Author: Sotiris Antonotis

Two Australian families have been allowed to leave hospital with their babies as six others remain in limbo after a surrogacy scandal in Greece. DNA results have come back and found they were a biological match, allowing them to move to a hotel after the Mediterranean Fertility Institute in Crete was accused of exploiting 169 women. The two families have been told they can pick up their babies’ birth certificates, have a final health check and go home on Monday. It’s alleged the women – from countries including Ukraine, Romania and Georgia – were forced to be surrogate mothers or egg donors and kept…

Copenhagen (17/08 – 78) Kidnapping, intimidation, and blackmail are just some of the means used to hit enlistment quotas in Tajikistan. When conscription season comes around in Tajikistan, military recruiters begin resorting to desperate measures. Scooping young men off the streets in actions tantamount to kidnapping is standard. But that is just for starters. To pressure communities into giving up their sons, recruiters will disconnect the electricity, detain relatives, and shut down mosques. Eligible levees draw lots to decide who will be the one to hand themselves over. The hunting season for men of draft age, which applies to people…

During the working trip to Washington, D.C., Minister of National Economy Alibek Kuantyrov met with the leading experts of the World Bank on taxation, human capital development, infrastructure, fair economic growth and green economy, for discussing the areas of further joint work, Azernews reports, citing Kazinform. Director of Strategy and Operations for Europe and Central Asia region at the World Bank Carolina Sánchez-Páramo noted the importance of the joint work of the Kazakh Government and the World Bank on achievement of sustainable development of the economy of Kazakhstan and Central Asian region by implementing various reforms and implementation of the…

The Greeks know a thing or two about heat, and they know a thing or two about dealing with it. But last week saw heat of an altogether different order. Temperatures were of such magnitude that they called for measures never before seen in a country that prides itself on being the first in Europe to have appointed an official dedicated solely to dealing with the challenges of global heating. And so it was that at noon on Friday the Acropolis was closed in the name of “protecting” visitors from the sun. There would be other steps, both unprecedented and bold.…

Wildfires have swept across the Greek island of Rhodes, leading some holidaymakers to abandon their belongings and move to makeshift shelters. Airlines and holiday companies are scrambling to bring some of those affected home, while some flights to the island from the UK have been cancelled. Up to 10,000 British tourists are there, with many more booked to travel in the coming weeks. So what are their rights? Can I still travel to Rhodes? A number of airlines are continuing flights as normal, but some have cancelled flights or package holidays scheduled for the coming days. ADVERTISEMENT Crucially, the official…

Pakistani authorities arrest more than a dozen alleged human traffickers in widening manhunt after the tragedy. Pakistan is observing a day of mourning after hundreds of its nationals are feared to have died when a refugee boat sank off Greece last week in one of the worst disasters of its kind. Survivors said more than a hundred Pakistanis along with dozens of Egyptians, Syrians and Palestinians were among an estimated 750 people, according to media reports, onboard the fishing trawler on their way to Europe when the vessel sank on Wednesday off the Peloponnese peninsula. So far, nearly 100 people have been…

Frankfurt, Brussels (3/7 – 27) France has been plagued by multiple outbreaks of rioting following mass protests over the death of a teenager at the hands of a police officer last week. The death of Nahel M. (17), teenager of North African descent, has stoked anger among the public at police violence against minorities and exacerbated existing racial tensions in France. Protests have spread beyond the capital city of Paris and its suburban areas, to other major cities, including Lyon, Marseille, Le Havre, Toulouse and Nantes. On Sunday (2/7/2023), a day after Nahel’s funeral in Nanterre, 719 people were arrested…

Greece’s Eurovision 2023 representative, Victor Vernicos, has released his new single: “The 968 Paradox”, with Panik Records. Speaking about the Greek representative’s latest single, Panik Records says: “[“The 968 Paradox”] represents the paradoxical nature of positivity and negativity and how they cause and complement each other in the balance of life. The title of the song is inventive. It comes from the number “666”, which is seen by many as the number of supreme evil and the opposite of the number, “999”, which is considered the number of good and angels.” “When these two numbers are overlapped, they create 8, the…

An estimated 16,000 Ukrainian children have been taken to Russia or Russian-controlled territory since the start of the war. That’s according to Ukraine’s National Information Bureau. But some human rights experts place the number in the hundreds of thousands.  The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for the unlawful transfer of children out of Ukraine.  Vitaly Vertash is a Ukrainian teenager who returned home from a Russian camp a couple of weeks ago. He spoke with Al Jazeera English about his experience inside the camp. The first two weeks were normal. But after three weeks, I started to look for every possibility to…

Celebrating Easter in Greece During the Fascist Junta 1967-1975 I have a black and white photo, possibly from 1970, of my cousins and family picking bits of meat from a lamb that had been roasting over a pit of coals since daybreak in my grandmother’s ancestral village of Kakovatos on the Peloponnesian coast in Greece. I was only five when my parents decided, like many others, to return to Greece in 1967. We lived in Athens until we returned to Adelaide for good in 1971. I remember that Easter in Kakovatos vividly, as it was the first time I saw…