News archive of August 2018

The indexes of economic sentiment and consumer confidence both staged a recovery last month after June's decline, according to the monthly survey by the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE) which was presented on Wednesday. Nevertheless, the country's leading think tank noted that the survey was mostly conducted before last week's deadly Attica wildfires.

The European Commission on Wednesday defended the Greek debt relief measures that the Eurogroup decided in June, in a manner of response to the International Monetary Fund, which had deemed the debt easing inadequate to render the debt sustainable in the long term.

A US State Department official has urged the people of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to participate in a September referendum on a deal meant to settle a festering name dispute with neighboring Greece.

The United States announced sanctions against Turkey's Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gül and Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu on Aug. 1 over the country's imprisonment of Pastor Andrew Brunson.

As a political debate about who was responsible for last week's fatal wildfires raged, Environment and Energy Minister Giorgos Stathakis, his alternate Sokratis Famellos and Interior Minister Panos Skourletis heralded a government plan for the demolition of hundreds of properties that have been illegally built on forestland and coastal areas such as those ravaged by the blazes.

Greek-American businesswoman Eleni Kounalakis is the front runner in the race for Lieutenant Governor of California, according to a July poll by David Binder Research.

The former US Ambassador to Hungary is up 16 points in an initial head-to-head vote against her main rival, Ed Hernandez, the survey shows.

Archbishop Demetrios of America raised the issue of religious freedom for the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul during a plenary meeting last week of the first Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, held at the US State Department.

Two women return from a swim at Kokkino Limanaki beach, near Rafina, Wednesday, walking past the charred remains of trees burned in last week's wildfires. Neos Voutzas, Mati and Kokkino Limanaki were the coastal settlements that were hardest hit by the blazes.

Greece's fire service said on Wednesday it had identified 85 victims of the wildfire that ravaged the east coast of Attica last week, which left one person still unaccounted for.

The Ministry of Health said earlier that one burn victim was released from Evangelismos hospital on Wednesday and another left the hospital's intensive care unit.

The White House is announcing that the Treasury Department is imposing sanctions on two Turkish officials over a detained American pastor who is being tried on espionage and terror-related charges.