Urban decay

Commercial rents, and therefore store values, are set to suffer strong pressure in the coming months, as the crisis generated by the coronavirus is growing both in intensity and duration, which is weighing on private consumption.

Finance minister Christos Staikouras welcomed the results of the historic Eurogroup pandemic rescue package which he depicted as a satisfactory but hardly optimal compromise.

Staikouras said that Greece's three main demands were met.

The first is direct liquidity for businesses which will not be laid out through banks.

Leftist opposition SYRIZA on Monday presented a 10-point plan to shield the economy from the effects of the coronavirus epidemic, drawing on funds from the cash buffer left over from Greece's bailout, and European Union and European Central Bank resources.

In 2018, 23.4 % of children in the EU27 were at risk of poverty or social exclusion compared with 22.1 % of adults (18-64) and 18.4 % of the elderly (65 or over).

Authorities in Montenegro appear helpless to stem the bloodshed from an increasingly international war between rival drug gangs with roots in a medieval coastal town.

Many refugees from the 1992-95 war in former Yugoslav Bosnia had already settled in the neighbourhood, he said.

"I remember those white sheets, so clean and nice, coming from a refugee camp with dust and everything," said Avni, now 30, who spoke on condition his real name not be disclosed.

"It was basically a country where you could heal from the war and feel welcome."

Greece's creditors appear ready to agree to a solution on foreclosures in the form of a housing benefit for people in need that would not be associated with the protection of debtors' main residence.

The two Montenegrin men who were shot and killed on Sunday by four masked gunmen while they were dining with their wives and two children in Vari, southern Athens, had pending international arrest warrants against them issued by Montenegro, according to Greek police.

Greek police said Tuesday they had unraveled a criminal gang that made false insurance policies for people around the country that enabled them to avoid paying social insurance contributions to the state.
The gang had reportedly been active since at least 2001 and police said the scams, which involved fake hirings by fake companies, cost the Greek state more than 15.5 million euros.

Police officers are seen entering an occupied building in the Athens neighborhood of Koukaki, one of three squats cleared early on Sunday. Nine people - seven Greeks and two foreign nationals - were arrested. Among those detained were two men and their father who were in a building that the police entered to gain access to one of the squats and who allegedly attempted to stop the officers.