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How the world sees Greece
Friday, January 24, 2014
Greek yogurt's popularity soars
Like most health fads, people tend to jump on the bandwagon in the hopes of reaping all the presumed benefits of the new 'it' food. In the case of the Greek yogurt craze, suppliers are responding to the demand big time. The thicker, more bitter and protein ...
EU Commission: Greece, Get Along With Troika
In a meeting held earlier on Friday in Brussels, the eurozone’s finance ministers have agreed to provide the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with political guarantees, in order for it to continue to participate in the Greek bailout package ...
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In Utah, fight breaks out at Greek Orthodox church
KUTV 2NewsIn Utah, fight breaks out at Greek Orthodox churchDaily HeraldSALT LAKE CITY — Members of a Greek Orthodox church say a fight during a service this week was caused by leader announcing he would still show up for work even though he was let go in December. Police were called to the Sunday service, but no one ...Police respond as Utah parishioners fight at Greek churchSalt Lake Tribuneall 14 news articles »
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Greek wine starting to make its mark in the US
KathimeriniGreek wine starting to make its mark in the USKathimeriniMore and more Greek wine is flowing in North America as local brands shed the image of cheap imports and evolve an increasingly popular range of tastes that are earning critical acclaim and distinctions at international competitions across the Atlantic.
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EU president Greece urges Turkey to respect rule of law
Greece's Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos has warned ... including some who were working on the corruption investigation. The EU, which Turkey aspires to join, has criticized what many see as a government-wide purge. If passed in Parliament, the ...
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Greece seeks special treatment to cope with carbon emission cost
Greece's crisis-battered firms may lose an additional 33,000 jobs through 2020, unless special provisions are introduced in EU carbon emission rules to lower the costs, the energy ministry said in a statement on Friday. The EU Commission already ...
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Advertisers ready to bare knuckles for big game
On Super Bowl Sunday, everybody’s going to want a helmet — including advertisers. Experts predict commercials for everything from Greek yogurt to luxury cars will tackle rival brands head-on.
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Greek Public TV Archives Go Online
Greek Public TV Archives Go OnlineGreek ReporterThe Greek public television legacy is once more available via the website hprt-archives.gr. Thousands of digitized records, with full documentation of the Greek Public Television archive manages to capture the history and evolution of Greece from the ...
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Golden Dawn Lawmaker Fined for Name-Calling in Greek Parliament
Golden Dawn Lawmaker Fined for Name-Calling in Greek ParliamentBloombergInvestigations by Greek authorities into the party began when a 34-year-old man was stabbed to death by a Golden Dawn member Sept. 18. To contact the reporters on this story: Eleni Chrepa in Athens at echrepa@bloomberg.net; Antonis Galanopoulos in ...and more »
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Greek Alpha Bank Criticizes the Troika
In relation to ongoing negotiations, Greek Alpha Bank has criticized the Troika for not giving the green light to the next tranche of funds. “Two of the most striking developments in the Greek Economy for 2013 were the successful reformation ...
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Greece Will Likely Begin Recovery This Year: Is Austerity Working?
It was nearly four years ago that the Greek government negotiated its agreement with the IMF for a harsh austerity program that was ostensibly designed to resolve its budget problems. Many economists, when we saw the plan, knew immediately that ...
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Angolan firm searching for Greek oil tanker amid hijacking fears
The Maritime ExecutiveAngolan firm searching for Greek oil tanker amid hijacking fearsKathimeriniAngolan state oil firm Sonangol said on Friday that search teams were scouring the Atlantic off the coast of Luanda Friday for a lost Greek oil tanker feared hijacked by pirates. "The relevant authorities have already been alerted and launched ...Greek managers say they have no contact with tanker missing off Angola for 6 daysMinneapolis Star Tribuneall 14 news articles »
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Police respond as Utah parishioners fight at Greek church
Police respond as Utah parishioners fight at Greek churchSalt Lake TribunePolice were called to a fight Sunday at a service at Prophet Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Holladay. A long-running church dispute led to the fight, said Unified Police Lt. Justin Hoyal. Officers are investigating allegations of assault, Hoyal said ...
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Euro zone to assure IMF it will keep funding Greece-EU official
Euro zone to assure IMF it will keep funding Greece-EU officialReutersBRUSSELS, Jan 24 (Reuters) - The euro zone will assure the International Monetary Fund in coming months that it will continue to bankroll Greece, enabling the IMF to disburse its share of international aid to Athens, a senior European Union official ...and more »
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Tim Dean of Greece to mount congressional campaign
Tim Dean of Greece to mount congressional campaignRochester Democrat and ChronicleTim Dean, a former U.S. Marine and commercial truck driver from Greece, is announcing Friday that he will run as an independent candidate in the 25th Congressional District. Dean, 49, would face 14-term Democratic incumbent Louise M. Slaughter and the ...and more »
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Greece faces criticism over migrant boat drownings
ATHENS (Reuters) - A migrant boat mishap that killed at least two and left 10 missing has become the latest headache for Greece's government, which had to deny claims its coast guard triggered it by towing the boat toward Turkish waters.
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Greek managers say they have no contact with tanker missing off Angola for 6 days
The Greek managers of an oil tanker missing off southwestern Africa for nearly a week and thought to have been attacked by pirates say they still have not established contact with the vessel.
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3 Greek Policemen Suspended on Charges of Stealing
3 Greek policemen suspended after charges of robbing, beating migrants during drugs search
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Greek Receipt Policy Still Up in Air
Greek ReporterGreek Receipt Policy Still Up in AirGreek ReporterSix years into the crippling economic crisis, the Greek Government is still tinkering heavily with its receipt collection policy, aimed at curbing tax evasion. The mandatory collection of receipts by taxpayers, and the subsequent penalties for ...
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3 Greek policemen suspended after charges of robbing, beating migrants during drugs search
Three Greek policemen have been suspended and are being investigated on charges of stealing cash and beating four migrants during a drugs bust in central Athens.
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Greek conference organisers in court on fraud charges
Greek conference organisers in court on fraud chargesMeetpie (press release)The former owners of Greek conference organisers C&C International have appeared in court in London accused of fraud and money laundering, after a two year search. Businessman Kyriakos Griveas and his wife Anastasia Vatsika appeared at City of ...
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Greek Ship-owner Matantos Released on Bail
Greek ReporterGreek Ship-owner Matantos Released on BailGreek ReporterA new piece of the puzzle in the case of the German submarines armament programs regarding the distribution of briberies was added today. Michael Matantos, representative of the German company Ferrostaal in Greece, who is charged with ...
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Greek minister: migrant survivors of boat accident have changed accounts
The GuardianGreek minister: migrant survivors of boat accident have changed accountsThe GuardianGreece's merchant marine minister has accused the survivors of a fatal migrant boat sinking of changing their accounts of the incident, initially saying the Greek coast guard saved them but later accusing it of badly mishandling the rescue operation.After tragedy, Greek Coast Guard saves 47 migrants off Samos [UPDATE]KathimeriniGreek authorities investigating migrant boat sinking that left 2 dead, 10 ...NewserThose aspiring to sail Greece: new Greek taxes delayedSail Worldall 83 news articles »
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A sailboat in the moonlight: A glorious week touring the Greek islands on our own yacht
With a fleet of 178 boats all stationed in Greece, sailing is done as part of a relaxed flotilla - a group of 10-12 yachts - with an enthusiastic, friendly young crew on the 'lead yacht' always available to help where needed. Two hours after ...
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Looking at the wrong example
In the last few years a large number of people in Greece have suggested, often in passionate terms, that the solution to the country’s sovereign debt crisis would be a disorderly default.
Amid a climate of such widespread populism, this point of view has ... ...
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Greek minister claims migrant boat sinking survivors changed their account of fatal incident
ATHENS, Greece - Greece's merchant marine minister said Friday the survivors of a fatal migrant boat sinking changed their accounts of the incident, initially saying the Greek Coast Guard saved them but later accusing it of badly mishandling the rescue operation. The small fishing boat crammed with 28 people had entered Greece illegally from Turkey and the Coast Guard said it was towing the boat ...
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Greece welcomes Iran nuclear deal implementation
Press TVGreece welcomes Iran nuclear deal implementationPress TV»Back to Story. Greece welcomes Iran nuclear deal implementation. Greek Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos. Fri Jan 24, 2014 9:48AM. Share | Email | Print. Related Interviews: 'West lacks real steps in Iran N-deal' · 'West seeks new Sykes-Picot on ...
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New website ‘a huge step for Greek tourism’
MARKETING GREECE, the body that represents the country’s tourism industry, is soft-launching its ... it maps the entire country’s tourism portfolio, presenting it by products, traveller type and holiday experience, and provides detailed information ...
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UPDATE 1-Greece nears first current account surplus since joining euro
The latest data shows Greece is likely to top the International Monetary ... as hoteliers and restaurant owners cut prices and upgrade services to weather the crisis and lure more visitors. A broader mix of visitors - including those who stay ...
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After tragedy, Greek Coast Guard saves 47 migrants off Samos [UPDATE]
Sail WorldAfter tragedy, Greek Coast Guard saves 47 migrants off Samos [UPDATE]KathimeriniGreek Coast Guard officers rescued 47 would-be migrants off the coast of Samos, near Turkey, on Friday after receiving a distress signal from the migrants' vessel which was taking on water. A few days after the tragedy off the coast of Farmakonisi ...Greek authorities investigating migrant boat sinking that left 2 dead, 10 ...NewserMigrant Boat Capsizes Off Greek Coast, 2 Bodies FoundHuffington PostThose aspiring to sail Greece: new Greek taxes delayedSail Worldall 76 news articles »
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Greece, creditors still in tough negotiations
KathimeriniGreece, creditors still in tough negotiationsMiamiHerald.comATHENS, Greece -- Greece's finance minister says the country is still in tough negotiations with representatives of its international creditors over the course of its economic reform program, but insists there is no cause for concern and that the ...Talks with Greece awkwardly timedEuropean VoiceTroika says Greece must dismantle barriers to competition for review to concludeKathimeriniStournaras: We are Doing the Best we Can for Greece in Negotiations With TroikaGreek ReporterForexTV.com -MNI News -Capital.gr (press release)all 15 news articles »
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Remarkable Volunteer Vacation in Crete
By Lynn Lotkowitcz A granddaughter of one of my mother’s dearest friends reached out to me in early October while doing some genealogy research. She was trying to find out more about family and her Greek heritage and sent me some old photos that brought back great memories about a culture and people I hadn’t […]
The post Remarkable Volunteer Vacation in Crete appeared first on The National Herald.
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Boat Sinking Survivors Say Coast Guard Abuse, Let Children Drown
ATHENS – Greek judicial authorities said they are investigating the deadly sinking of a migrant boat that was being towed by a coast guard vessel, as officials denied survivors’ claims that officers badly mishandled the operation. The small fishing boat crammed with 28 people had entered Greece illegally from Turkey. The Coast Guard said it […]
The post Boat Sinking Survivors Say Coast Guard Abuse, Let Children Drown appeared first on The National Herald.
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Robot Assisted Orthopedic Surgery Introduced in Greece
An innovative approach to orthopedic surgery using robots has been introduced by Greek doctors. The new technology is provided by the U.S. MAKO corporation, which has so far only been used in three European countries, including Greece. On the first day of its introduction, the new technique was successfully used to carry out complex knee […]
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“Greek European Citizens” the Name of Chatzimarkakis’ Party
“Greek European Citizens” is the name of Jorgo Chatzimarkakis’ new party for the upcoming European Parliament elections, as announced on Thursday. The 47-year-old MEP was born in Duisburg in Germany but is of Greek descent. For ten years he was an MEP with the Free Democratic Party of Germany (part of the Alliance of Liberals […]
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10+1 Questions That Bore the Greeks
The characteristics in which foreigners associate Greeks are plentiful, to such an extent that they cannot imagine anything Greek without thinking of the following characteristics……. For them, Greece means tzatziki, syrtaki, souvlaki, Mykonos, bouzoukia, mousaka and of course ancient monuments. Although some of these might indeed be true, they describe Greece of another era or […]
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Greece Probes Boat Sinking Abuse Charges
Merchant Marine Minister Militadis Varvitsiotis has denied accusations by migrants who survived the capsizing of a boat full of immigrants that it was being dragged back to Turkey at full speed, not to safety, and that Coast Guard officials let women and children drown and pushed some of them back into the water when they […]
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Billionaire Eurnekian Targets Greek Airports Following Crisis
Billionaire Eurnekian Targets Greek Airports Following CrisisBusinessweekAmerica's airport operating unit is bidding for 21 Greek airports, Martin Eurnekian, head of the division and a nephew of Eduardo, said in an interview in Davos on Jan. 22. The group, which is acquiring a 23 percent stake in Pisa, Italy's airport this ...and more »
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Greece from 24 June to 8 July
So a good 14 days. We have not booked anything within that timeframe and I still would dearly love to go to Mykonos and Santorini particular take the open ferry to Santorini. But given our dates are later than our original booked trip (late May early June ...
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How Corporations Are Cashing In On The Worldwide Immigration Crackdown
Nearly a decade ago, Australian authorities discovered major problems inside detention centers run by a private, for-profit company entrusted with immigrants locked up for entering the country illegally.
The company, Global Solutions Ltd. -- now owned by the British corporation G4S, the world's largest security firm -- was failing to administer care to detainees with serious health problems, according to a government investigation. A separate inquiry found that guards transporting detainees on a seven-hour drive had denied them food, water and access to bathrooms, ignoring pleas for help.
Amid public outcry over the investigation and protests by detainees who set fires and rioted at a detention center, the Australian government gradually phased out its contracts with the company. But as it now intensifies a crackdown on undocumented immigrants entering its waters, yielding growing numbers of detainees, the government has again turned to G4S to manage the flow.
"There was zero wisdom in doing that," said Sophie Peer, campaign manager for ChilOut, an Australian human rights group that focuses on children in detention. "But there's also very few firms that would put their hands up for such a hideous job."
In an age where governments around the world have increasingly sought to control borders and stem growing ranks of undocumented migrants, many are relying on a small handful of British and American multi-national corporations that have come to dominate the lucrative business of detaining unwanted visitors. Over the last 20 years, some of the world's largest immigrant detention systems in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia have grown more than five-fold, with the bulk of the business handed off to for-profit contractors.
As their business opportunities have increased, so have the findings of abuse and mismanagement by contracted firms.
Just last week, prison inspectors in the U.K. found that The GEO Group, an American private prison firm with international operations, was needlessly handcuffing elderly and infirm detainees, two of whom died within hours of being transported by the company.
"These are shocking cases where a sense of humanity was lost," the inspectors' report says.
In Australia, where the entire immigrant detention system has been fully privatized since the late 1990s, authorities have found that abusive guards, a lack of mental health services and poor staff training by contractors have led to a rash of suicides, escapes and riots.
While the U.S., the U.K. and Australia have gone furthest in privatizing detention operations, smaller countries are also following suit. Last year, Greece announced that it would solicit bids from private companies to manage detention centers, and Spain has hired a private security company to oversee detainees in parts of its immigration system.
Experts argue that outsourcing such services allows government agencies to avoid accountability for the inherently controversial and complex question of how to handle immigration policy.
"When things go wrong -- and they invariably do -- it means you can sever the link to the private company and put the blame on them, or even individual employees," said Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, the head of research at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, who has studied what he terms "the migration industry."
"It's a way of distancing yourself from responsibility, and to be politically seen as taking action, without actually performing any in-depth review of your system," he added.
But research has also pointed to a so-called lock-in effect, when a decision to outsource a core state function can make it extremely difficult for governments to reverse course. And with relatively few companies able to bid on immigration services, governments wind up doing business with contractors they have sparred with in the past.
In 2007 in Australia, for example, the center-left Labor Party campaigned on a pledge to end the immigration detention contract with Global Solutions, arguing that detainees were leaving the system as "broken human beings."
"There is one answer and one answer alone," said a party leader at the time, Tony Burke, according to the Australian newspaper The Age. "Terminate the privatization of our detention centers."
But the government eventually decided that transitioning back to public management would be too difficult. It temporarily extended the Global Solutions contract and in 2009 awarded a new contract to the Serco Group, a sprawling British government services firm that handles everything from air traffic control in the United Arab Emirates to atomic weapons management in the U.K.
Serco's revenues from Australian immigration detention contracts have grown from 3 million in 2009 to more than .8 billion last year. Yet the company has faced mounting criticism through the years over poorly trained guards and a series of escapes in recent months.
At a Serco-run detention center in Sydney in 2010, three men committed suicide in a span of less than three months. A subsequent investigation found that mental health services were inadequate and staff were not trained to identify suicidal behavior.
In a statement, a Serco spokesman said that the company is committed to improving conditions in what are often "complex and challenging circumstances," and that it's regularly monitored by government agencies and humanitarian observers. "We are committed to continuous improvement, to delivering a safe and secure environment, and to providing a humane and dignified service for the people in our care," the statement read.
He added that since the suicides at the detention center, the company has improved staff training and internal standards for managing detainees at risk of suicide or self-harm.
Australia has a particularly controversial history in dealing with what it calls "unlawful migrants," facing criticism from the United Nations and the country's human rights commission for more than a decade.
The number of migrants coming to Australia in any given year is relatively small, especially when compared to movement across the U.S.-Mexico border -- the busiest migration corridor on the planet. But boat arrivals have long been a nettlesome political issue in Australia, which has a far smaller population than the United States yet also a lot less arable land.
In the last two years, Australia has seen an uptick in boats coming from Indonesia, many of which carry migrants from war-torn countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The influx prompted the government in 2012 to renew a policy of "offshore processing" of migrants. Under this system, authorities stop boats coming into Australian waters and send migrants to detention camps on remote islands in other countries.
The government currently pays the tiny republic of Nauru and Papua New Guinea to take in asylum seekers. Most remain in limbo a long time as local officials process claims for asylum.
Also in 2012, the Australian government agreed to a contract with G4S to operate a detention camp on Manus Island, governed by Papua New Guinea. Recent reports from the U.N. Refugee Agency and Amnesty International detailed deplorable conditions in the detention camp and a lack of medical and mental health services.
"Part of why they do the offshore stuff is there's less scope for any legal protections," said Andrew Bartlett, a former member of the Australian Senate who is a research fellow with the migration law program at Australian National University. "It's very difficult for there to be any sort of accountability or scrutiny."
The Guardian Australia recently reported that G4S' contract on Manus Island would not be renewed at the end of this month. Neither G4S nor Australia's Department of Immigration and Border Protection responded to requests for comment.
G4S and Serco, along with the American private prison firm The GEO Group, also operate the majority of the U.K.'s immigration detention centers.
All three firms have had major operational troubles through the years.
A recent report found that inspectors at the GEO Group detention center near London's Heathrow Airport had handcuffed at least two men on the verge of death. It concluded that employees at the facility failed to focus on detainees who were sick, elderly or at risk of self-harm.
"There needed to be a refocusing on individual needs of the most vulnerable people in detention, some of whom had been utterly failed by the system," the report found.
In a statement, the GEO Group pointed to positive findings in the report, such as improvements in recreation and education activities, and said that it has "an excellent track record" of operating facilities in the U.K. The company said detainees are "not routinely handcuffed," but noted that managers have discretion in cases where there is a risk of escape.
At one of Serco's U.K. facilities, two guards were fired in October after a Roma woman told inspectors that she had been sexually abused.
In 2012, a coroner's inquest jury found that staff negligence at another Serco facility had led to the death of a Pakistani man a year earlier. The man's roommate pressed an emergency buzzer over the course of two hours, trying to alert staff to the medical problems, but no one got him the proper assistance until it was too late, a separate report found.
British reports on unannounced inspections at G4S facilities have documented high rates of assaults on detainees. One report in 2010 described a G4S detention center near Gatwick Airport as "fundamentally unsafe." Inspectors found that violence and drug use within the center led to "a degree of despair" among the detainees at a level "we have rarely encountered."
G4S lost a detainee transportation contract in the U.K. in 2010 after the death of Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan asylum seeker who died on a plane after being restrained by G4S guards. G4S at the time said the decision was not related to the death.
The company has retained its detention center contracts, and has continued to win other immigration-related contracts in Britain.
"Even if you punish corporations by ending a contract and adopting another one, when it happens again it's almost unavoidable not to go back to the first company," said Gammeltoft-Hansen, the Danish researcher. "There's a market capture that's very, very hard to get out of."
Private prison corporations have also dominated the immigration detention market in the U.S. The market has grown from being able to hold 7,000 inmates in 1994 to 34,000 last year. Corrections Corporation of America and The Geo Group, the two major American prison firms, have both more than doubled their revenues from immigration detention since 2005, according to securities filings.
Income from immigrant detention has grown as other traditional revenue streams, such as contracts to manage state prisons, have begun to flatten in recent years for the companies.
Both CCA and The GEO Group have also profited from increased enforcement along the border, which has led to criminal convictions and prison sentences for tens of thousands of migrants captured while crossing into the United States. Most of that population ends up in a network of low-security, privately managed federal prisons.
Civil and human rights groups have pointed to a series of problems at these privatized federal prisons. At the GEO Group-operated Reeves County Detention Center in west Texas, there were two major riots in the span of a month in late 2008 and early 2009, following a series of suicides and inmate deaths at the prison.
CCA's Eloy Detention Center in Arizona has also had a high number of recent suicides. In a span of less than six months in 2012 and 2013, there were three suicides at Eloy, which made up half of all the deaths in U.S. detention so far that year. According to records released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 10 detainees died between 2003 and 2012 at the Eloy facility, the most of any facility contracted or owned by the agency.
A CCA spokesman, Steve Owen, wrote in an email that the fatalities at the Eloy detention center are not comparable to other ICE facilities because it houses many more detainees. He said that the facility is highly regulated and that detainees are fully briefed on mental health resources.
"We want to prevent any loss of life, so suicide prevention is rightly a major focus for our team," he said.
A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency did an assessment of the Eloy facility's suicide prevention standards last year and is still reviewing the matter.
Critics of privatized detention in the U.S. argue that by handing off so much responsibility to private contractors, the federal government now lacks the expertise to make needed reforms to the largest detention network in the world.
"They've abdicated a lot of responsibility, because it's quicker and easier this way," said Bob Libal, executive director of Grassroots Leadership, a criminal justice advocacy group that campaigns against prison privatization. "The result is what's largely a captured agency. I don't see how [the immigration agency] makes major moves without consultation from the private prison corporations, and that's not an effective immigration policy."
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Leader of Hungarian extreme-right party warned over protests for UK visit
Gábor Vona's proposed trip has met with opposition from activists, with Theresa May under pressure to ban Jobbik leader
The leader of Europe's most powerful extreme-right party, Jobbik, will face "heavy" protests should the home secretary refuse to bar his entry to the UK, leading anti-racism groups have warned.
"It is D-Day and plans are afoot" to disrupt Hungarian politician Gábor Vona's proposed appearance in London this weekend in the runup to the country's elections, one of the campaigners said on Thursday.
The activist, who asked not to be named, added that opponents were likely to take to the streets and attempt to block Vona's path to the venue, in scenes reminiscent of protests against domestic far-right groups. Unite Against Fascism called for a counter protest to be held if the planned forum for Hungarian expats in Britain on Sunday goes ahead.
Vona's proposed trip to the UK has met with opposition from politicians and activists already. A Hope Not Hate petition demanding home secretary Theresa May refuse Vona entry to the country, which the group said was signed by more than 14,000 people, was handed into the Home Office on Thursday.
Claude Moraes, Labour MEP for London, said: "I've seen Jobbik up close – they are racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Roma fascists – we don't want them spreading their poison in our great international city London."
Sabby Dhalu, joint national secretary of Unite Against Fascism, said that groups like Jobbik had "no place" in the UK and called on "all democrats to reject" the group this weekend.
The Jobbik party, which has 43 of the Hungarian parliament's 386 seats – as well as three in the EU parliament – is accused of holding strong anti-Semitic views and fuelling hatred against Jewish and Roma communities. Vona, founder of the now-outlawed Magyar Garda Mozgalom paramilitary guard, is to speak at the event, scheduled to take place a day before Holocaust Memorial Day.
Addressed to the home secretary, Hope Not Hate's petition read: "As a supporter of Hope Not Hate I strongly believe in the preservation of our most basic human rights, not least that of freedom of speech.
"However, with rights come responsibilities, and we must work as a community to protect against the politics of hate and incitement.
"This weekend we mark Holocaust Memorial Day, a period of history which to all our shame saw hate destroy hope.
"We are therefore calling on you to ban Gabor Vona, the leader of the racist and anti-Semitic extremist party Jobbik, from entering the UK, as his politics of hate are simply not welcome here."
London Assembly member and former Labour MP Andrew Dismore has already written to May demanding that Vona is banned from holding the event. Dismore, who as a Labour MP founded Holocaust Memorial Day, has called Jobbik "the most powerful outwardly fascist political party in Europe".
Vona's spokesman denied claims he was due to meet members of the Greek far-right Golden Dawn and the British National party leader Nick Griffin during his stay. She said that the claims were "false", adding: "He has no intention of meeting anyone from Golden Dawn or the British National party.
"This is a forum for Hungarian citizens. This is not to do with anyone else. There are lots of Hungarians living in London and the election is coming up in Hungary."
A Home Office spokesman said: "We do not comment on individual cases or if someone is under consideration for exclusion."
The far rightHungaryEuropeTheresa MayKevin Rawlinsontheguardian.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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Three Lehigh University Greek chapters placed on suspension after alcohol,drug hospitalizations
Three of Lehigh's Greek houses have been placed on indefinite suspension in the aftermath of recent hospitalizations due to alcohol and/or drug consumption. On the evening of Jan. 13, the semester's first day of classes, two first-year students ...
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Olympiakos Volou only tier-two team in last 8 of Cup
Olympiakos Piraeus, PAOK, Panionios and Olympiakos Volou have joined Panathinaikos, Atromitos, Apollon and OFI Crete in the quarterfinals of the Greek Cup after seeing off their round-of-16 opponents in midweek.
Football League leader Olympiakos Volou bec... ...
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New warrant for former Hellenic Postbank chief issued
Prosecutors on Thursday issued a fresh arrest warrant for the former head of Hellenic Postbank (TT) Angelos Filippidis, who is in a Turkish jail pending his extradition to Greece in connection with a loan scandal embroiling TT, after a probe by the countr... ...
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Businessman Panos Germanos denies links to arms bribes
Businessman Panos Germanos, the former CEO of the Germanos retail chain, issued a statement on Thursday vehemently denying that he or any of his companies were linked to the ongoing investigation into arms procurements by the Greek state.
Germanos said th... ...
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German MEP of Greek origin, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, launches new party in Athens
Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, an MEP with Germany’s Free Democratic Party, on Thursday launched a new party in Greece that will participate in European Parliament elections in May with the aim of giving Greeks “a strong voice” in Europe.
Launching his party, call... ...
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EU to use Greek base for Central African Republic humanitarian effort
A military base in Larissa, central Greece, is to be used as a coordination center for a European Union humanitarian effort in Central African Republic, sources said on Thursday.
A French major general will be put in charge of the operation, while a Greek... ...
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One in two households is supported by pensions
Nearly half of Greek households live on the pensions of their elderly relatives as an increasing number of retired parents support their jobless children and their respective families, a recent survey has shown.
The study compiled by the Institute for Sma... ...
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Key suspect in arms probe admits to handling bribes
A key suspect in an investigation into bribes allegedly pocketed by Greek officials in exchange for securing defense deals has allegedly admitted to handling some 70 million euros in kickbacks.
In a long deposition on Thursday, Michalis Matantos, a former... ...
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Tourism arrivals in Jan-Sept 2013 rose by 15 pct
The impressive course of Greek tourism last year has been officially confirmed by the international arrivals data for the first nine months of 2013 published on Thursday by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT).
From January to September the number ... ...
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