Author: Rea Christoglou

For some, it sounds like the perfect day: sunlounge on the sand, a short skip from the glistening sea, good book in one hand, spritzer in the other. Ronit Nesher can’t stand it. “Even five years ago, I could go to any beach and just go and enjoy nature, enjoy the sand, enjoy the water, the silence,” she says. “Now it’s packed with lounges and umbrellas and there is not even a space to put a towel or chair or just to come and sit on the sand.” Ms Nesher is one of a growing number of Greeks worried the…

Greece’s offer to train Ukraine’s fighter pilots comes after Denmark and the Netherlands announced they would supply F-16s to Kyiv. Greece will take part in the training of Ukrainian Air Force pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. The offer by Greece to train fighter pilots comes after Denmark and the Netherlands announced they would supply the first United States-built F-16 warplanes to the Ukrainian Air Force – a development seen as tactically key to Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s invasion. “Today, we have the important result for aviation coalition. Greece will participate in training of our pilots for F-16. I…

European business activity contracted once again during August, to its lowest level since November 2020. The euro zone’s flash composite purchasing managers’ index, released Wednesday, fell to 47.0 for August from 48.6 in July. This missed economists’ expectations for a figure of 48.8, according to Dow Jones. A reading above 50 marks an expansion in activity, while one below 50 marks a contraction. If Covid pandemic months are excluded, the latest numbers point to the lowest reading since April 2013. Cyrus de la Rubia, a chief economist at Hamburg Commercial Bank, said the service sector of the euro zone is “unfortunately…

Greece was left reeling Tuesday after a Greek soccer fan was killed in overnight clashes between rival supporters of AEK Athens and Croatia’s Dinamo Zagreb ahead of a Champions League qualifying match in the capital. Speaking about the killing of the 29-year-old AEK fan, who was stabbed several times by Croatian hooligans outside AEK’s football pitch in the northern Athens suburb of Nea Philadelphia, Citizen Protection Minister Yiannis Economou announced that seven senior police officers will immediately be removed from their positions, according to the state-run AMNA news agency. Economou stressed that it was unacceptable that these hooligans had been…

Greece and Turkey agreed on a fresh start in their bilateral relationship following the recent thaw driven by the deadly earthquakes earlier this year. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, both recently re-elected, met this week for the first time in 16 months and agreed to build on the “positive momentum” that currently prevails between the long-estranged neighbors. Meeting on the sidelines of the July 11-12 NATO summit in Vilnius, they pledged to “activate multiple channels of communication” between the two governments. The two sides will hold a High-Level Cooperation Council in Thessaloniki this fall, according to a joint statement.…

Greece’s new minister for migration said Monday he would consider it “unthinkable” for the European Union to pull out its border protection force from the country, and promised to address a growing list of international grievances over dealing with migrants. A dispute between Greece’s government and the EU border agency Frontex worsened after a trawler carrying hundreds of migrants sank off the coast of the Greek mainland on June 14, leaving more than 500 people feared dead. Frontex has also given Greece until July 10 to provide explanations regarding new reports of alleged illegal deportations – known as pushbacks – of migrants on the Greek…

The Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE) in Greece has launched an auction for grants towards 400MW of energy storage, with three weeks to submit project proposals. The regulator published the rules and conditions of its first competitive tendering process for grants towards energy storage last week (16 June). Source : Energy Storage

WARSAW, Poland — The Hungarian government has said it abandoned plans to order High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems after last year’s bilateral talks failed to produce an agreement with the United States. “During the previous government term, the government commissioner responsible for [weapon] procurements requested information regarding the HIMARS missile systems in a letter, with a deadline of March 2022. There was no response from the American side, and the ministry considered the matter closed,” Hungary’s Defence Ministry said in a statement recently published by the state-run MTI news agency. The statement was referring to the previous cabinet of Hungarian…

President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday said Russia was trying to erase Ukraine’s history and culture after a strike on a museum killed one employee and wounded 10. Zelensky reported the strike on a local history museum in Kupiansk, a city near the frontline in the northeast, and gave the toll. “There are still people under the rubble,” Zelensky said on Telegram and posted a video of people in military uniform walking through the rubble of a partly destroyed building with its windows shattered. Russia is “killing Ukrainians with absolutely barbaric methods,” he said, accusing Moscow of “doing everything to destroy…

The chief of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said his men fighting in the flashpoint eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut would kill rival soldiers and take no more prisoners. He was reacting to a Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel’s posting of an alleged recording of what it said were two Ukrainians deciding to shoot a Russian prisoner of war. The channel did not say where the recording came from and there is no way of verifying its authenticity. “We will kill everyone on the battlefield. Take no more prisoners of war!” Prigozhin said in an audio recording on Sunday.NEWSGruesome Video Appears to…