Cephalonia

Members of the Hellenic Navy's underwater demolition teams have carried out a controlled detonation of two unexploded World War II artillery shells found in the sea off the southern coast of Cephalonia, it emerged on Saturday. 

Firefighters in eight of the countries thirteen regions have been placed on high alert, as the country's civil protection agency issued its second-highest fire warning for Friday.

A new passenger ferry route connecting the islands of the Ionian Sea for the first time will start operating on Wednesday, May 2, officials said Monday.

The ferry, called High Speed Azimut Joy Cruises, will operate three times a week and run until the end of October, officials added.

The publisher Giorgos Kouris has died at the age of 81 following a battle with cancer, it emerged on Monday.

Founder of the Kouris Media Group, he was the owner of Avriani newspaper and the now defunct Alter television channel. 

He also founded the newspapers Sat, Filathlos, Dimokratikos Logos and Kontra News newspapers.

Kouris to be buried in his native Cephalonia. 

The Greek Communist Party (KKE) on Friday said it was withdrawing from the parliamentary committee set up to conduct a preliminary inquiry into claims made in a prosecutors' report that several high-ranking politicians were bribed by Swiss drug firm Novartis.

A 56-year-old woman was in critical condition in a Patra hospital on Friday after being shot at five times by her 22-year-old son following an argument at their home in Lixouri on the Ionian island of Cephalonia.

The woman was initially hospitalized on Cephalonia before being transferred by helicopter to Patra after her condition worsened.

Hydrofoil company Ilida Paxos announced this week that it will be starting direct coastal shipping links between the Ionian islands on May 1.

The 30-meter-long, 6-meter-wide High Speed Azimut, which can carry 260 passengers, will connect Greece's westernmost islands for the first time, with Monday-Saturday services until October 31.

A boat with 29 refugees on board ran landed on the shore at Megas Lakkos beach in Lixouri on the Ionian island of Cephalonia late Friday night, after an engine failure.

All the refugees - 10 children, five women and 14 men - were in good health.

The wave of bad weather that struck much of the country on Wednesday night was expected to have passed by Thursday night, according to meteorologists, though rain and winds were to persist in the southeastern Aegean.

High winds further north, in the Ionian Sea, led on Thursday morning to the suspension of ferry routes between Kyllini, Zakynthos and Kefalonia.

 Greek authorities say a young tourist couple has been found dead in a house they were renting on a western island, with initial indications pointing to a double suicide, Ekathimerini writes.