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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, February 22, 2016

Greek shrimp and orzo bake with lemon and dill

A good casserole is pure comfort food. And there are, I know, a million versions of casseroles out there, so coming up with new and unique versions is a welcome challenge for a recipe developer. So here’s my process for creating a recipe like this.


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EUROPOL: 'The fasted growing criminal market in Europe' netted $6.6 billion in 2015

[Syrian refugees call for help and empty water from their flooding raft as they approach the Greek island of Lesbos, October 20, 2015. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis]Thomson Reuters People-smuggling gangs netted up to 6 billion euros ($6.6 billion) last year, most of it from the traffic of migrants into Europe, the European Union's police agency Europol said in a report issued on Monday. Labeling people-smuggling as the "fastest growing criminal market in Europe", the report said: "This turnover (of 6 billion euros) is set to double or triple if the scale of the current migration crisis persists in the upcoming year." Europol and police forces in countries in Europe and beyond have identified more than 12,000 suspects active in gangs involved in smuggling in migrants since 2015. Gangs, whose members come from countries including Bulgaria, Egypt, Hungary, Iraq and Kosovo, are engaged in a huge range of criminal activities including document forgery and official bribery, the report said. So-called "hotspots" where gang activities is concentrated include cities along the Balkan route from the Middle East, such as Istanbul, Izmir, Athens and Budapest, as well as major continental hubs like Berlin, Calais, Zeebrugge and Frankfurt. But Europol said there was little evidence that "terrorist suspects" were making use of migrant smuggling networks to enter the continent on a significant scale. [Migrants walk towards a makeshift camp close to the Austrian border town of Spielfeld in the village of Sentilj, Slovenia, February 16, 2016.]Thomson Reuters"Far less than 0.01 percent of terrorist suspects have had migrant links," said Europol director Rob Wainwright at a news conference. About one million migrants reached Europe last year, most of them fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, the agency said in a report issued as it set up a new center to coordinate the Europe-wide fight against the smugglers. The European Migrant Smuggling Centre, which will be based at Europol's headquarters in The Hague, will help police forces in and outside Europe share intelligence and will help with rapid deployment of emergency police forces as new migrant routes emerge. _(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Richard Balmforth)_ NOW WATCH: Ashton Kutcher just made a surprise appearance on Ian Bremmer's weekly digital video series


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Greece to Turkey Ferry Map and Guide

Above is a map of the Greek Islands and the west coast of Turkey. From five major Greek Eastern Aegean and Dodecanese islands can get to the Turkish mainland via ferry, as shown by the routes on the map. Some ferries run only during the summer tourist ...


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Community Thanks and Bids Farewell to a Giant – UPDATED

  NEW YORK – Diplomats, some of America’s top educators and businessmen, and leaders and members of the Greek-American community joined the family, friends, and admirers of Michael Jaharis to bid the industrialist, philanthropist, churchman, and patron of the arts a warm and heartfelt farewell at his funeral in the Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity […]


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Cyprus’ Christian, Muslim Leaders Decry Mosque Arson Attempt

  NICOSIA— Christian and Muslim leaders of ethnically divided Cyprus say a suspected arson attack on a mosque sows discord and undermines peace on the east Mediterranean island. Greek Orthodox Archbishop Chrysostomos II and Muslim Mufti Talip Atalay on Monday urged authorities to apprehend the perpetrators of the attack that partially burnt the roof of […]


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Greece Continues to Drive Businesses Away

Are there another people in Europe so determined to shoot themselves in the foot as the Greeks? Against all the advice of other euro states, they elected — twice — in recent years leaders who vowed to reverse what little progress had been made to ...


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Greece braces for massive number of stranded...

… banners. Later, hundreds broke a Greek police cordon and crowded at … Shafiulahh Qaberi who traveled to Greece from the northern Afghan city … ; The cargo train service between Greece and Macedonia was also suspended …


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The PVV at 10! Writing Dutch Political History One Insult At A Time

[2016-02-22-1456168883-6503776-PVV.jpg] Today is a special day in Dutch political history: it is the birthday of the Party for Freedom (PVV), a party known mostly for its "firebrand" leader, Geert Wilders. Wilders entered Dutch politics as a member of the conservative People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), but was expelled from its parliamentary faction for criticizing it too much - particularly on issues related to Islam and Muslims. After a short period in the Second Chamber as the "Group Wilders" (a group of one), he founded the PVV - which still operates as part of the Foundation Group Wilders, with one sole member (Wilders). Few politicians have influenced Dutch politics so profoundly in such a short period of time as Wilders. While he is often compared to Pim Fortuyn, the flamboyant gay politicians who was murdered in May 2002, Wilders is a very different type of person and politician. In fact, Fortuyn's influence is much less ideological than organizational. It was the short history of the List Pim Fortuyn (LPF), which descended into utter anarchy after Fortuyn's death, that convinced Wilders to maintain total control of his new party. This leads to the bizarre situation, at least in the European context, in which all but one of the PVV representatives in the various sub-national, national, and supra-national parliaments are not members of the political party they represent. While the dominance and omnipresence of Geert Wilders give a strong impression of stability, the PVV has actually had a whirlwind of a first decade. With the exception of the leadership position, very little has stayed the same. Most notably, there have been three major, and closely related, changes: ideological, electoral, and political. IDEOLOGY: FROM CONSERVATISM TO THE POPULIST RADICAL RIGHT The ideology of the PVV has changed fundamentally in the past ten years, even if Wilders tends to deny that. As the Dutch historian Koen Vossen has shown, the party started out as a "VVD+," i.e. a conservative-liberal party with strong Islamophobia. In the first years the PVV became more neoconservative, combining still mostly neoliberal economics with a hawkish foreign policy (informed by Islamophobia), but it was not radical right yet. In fact, even in 2010 Wilders was still closer to the VVD than to the French National Front (FN). This has changed radically in the last years. The PVV has adopted an increasingly ethno-nationalist discourse, built around the imaginary prototypical Dutch couple "Henk and Ingrid," who are allegedly threatened by a bureaucratic Brussels (EU), corrupt national elites, mooching immigrants (including East Europeans), and Islamic terrorists. Today the PVV is a standard populist radical right party, combining nativism, authoritarianism, and populism. It has hardened its European policy - wanting the Netherlands to leave the EU- and softened its economic policy - by more openly advocating welfare chauvinism in campaigns, while still mostly voting for neoliberal policies in parliament. It only stands out from other populist radical right parties like the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the FN in its level of obsession with Islam and Muslims, which remains the prime focus of Wilders - not unrelated to the fact that he has been living under 24/7 state protection from Islamic extremists for more than ten years now. ELECTORAL: FROM THE MARGINS TO THE MASSES The electoral growth of the PVV has been both rocky and steady. The party goes through rises and falls in the polls but overall experiences an upward trend. Its support base has changed slightly; like its ideology its electorate now largely mirrors that of other populist radical right parties (i.e. predominantly male, less educated, working class). Unsurprisingly, the party profits from (European) crises like the Greek economic crisis and the refugee crisis, which Wilders uses to attack both the EU and national elites. Scandals seem to affect him much less than his opponents think, however. For example, when Wilders made his supporters shout "less, less, less" (Moroccans) at a party rally in March 2012, almost everyone thought that he had gone too far this time. However, this didn't include the vast majority of PVV supporters, who saw little problem with the statement - which was, as Wilders correctly stated, completely in line with the PVV program. But while support for the party has increased steadily over the past years, Wilders has been king of the polls, bot not of the elections. Both in the 2012 Dutch elections and in the 2014 European elections the PVV did (much) less well than it had done in the polls in the months before. Perhaps this is the only silver lining opponents can take from the recent polls, which all show that the PVV is the largest party in the Netherlands. POLITICAL: FROM THE MAINSTREAM TO THE MARGINS Ironically, the electoral growth has not strengthened the PVV's political position. Wilders started out as a mainstream politician, slightly to the right of the VVD, who kept his distance from radical right groups and parties in the Netherlands and abroad. He defined politics in very narrow terms, i.e. parliamentary politics, and had as his only aim to create a right-wing coalition government to break the age-old centrist tendencies of Dutch politics. He achieved this in 2010, when the PVV supported a minority government between the center-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and the right-wing VVD - under the leadership of VVD leader and Prime Minister Mark Rutte. But after two years he pulled the plug on that coalition, as VVD and particularly CDA demanded further concessions that meant (even) more election promises. As always in Dutch politics, the party that is perceived to have created chaos, such as break up the government, paid the electoral price: PVV lost a third of its electorate, going from 15.5 percent in 2010 to 10.1 percent in 2012. Since being back in opposition the PVV has not just radicalized ideologically but also politically. Over the past years Wilders has made significant strategic changes. For example, after having reserved his anti-establishment attacks mainly for left-wing parties, the Labour Party (PvdA) in particular, Wilders has started a relentless barrage of personal attacks on right-wing politicians in 2012, specifically aimed at his former ally, Dutch Prime Minister Rutte. Marginalized at the national level, Wilders surprised many by embracing the new FN leader, Marine Le Pen, at the European level. After a first attempt in the unsuccessful European Alliance for Freedom (EAF), the PVV is now a member of an official political group in the European Parliament, the Europe of Nations and Freedoms (ENF) - together with, most notably, the FPÖ, the Belgian Flemish Interest (VB), and the Italian Northern League (LN) -all parties that Wilders had denounced as "anti-Semitic" and "far right" until a few years earlier. Finally, Wilders is increasingly supporting extra-parliamentary politics, although mostly outside of the Netherlands. He is the main speaker for Global Islamophobia Inc, speaking at meetings of anti-Islam groups around the globe. Last year alone Wilders spoke for the American Freedom Defence Initiative (AFDI) in Garland (TX), the Australian Liberty Alliance (ALA) in Perth, and the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (better known as Pegida) in its (only) stronghold of Dresden (Germany). All of these changes have brought Wilders and the PVV many new supporters around the world, including in the Netherlands, but not among the people he needs to get into political power. In fact, despite being at an all-time high in the polls, Wilders seems further away from government participation than ever before. As a professional politician, he realizes this, of course. But rather than responding by moderating, he has radicalized even further. In recent statements he has claimed that, as the biggest party in the Netherlands, the PVV cannot be excluded from the next government. More ominously, Wilders threatened with a (suitably vague) "revolt" in the case the other (right-wing) parties would exclude him from power. Whatever the future holds, the PVV has already made a major mark on Dutch politics in its first ten years. It is by far the most popular and powerful radical right party in Dutch postwar history. Still, for all its fundamental changes, the PVV remains dependent on one single man: the most visible Dutch politician, inside and outside of the Netherlands. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.


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New affordable senior housing in Greece

New affordable senior housing in Greece Affordable, enriched housing program, Long Pond Senior Housing, now available in Greece. Check out this story on DemocratandChronicle.com: http://on.rocne.ws/1TAXOMB


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Athens complains over border controls by FYROM, as refugees remain stranded in Greece

ATHENS, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- Athens has filed an official complaint through diplomatic channels over Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM's) decision to further tighten border controls this week, Greek Deputy Minister Yannis Mouzalas said Monday, as ...


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Slovak leader says EU agreement may not stem migrant flow from Turkey

[Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico speaks during an interview with Reuters in Bratislava]By Tatiana Jancarikova and Jan Lopatka BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - It is likely the numbers of migrants coming to Greece from Turkey will not drop in the coming weeks despite a European Union agreement and the EU should take steps to prepare new options, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Monday. Fico, who has made a tough stance on migration the cornerstone of his policies before a March 5 election, told Reuters the government was prepared to erect mobile barriers on borders with Austria and Hungary to direct the flow of migrants he fears will rise soon. Slovakia has so far seen only a trickle of migrants across its territory on their way from Syria or Afghanistan to western Europe.


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Greek PM holds talks with protesting farmers to end blockades

Baku-APA. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras received a delegation of protesting farmers at his office on Monday in a bid to reach a compromise solution to end farmers' nationwide blockades, APA reports quoting Xinhua. Farmers are fighting the government ...


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Thwarted helicopter hijacking linked with Greek militants

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Greece's anti-terrorism squad is investigating the attempted hijacking of a helicopter by a woman armed with a gun that police have linked to a domestic militant anarchist group. Police say the pilot wrestled with the woman and ...


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Greek Farmers to Decide Further Actions After Government Proposals

After four and a half hours of talks, Greek farmers left the government mansion saying that they will present the prime minister’s proposals to their unions to decide whether they would continue their protest actions. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has ...


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The Latest: French court hands down sentences to migrants

[...] since the six migrants — four Afghans, one Syrian and one Sudanese — have been in prison for a month awaiting their trial, they were freed Monday, prosecutor Jean-Pierre Valensi told The Associated Press by phone after the trial in Boulogne-Sur-Mer. According to police statistics, 501 people were caught between Friday and Sunday, including 237 on Sunday, the highest one-day figure so far in 2016. The breaches of Hungary's fence protected by razor wire have increased as other countries along the migrant route through the Balkans have tightened controls and set limits on the number and nationalities of migrants and refugees they will allow to enter. The European Union's police organization has launched a new unit dedicated to tackling migrant smuggling as part of the 28-nation bloc's efforts to stem the flow of people pouring into the continent as they flee conflict and poverty. According to a Europol report, criminal networks involved in people smuggling had an estimated turnover last year of 3-6 billion euros ($3.3-6.6 billion), as more than 1 million migrants arrived last year. Greece's government warned Monday it expected a growing number of stranded migrants and asylum seekers after neighbor Macedonia further restricted border access at the weekend. Ioannis Mouzalas, a deputy minister for migration said the European Union was failing to deal with unilateral actions and an "outburst of scare-mongering" from individual member states. Police said about 2,000 people were stranded at the border camps near the Greek border town of Idomeni, including some 600 Afghans who staged a peaceful protest, holding up Afghan flags and hand-written banners.


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Les Echos: Greece Has Only a Couple of Weeks Left to Avoid Chaos

According to daily French financial newspaper Les Echos, Greece is fighting for its life to avoid isolation as one country after another are sealing off their borders to refugees and migrants. European officials may have been able to reach an agreement ...


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Greek Cypriot missing persons remains 'moved' to Assia

Eastern Mediterranean Basin: Still a lot to... The Government will thoroughly look into the information given by a Turkish Cypriot to Greek newspaper ‘Politis` regarding Greek Cypriot missing persons whose remains are thought to have been moved to a ...


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Thousands Of Afghans Stranded In Greece

Thousands of migrants remain stranded on Greece's northern border and near Athens as non-EU Macedonia refuses to allow passage to Afghans. Reports say about 5,000 people were stuck at Idomeni or on buses near the Macedonian border on February 22, while ...


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Newly released market study: Herbal/Traditional Products in Greece

(live-PR.com) - Despite shrinking disposable incomes due to the economic recession, demand for herbal/traditional products increased during 2015. This particular category was driven by the health and wellness trend, which was evident across a wide range of ...


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Montenegro will have to close borders if neighbours do

Montenegro will have to close its borders to refugees and migrants to avoid being overwhelmed if other nearby countries do so, the country's prime minister told Reuters on Monday. Europe is suffering its biggest migrant crisis since World War Two. More than a million migrants entered the European Union last year via the Balkan route, crossing through Greece, Macedonia and Serbia towards wealthier western Europe.


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Tsipras, farmers meeting ends without agreement

Athens, February 22, 2016/Independent Balkan News Agency By Zacharias Petrou Following a marathon meeting which lasted over 5 hours, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and farmers emerged without agreement on Monday evening. Farmers representatives were mostly disappointed by the proposals on social security reform made by the PM, according to sources. However, they said that […]


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Greek Orthodox priest pleads guilty to church embezzlement

A Greek Orthodox priest pleaded guilty Monday to embezzling more than $100,000 from his former parish in Wauwatosa, but under a deferred prosecution deal he will get only a misdemeanor conviction if he stays out of trouble for a year. Neither the Rev ...


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Fears of a bottleneck as Macedonian-Greek border restrictions tightened

Clashes broke out on Greece's northern border as dozens of migrants attempted to tear down and climb over a fence into the Former Yugoslav Republic…


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Thousands of refugees trapped in Greece after Macedonia closes border

Athens, Feb 22 (EFE) .- The closure of Macedonia and Serbia borders to Afghan migrants has caused more than 9,000 refugees to be trapped at the border between the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia and Greece, as well as the port of Piraeus, where those ...


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US and Russia agree to implement ceasefire in Syria on Saturday

[syria glass]Reuters On February 19, an important deadline in Syria's Civil War was missed.  A week prior, the International Syria Support Group (ISSG), a group of countries with interests in the outcome of the Syria conflict that includes the US, and Russia, announced that a "CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES" would begin within one week. On Monday, the US-Russian plan calling for a cessation of hostilities in Syria is set to begin on Feb. 27. The ceasefire will exclude Islamic State and al-Qaeda linked Nusra Front militants, two Western diplomatic sources told Reuters. Secretary of State John Kerry continues to broker the deal and spoke of the ceasefire in Syria on Feb. 19. "Working out modalities for a cessation of hostilities in a situation like Syria is a highly technical and detailed process; and that's why our teams are still at it," Kerry said Friday, according to Reuters. "We want this process to be sustainable, and should all participants prove willing to really sit down and work this out, we can get to a cessation of hostilities." The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed a report by the Al Jazeera television network, which also reported that the draft calls on Syrian parties to agree to the cessation of hostilities by midday on Feb. 26. One of the sources said this was accurate, but the second was unable to confirm it.  To date, Syria's Civil War, which began in 2011, has killed a staggering 470,000 people, according to a Syrian Center for Policy Research report. _(Tom Miles in Geneva, Arshad Mohammed in Washington and Yara Bayoumy in Dubai; Editing by Eric Walsh)_ NOW WATCH: Watch this heartbreaking eyewitness account of the Syrian refugee crisis in Greece


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The US military believes ISIS is 'in a defensive crouch'

[An Islamic State fighter gestures while being held prisoner with fellow fighters under Democratic Forces of Syria fighters as they ride a pick-up truck near al-Shadadi town, Hasaka countryside, Syria, February 18, 2016. REUTERS/Rodi Said]Thomson Reuters LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. estimates of the number of Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria have been reduced while cuts in their pay are evidence they are on the defensive, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting the group said on Monday. But the task of defeating Islamic State is complicated by Russian air strikes in Syria which are 90 percent targeted at opposition fighters and not at the jihadist group, U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren said. Warren said increases in forced conscription, the recruitment of child soldiers and the use of elite fighters in common units were all evidence that Islamic State was seeing a slowing in the influx of foreign fighters. "We believe that Daesh is now beginning to lose. We see them in a defensive crouch," Warren told reporters in London, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. U.S. intelligence estimates of the number of Islamic State fighters, which for the first 17 months of coalition operations ranged from 19,000 to 31,000, had been revised to 20,000 to 25,000 - a level he said the group would struggle to maintain. "They have been able to replenish their forces at roughly the same rate as we've been able to kill their forces. That's hard to sustain," he said. Warren said that until recently the average local Islamic State fighter was paid about $400 a month, while foreign fighters, who tended to be "better" because they were more committed and fanatical, were on $600 to $800 a month. However, recent announcements by the group and other evidence suggested that common fighters' pay had been cut by half, while it had also reduced pay for the foreign recruits, though perhaps not by such a large proportion, he said.  RUSSIANS "RECKLESS AND IRRESPONSIBLE" Warren said the group had lost 40 percent of the territory it once controlled in Iraq, and 10 percent in Syria, where the coalition's job was much harder, partly due to the Russian air strikes. "The Russians have said they're here to fight terrorists, they're here to fight Daesh. We've seen very little evidence to support that. About 90 percent of Russian air strikes have been against the opposition, not against Daesh," he said. [A man carries an injured woman in a site hit by what activists said were airstrikes carried out by the Russian air force in the rebel-controlled area of Maaret al-Numan town in Idlib province, Syria, January 9, 2016.]Thomson Reuters "The Russians conduct their air strikes using imprecise methods. I find them reckless and irresponsible. They simply drop dumb bombs out of the back their aircraft," he said, adding that the coalition believed the Russians had used cluster bombs. Asked about efforts to build up Syrian forces on the ground to fight Islamic State, Warren contrasted the fighting in the northwest corner of the country with the conflict further east, near the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa. In the northwest, he said the large number of groups operating made it harder for the coalition to generate a "meaningful ground force" there. But in the strip of land from the town of Kobani to the Iraqi border, the coalition-backed Kurdish YPG group and allies were in control and beginning to drive south toward Raqqa city. In Syria's northeastern province of Hasaka he highlighted the battle for al-Shadadi, a crossroads town east of Raqqa controlled by 400 to 600 Islamic State fighters, which the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday had been captured by forces including the YPG. "When we're able to seize that it's yet another piece of the supply lines into Raqqa that becomes seized," he said. (Editing by Dominic Evans) NOW WATCH: An AT&T spokesperson and former refugee is now helping Syrian refugees in Greece


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The most expensive homes you can buy in 30 countries

[Greece]Point2Homes Ready to play fantasy real estate? Let's take a jaunt around the world to check out the most expensive homes you can buy in 30 different countries, from Argentina to the U.A.E.  Point2Homes, an international real estate listings database, compiled a list of the priciest properties in far-flung locations across the globe. From a full-scale palace in Morocco to a seaside getaway in Greece, these mansions don't come cheap — but they will wow your houseguests.  Take a look, below. ARGENTINA: THIS 11-BEDROOM SPANISH COLONIAL STYLE VILLA ON A 400-ACRE FARM OUTSIDE OF BUENOS AIRES IS A FULLY-REALIZED ESTATE, WITH TENNIS COURT, POOL, AND EVEN A NINE-HOLE GOLF COURSE — NOT TO MENTION THE LIVESTOCK — ALL FOR $10 MILLION. Point2Homes AUSTRALIA: FOR $21 MILLION, THIS PRIVATE, CONTEMPORARY WATERFRONT MANSION IN PERTH HAS FIVE BEDROOMS AND A FULL FLOOR DEDICATED TO ENTERTAINING. Point2Homes BAHAMAS: THIS $45 MILLION HARBOUR ISLAND GETAWAY IS THE COMPLETE SETUP: TWO SETS OF 400-FOOT PRIVATE BEACHFRONT, 10+ BEDROOMS SPREAD ACROSS MULTIPLE VILLAS, AND ALL THE AMENITIES YOU COULD DREAM UP FOR A TROPICAL PARADISE. Point2Homes SEE THE REST OF THE STORY AT BUSINESS INSIDER


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We just got a huge step closer to understanding how a simple practice reduces stress

[night meditation bed yoga]Marko Kudjerski/flickr Sit down. Close your eyes. Feel your chest rise and fall with each inhaled and exhaled breath. For decades, researchers have suggested that this simple practice — known as mindfulness meditation — can have health benefits that range from banal to life-changing. Some occasional meditators report being a little less stressed every once in a while, for example, while other more regular practitioners say it helps them succeed in challenging situations. In fact, a Tibetan monk who has been called the "world's happiest man" says even just fifteen minutes of meditation each day can make you feel much better. And we just got a big step closer to finding out how a few moments of peace may contribute to these benefits. A new study published this month and reported in the New York Times shows for the first time that when we meditate — independent of whether we're sage, daily meditators or total newbies — the practice appears to produce measurable changes in two key ways: 1. MORE BRAIN CHATTER BETWEEN TWO REGIONS: * The left prefrontal cortex (LPFC), which tends to be active when we're exerting self-control, such as picking the Greek yogurt instead of the glazed donut at your local breakfast joint * The default-mode network (DMN), which tends to be more active when we're focusing on internal thoughts instead of the outside world 2. REDUCED BLOOD LEVELS OF A STRESS-LINKED SUBSTANCE CALLED IL-6 that's been linked with inflammation and can sometimes be used as an early indicator of later health problems. For their study, associate professor of psychology and the director of the Health and Human Performance Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University J. David Creswell and his team studied 35 unemployed people. (Not surprisingly, they all reported feeling stressed-out.) Then, Creswell split the volunteers into two groups. One of the groups got a 3-day formal mindfulness meditation training at a retreat center, while the other got a 3-day "fake" training where they were taught to distract themselves from stressful feelings by stretching and making jokes. When their three days were up, people in both groups said they felt better. But scans of their brains and tests of their blood suggested some critical differences between the group that really learned to meditate and the one that was merely distracted. In the _real_ meditators, the researchers found more activity among portions of their brains involved in focus and self-control. And four months later, the meditators still displayed lower blood levels of the stress-linked substance (even though only a few of them said they'd continued to stick to a meditation practice). This finding is bolstered by previous research, which suggests that meditation can have the following benefits: BOOSTING OUR ABILITY TO RELATE TO OTHERS. [friends laughing]Marko Kudjerski/flickrIn 2008, University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Richard Davidson led a 12-year study on meditation and compassion which included an experiment comparing expert meditators with people who were not experienced in meditation. When he had both groups listen to the sounds of several stressed-out voices, two brain areas known to be involved in empathy showed more activity in the meditators than in the non-meditators, suggesting that people who meditate regularly have an enhanced ability to respond to the feelings of others and empathize without feeling overwhelmed. IMPROVING FOCUS AND REDUCING STRESS. Davidson also noted that when he exposed meditators to an outside stimulus meant to startle them — like an alarm going off unexpectedly or a stranger accosting you in the street — during their practice, they were far less put-off by the stimulus compared with someone who was not meditating. [woman writing thinking]Marko Kudjerski/flickrSeveral small studies of Buddhist monks have also hinted at the idea that meditating helps improve the process by which the brain takes in new information and helps us make decisions. DEALING WITH NEGATIVE FEELINGS. Multiple studies suggest that meditation can help reduce depression and anxiety. Mindfulness meditation in particular might help people deal with psychological stress, though more research is needed into how meditation might help lead to positive mental health (beyond reducing effects of negative stresses). NOW WATCH: The simplest way to get — and stay — happy, according to psychologists


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Arson attack staged on mosque in Greek Cyprus, leaders condemn assault

The historic Denya Mosque in Greek Cyprus has been attacked by arsonists and completely destroyed, while the two leaders on the divided island have condemned the attack


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Athletics-Young Greek pole vaulter scaling the heights

ATHENS, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Teenaged Greek pole vaulter Emmanuel Karalis is determined to scale new heights despite the negative impact of the country's financial crisis on sport. Fresh from breaking the world youth record, a mark which had stood for 12 ...


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Michael Ignatieff: America Used to Help Europe. Now It's Just a Bystander.

[the european] _Being a Canadian politician of Russian descent, Harvard's Michael Ignatieff talks bluntly with Alexander Görlach about the role the U.S. should play in the European refugee crisis._ GÖRLACH: WHAT'S YOUR PERSPECTIVE OF WHAT'S GOING ON IN EUROPE? IGNATIEFF: What you have is the dissolution of state order in the Middle East, and Europe has to bare the consequences of that dissolution, even though Europe is not really responsible for its causes. Görlach: What are the causes? IGNATIEFF: Autocracy and despotism, which have lost their legitimacy in the Middle East since the Arab Spring and, well before, stagnating societies that haven't met the expectations of their young populations. A decade ago, it was reported that these societies were simply missing the 21st century entirely, that they eventually were bound to blow, and they did. Then there was the chaotic arrogance and failure of the American intervention policy in Iraq and the failed interventions in Libya. So Europe looks at an arc that ranges from the monarchy in Morocco, the gerontocracy in Algeria, then at the long coastline of Libya, which is essentially ungoverned, until you hit the despotic order in Egypt, and then at the violence between Israelis and Palestinians. GÖRLACH: THEN THE ARC SWEEPS NORTHEAST? IGNATIEFF: Correct. You've got Jordan, with a quarter of its population now refugees, Lebanon, unbelievably hanging together, the violent conflict in Syria and the semi-state collapse in Iraq. Görlach: So what do the consequences entail? IGNATIEFF: The consequences are an open Mediterranean border you can't police, surges of migration north and a European construction of a borderless continent that may not survive until Easter. To complete the big strategic picture, you have the U.S., which has been the guarantor of European security since 1945, watching this car crash like a bystander. So that's the big picture, and I'm not alarmist because I always believe in political leadership and that solutions can be found. But right now, the situation's pretty apocalyptic. GÖRLACH: AND TO FINISH THE ARC, FROM THE GERMAN PERSPECTIVE, YOU HAVE TURKEY AND RUSSIA. IGNATIEFF: Yes, I could keep going, and I probably should, because it affects the refugee flow. The arc includes Afghanistan and Pakistan, from which you're also getting very substantial refugee flows, because again that's a place where Western intervention has not produced stability but rather instability. So you have three cases: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, where Western intervention has, in fact, made the problem worse. And then, to complete the arc, you've got, from Ukraine to the Baltic, the first essential challenge by the Russians since the post-1989 settlement -- a Europe that has never had the military capacity to defend itself and that is ever more dependent on America to provide that strategic guarantee, and, finally, an America that has essentially a broken political system on the one hand and is pivoting to face the Chinese threat on the other. Therefore, the U.S. doesn't see the stuff we're talking about as an urgent national security priority. So the whole picture is ... kind of a new picture. It's not the same old story at any rate. GÖRLACH: DOES THIS MEAN THAT THE WORLD ORDER WE'VE KNOWN SINCE 1990 IS ABOUT TO CRUMBLE? WHAT EPISODE IN WORLD HISTORY COULD YOU COMPARE THE CURRENT SITUATION TO? IGNATIEFF: Well, I hesitate there, because you could choose apocalyptic parallels, you could choose 1914, you could choose 1945 or you could choose the religious wars in 17th century Europe. No, I think the right thing to do is to define what is particular about the here and now and not work too hard to find an historical parallel. I think what everybody is noticing is that this is crisis-upon-crisis-upon-crisis: a strategic challenge with the Russians, a refugee crisis that is both a humanitarian challenge and also a challenge to the European architecture, an economic crisis with north-south strains within Europe. The many tiers to this crisis make it so hard to deal with. In human life, we solve problems never at once, but by disaggregating, by putting one thing in one pile, another thing in another pile, the "first we do this, then this" approach. And that's obviously what Chancellor Merkel wants to do, but it's very difficult to disaggregate here because the problems are past-dependent. GÖRLACH: CAN YOU GIVE SOME EXAMPLES? IGNATIEFF: Certainly. Example: you can't talk to Greece about the borders because the conversations about the euro crisis have been so difficult. Everything there has been envenomed by the previous situation. It's very difficult to talk to the British about solidarity, because they've got "Brexit" issues on their mind, and so on. It's the ways in which these crises are conditioning and limiting solutions that makes this situation unprecedented. The piece of it that I'm concerned about is that I'm sitting here in the United States. I'm a Canadian who is very old-fashioned about these things. I don't think that we would get the Europe that we have had without the continuous attention of the United States. Görlach: What do you mean by "continuous attention"? IGNATIEFF: I essentially mean a security guarantee, the Marshall Plan, Holbrooke ending the war in Bosnia. Time and time again, when Europe couldn't solve certain problems, the U.S. reluctantly came in and provided basic strategic guarantees and political attention, which at this moment seems not to be present. You're in the incredible situation where your country has taken in 1.2 million refugees in one year, while the United States has taken in 3,000 since 2011. Görlach: That definitely gives one a sense of scale, doesn't it? IGNATIEFF: You ask any American policy maker, and they'll tell you that basically the whole refugee crisis is a European problem. The whole Schengen problem is a European problem. The part of it they think is their problem is the security of the Baltic States, Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula. But even there they think it's mostly a European issue! Görlach: And what do the Americans think about Turkey? IGNATIEFF: They think that Europe's problem with Turkey is a European problem and that really astonishes to me. For thirty years, the Americans have been saying to the Europeans, "You've got to integrate Turkey!" Now the Europeans are desperate to get a deal with Turkey to better manage the immigration flow -- don't you think Joe Biden should be talking to Erdogan? I mean, Turkey is a NATO ally, a key strategic ally. Shouldn't the Americans be saying, "Listen we've got a problem here, Mr. Erdogan. You just shot down a Russian plane, and this affects vital security interests of the United States. We can't allow this kind of shadowboxing between Berlin and Ankara to go on. We need a deal." Görlach: What should that deal look like? IGNATIEFF: The deal has to be a refugee deal. It has to be a security deal. It has to be a visa deal that gets the Turks into Europe. It's got to be a development deal. America is the only player with the lift to put a grand bargain together between Turkey and Europe, and it is just standing there as a bystander. GÖRLACH: YOU DON'T THINK A DEAL CAN BE REACHED WITHOUT THE AMERICANS? IGNATIEFF: It seems that way. But I don't want my interview to contribute to the panic, "let's-set-our-hairs-on-fire!" I think these are problems that can be solved, but I think we need to understand how big they are first. Görlach: Well in terms of solutions, you alluded to the pre-1990 world where America had a very big stake in Europe. Should such a stance be revived? IGNATIEFF: Yes, and not just through NATO, but with an engagement to sustaining the European project. Europe also has to take its responsibilities, too. But on the specific issue of how to get the Turks to help deal with the problem, the United States has already been pulling out its deployments in the Mediterranean. Europe can't even patrol its damn borders, and so NATO is going to have to put its own assets in the Mediterranean: Canadian ships, American ships and others too obviously. That's an example of the ways in which the United States is playing the part of a bystander, unwillingly being dragged into the center of a conflict it would like to stay out of. GÖRLACH: WHAT OUGHT THEY DO INSTEAD? IGNATIEFF: The United States ought to be involved in a strategic play! And the strategic play has to involve: number one, stop the dying in Syria -- and only the Americans can do that. Second, they need to make a grand bargain with Turkey to get the southern frontier under control. Third, they need to galvanize some European-wide approach to maritime security, so we can stop this scandal. Görlach: What scandal do you mean specifically? IGNATIEFF: The scandal of people drowning! We've gone back to the banalization of horror, and in 50 years, we'll look back on it with astonishment. The fact that we sat there for the whole of 2014 and 2015, in the most civilized and advanced society the world has ever known, to watch children drown. It is fixable! It makes me furious. What the hell are these bloody European militaries think they're doing? And then you have European politicians saying, "Well the reason we can't do XYZ is because it will give others more of an incentive to migrate." So, Europe's deterrence policy is to let children drown? I mean c'mon. I'm angry with the Americans for being bystanders, but I'm also angry with the Europeans for this constant, odious braying about European civilizational values. The thing that Europe has done consistently since 1945, as it has lost its geostrategic power, is to say that is has gained "cultural and civilizational power." Well, whatever the European values are supposed to be about, they don't involve letting helpless children die in the waters in front of your borders. And it's that nauseating combination of a quarreling incapacity to fix things and the high-minded moral vocabulary being used -- that has got to stop! GÖRLACH: RECENTLY THERE WAS AN ARTICLE IN A GERMAN NEWSPAPER, CLAIMING THAT ONE OF AMERICA'S BIGGEST CONTRIBUTIONS TO POST-WAR EUROPE WAS ITS SENSE OF CONSTITUTIONALISM. THERE'S A CONSTITUTION THAT MUST BE ADHERED TO, AND I THINK THAT HOLDS TRUE TO A VERY LARGE EXTENT ALSO IN GERMANY, WHERE ALL THE (REASONABLE) POLITICAL PARTIES ARGUE THAT IMMIGRANTS HAVE TO RESPECT OUR CONSTITUTION. I THINK THAT'S VERY AMERICAN OF US. IGNATIEFF: The constitutional point is very important, because you can't have integration and assimilation unless there is a constitutional bargain. We say yes to you, and you say yes to us. And the yes that you're saying is a yes the constitution. The yes -- which Germany has every right to insist upon -- is that if you come to Germany, you sign on to the constitutional order of the society. That means the equality of men and women. Equality before the law. Due process. Non-violence. All that good stuff. The idea that Cologne was an encounter between an alien Muslim culture and Germany is false. What Cologne was, was a breakdown of law and order. The contract is very clear. People who break the law should be punished. People who do not respect women in public or in private should be punished. The deal of constitutional liberalism is perfectly clear. Görlach: On the other hand, I've been speaking to Noam Chomsky, and he thinks that because European societies have been very homogeneous over the centuries, they are more racist than many others. IGNATIEFF: I respectfully disagree with Noam Chomsky. He of all people should know that European societies were quite multicultural until Stalin and Hitler "went to work." Eastern Europe was the original multicultural society, if nothing else because of its large Jewish populations. So this mono-ethnicity problem is the creation of genocide. That's fact number one. Fact number two: all you have to do is go to a mosque in Sarajevo to understand that Islam has been part of Europe since the 15th century. Number three: look at Britain since the 1950s. It has become a multicultural society as fast and as successfully as anywhere else on Earth. Just walk around London. Go to Hamburg. Go to Berlin. The idea that we have a multicultural North America and a monocultural Europe is a stereotype that does us no good at all and actually plays into arguments of Europe's right wing groups. It's just false. GÖRLACH: THAT'S A GREAT POINT. IGNATIEFF: My course assistant at the Kennedy School is a German who is Turkish. She's German alllll the way down. She happens to be ethnically Turkish, but there is not a more German person. Your society has actually done a fabulous job in slowly transforming from what it was in 1945 to what it is today. Let's just lay those stereotypes aside, because they only serve the forces of division. Görlach: What more can the German Chancellor do? IGNATIEFF: First, she must make the refugees aware of the constitutional order of Germany -- that "yes" they must give before entering. Once that happens, integration can work. The second thing: politically, no liberal society can work without control of its borders. You can't run a society and maintain cohesion and political order without control of your borders. Chancellor Merkel's future is not long unless she can say to the German people, not "wir schaffen das," but rather "we have this under control, we know who is coming in, our border police know what is happening and the integration process is proceeding." As long as it is not in order, the right wing forces will gain ground. Görlach: Is creating this order possible? IGNATIEFF: There are lots of people walking around Europe with plenty of good ideas. One of those ideas might be to say, "Germany will take 250,000 people a year as long as this crisis goes on. But we will only take them from Turkey, or Jordan, or Lebanon. And we will repatriate them directly to Frankfurt or Munich or wherever, and we will do so on an orderly basis, and we will do the pre-security screening in those countries, and if you don't make the screening, then you don't come in. But if you do, then we will take you in." That will require cooperation with Turkey. That would be the most effective thing I can think of to end this obscenity of death in the Aegean Sea. Germans I think are willing to do the right thing here. But there's a limit for any society. So what is infuriating about this situation is not that there aren't solutions -- there are solutions -- but that there is no European-wide solution. Görlach: And why is that? IGNATIEFF: The Eastern European members won't take anybody. The Brits will take who they want, but they will take them directly from the camps. The French have their own problems after Paris, and Italy is leaking and can't take anymore. So it is up to Germany. But Germany has every right to say, "Look, we've made a historic humanitarian gesture, which expresses the best things about us. There are limits to what we can do, and here is what we're prepared to do down the road: 250,000 people, directly repatriated from Turkey each year." The final element of a decent policy is repatriation. One of the dilemmas in the German situation is you're taking in huge numbers of people, and about 50 percent of the time, they are not meeting the standards of ad mission. And yet these people are not being sent home. You've got to start putting people on planes and sending them back to Kosovo, to Nigeria, to wherever. The quid pro quo of this policy -- and 250,000 people a year is a generous policy, is we have to send people home. That's tough for Germany. It's tough for any country. But you put all of this together, and you've got a policy that will allow the European Project to survive. If you don't get this together pretty quickly, it's going to be too late. Görlach: What can the United States do about the Russian offensive? IGNATIEFF: They can say to the Russians, calmly, quietly, without any desire to escalate, "You can't do this. You can't encircle a city. You can't cut it off from humanitarian resupply. And you can't starve it. You can't lob shells indiscriminately, while there are 300,000 people in there. And if you continue to do it, we'll shoot down one of your planes." This is risky and difficult, because nobody wants it to escalate into a confrontation. I certainly don't. We're in hourly contact with the Russians already, over the aircrafts that are already in the airspace. Lavrov and Kerry are in hourly conversation about everything else. I don't see why you can't say to the Russians, "We have one mission here, and it is not a regime change. It is not seeking military confrontation with you. It is to ensure the humanitarian resupply of Aleppo and the prevention of further civilian harm. That is why we are putting aircrafts into the sky, and you have to understand that this is a military gesture on our part to prevent you from winning the war on your terms." Once you do that, I don't believe the Russians have any desire to go down that road either. Then you would have created the preconditions to go back to Vienna or Geneva or wherever and negotiate a longer-lasting ceasefire. But my view is you can't get a ceasefire that will last unless the Americans put on the table the only language the Russians understand: the language of military force. And they are the only ones that can do it. There are risks, and I'm aware of them, and the last thing I want is this situation to escalate out of control. But the alternative is that Russia and Assad will encircle, starve and crush Aleppo and win their war. The refugee flow that will follow will be on another level. And geo-strategically speaking, the idea of an Assad-Hezbollah-Iran-Russian-Rumpstate in the center of the Middle East strikes me as not being in the national interest of anybody, except maybe them. And that is why the European crisis has to include an American commitment, because the Germans can't enforce a no-fly zone over Aleppo. There's only one country that can. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.


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EU states should voluntarily accept more refugees from Turkey and Greece, report says

All EUropean Union member states should be called upon to voluntarily accept Syrian refugees both from Turkey and Greece in order to solve the refugee crisis the whole of Europe continues to face, a February report by the European Stability Initiative (ESI ...


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Thousands of Migrants Stuck at Greek Border After Macedonia Imposes Restrictions

Thousands of refugees and other migrants were stuck in Greece on Monday after neighbor Macedonia tightened border restrictions, offering a glimpse of the crisis to come if countries north of Greece close their borders completely. Police in Macedonia ...


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Legendary Photojournalist Giannis Kyriakides Dies at 92

One of Greece’s top photojournalists, Giannis Kyriakides, who wrote history in the field of photography through his unique style of work, has died at the age of 92. Based in Thessaloniki, Kyriakides for 70 years captured the biggest events inside and outside of Greece, including prime ministers, kings, dictators and ordinary people — great personalities


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Greece’s Main Opposition Leader Attacks PM Tsipras on BBC

Speaking on BBC’s HARDtalk, Greece’s newly-elected New Democracy (ND) leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis charged Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras with being a “populist” who won the elections by making promises that he could not be delivered. Specifically, Mr Mitsotakis said that Mr. Tsipras was either naïve when he presented his so-called “Thessaloniki program” or that he lied


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Renowned U.S. Economist Says High Taxes Squash Greece’s Prospects for Recovery

A recently released study by the Economics Department at the National Kapodistrian University of Athens revealed that Greece has the third highest taxation rate among 21 European countries. Only Sweden and Denmark have a higher tax rate, countries with highly advanced welfare states and without the fiscal problems that plague Greece. For a country asked


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Important St. Nicholas Milestone on a Special Day

  NEW YORK – Three weeks after one of the biggest snowstorms in New York’s history set back the building timetable, the warmest day of the year gave workers of international construction giant Skanska USA the opportunity to pour the concrete for the floor of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox National Shrine at Ground Zero. […]


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Migrant crisis heats up as 8k are stranded in Greece after Macedonia blocks Afghans

Greece said today that it was taking diplomatic action to persuade Macedonia to accept Afghan migrants after thousands were stranded at its border and main port.


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Can the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy help Build a New Economy in Greece?

… made in Greece started arriving in the uptown delicatessens of Greece and … number of Greek farmers. Coupled by the tendency of Greek politicians to … , marketing and agricultural resilience. Further, Greece continues to import the majority …


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Thousands of migrants trapped in Greece as Macedonia tighten border controls

… stranded if Greece's northern neighbours tighten border controls. Greek officials … along its southern border with Greece. Greek migration minister Yannis Mouzalas criticised …


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Macedonia closes border to Afghan refugees, leaving thousands stranded between it and Greece

Macedonia has closed its borders to Afghan refugees, which has lead Greece to suggest that the number of displaced people it houses would grow rapidly as more refugees are stranded between the two countries. According to Greek police, the reason that Macedonia has tightened its restrictions on refugees is because Serbia – a nation that sits along the Balkans migration route into the west – has done the same. Macedonian officials now fear that if refugees are granted passage, that they would end up being unable to leave and be stuck in Macedonia.


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Watch the wacky ‘Bell Wearers’ parade through Thessaloniki, Greece

The 3rd annual European Festival of the Meeting of Bell Wearers took place in the Greek port city of Thessaloniki on Sunday. Performers who take part are inspired by the custom of bell wearing, loudly parading through the town while clanging their wearable ...


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Protesting Greek farmers again shut Kulata border checkpoint to lorries headed to Bulgaria

The Kulata-Promachonas border checkpoint was shut to lorries headed to Bulgaria from shortly before 4pm on February 22, Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry said. Lorries were still able to enter Greece from Bulgaria, the ministry said. Bulgaria’s Interior ...


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Europe stands to lose nearly $520 billion if open borders are closed

[A migrant at Mytilene, on the Greek island of Lesbos on February 18, 2016]© AFP Aris Messinis Ending Europe's open borders Schengen agreement would cost EU economies at least 470 billion euros ($520 billion) over a decade, according to a German study published Monday. The impact on trade flows would also cost major trade partners the United States and China tens of billions of euros each, said the study by the Prognos institute on behalf of the Bertelsmann Foundation. The study was published as several European countries have reintroduced provisional border controls to stem a mass influx of refugees, the greatest wave of people seeking asylum since World War II. "If Europe's borders are closed again, this would put even more pressure on Europe's already weak growth," said Aart De Geus, chairman of the Bertelsmann Foundation. "In the end it's the people who would pay the bill." Longer delays at borders would force up warehouse storage and personnel costs for companies as just-in-time deliveries and reliably speedy goods flows could no longer be assured, the study said. [europe schengen map]© AFP Aris Messinis Under an "optimistic" scenario, production costs in the EU would rise by one percent, driving down gross domestic product (GDP) for the EU by 470 billion euros from 2016 to 2025, it said. The bill would be 77 billion euros for Germany and over 80 billion euros for France. The downturn in trade and rising prices would cost the US economy 91 billion euros over 10 years, and China 95 billion euros by driving up import prices under this scenario, it said.  Under a "pessimistic" scenario, production costs would rise by an average of three percent. This would result in extra costs to the EU of 1.4 trillion euros, including of 235 billion euros for Germany and 244 billion for France, said the study. The Schengen area allows passport-free travel through 26 countries, most of them in the EU, and is considered as one of the major European achievements on unity.


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EU border agency says bad weather drags migrant arrivals down in January

Bad weather cut the number of people migrants and refugees arriving in Greece, the main gateway to Europe, by 40 percent last month from December, the European Union's border agency Frontex said on Monday. The United Nation's refugee agency UNHCR says more than 101,000 migrants and refugees have got to Europe so far this year, mostly via Greece, with some 6,500 reaching the continent in Italy. UNHCR says 406 people died or went missing attempting the voyage this year so far.


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At least 10,000 Refugees stranded in Greece after FYROM closes borders to people without passport/ID

More than 5,000 refugees have been trapped in the ‘neutral zone’ at the borders northern borders of Greece, after FYROM closed its gates to Afghan refugees. The same has reportedly done by Serbia and Croatia. FYROM’s decision has a domino effect, as thousands of refugees arriving from the islands to […]


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Thousands of Migrants Stranded at Piraeus Port

About 4,000 people are stranded at the Piraeus Port as police are not allowing them to board buses for the Greece-FYROM border. The refugees have arrived at the port waiting to be transported to Idomeni, at the border between Greece and the Former Yuogoslav Republic of Macedonia. However, congestion prevails at Greece-Fyrom’s buffer zone at


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Creditors Reps Return to Greece, New Measures Might be Needed

The quartet of Greece’s creditors return to Greece on Monday to discuss several issues that remain unresolved, with the finance minister worrying that new fiscal measures might be needed. Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos says that the bailout program evaluation must be completed as soon as possible so that the economy kickstarts on the second half


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Main Mission of NATO in the Aegean Will Be Surveillance, Alternate Civil Protection Min Toskas Says

“The main mission of NATO in the Aegean will be surveillance,” Alternate Minister for Civil Protection Nikos Toskas on Sunday said in an interview with newspaper “Avghi.” “NATO will be responsible for the surveillance and observation of migratory flows and then it will notify Frontex, which will act mainly in the Greek territorial waters and


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Greece Needs to Build Refugee Camps, Says Alternate Migration Minister Mouzalas

Greece’s Alternate Migration Minister, Yiannis Mouzalas, said that there are countries which do not respect EU’s decisions and there is nothing the EU can do about it, the result being that Greece, as a southern country located at the crossroads of Europe, will suffer the consequences. Mouzalas made his comments in connection with the decision


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