Geography

The authorities offered concessions over the weekend ahead of the opposition's threatened publication on Monday of allegedly compromising information about the government that it said was gathered by the country's secret services.

Thessaloniki mayor Yiannis Boutaris, a late political bloomer best described as a “maverick”, has been voted as the eighth best mayor worldwide by the City Mayors Foundation.
In fact, the outspoken northern metropolis’ “first citizen” won the distinction in a public vote out of 26 candidates.
The “top three” were the mayors of Calgary, Ghent and Surabaya.

BELGRADE - Jadranka Joksimovic, Serbia's minister without portfolio responsible for EU integration, met with Hungarian Ambassador to Serbia Attila Pinter on Monday, and underscored that strengthening regional cooperation is one of Serbia's foreign policy priorities, for which Serbia-Hungary relations are of great importance.

The Bulgarian Council of Ministers published its detailed governance programme on the government's website on Friday.

Although the programme was adopted on Wednesday, it was made public only after the first meeting of the Council for development, electronic daily Dnevnik reports.

The Italian transmission system operator Terna confirmed that construction of the undersea cable is due to start in Italy on Thursday, although delays on the other side of the Adriatic Sea remain because of ongoing "expropriation processes".

A 51-year-old man faced a prosecutor in Thessaloniki on Wednesday in connection with a shooting at a bar in the northern port city last month that left a 30-year-old employee of the establishment with serious stomach injuries.

The 51-year-old is alleged to have shot the worker with a hunting rifle following an argument at the bar in December.

Thessaloniki traffic police were on Wednesday investigating the causes of a pileup of around 15 vehicles on the northern city?s ring road which caused no injuries but led to long delays in the area.

The incident occurred at around 11 a.m. some 100 meters from the entrance to a tunnel on the highway?s westbound lane, according to police sources.

The head of Greece?s land registry on Tuesday proposed scrapping most of the tenders launched for the completion of the remaining 60 percent of the cadastre amid concerns about a lack of funds.

More than a thousand journalists and supporters who insist that Tomislav Kezarovski is innocent - and that his incarceration is a blow to the freedom of speech - protested on Tuesday in front of the Court of Appeals before later moving in front of Macedonia's government building.

By Nikos Roussanoglou

Athens ranks fifth out of 28 European city destinations for real estate investment in 2015, according to this year?s annual survey by the Urban Land Institute (ULI). Berlin tops the list, followed by Dublin, Madrid and Hamburg.