington power-players (not to mention Hollywood) have been touting this single tactical success. In an Esquire interview, Robert O'Neill, the SEAL who put two bullets in bin Laden's head, confessed that he joined the Navy due to frustration over an early crush, a puppy-love pique. "That's the reason al-Qaeda has been decimated," he joked, "because she broke my fucking heart." But al-Qaeda was not decimated -- far from it according to Ali Soufan, a former FBI special agent and the author of _Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of Bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State_. As he recently observed, "Whereas on 9/11 al-Qaeda had a few hundred members, almost all of them based in a single country, today it enjoys multiple safe havens across the world." In fact, he points out, the terror group has gained strength since bin Laden's death. Year after year, US special operators find themselves fighting new waves of militants across multiple continents, including entire terror groups that didn't exist on 9/11. All US forces killed in Afghanistan in 2017 have reportedly died battling an Islamic State franchise, which began operations there just two years ago.  The US invasion of Iraq, to take another example, led to the meteoric rise of an al-Qaeda affiliate which, in turn, led the military's secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) -- the elite of America's special ops elite -- to create a veritable manhunting machine designed to kill its leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and take down the organization. As with bin Laden, special operators finally did find and eliminate Zarqawi, battering his organization in the process, but it was never wiped out. Left behind were battle-hardened elements that later formed the Islamic State and did what al-Qaeda never could: take and hold huge swaths of territory in two nations. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda's Syrian branch grew into a separate force of more than 20,000.  In Yemen, after more than a decade of low-profile special ops engagement, that country teeters on the brink of collapse in the face of a US-backed Saudi war there. Continued US special ops missions in that country, recently on the rise, have seemingly done nothing to alter the situation. Similarly, in Somalia in the Horn of Africa, America's elite forces remain embroiled in an endless war against militants.  In 2011, President Obama launched Operation Observant Compass, sending Special Operations forces to aid Central African proxies in an effort to capture or kill Joseph Kony and decimate his murderous Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), then estimated to number 150 to 300 armed fighters. After the better part of a decade and nearly $800 million spent, 150 US commandos were withdrawn this spring and US officials attended a ceremony to commemorate the end of the mission. Kony was, however, never captured or killed and the LRA is now estimated to number about 150 to 250 fighters, essentially the same size as when the operation began. This string of futility extends to Asia as well. "US Special Forces have been providing support and assistance in the southern Philippines for many years, at the request of several different Filipino administrations," Emma Nagy, a spokesperson for the US embassy in Manilla, pointed out earlier this month. Indeed, a decade-plus-long special ops effort there has been hailed as a major success. Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines, wrote RAND analyst Linda Robinson late last year in the Pentagon journal _Prism_, "was aimed at enabling the Philippine security forces to combat transnational terrorist groups in the restive southern region of Mindanao."  A 2016 RAND report co-authored by Robinson concluded that "the activities of the US SOF enabled the Philippine government to substantially reduce the transnational terrorist threat in the southern Philippines." This May, however, Islamist militants overran Marawi City, a major urban center on Mindanao. They have been holding on to parts of it for weeks despite a determined assault by Filipino troops backed by US Special Operations forces. In the process, large swaths of the city have been reduced to rubble. RUNNING ON EMPTY America's elite forces, General Thomas told members of Congress last month, "are fully committed to winning the current and future fights." In reality, though, from war to war, intervention to intervention, from the Anti-Drug Brigade ceremony in Florencia, Colombia, to the end-of-the-Kony-hunt observance in Obo in the Central African Republic, there is remarkably little evidence that even enduring efforts by Special Operations forces result in strategic victories or improved national security outcomes. And yet, despite such boots-on-the-ground realities, America's special ops forces and their missions only grow. "We are... grateful for the support of Congress for the required resourcing that, in turn, has produced a SOCOM which is relevant to all the current and enduring threats facing the nation," Thomas told the Senate Armed Services Committee in May. Resourcing has, indeed, been readily available. SOCOM's annual budget has jumped from $3 billion in 2001 to more than $10 billion today. Oversight, however, has been seriously lacking. Not a single member of the House or Senate Armed Services Committees has questioned why, after more than 15 years of constant warfare, winning the "current fight" has proven so elusive. None of them has suggested that "support" from Congress ought to be reconsidered in the face of setbacks from Afghanistan to Iraq, Colombia to Central Africa, Yemen to the southern Philippines. In the waning days of George W. Bush's administration, Special Operations forces were reportedly deployed to about 60 nations around the world. By 2011, under President Barack Obama, that number had swelled to 120. During this first half-year of the Trump administration, US commandos have already been sent to 137 countries, with elite troops now enmeshed in conflicts from Africa to Asia. "Most SOF units are employed to their sustainable limit," Thomas told members of the House Armed Services Committee last month. In fact, current and former members of the command have, for some time, been sounding the alarm about the level of strain on the force.  These deployment levels and a lack of meaningful strategic results from them have not, however, led Washington to raise fundamental questions about the ways the US employs its elite forces, much less about SOCOM's _raison d'être_. "We are a command at war and will remain so for the foreseeable future," SOCOM's Thomas explained to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Not one member asked why or to what end.


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Greece woman pleads guilty in 2001 shaken baby death

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC-TV) - Rene Bailey, the Greece woman whose shaken-baby murder conviction was overturned in 2014, pleaded guilty Monday to assault in the death of 2-year-old Brittney Sheets. Bailey admitted to causing injuries that led to Sheets' death.


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New surge in migrants to GREECE as Turkey deal comes under strain

More than 400 asylum seekers from Turkey have reached GREECE in the last two days, the biggest rise in migrant arrivals since April. The increase is ...


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Greece: Criminal Investigation into Attacks on Romani Community in Menidi Begins

… , Greece (10 June 2017). (PHOTO: YouTube) International and national NGOs in Greece … weapon involved. According to the Greek Reporter, “A 23-year-old Roma was … Greece, the ERRC, the Greek Helsinki Monitor, the Minority Rights Group in Greece …


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Meteorologists warn of Extreme Heat Wave with up to 43° Celsius to affect Greece, SE Europe

Did you survive the heat wave over the weekend? Good. Get ready for another one, with temperatures up to 41 and even 43 degrees Celsius. Or even higher locally. Meteorologists speak an extreme heat wave, of the “worst heat wave of the decade.”


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Greece relaunches tender to sell majority stake in gas grid

ATHENS, June 26 Greece on Monday relaunched a tender for the sale of a majority stake in its natural gas grid operator DESFA, the country's privatisation agency said. Under its latest international bailout, Greece has agreed to sell state assets including ...


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Antetokounmpo promises to help GREEK youth in emotional return home

“I think GREEKS love us because we are good kids, and because we take Greece with us wherever we go and we promote Greece a lot,” Giannis said.


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Draghi Signals GREEK Debt Measures Not Enough for QE Inclusion

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi effectively put an end to a debate about the inclusion of GREEK bonds in the ECB's asset-purchase ...


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Fitch Upgrades 1 GREEK Covered Bond Programme; Affirms 3 Others

Reuters is the news and media division of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing ...


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Lower Garden District Greek Revival with guest home asks $1.2M

Built in 2012, this Greek Revival sits on Coliseum Street, near Prytania Street, St Charles Avenue, and Coliseum Square. The Lower Garden District neighborhood has a Walk Score of 93. The asking price is $1,200,000. At first glance, the home has a classic ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT nola.curbed.com

Greece stocks lower at close of trade; Athens General-Composite unchanged

Investing.com – Greece stocks were lower after the close on Monday, as in the sectors led shares . At the close in Athens, the Athens General-Composite unchanged 0.00%. Gold Futures for August delivery was down 0.87% or 10.87 to $1245.53 a troy ounce.


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Nigerian-born NBA star, Antetokounmpo, returns to Greece

Giannis Antetokounmpo, Greece’s home-grown NBA All-Star, made an emotional return to the city he grew up in and promised to help children in Greece and Africa make it in life. With his brother Thanasis, who plays for the Spanish club MoraBanc Andorra ...


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Migrant flows seem to be rising again in Greece

However, things are still marginally under control


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Finland's brain drain: what happens to small countries when the talent leaves?

Young Finnish professionals are attracted to major European capitals. They move to Stockholm, Berlin and Amsterdam, as well as farther away. The sun shines in Dubai; the world’s top organisations and institutes are in New York and Washington. The occupations of these migrants are manifold: bankers, graphic designers, computer engineers, photographers and researchers, to name only a few. They leave Finland because of poor employment opportunities and future prospects. This has been happening for a long time. Finns were moving to North America 100 years ago and to Sweden after World War II – in both cases because growing economies needed factory workers. The difference with today’s migrants is they are better educated and leaving a welfare state that ranks as one of the best places to live in the world according to most indices. The likelihood of them returning has nevertheless fallen sharply. Why? I conducted a survey of Finns living abroad aged 20 to 40 along with the Helsinki-based journalist Johannes Niemeläinen. Of 799 survey respondents, only 19% saw returning as a likely option. This was down more than 20 percentage points on a 2006 survey, which had also included retirees who had settled abroad. When we compared only 20 to 40-year-olds, the decline was even sharper. This comes at a time when working-age emigration from Finland has steadily increased. The net loss of about 2,000 citizens in 2015 was almost four times that of 2009, and over half were university educated. Interestingly, the majority of leavers were women. Put together, we are talking about a case of brain drain that could have severe consequences. THE BROKEN CIRCLE A recent study of international perceptions of Finns working abroad found them to be highly adaptable, linguistically talented and sought after. The Finnish welfare state clearly provides its citizens with the skills and education to make it in the world. The government’s logic has long been that a well-trained, healthy workforce will return the favour later in life. Emigrants are supposed to come home with broader minds and international experience and contacts, to the benefit of the economy as a whole. All countries become embedded in the global economy one citizen at a time, goes the thinking. But why would they go back? The cracks in Finland’s supposed virtuous circle are all too apparent. The country attracts fewer immigrants from elsewhere in the EU than its Scandinavian peers. Even Helsinki does not keep up with the competition, with the number of highly educated 30 to 34-year-olds in decline. In other northerly capitals such as Copenhagen, Stockholm and London, the opposite is the case. Copenhagen: brain gain. Jens Peter Finland’s problem is not directly comparable to the mass migrations of workers in the past, driven by vast demographic, political and economic upheaval from the likes of the world wars. It is also not the same as the ongoing worldwide migration that we see from poorer to better off countries – which sadly now includes the likes of Spain and Greece. Instead, it speaks to larger structural changes in the postwar welfare state. Everything from retiring baby boomers to the rising cost of healthcare to the economic crisis have forced the Finnish state to cut back. The damage to the economy and the education system has encouraged young people to move abroad. Several high-profile academics have left Finland in protest at the circa €500m (£439m) cuts to higher education. Echoing this, we found that the likelihood of emigrants returning is down most sharply among PhD holders – a decrease of 36 percentage points since 2006. These academics tended to point to a direct correlation between cuts to education and their attitude to working in Finland. With other sectors, we found the same kind of attitudes. This illustrates that in the end, the question of returning home boils down to employment. And as Finland celebrates 100 years of independence, most respondents felt that the experience they have acquired abroad won’t translate into better employment back home. THE GREATER THREAT Small welfare states like Finland are more dependent on their educated workforce than more market-driven countries. If they don’t educate enough new people or recruit them from elsewhere, it will create structural problems for the welfare economy such as the loss of foreign investment. And in a system that is heavily funded by the central government, cutbacks affect everyone much more than in a country where government spending is more concentrated on the poorest. This increases the chances of the most talented people leaving, which in turn risks undermining the country’s networks of knowledge and productive social relationships – often described as social capital. This forms the foundation of the whole welfare regime and acts as a buffer against external shocks, so there is a risk of system-wide effects. Living in Finn. Yodchai Promduang Coupled with further pressure on the welfare state from the ageing population, these developments have the potential to spiral irreversibly. We can liken this to oil leaking from an engine: it does not affect the machinery immediately, but over time it could damage it beyond repair. What then is the solution? In 16 follow-up interviews, we found our young professional respondents remained tremendously proud of the Finnish welfare regime and worried about it. They might have been drawn overseas, but they still very much believed in the system from which they had come. This points to the possibility of new forms of solidarity and welfarism that might yet somehow benefit countries like Finland. Tapping into this requires thinking beyond the nation state, create new transnational welfare regimes either by reaching out to emigrants or by cooperating with similar countries. This would of course be a radical shift. It may be necessary to prevent this brain drain problem from turning into a full-blown catastrophe. _This article is part of a series on sustainability and transformation in today’s Europe, published in collaboration with EuropeNow Journal and the Council for European Studies (CES) at Columbia University. Each article is based on a paper to be presented at the 24th International Conference of Europeanists in Glasgow in July 2017._ [The Conversation] _Juho Korhonen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above._


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Greeks fed up with the mountains of stinking garbage threatening public health

A man claimed on TV, he saw rats ‘big like cats’ roaming at night through the mountains of garbage that lay uncollected since one week. “It’s stinking! Awful! Microbes!” another man shouted right in the camera. An elderly woman urged “they should take the garbage in their homes”. It is not clear whether she means … The post Greeks fed up with the mountains of stinking garbage threatening public health appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.


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Loaded Greek Salad Recipe

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Two Years After Resounding “No” Vote, Greece Still Says “Yes” To Austerity

ATHENS (Analysis)– It has become an increasingly common sight on Greek streets, even in formerly prosperous neighborhoods. Elderly—and sometimes not so elderly—individuals rummaging through rubbish bins in search of scraps of food to eat. Beggars are ...


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Photos: GREEK Day on West Broadway in Vancouver

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FILE - This Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017, file photo shows Yoplait GREEK yogurt on display at a supermarket in Port Chester, N.Y. There's GREEK yogurt, ...


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Garbage crisis raises health fears in Greece

A 10-day garbage strike in the Greek capital Athens has posed the possible threat of a public health crisis amid a face-off between the government and municipal workers over labor disputes and austerity cuts. The disarray was exacerbated on Monday after ...


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Meet the Greek-Canadian Miss Teenage Toronto Who Is Following Her Passion and Making a Difference

Greek-Canadian Alexia Antonio has won the title of Miss Teenage Toronto, so now she is off to the next competition — as a Finalist for Miss Teenage Canada which is taking place on August 13, 2017! Alexia is the epitome of Miss Teenage Toronto as she has ...


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New Government Garbage Collectors Deadlock Leaves Greece Amid Mounts of Trash

Monday’s new meeting between the temporary municipal workers union (POE-OTA) and Greek Minister of the Interior Panos Skourletis ended in a deadlock. As a result, piled-up trash will remain on the streets of Athens and other cities across Greece, with ...


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