News archive of July 2018

Hundreds of people gathered on Syntagma square in Athens on Monday night to commemorate the victims of the devastating blaze in the east coast of Attica that killed 91 people and injured scores exactly a week ago.

The rally had been organized on social media and people started gathering at 9 p.m.

Several areas near the center of Thessaloniki, northern Greece, will be without water for 10 hours on Tuesday from 8 a.m. due to repair works on a ruptured central water pipe.

The area to be affected is enclosed by the following streets: Vas. Georgiou A, M. Alexandrou, Vas. Olgas, Kaftantzoglou, Archeologikou Mouseiou Alexandrou Michailidis, Spartis and Velissariou.

Coast guard divers recovered a body Monday near an area of Greece ravaged by a deadly wildfire a week ago the search for more victims focused on the coastline where hundreds of people were forced to flee.

The official death toll from the blaze some 30 kilometers (18 miles) east of Athens remained at 91 while authorities confirmed that the body found offshore was related to the fire.

Over a thousand people took to the streets of Sofia on Monday afternoon to protest against the inadequate political reaction to the demands of mothers of children with disabilities.  The march took place under the slogan "The System is Killing Us - All" and is part of a months-long campaign for a better, more personalised social support system for people with disabilities and their families.

Moody's Investors Service said on Monday it has shifted its outlook on the Greek banking system from stable to positive on expectations of an improvement in the banks' funding and asset risk over next 12 to 18 months.

Authorities on the island of Crete said on Monday that they had arrested 66 foreign nationals - 43 men and 21 women aged between 18 and 35, and two minors - since July 23 for trying to travel from the island's airports in Hania, Iraklio and Siteia to destinations elsewhere in Europe using forged travel documents.

Greeks are top-of-the-table in the European Union in their use of landline telephony, but languish at the bottom of the chart in their use of email and instant messaging. 

They are also trailing when it comes to use of internet telephony, and despite the expansion of applications such as Skype and FaceTime, very few Greeks use video-telephony as a means of communication.

A council of appeals in Thessaloniki on Monday accepted a Russian request for the extradition of Alexander Vinnik, a former bitcoin operator who Moscow accuses of cyberattacks against Russian banks resulting in damages of around 750 million roubles.

This was a supplementary request from Russia, after another court in 2017 said he should be extradited to Russia for a fraud case.

Sixty-seven of the 120 MPs in Macedonia's parliament voted in favour of the holding a referendum on the country's agreement with Greece on September 30 which - if successful - will hopefully expedite Macedonia's Euro-Atlantic integration.

The friendship and professional relationship between the acclaimed Lesvos-born art collector Teriade (Stratis Eleftheriadis) and celebrated French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson is the focus of "The Decisive Moment," an exhibition on display through September 5 at the Teriade Museum in the village of Varia on the southeast Aegean island.