Greek people

Lara, the black labrador who became a symbol of hope for blind and visually impaired people in Greece by becoming the country's first trained guide dog, died on Tuesday night, aged 16.

Another verdict in the judicial saga of former Hellenic Statistical Authority head Andreas Georgiou was handed down by the Council of Appeals Court Judges. He was acquitted, for a third time, of any wrongdoing.

As there has been international condemnation of his repeated persecution, a different decision would once again put into question Greece's institutions.

Ioanna-Maria Gertsou is a psychologist at Aghia Sofia Children's Hospital, co-founder of the Lara Guide Dog School and an activist for people with visual impairments. She has survived some major ordeals during her life, but the one that she experienced earlier this month was among the worst.

Several hundred Greeks, some of them holding anti-Albanian and anti-Macedonian insignia, attended the funeral of Kostandinos Kacifa on Thursday in the village of Bularat in southern Albania, hailing him a national hero.

Media reported that several buses and other vehicles traveled from different towns and cities in Greece across the border to Albania.

Albania lodged a new protest with the Greek ambassador to Tirana on Wednesday following several incidents in Greece sparked by the killing of an ethnic Greek gunman by Albanian police at the weekend.  

The Panepirotic Federation of America has issued a statement strongly condemning the "senseless killing" of an ethnic Greek by Albanian police in a village near Albania's border with Greece on Sunday and has called for an "internationally supervised investigation" to determine how he died.

Government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos on Monday called on Albanian authorities to avoid inflammatory rhetoric in the wake of the fatal shooting of an ethnic Greek man by Albanian police in southern Albania on Sunday.

Dear Sir,

The persistent prosecution of the former head of Greece's statistics agency ELSAT will be reviewed on Thursday's Eurogroup, after the country's Supreme Court recently upheld a suspended two-year prison sentence for breach of duty.

The continued persecution of Greece's former head of its statistical service, Andreas Georgiou, may compromise the country's foray into the markets when its bailout program expires in August, around 80 former heads of national and international statistical agencies said in a public statement.