Panos Kammenos

Greece's new defense minister has started his term by reportedly leaving a wreath off the waters of the Aegean islets that led Ankara and Athens nearly to the point of war in the past. 

Greece named hardline leftwing economist Yanis Varoufakis as finance minister Jan. 27, handing him the pivotal task of renegotiating the debt-stricken nation's bailout with international creditors after it voted overwhelmingly to reject years of austerity politics.
      

Greece is to have an anti-austerity government, Panos Kammenos, Independent Greeks, has told reporters after coalition talks with SYRIZA's Alexis Tsipras in Athens.

Tsipras is due in the Presidency in Athens at 15:30 EET (13:30 GMT) on Monday and is tipped to become Greece's youngest ever Prime Minister at the age of 40.

Coalition talks have started between leftist SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras and the Independent Greeks right-wing party's Panos Kammenos.

Their meeting was scheduled for 10:30 EET, though Kammenos arrived a little earlier at the SYRIZA headquarters, the English-language website of Kathimerini reports.

Greece's anti-austerity Syriza party quickly formed a coalition government on Jan. 26 after its stunning election win that has set the heavily indebted country on a collision course with its creditors.
      
Syriza and its 40-year-old leader Alexis Tsipras took 149 seats in the 300-seat parliament in Sunday's election, heralding a new mood of anti-austerity defiance in Europe.

Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos is ?absolutely ready? to govern with SYRIZA if the leftist party wins Sunday?s elections, he said during a news conference on Wednesday.

A Greek government official on Monday dismissed as ?conspiracy theories, lies and slander? that members of the Jewish community in Greece pay less tax than other citizens.

The Education Ministry?s general secretary for religion Giorgos Kalantzis said he was reacting to claims made as part of ?the public debate and, mainly, on the dark side of the Internet.?

A former Independent Greeks lawmaker, Rachil Makri, will be running with leftist SYRIZA in the elections of January 25, it was announced on Friday.

Makri, who was ousted from the nationalist party in November after a rift with leader Panos Kammenos and other members of the right-wing, anti-bailout party, will be running for MP of Kozani in northern Greece.

The prosecutor tasked with probing allegations by Independent Greeks MP Pavlos Haikalis that he was offered a bribe to back the government in presidential elections has concluded that the claims are groundless.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras appeared confident the coalition government will muster the 180 votes in the third round needed to elect its presidential candidate and avert snap elections, after 168 lawmakers in the 300-seat House backed the former European Commissioner Stavros Dimas for the post in the second round of a parliamentary ballot on Tuesday, showing an increase from the 160 ballots