Athens News Agency

All private and state-owned media in Greece have launched a 24-hour strike today, joining the workers' general strike organized by the General Confederation of Employees in Greece.
The strike will last from Wednesday at six in the morning until about the same time on Thursday, Athens News Agency (ANA) reports.

Gunther Krichbaum, Chairman of the Committee on European Union Affairs of the Bundestag lauded the progress in the Greek economy and its prospect but also urge that Athens remain steady in its reform path.

During the decade long Greek economic crisis The Netherlands was among the strictest critics and most demanding partners of Athens.

At least seven people, including six tourists, were killed and more than 100 others injured when a violent, short-lived storm lashed northern Greece overnight, felling trees and ripping off rooftops.

Witnesses said the storm had come and gone in a matter of minutes. Winds of over 100 kph (60 mph) were reported on the Halkidiki peninsula, popular with tourists in the summer.

Greece today awarded licenses to ExxonMobil and Total to search for hydrocarbons off the island of Crete, marking the country's first major foray into an oil and gas search in the region.

The two companies, in a consortium with Hellenic Petroleum, have an eight-year research and exploitation license in two offshore blocks lying south and south-west of Crete.

Declan Costello, the head of the European Commission's mission for Greece, praised progress made in the Greek economy even as he stressed the needed to keep steadily on the reform track.

US President Donald Trump has lauded the ratification and implementation of the Prespa Agreement in letters to PM Alexis Tsipras and North Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.

Trump described the Prespa Accord as the most historic accomplishment in the Balkans since the Dayton Accord and praised the leadership of Tsipras and Zaev.

Greece will send a diplomatic notification Monday informing the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) of its ratification of the Prespes Agreement and FYROM's NATO Accession Protocol, Alternate Foreign Minister George Katrougalos said Sunday.

The Greek parliament will vote late Jan. 24 on a deal to change Macedonia's name to the Republic of North Macedonia, the Athens News Agency reported.

Christmas trees will be recycled after the holiday season as part of a pilot program that will begin in Thessaloniki in northern Greece.

The aim of the initiative by the Environment Ministry and the Solid Waste Management Agency (FODSA) is for other regions across the country to implement the program, whose main slogan is "no Christmas trees at the landfill."