Leonidas

Leonidas Pelekanakis reportedly had no other health problems

Hollywood actor Gerard Butler, who played the role of King Leonidas of Sparta in the movie "300," will be in the Peloponnesian for events marking the 2,500-year anniversary of the Battle of Thermopylae, the city's honorary ambassador Roi Danali-Apostolopoulou confirmed.

Scottish actor Gerard Butler will be in Sparta on March 14 to run as a torchbearer for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, a local mayor said Thursday.

Speaking to state-run broadcaster ERT, Petros Doukas said the actor will also be in the city in June to attend the celebrations for the 2,500 years of the Battle of Thermopylae.

Japanese runner Yoshihiko Ishikawa was the winner of the 36th Spartathlon, one of the most challenging and historical ultra-marathon races in the world, hosted in Greece.

There seems to be no end to the administration crisis at National Bank of Greece, as immediately after Panayiotis Thomopoulos was elected the group's new president on Wednesday, the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund, NBG's main stakeholder, stated it had voted against him and is examining the option of calling an extraordinary general meeting.

The National Bank of Greece board meeting interrupted last week upon the demand of major shareholder the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund due to a clash over the election of a new president is scheduled to resume on Wednesday.

Greek actor Kostas Tsakonas died in a central hospital in Athens at the age of 72 years after a battle with cancer. Sources close to him say that he had numerous health problems since a stroke five years ago. His funeral will be held on Saturday morning at 11 a.m. at Argyroupolis cemetary in South Athens.

By Maria Katsounaki

On May 1, center stage was not taken by politics but by culture, as more than 650 million viewers around the world tuned into the annual European Concert of the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and featuring Greece?s Leonidas Kavakos on the violin, from the Athens Concert Hall.