Geography of Greece

By Lina Giannarou

Stavros Kefalas is a professional from Corinth in the Peloponnese who is willing to go out of his way to contribute to the development of tourism in his hometown.

Recently he got a call from a friend who works at an information office next to the Corinth Canal that separates the peninsula from mainland Greece.

Health Minister Makis Voridis on Wednesday ordered the immediate suspension of the director of a public hospital in western Macedonia, northern Greece, amid suspicions that he secured the post with a fake diploma.

Cephalonia's world-famous Myrtos beach is open again to the public after the completion of landslide-damage repairs.

Access to the beach, an iconic location at the northwest of the Ionian island and a permanent fixture in campaigns promoting Greece as a leading tourist destination, had been disrupted following two earthquakes earlier this year.

The Hellenic Sugar Industry on Tuesday decided to temporarily shut down two of its three factories, at Orestiada and Serres, following a three-hour meeting of its governing board during which a sustainability report by Kantor consultants was discussed and accepted.

Three ships, one of which was carrying 159 passengers, collided at the port of Igoumenitsa in northeastern Greece on Tuesday.

It was not clear what caused the accident, which led to the Eleni passenger ferry having to undergo safety checks.

The passengers, none of whom was injured, were transferred onto another vessel.

Police in Nafplio in the northern Peloponnese were on Tuesday looking for two men who tried to hold up a bank but ended up threatening a clerk into handing over her handbag.

A court in Thessaloniki on Monday reduced a life sentence for embezzlement imposed on the city’s former Mayor Vassilis Papageorgopoulos earlier this year to a 12-year term but the ex-official insisted that he has been wrongly accused and called on Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to intervene on his behalf.

There were protests in Athens and Thessaloniki on Sunday to mark the first day that a new law, allowing stores in 10 parts of the country to open on the last day of the week, was being implemented.

Store employees went on strike and protesters jeered shoppers or clapped them sarcastically as they exited shops in Greece’s biggest cities.

By Stathis Kousounis

Foreign funds are increasingly eager to enter the Greek tourism business market, having already proceeded with the acquisition of hotel units and with more expected to follow.

Greece's coastguard on July 13 said four people had been confirmed drowned in the latest boat sinking in the Aegean Sea, while around 100 migrants had been rescued in other incidents.

The coastguard said it had recovered the bodies of a man and a young boy of around 10, part of a group of over 30 people whose boat capsized as they tried to reach the island of Samos on July 11.