Category: GREECE

Source: Examiner.com

Gotta “B” George Michael Photo: Michael Cairns (George Michael Video: on.aol.com – promo video link of Bill as George at bottom of article)

Source: themuslimissue

Now really? And we want 5,000 churches in the Middle East. Meanwhile Turkey wants to convert their churches into mosques and are even converting the old Greek Orthodox church Haga Sofia into a mosque – which was left as a Museum after AtaTurk abolished Islam from the country.

No Greek Orthodox school until Athens opens mosque, says Turkish deputy FM

Turkey’s deputy foreign minister has said that Turkey is halting the reopening of a Greek Orthodox school in Istanbul until Greece opens a mosque in Athens.

Turkey’s Deputy Foreign Minister Metin Kulunk has refused to resume the Greek Orthodox Halki Seminary until Greece reopens the Fethiye Mosque in Athens.

“Have no doubt, Turkey has not taken a step to re-open Halki Seminary and it will not take a step until Greece, who did not hold up the promise it gave in Lausanne, opens the Fethiye Mosque in Athens,” Kulunk said in a Western Thrace Turks Solidarity Association meeting in Germany.

Turkey has been demanding the re-opening of the Fethiye Mosque in Athens, the only European capital city without an official mosque, in return for moves to reopen a Greek Orthodox school in Istanbul’s Heybeliada Island, which was closed in 1971.

Calling Greece “a church state,” he questioned why a mosque was not being given permission to exist in Athens while many mosques, churches and synagogues stand side by side in Istanbul.

In October, Turkey’s EU minister Egemen Bagis said that Turkey would be encouraged to reopen the Halki Seminary in Heybeliada if Greece took steps to open a mosque in Athens.

Greece is home to many Muslim communities, both native and migrant, but refuses to grant permission for the construction of new mosques.

The 150,000 strong Turkish Muslim community of the Western Thrace province near the Turkish border have complained that they are being refused to build new mosques as well as rebuild old mosques from the Ottoman era.

They are also refused the right to elect their own religious representation to the Greek government.

Source: Ekathimerini

ESEE survey shows that employment in the sector has undergone a major drop when compared with 2008

Employment in Greek commerce has gone back 16 years, to 1997 levels, as more than 175,000 jobs have been lost since 2008, according to an annual review of the sector by the National Confederation of Greek Commerce (ESEE) issued on Monday.

The price has been heavy not only for salaried workers, but also for employers and the self-employed, who represent about half of those to have lost their jobs lost in commerce over the last five years.

This has resulted from the closure of no fewer than 130,000 enterprises, against the opening of just 45,000 enterprises between 2009 and 2013.

It appears the future will be particularly difficult, as economic analysts agree that it will take at least 20 years for the losses in employment to be recovered, provided that the economy shows a rebound rate of 3.5 percent per annum in the years to come.

The ESEE report showed that employment in the sector declined for a fifth consecutive year to remain below the 700,000-job level for the second year in a row.

The latest data show there are 656,156 workers in the sector, while this year alone 23,194 jobs have been lost in commerce.

The trade sector has lost 176,400 jobs since 2008, with the biggest share of that (47 percent) being employers and the self-employed.

As the director of the Small Businesses Institute of the Hellenic Confederation of Professionals, Craftsmen & Merchants (GSEVEE), Dionysis Gravaris, said, according to a confederation survey, some 30 percent of the homeless in Athens are former merchants or self-employed.

“We’ll need 20 years to recoup our losses as the first couple of years of the rebound will not come with an increase in employment,” commented Panteion University professor Apostolos Dedousopoulos.

Meanwhile the number of overtime hours has grown by 8.5 percent since 2008, while unpaid overtime work has expanded by 76.4 percent.

At the same time the share of part-time work has almost doubled, rising from 4.5 percent five years ago to 8.2 percent this year, according to the ESEE survey.

The prospect of shutting down for commercial enterprises in the coming year is significant, according to the ESEE research, but not as high as last year, as one in 10 companies in the sector feel there is a high risk or a certainty of closure.

Source: zerohedge.com

If the unfortunate, yet hilarious, sinking of the Costa Concordia cruise liner in January 2012 off the Tuscan coast was the best symbol of the foundering Eurozone, then we are unsure just what the symbolic value is of the fire that raged over the weekend on the Majestic International’s Ocean Countess cruise ship while laid up at a shipyard in Greece.

As Gcaptain reported, the Ocean Countess caught fire Saturday at the Chalkis Shipyard near Chalkis (or Khalkis), Greece, north of Athens.

All five crewmembers were evacuated safely, but as of Sunday firefighting crews were still trying to contain the blaze, reports say.

The Ocean Countess was launched as the Cunard Countess in 1976 and has been laid up at the shipyard for over a year since its last charter to UK-based Cruise & Maritime Voyages ended.

Supposedly, the vessel was scheduled to re-enter service next year. It won’t.

Unlike the Costa Concordia, this tale has a somewhat happy ending:  Vernicos Salvage and Tug reports that the fire onboard the Ocean Countess has been brought under control through firefighting efforts by the crew of their Alexander 3 tug.

Source: Greekreporter.com

The famous actor Paul Walker, whose tragic death stunned Hollywood and thousands of his fans all over the world, has a connection to Greece.

Walker had revealed in an interview, that his daughter Meadow Rain Walker, age 16, is part-Greek.

The actor became a father when he was 25 years old while dating Rebecca McBrain, the mother of the girl. McBrain is half-Greek half-Swedish; her father was a Greek with the last name Sotiropoulos.

Rebecca and Paul were never married. In fact they separated right after their daughter’s birth.

McBrain had been living in Hawaii with their daughter. However, they had recently moved to California because Meadow loved her dad very much and wanted to be close to him.

Walker, in an interview he had given to Greece’s MTV show “Movie & Stars,” among other things, said: “Greece is my place. My daughter has Greek origins as her mother is half Greek, half Swedish. Her maiden name is Sotiropoulos.

I visited Greece as well during the summer Olympic Games, back in 2004.”

Source: Agence France Presse

Source: breitbart

Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras vowed Sunday to press on with a controversial plan to raise property taxes on large estates, saying “the time has come to make the landlords pay”.

In exchange for billions in bailout loans, Greece’s coalition government has been imposing a series of draconian reforms, including spending cuts and higher tax levies.

Discussions with its creditors are to resume this week over a new batch of reforms due to be undertaken — including the plan to raise property tax on estates worth more than 300,000 euros ($400,000).

The proposed levy has sparked a rebellion among coalition lawmakers, including members of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s New Democracy party.

But in an interview with Sunday newspaper To Vima, Stournaras signalled his determination to push through the measure.

“The time has come to make the ‘landlords’ of Ekali pay,” Stournaras told the newspaper, in reference to a chic Athens suburb.

The finance ministry hopes to obtain 2.6 billion euros from the tax measure, To Vima reported.

Source: footballfancast

Newcastle manager Alan Pardew is considering a January move for Olympiakos defender Kostas Manolas, according to reports from the Daily Star.

The Magpies boss is thought to be planning for life without star centre-back, and club captain, Fabricio Coloccini, who has been chasing a switch back to his homeland for some time.

The Argentine recently spoke of his desire to leave Tyneside, and is thought to be looking to join San Lorenzo either this winter or at the end of the season.

Pardew wants to keep the big-haired enforcer, but is aware that there is little he can do in the long-term.

As a result, he is lining up replacements, with Manolas believed to be close to the top of his wish list.

The 22-year-old has been one of the stars of Greek football for some time, and recently helped his nation book their spot in the World Cup with a play-off victory over Romania.

Newcastle are likely to have to pay around £3m for his signature, with Olympiakos unlikely to be able to turn down a significant offer due to the financial worries gripping football in Greece.

Tottenham, Sunderland and Fulham have all previously been linked with Manolas, and may revive their interest next month.

Source: dnaindia.com

Google on Monday marked the 90th birth anniversary of iconic Greek soprano Maria Callas with a doodle.

The doodle features the legendary opera singer performing on stage with the word google carved in the walls of the theatre in the background.

Callas, who was born to Greek parents on December 2, 1923, in New York, started her career with Boccaccio for the Royal Opera of Athens in early 1940s.

She made her Italian opera debut in 1947 at Verona Arena and went on to be considered as the greatest Soprano of all times.

While Callas saw stupendous success in her career, her personal life was a tragic one.

Her unhappy childhood cast a shadow over her relationship with her mother. She had an affair with shipping baron  Aristotle Onassis, married him after divorcing her husband Giovanni Meneghini, only to lose him to Jacqueline Kennedy, the widow of John F Kennedy.

Though her vocal talent was not considered classic enough, her persona added another dimension to her performances.

Describing Callas’ voice, Maestro Carlo Maria Giulini described said, “It is very difficult to speak of the voice of Callas. Her voice was a very special instrument. Something happens sometimes with string instruments—violin, viola, cello—where the first moment you listen to the sound of this instrument, the first feeling is a bit strange sometimes. But after just a few minutes, when you get used to, when you become friends with this kind of sound, then the sound becomes a magical quality. This was Callas.

Apart from controversies surrounding her singing abilities, her  rivalry with the classically-styled soprano Renata Tebaldi was another point that dominated her singing career.

Callas, who spent her last years in isolation in Paris, died at 53 on September 16, 1977, due to a heart attack.

Callas was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.

She was also voted the greatest soprano of all time by BBC Music Magazine in the same year.

Source: philenews.com