Promoting Greece in New York

Greece travels to America and urges Americans to travel to Greece ... “Greece that resists, Greece that insists,” according to the famous Greek singer Dionysis Savvopoulos. Terra Communications, a company which has been extensively involved ...

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Greece's ex-finance minister faces probe

Sky News AustraliaGreece's ex-finance minister faces probeSky News AustraliaGreece's former finance minister George Papaconstantinou must face an investigation for allegedly tampering with a confidential tax list in late 2010. A five-member judicial council ruled on Sunday that Papaconstantinou's case must go forward despite a ...and more »

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Greece looks to form 'Partnership of Equals' in Egypt during EU presidency

Greece looks to form 'Partnership of Equals' in Egypt during EU presidencyDaily News EgyptThe Greek ambassador to Egypt said on Sunday that his country is seeking to use its six-month presidency of the European Union to help foster Egypt's growth for the future. Christodoulos Lazaris said that Greece's policy during the presidency would ...

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Greece's Golden Dawn cries foul over links to "criminal" group

Telegraph.co.ukGreece's Golden Dawn cries foul over links to "criminal" groupeuronewsShare this article. |. Supporters of Greece's far right Golden Dawn party made their voices heard as three party members appealed against accusations of belonging to a criminal group. Charges denied by the party's spokesman and deputy Ilias Kasidiaris.Two more Golden Dawn MPs jailed in GreeceTelegraph.co.ukTwo Golden Dawn MPs imprisoned in GreeceAljazeera.comNick Griffin offers strident support to Golden Dawn on visit to GreeceThe GuardianThe Times of Israel -Greek Reporter -The Independentall 85 news articles »

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Greek authorities order 1 more extreme right lawmaker jailed, bringing total to 6

ATHENS, Greece - Greek judicial authorities have ordered the jailing of a lawmaker with the extreme right Golden Dawn party on charges of being a prominent member of a criminal organization.

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Three more Greek far-right party MPs arrested

ATHENS (Reuters) - Three more far-right Golden Dawn lawmakers have been detained pending trial in Greece on charges of belonging to a criminal group, as part of a crackdown on the party following the killing of an anti-fascist rapper by one of its supporters last year.

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.reuters.com

Alistair Darling interview: 'It's going to get more unpleasant'

With nine months still to go, the battle for Scottish independence is turning nasty, says Alistair Darling, leader of the Better Together campaign. And as a veteran of the Blair-Brown wars, the former chancellor knows all about that

Alistair Darling lives in a gracious, rose-tinted house on the Miss Jean Brodie side of Edinburgh. Like him, it is intensely calm and solid. In the kitchen, an unwashed frying pan sits on the stove (the former chancellor is known to like a cooked breakfast). In the loo, a framed copy of the bestseller list from the autumn of 2011 hangs proudly on the wall (his memoir, Back from the Brink: 1,000 Days at No 11, was then sitting efficiently at No 1 in the non-fiction chart).

In the sitting room, a pile of books hopefully awaits his return, and, from the corner of my eye, I consider these titles, hoping that I've stumbled on what's known in politics as a hinterland. But, no. One is Making It Happen: Fred Goodwin, RBS and the Men Who Blew Up the British Economy by Iain Martin; another is Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics by Nicholas Wapshott. Not exactly light reading. Darling, however, is having none of this. "The Iain Martin is very readable," he yelps, with unmistakably genuine enthusiasm. "It's one of the best books I got last year! Keynes Hayek is a bit more heavy-going, but it's good if you like that sort of thing."

He jumps up, crossing the room to the pile. "But look at this." He returns with a huge coffee-table book, a birthday present from friends (he was 60 last year). It contains exquisite photographs of his beloved Hebrides. "Look at the colours," he says, pointing to a Rothko-esque beach scene. His fingers smooth the shiny pages reverently.

Lewis, where his family has a croft, is Darling's place of safety, you gather, though it takes some probing to get him to articulate this (he is not one for sentiment, and I can no more imagine him indulging in psychobabble than I can see him attending the menswear shows). There, he can stand and gaze at a view that "has not changed in a 1,000 years". All of us need such a place, a landscape we can visit in our mind's eye when things are difficult, but in recent years, Darling has surely required such a balm more than most. First there was that period in a certain flat in Downing Street with its internecine wars (aka "the forces of hell", as he once referred to Gordon Brown's various henchmen), and now there is the battle for Scotland. The latter may sound, on paper, like more of a skirmish than full-blown bloody conflict. But do not be deceived. With just nine months to go until the referendum on independence, things are beginning to turn a little more Game of Thrones.

"It's going to get more unpleasant," says Darling. "You can see it already. You're dealing with something that people have worked towards all their lives, and the stakes will get higher and higher. On the first day of 2014, the CBI general secretary in Scotland put out a press release that questioned various of the SNP's assertions. He was subjected to vile abuse from the nationalists. They went after him. The cyber-nat activity is disgraceful. They will trash anyone who disagrees with them. Their intention is to make people keep their heads down. Salmond could stop it, but he doesn't choose to." Hmm. Does this remind him of anyone? The expression on his face tells me it does.

Darling heads Better Together, an alliance formed by the unionist parties to campaign for a "no" vote. As he's keen to remind me, this coalition is entirely independent from the one comprising the current British government. Nevertheless, on the day I arrive in Scotland, the newspapers are reporting that down in London Cameron and others are thoroughly fed up with it, considering its efforts so far to be "lacklustre". Is this true? And if so, do they have a point?

On the sofa opposite me, Darling adopts the political brace position: back straight, spectacles adjusted, his mouth opening even as I'm finishing my question (happily, his wonderful badger looks mitigate his tendency sometimes to be wearyingly careful in conversation; as he approaches the end of a paragraph, you can just drift off and admire them).

"What I took from David Cameron's comments on The Andrew Marr Show was the mention of 'emotion' [the prime minister insisted that the "emotional arguments" for the union still needed to be articulated]. I believe that this is a campaign you can only win by winning arguments both of the head and the heart, and that they cannot be separated. But it's also the case that this is probably one of the longest campaigns in the history of the world. It's been going on since 2011, when the SNP won the Scottish election," he says.

"People ask: why haven't you had rallies and razzamatazz? But one of the problems for both sides is exhaustion on the part of the electorate. Frankly, people can only take three or four weeks of campaigning, then they want you to go away."

Alex Salmond relishes each and every prime-ministerial intervention, largely because they boost his own narrative, which is built at least in part on open antagonism to the south (it goes like this: why should some Tory in London tell us how to behave?). So is it unhelpful when Cameron pipes up? Darling insists not. The idea that it causes the "no" campaign instantly to haemorrhage votes is purest bunkum. "If you're a tribal nationalist, you don't like David Cameron full stop. But the truth is that polls haven't shifted at all in the last seven years."

A poll commissioned by Better Together to mark the 25th anniversary of John Smith's declaration that devolution was the "settled will" of the Scottish people indicates that the percentage of voters who intend to vote "yes" stands at only 30%, much as it has always done. Do the nationalists still think they can win? "A few years ago, they were saying privately – well, not that privately, as they were telling a succession of journalists – that they had to be at 40% by now."

It's perhaps thanks to such stubbornness in the polls that there are those who consider the No campaign to be something of a cosmetic exercise, a determination on the part of unionists not to look complacent (and thus as a vast waste of time, effort and cash). Darling, though, insists this is a serious business. "No, no!" he says, urgently.

So does he often wake in the middle of the night worrying that Scotland is about to rise up and become a nation again? "I worry every day that it's going to be a lot closer than people think. Drill down, and you realise there is a lot more fluidity in the polls than people think. A million voters are still floating, we believe. If you relax nine months before the polls because it all looks all right, you will lose. The mood can change. You never know when some seismic event is going to occur. The nationalists were 11 points behind in 2011, and they went on to win the election. The mood can change quite suddenly." But isn't the difference that voters then knew they could vote out the SNP in future, whereas independence is for ever? "I've always said it will be close. Those who think it's over bar the shouting are seriously misleading themselves." He worries because he can't think of anything "more negative than simply drawing a line where none exists… I honestly can't understand a person being more willing to express their solidarity with people in Romania than with people in England. I'm as concerned about a child growing up in poverty in Manchester or London as in Scotland."

He is scathing of the SNP's white paper on independence, published last year. "There are 670 pages, and only one has any numbers on it. It tells you that we will be allowed to speak English. It tells you – I'm not joking – that we will enter the Eurovision song contest. But when it comes to the currency, it simply asserts that there will be a union. They simply assert this, even though such a union would mean selling the idea to the UK that Scotland would have a veto over UK tax and spending – and that won't happen. So we do not know what currency we will have.

"It's the same with Europe. The Spanish prime minister and Barroso [José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission] have said Scotland would have to reapply for membership, but still they just assert that we would [automatically] be a member. Salmond was asked if anything at all in the white paper is true – and we might well ask. I doubt they've checked with the people at the Eurovision song contest either. It's a work of fiction."

The white paper is, Darling believes, a way of closing down discussion rather than opening it up. "They won't debate the economy now. Their answer is: it's in the white paper. It's all about emotion now. The argument is that you're not [properly] Scottish unless you're with them. It's an offensive argument, but one they're peddling day in, day out." Darling doesn't "chat" to Salmond. "Of course he's a guy of some ability, but he's never been held up to day-to-day scrutiny, as most other politicians are." For this, perhaps, we must blame the increasingly supine Scottish media.

The economic arguments for the union are relatively straightforward, and centre mostly on strength; Darling is in a better position than most to articulate this, having had to bail out the Scottish banks in 2008. But the emotional arguments are perhaps more difficult to vocalise (it works the other way round for the nationalists, a decent cohort of whom would still want Scotland to be independent as a matter of principle, even if that also meant poorer and weaker). How does Darling see this aspect of the debate? How will he touch the electorate's heart? "[It's about] the country's shared history," he says. "A Welshman created the NHS, an Englishman the welfare state, and a Scotsman built the BBC. It's about big national moments, like the opening of the Olympics." Which sounds pretty vague to me.

For his own part, Darling is exceedingly Scottish, for all that he attended primary school in England. His mother is from Lewis (her mother and grandmother were born in the aforementioned croft), while his father's side are lowlanders (Darling's great-uncle, William Darling, was a Tory MP for Edinburgh South, and his father, an engineer and an elder in the Church of Scotland, voted Conservative until Mrs Thatcher made her speech about society, the non-existence of).

"We weren't a deeply political family," he says, mildly. So where did his politics come from? "There was no great flash, it was more of a gradual realisation when I was at university in the 70s." Did he fit in among all the donkey jackets? (Darling went to Loretto, the Edinburgh public school, and there is something quite urbane at play beneath his stiffness.) "I was pre-donkey-jacket. They weren't until the 1980s."

His political career began in local government as a Lothian councillor – his sometime reputation as a Trot is, incidentally, said to be largely down to Neil Kinnock, who once mistook him for some other bearded lefty – but he insists this was not a sign of early ambition; he would never have stood for parliament at all if the boundaries of Robin Cook's Edinburgh Central constituency had not been redrawn, leaving it a marginal seat (Cook hopped it to Livingston, and though Darling did not stand in 1983, a "chaotic time" for Labour, he did in 1987, and won by 2,000 votes). However, we should give some of the credit to his wife, Margaret, a gregarious former journalist who is surely the major reason why Darling has remained relatively clear-sighted, even modest, in a world where so many descend into paranoia and weirdness. "Maggie said: 'If you don't do it, you'll spend the rest of your life moaning about it and I can't put up with that.' And, well, here I am."

Scottish squalls aside, on this superlative Edinburgh morning, when the sky is the colour of a freshly laundered saltire flag, it must be hard to believe what he put up with during his term as chancellor (to recap: Gordon Brown did not want him in the job, preferring Ed Balls, and tried more than once to fire him; Brown's people also viciously briefed against Darling following an honest but downbeat remark he made about the state of the British economy). Such disgraceful behaviour. Is it hard even to imagine it now? "It's true that time is a great healer," he says. "But I haven't really dwelt on it since."

I find this hard to believe, particularly since history is now in danger of repeating itself; the relationship of Ed Miliband and Ed Balls has the potential, surely, to become every bit as dysfunctional as that of Blair and Brown. He doesn't see it that way. "I honestly don't. I grew up with Gordon and Tony from happy times to increasing unhappiness. I believe people have the ability to learn, and that the two Eds are determined not to do that."

Is it true that when he became Labour leader Miliband tried to persuade Darling to be his shadow chancellor? "No, it's not true." Are they in touch now? "Yes, we had lunch together just before Christmas." Did Miliband ask him to think about returning to the shadow cabinet after the Scottish referendum? "One of Ed's many strengths is that, if I've told him once, he doesn't need to ask me again." The eagle-eyed among you will notice that these two statements appear to contradict one another.

What about the so-called recovery? What does he make of it? "Growth is returning, but it will be two to three years before we're producing what we were in 2008. Europe is not out of the woods yet. They haven't sorted out their banks to the extent that we've done, and I'm very sure the Greek settlement won't work. And how much is it being fuelled by the housing bubble? The risk is another bubble."

The coalition is, he thinks, pretty functional, if only because "if you're in partnership, you have to discuss things with your colleagues, whereas in a single-party government, you don't". So coalition now looks quite tempting to Labour types? (If an interview he gave last week is anything to judge by, Balls is certainly in the process of love-bombing the Liberal Democrats.) "At the moment, it's very difficult to call the next general election." Does he really think it's that close? "Yes, I do. The country is so polarised. The Tories do not have any of the northern cities but, equally, we have no Labour MP in Kent."

How to nose ahead in such an election? It seems to be the way, these days, for former ministers to write tell-all books about what it was like on the inside, and then, once the serialisation cheques have been cashed and the scores settled, to act as if nothing happened: the party that got itself into such a dire state is good to go again, and the electorate should simply forget all the revelations. "If we don't bang on about our record, I can't think who else will," he says. Apparently, he and Brown talk perfectly happily now, though about what he will not say (they last met at the House of Commons shortly before Christmas).

Among the Labour government's greatest achievements, he says, was that child poverty came down, the transport infrastructure was "completely renewed", the NHS was "better funded". What's the thing he most regrets? "The fallout from Iraq. It hasn't only affected most of the British establishment, but now western Iraq, too [a reference to al-Qaida's activities in Falluja]. I voted against intervention in Syria because I could not see how a limited strike would do anything but exacerbate a bad situation. But it would be appalling if the appetite of the outside world were [permanently] affected by what happened in Iraq… If we could wind the clock back to 2002, my guess is that we wouldn't invade Iraq." What does he make of Tony Blair's post-premiership lifestyle, by which I mean mostly all those trips to Kazahkstan? "That's for Tony. I supported him all the way through and, you know…" His voice trails off.

Beyond the referendum, does he still have an appetite for the game of politics? Watching the antics of Blair (or, for that matter, of many of the bankers whose necks he saved in 2008; it is a continuing source of amazement to Darling that so many of these men still have seats in Britain's boardrooms) would be enough to dishearten anyone. And if you've been through the cycle of opposition and government once, would you really want to go through it again?

He insists that he hasn't made a decision yet about whether he will stand as an MP in 2015, and I've no way of telling whether this is the honest truth (Jack Straw, a man who served alongside Darling for the 13 years of Labour government, told me he intended to continue as an MP into old age, and then promptly announced he was standing down). All I can tell you is that he certainly seems to relish work; he is a Protestant to his very marrow, I suppose.

"Even in the dark days, there was never a morning when I didn't want to go into work," he says, with a smile. Outside, the sun continues, somewhat unexpectedly, to shine.

Alistair DarlingScottish independenceScottish politicsScotlandLabourScottish National party (SNP)Rachel Cooketheguardian.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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Greek Film Mikra Anglia Sells 300000 Tickets

Greek ReporterGreek Film Mikra Anglia Sells 300000 TicketsGreek ReporterMikra Anglia, a film by the famous Greek director Pantelis Voulgaris has sold more than 300,000 tickets after five weeks in theaters throughout Greece, as announced by its distribution company Feelgood Entertainment. It is a huge success for this ...

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14th Annual Greek Festival hosted by St Mark's, Jan 24-26

14th Annual Greek Festival hosted by St Mark's, Jan 24-26Villages-NewsSt. Mark's Greek Orthodox Church, 9926 SE 36th Ave, Belleview, is holding its 14th Annual Greek Festival, indoors and out, on Jan. 24, 25, 26. Come and sample authentic Greek food, pastries, wine, beer, and ouzo. There will be a variety of vendors ...

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Peoria Greek Orthodox church ceremony conducted on icy Illinois River

Peoria Greek Orthodox church ceremony conducted on icy Illinois RiverPeoria Journal StarPEORIA — The Rev. Ciprian Sas stood on the deck of the Spirit of Peoria riverboat Saturday afternoon. With the bustling Murray Baker Bridge behind him and the thawing Illinois River below him, the parish priest of All Saints Greek Orthodox Church was ...and more »

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Greek architecture inspires Va student art project

Greek architecture inspires Va student art projectSacramento BeeARRINGTON, Va. -- Dressed in oversized purple art shirts to protect their clothes, a group of third graders at Tye River Elementary School is prepped to continue working on a special project inspired by Greek architecture. The atmosphere in a recent ...and more »

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Two more Golden Dawn parliamentarians in pre-trial detention

Greek authorities have placed two more members of the far-right party Golden Dawn in pre-trial detention. Both are accused of being leading members of a criminal organization.

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Greek tenor Frangoulis: Music brings people and nations together

Greece's chairing of the EU in the first half of 2014 has aroused interest in Turkey, as the two countries enjoy improving relations in the fields of economy, trade and tourism, which was not the case a year ago. When asked his opinion about Turkey's EU ...

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Greek Orthodox Church: Fishing for a year of good luck

Greek Orthodox Church: Fishing for a year of good luckWA todayTheodore Pasialis's feat in fishing a holy cross from the bottom of the ocean as part of the Greek Orthodox Church's celebration of the Epiphany is supposed to bring him a year's luck. So why does he feel bad? Because it was not so much luck but ...and more »

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Two Greek Golden Dawn MPs jailed

A third politician facing similar accusations will testify to prosecutors today. Giorgos Yermenis and Panayiotis Iliopoulos testified for several hours to two appeals court prosecutors. Yermenis, also known as Kaiadas from his stint as a bassist with Greek ...

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2 Greek lawmakers of far right Golden Dawn party jailed on criminal charges

ATHENS, Greece - Two more lawmakers of the extreme right Golden Dawn party have been jailed on charges of playing a pivotal role in a criminal organization and a third facing similar accusations will testify to prosecutors Sunday.

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A seat is reserved for John the Greek

A seat is reserved for John the GreekFayetteville ObserverHis old friends are still there, sipping coffee. Even his beloved old truck, with its 448,000 miles, is parked outside. But it's just not the same without John the Greek. "I can't believe he's not here,'' said longtime friend Sandy Hair. John ...

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Greek ex-bank chief to be extradited from Turkey

Greek ex-bank chief to be extradited from TurkeyTVNZAngelos Filippidis, Postbank's CEO from 2007-2010, was arrested Friday night in Istanbul, according to Greek media reports. He has said he would have returned on his own to testify. An official at Greece's justice ministry said that the extradition ...

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Mario Draghi needs a new trick to help the euro recover: quantitative easing

The ECB president's high wire act worked brilliantly at keeping the markets on side, but with deflation looming, it's time for something else

Roll up, roll up! Come and thrill as Mario Draghi defies death. Hold your breath in wonder as the maestro wobbles his way along the high wire. With no safety net, can Draghi make it from one side of the big top to the other?

No question, Draghi is a class act. There have been a few wobbles, a bit of dicing with disaster, the odd gasp from the audience, but somehow he has stayed aloft. For the past 18 months, the president of the European Central Bank has kept the financial markets sweet and bought Europe's politicians time to sort out the deep structural problems of the single currency. In the main, he has done so by using words alone, and he has made it look easy.

The big question for 2014 is whether Draghi can continue to rule the markets simply by using the gift of the gab. The now legendary "whatever it takes" speech in the summer of 2012 prevented Italy and Spain from being sucked into the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis; last week, Draghi was at his silver-tongued best when he said the ECB would keep policy loose for as long as possible and was prepared to take more aggressive action if it proved necessary. The only consideration, Draghi noted, was that any planned response would have to be legal under the ECB's constitution.

It's easy to see why Draghi felt the need to speak. It is not just that the eurozone's recovery remains virtually undetectable; rather, it is that a combination of high unemployment, unused capacity and a strong euro is pushing the 18-nation single currency area closer and closer to deflation. Core inflation (the cost of living excluding fuel and food) in the eurozone is already at a record low of 0.7% and on course to go lower as the strength of the euro cuts the cost of imports.

Four eurozone countries – Greece, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus – already have negative core inflation. That makes life difficult in two ways: it raises the real value of their debts and it means that real (inflation-adjusted) interest rates are higher than they are in better-performing countries such as Germany, where core inflation is above 1%.

So Draghi's first aim is to talk down the level of the euro. That's not easy in current circumstances, with the Bank of Japan using quantitative easing to drive down the value of the yen and the Federal Reserve only gradually tapering away America's asset purchase programme. Any respite that the ECB president can provide to eurozone exporters will be modest, and temporary.

Two further questions therefore arise: is there a case for more decisive ECB action and, if so, what should the policy response be?

There is certainly a case for more stimulus from Frankfurt. Even leaving to one side the eurozone's structural weaknesses, growth is being impeded by three factors: currency strength, austerity and a more restrictive monetary policy than in the US, the UK or Japan. Businesses are not investing, credit flows are weak, unemployment is above 12%, and the banks are in a poor state.

In terms of the policy response, the ECB should learn from other central banks and embark on its own QE programme. To be sure, this is a bit late in the day. Without doubt, a law of diminishing returns applies to asset-purchase programmes. But Europe is drifting towards Japan-style deflation, where it gets locked into low growth and high unemployment. It is time for something new from the trick cyclist.

One reason for Sands's unusual choice of sidekick

Peter Sands sent out conflicting signals last week when he named Mike Rees as his deputy at Standard Chartered. In picking Rees, Sands – think Alistair Darling with a transatlantic accent – was promoting the man who runs the riskiest part of the bank and earns the most.

Rees, who is known for his unrelenting energy and optimism, has earned around £35m in the past four years, and largely escaped criticism for it, despite public distaste for high bankers' pay. This is because Standard Chartered is not a well-known name in the UK (although Liverpool FC shirts now carry its logo). And, of course, until this year, Standard Chartered had 10 consecutive years of record profits, which helped quell any debate about pay.

But in choosing Rees, Sands effectively ended any ambitions the bank's finance director, Richard Meddings, might have nursed to succeed him at the helm of the bank.

Throughout the banking crisis, Sands and Meddings were a double act who appeared to do little wrong. With the odd exception, they were credited with driving Standard Chartered to record profits while chaos reigned elsewhere. They even helped devise the bailout for failing high street banks in autumn 2008. They were unassailable – or so it seemed until 2012, when US regulators fined Standard Chartered £415m for breaching money laundering rules with Iran. Meddings was embarrassed when he was exposed as the unnamed executive exclaiming "you fucking Americans" when warned about the potential breaches.

Then last summer the pair had to admit that an acquisition in Korea – its largest ever, conducted in 2005 when both were on the board – was ruining the bank's run of 10 consecutive years of record profits.

Meddings – adamant that the decision to walk away from an 11-year career was his and his alone – had long been regarded as the successor to Sands, who presumably has been expecting to take the chairman's seat one day. Yet in promoting Rees, Sands may not have been naming an heir apparent: more a permanent understudy while the bank sorts out its succession.

All hail Bob Crow and his innovative economic policies

Bob Crow was back on the public enemy list last week after his RMT trade union announced two 48-hour tube strikes in February. For those commuters bemoaning the looming disruption to their working day, it is worth noting that Crow helps the British economy in his own way.

One consequence of the RMT's industrial muscle is that rail, bus and tube workers consistently achieve above-inflation pay settlements. Given the iniquitous consequences of wage stagnation since the 1990s – a glut of cheap credit that culminated in the banking crisis – it could be argued that Crow is addressing the signature economic issue of our time with a success that has escaped multiple governments on both sides of the Atlantic.

No one, the Conservatives and the CBI included, disagrees with the aspiration of better pay and a higher standard of living for all. And at the expense of the occasional difficult journey to work, Crow achieves it.

Eurozone crisisQuantitative easingEconomicsEuropean banksFinancial crisisEuroEuropean Central BankMario DraghiEuroStandard CharteredBankingBob CrowTrade unionstheguardian.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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Two more Greek far-right party MPs jailed before trial

ATHENS (Reuters) - Two lawmakers from Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party were remanded to custody on Saturday pending trial on charges of belonging to a criminal group, on what prosecutors say is evidence linking the party to a series of attacks, including the killing of an anti-racism rapper in 2013.

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Two more Greek far right MPs behind bars

Two Golden Dawn lawmakers were placed in pre-trial detention late on Saturday in Athens in an ongoing crackdown against the Greek far right group, court officials said. Giorgos Germenis and Panayiotis Iliopoulos have previously been charged with joining and directing a criminal organisation, officials added. Another politician, Stathis Boukouras, who faces the same charges, also appeared before ...

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Man arrested for attacking police officers with chainsaw

A 42-year-old man was expected to face a prosecutor after being arrested on Friday in the Drosero district of Xanthi in northeastern Greece on charges of allegedly attacking three police officers with a chainsaw. Another three men, the attacker’s 18-year-... ...

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Savvas Xeros returns to Korydallos after hospital stay

Convicted November 17 terrorist Savvas Xeros returned to the high-security Korydallos Prison in southeastern Athens on Saturday after being discharged from Larissa University Hospital in central Greece. Xeros was admitted to the Larissa facility last week... ...

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Samaras Blasts SYRIZA, Backs Coalition

ATHENS – Little more than a week into Greece’s reign holding the symbolic European Union Presidency, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said his shaky coalition government will survive May elections for the European Parliament and launched a new attack on the major opposition Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) party he said is dangerous to the […]

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Kick Kennedy New Face of Antigone

NEW YORK -  The storied Kennedy family has produced a president, ambassadors, an attorney general, senators and plenty of congressmen. But not a professional actor. Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy hopes to change that. The 25-year-old granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy is making her professional stage debut off-Broadway this month in, of all things, a Greek tragedy. […]

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Ex-Minister Says Greek Defense Ministry Bribery Out of Control

ATHENS – Officials at the Greek Defense Ministry, an agency ensnared in a growing corruption scandal, said bribery was so out of control that officials routinely hugely inflated the price of equipment so they could steal even more and he’s asked for an investigation into procurement procedures. Giorgos Sourlas, General Secretary of the Justice Ministry […]

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Panathinaikos' early goal beats Panionios 1-0 in Greek league

by  Associated Press Panathinaikos squeaks by Panionios 1-0 Associated Press - 11 January 2014 16:42-05:00

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Panathinaikos stayed fourth in the Greek league by beating Panionios 1-0 with a goal from Danijel Prandjic in the 16th minute on Saturday.

Panathinaikos dominated the first half but had to defend hard in the second.

Victory kept Panathinaikos two points behind third-place Atromitos and 19 behind league leader Olympiakos, which has a single draw to spoil an otherwise perfect record. Atromitos hosts Olympiakos on Sunday. Also, second-place PAOK, 10 points behind Olympiakos, hosts Panetolikos on Sunday.

Veria won 1-0 at OFI and Levadiakos beat Ergotelis 2-0.

News Topics: Sports, Soccer, Men's soccer, Men's sports

People, Places and Companies: Greece, Western Europe, Europe

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Versace's urban cowboy has a motorbike _ not a horse _ and cheeky chaps

by  Associated Press Versace unleashes rhinestone cowboys for fall 2014 by JENNIFER CLARK, Associated Press - 11 January 2014 16:43-05:00

MILAN (AP) — Italian fashion house Versace showed a cowboy-themed menswear collection for fall 2014 on Saturday that was outrageously fun, even by Versace standards.

"Our cowboy is macho, he's a biker ... he doesn't have a horse," designer Donatella Versace said backstage after the show.

Donatella's cowboys wear their boots with sharp, tight suits decorated with rhinestone horseshoes and cactus plants on both front and back. These cowhands head out on the town wearing red leather chaps over their jeans, or sometimes just over their bandanna-print underwear. Cheeky indeed!

Cowboy bikers at Versace wear leather pants, fur motorcycle jackets, hip-hop chains, silk shirts with "Western Cowboy" on the back, or quilted bombers over their bare chests. They sport studded or rhinestone codpieces that do double-duty as belts. Motorcycle helmets bearing the house's trademark Medusa motifs add to the fun.

The collection included a few covetable, sumptuous pieces, like a camel overcoat that looked as thick as a carpet.

But mostly it was a camp celebration of manhood in many forms, from the automobile grilles decorating the runway to the "vroom vroom" motorcycle revving up the start of the soundtrack.

The late Gianni Versace was famous for mixing cultural references spanning Ancient Greece to Andy Warhol into his carefully tailored work, but the cowboy theme has appeared only once before.

"Gianni did a haute couture cowboy dress once modelled by Naomi Campbell in Paris," said Donatella Versace, his sister who took over after his tragic death. "It had a fringe skirt."

News Topics: Lifestyle, Fashion, Beauty and fashion, Milan Fashion Week, Fashion design, Fashion shows, Events, Arts and entertainment, Entertainment

People, Places and Companies: Donatella Versace, Gianni Versace, Andy Warhol, Naomi Campbell, Milan, Italy, Western Europe, Europe

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EUROPE > Greek banker Filippidis sought for embezzlement detained in Istanbul

Hurriyet Daily NewsEUROPE > Greek banker Filippidis sought for embezzlement detained in IstanbulHurriyet Daily NewsREUTERS file photo. Greek banker Angelos Filippidis, one of the main suspects of an embezzlement scheme regarding the Greek state bank Postbank, which was shut down last year, has been detained in Istanbul due to a pending red notice by the Interpol.Former CEO of Greek bank arrested in TurkeyGlobalPostFormer CEO of Greek bank arrested in Turkey to be deportedThe West AustralianHead of Greek bank rescue fund chargedFinancial TimesGreek Reporter -euronewsall 74 news articles »

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7 Greek Start-Ups You Need To Know About

Did you know that it’s Greek software which allows your smartphone to access Wi-Fi hotspots? In a surprising twist to Greece’s economic story, Greek start-ups are giving the geeks of Silicon Valley a run for their money. That’s why Neelie Kroes’ StartUpEurope Tour is stopping off in Athens today. Neelie Kroes said: “The Athens tech scene is […]

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Greek Scandal Bank Ex-Chief Caught in Turkey

As a probe into bad loans given out by the state-run Hellenic Postbank (TT) has allegedly discovered a widespread ring of officials handing out money to businessmen who pocketed it, the institution’s former President,  Angelos Filippides was arrested in Turkey where he was caught because he kept using his mobile phone to call Greek TV […]

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Troika the Main Topic in Samaras-Venizelos Meeting

Greek Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras and Deputy Greek Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Evangelos Venizelos met today at the Maximos Mansion. The Greek Finance Minister, Yannis Stournaras was also present during the meeting that lasted 3.5 hours. The developments in the political and economic landscape of the country were put on the table […]

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Greek Hero Dies

Theodoros Kallinos, a historical figure for Crete and a hero of the Resistance, died at the age of 100. He was a legend in the Battle of Crete and led a battalion in the only victorious Greek struggle, the battle of Kopsas. According to his narrations, when he stepped on Cretan soil he presented himself […]

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Momogeri Revived in Preveza

The streets of Preveza were filled with laughter, satirical skits, teasing and dancing this Saturday, January 11, impressing the hundreds of people who attended the Greek custom Momogeri. The event began with a meeting in Theofaneio followed by a performance in the historic narrow streets of the city center. Momogeri is an old genuine form […]

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Golden Dawn Says Terrorists, Corrupt Free

Officials from the Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, whose leaders have been jailed pending trial on charges of running a criminal gang have snapped back at the scandal-ridden government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, the New Democracy Conservative leader and his party, the PASOK Socialists. Golden Dawn spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris, one of six of the […]

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