Kathimerini

Former conservative prime minister Antonis Samaras believes that the country's lenders pulled the plug on his government in late 2014 so as to prevent Greece from exiting the bailout agreements before Alexis Tsipras and SYRIZA came to power.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (l), Kathimerini Executive Editor Alexis Papachelas (center) and the head of the National Bank Cultural Foundation (MIET), Kostas Kostis, take part in a discussion during the "50 Years of the Metapolitefsi" conference in Athens on Thursday.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis highlighted his commitment to a political agenda of reforms that "will never be reversed" during his discussion with Kostas Kostis, director of MIET and and professor of economics and social history at the University of Athens, and Alexis Papahelas, executive editor of Kathimerini, at the "50 Years of the Metapolitefsi" conference in Athens on Thursday.

Financial consultants UBS, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America are conducting critical consultations on the intentions of potential investors in relation to the price they are willing to pay for 27% of Piraeus Bank on behalf of bank bailout fund HFSF. 

The current crisis in the Middle East - from Gaza to the Red Sea - is threatening the stability of Egypt, one of the most important countries in the Arab world.

"Beethoven needed four notes for his 5th Symphony to be recognized: ta-ta-ta-taaaa. Theodorakis only needed two: pa-dam!" the famous Dutch violinist and conductor Andre Rieu tells Kathimerini while he is preparing for his first concert in Greece with his Johann Strauss Orchestra, rehearsing his own version of the syrtaki.

The channels of communication with Ankara are working, which is why tension was avoided at the most recent incident to take place near the uninhabited Imia islets in the southeastern Aegean, Greece's minister of maritime affairs and island policy, Christos Stylianides, tells Kathimerini.

General Ioannis Metaxas' regime (1936-41) built some 400 bomb shelters in Athens, while it imposed by law the creation of a shelter in every new building, raising the number to 5,500 from 1936 to 1940, author and researcher Konstantinos Kyrimis, who has been recording them for over a decade, tells Kathimerini, citing an official Hellenic Army report.

Communication with Turkish authorities is constant and cooperation is smooth, Maritime Affairs and Island Policy Minister Christos Stylianides tells Kathimerini in an interview. But the continuing upheaval in the Middle East will test the two countries' and, consequently, Europe's ability to deal with a possible spike in migrant flows, he adds. 

On a bleak anniversary for Europe, the day that marks two years since the Russian invasion on Ukrainian soil, crowds of Greek supporters of Ukraine's fight for freedom gathered in the city centers of Athens and Thessaloniki, expressing their continuous support and solidarity for the Ukrainian cause.