Flood in southern Greece kills five as firefighter battle wildfire in north

Greece's fire brigade has retrieved the body of a restaurant owner killed in a flood in the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece, the Greek national news agency AMNA reported on Saturday. Meanwhile, a firefighter was seriously injured while battling the flames of a wildfire burning on Thassos island in northern Greece, according to the report.

New 'Resign' movement stages first anti-government protest in Athens

Thousands of Greek citizens took to the streets in Athens on Wednesday in a peaceful anti-government protest that fuelled the tension between the two-partite ruling coalition and the opposition.

Greece starts evacuating migrant camp on the border with FYROM

At least 200 police started clearing Greece's squalid Idomeni camp Tuesday on the border with FYROM [*], where over 8,400 migrants are living, according to Agence France-Presse.

Greece promises to set up "hot spots" on time

Greek government said on Monday all five "hot spots", centers where migrants are registered, will be ready on Greek islands before February 15, a deadline it agreed with European partners in autumn 2015.

Migrant crisis: State of emergency along FYROM borders (FYROM News)

The government in Skopje on Thursday declared a state of emergency along its southern and northern borders due to a rising wave of migrants.

Turkey ready to open Halki Seminary in return for a mosque in Greece

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has reportedly expressed Turkey’s readiness to re-open the Halki Seminary in the Adalar district of Istanbul in return for Greece allowing a mosque to function in Thessaloniki.

Turkish consulate comes under Molotov attack in Greece

KOMOTINI, Greece: The Turkish Consulate General building in the Greek city of Thessaloniki was struck by Molotov cocktails several times during a demonstration against high-security prisons Friday night, consulate sources told the Anadolu Agency.

Rallies in Athens, Europe ahead of bailout talks

Tens of thousands of people joined rallies in Greece on Sunday ahead of talks in Brussels on the New Leftist government's bid to revise its massive bailout.

Σεισμική δόνηση μεγέθους 3 βαθμών στη Θεσσαλονίκη / Earthquake M 2.8 - 9 km SE of Thessaloníki, Greece - local time: 22:28

Σεισμική δόνηση μεγέθους 3 βαθμών της κλίμακας Ρίχτερ σημειώθηκε στις 22:28 της Κυριακής στη Θεσσαλονίκη. Σύμφωνα με τις πρώτες πληροφορίες, το επίκεντρο ήταν κοντά στο αεροδρόμιο της πόλης.

Ο σεισμός ήταν επιφανειακός και έγινε αισθητός σε πολλά σημεία της πόλης. 
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Magnitude    M 2.8
Region    GREECE
Date time    2014-12-07 20:28:10.2 UTC
Location    40.60 N ; 23.04 E
Depth    8 km

NATO sees no major progress in pullback of Russian troops from Ukrainian border. [NATO conference in the northern Greek (Macedonia) city of Thessaloniki]

NATO does not see any major progress in the pullback of Russian troops from the Ukrainian border, US General Philip Breedlove, who is also the supreme commander of NATO's forces in Europe, said on Wednesday as quoted by the Associated Press.

"We would welcome withdrawal of troops on that border, and we are anxiously watching what is happening," he said on the sidelines of a NATO conference in the northern Greek (Macedonia) city of Thessaloniki. “We have not seen major movements yet. Now we will watch to see if there is delivery on the promise."

Deputy PM and FM Venizelos’ statement regarding the desecration of the Jewish cemetery of Thessaloniki

MFA, Friday, 30 May 2014:

 

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos made the following statement regarding the desecration of the Jewish cemetery of Thessaloniki:

“I condemn in the most unequivocal manner yesterday’s desecration of the Jewish cemetery of Thessaloniki. It is an abhorrent act that is a brutal insult to the memory not only of the Jewish Community, but of the Greek people as a whole.

EU-Western Balkans Ministerial Conference (Thessaloniki, May 8, 2014)

Hellenic MoFA, Thursday, 08 May 2014:

PRESIDENCY STATEMENT

An EU-Western Balkans Ministerial Conference was hosted by the Hellenic Presidency of the Council on May 8, in Thessaloniki. Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Štefan Füle, Ministers for Foreign and EU Affairs from Member States and the Western Balkans, as well as senior officials from the EEAS and the European Commission participated at the Conference. Representatives of financial institutions and regional organisations attended the conference as well. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos chaired the event, which consisted of two sessions.

‘Farewell to Salonica’

‘Farewell to Salonica: City at the Crossroads’ by Leon Sciaky (Haus Books, $25, 262 pages)

If I could travel back in time to any city at any historical moment, Salonica at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries would be near the top of the list. Distant from the surveillance and authority of Istanbul, perched on the edge of Europe, Salonica was an archetypal Ottoman metropolis, a cosmopolitan mélange tugged in conflicting directions by the forces of history. The city - majority Jewish for many years after the wave of migration from Spain in the 15th century - had become a crucible for dangerous and revolutionary new ideas and movements by the end of the 1800s, a whirlpool of conflicting forces tugging at the status quo.

Thessaloniki: Greece’s new hot spot for Turks.-Thessaloniki is also considered an open-air museum of Byzantine art.

 Barçın Yinanç
Greece’s second largest city has of course a special place in the minds and hearts of Turks since it is the birth place of Atatürk, the Republic’s founder. Thessaloniki is also considered an open-air museum of Byzantine art.

With the rise in the last decade of a middle class in search of tourist destinations abroad yet frustrated by European Union visa regulations (the all too familiar Schengen visa), many Turkish tourists are increasingly seeking visa-free travel. Government efforts to abolish visa requirements with certain countries were emphatically appreciated as it has boosted tourism with countries like Russia, Lebanon (before the Syrian war) and Croatia (before it became an EU member). If we look at the last example, Turkish tourists’ arrivals to Croatia dropped 20 percent after the nation entered the EU last summer, despite Zagreb’s efforts to ease the process of visa attainment for Turkish nationals.

Atatürk’s House museum to open. The house shows the life of the founder of the Turkish Republic

The restoration works of the house in Thessaloniki where modern Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was born, have been finished and the house is set to open to welcome its new visitors.

The opening will be organized by Turkish Tourism and Culture Minister Ömer Çelik on Aug. 16. The house has been re-organized according to the modern museum studies approach and the display has also been made accordingly.

Turkey had begun restorations of Atatürk’s birth house in Thessaloniki following complaints from the Culture Ministry that the dwelling was in an “appalling” state, on July 2012.

Bulgarian Winter Resorts (Bansko, Borovets and Pamporovo) Expect Greek Visitors Boom

Nikos Kapa (Bansko)

Bulgarian winter resorts of Bansko, Borovets and Pamporovo expect to be the hit for Greek visitors for Christmas and New Year's Eve.
The Bulgarian National Radio, BNR, reported Sunday that Greek tour operators have registered interest only for short travels to relatively cheap destinations due to the debt crisis and all packages in Bulgarian resorts have been sold out.

Mayor's Invitation to Turks Hurts Greek Pride

To Lure More Tourists in Current Age of Austerity, Thessaloniki Heralds Attractions from the City's Ottoman-Ruled Past

BY JAMES ANGELOS THESSALONIKI, Greece—The mayor of this northern Greek city wants to capitalize on the more than four centuries that Thessaloniki was under Ottoman rule by inviting Turkish tourists to visit landmarks of that history. His message strikes some Greeks as heresy.

Macedonia News el: Hellenic cultural council visits Minister for Macedonia-Thrace

Macedonia News el

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(News from real/true Macedonia, Greece [1] , [2])

12 Sep 2012 (neoskosmos)

The president of the Hellenic Cultural Council Paul Mavroudis met with the Minister for Macedonia-Thrace, Theodoros Karaoglou, in Thessaloniki.
The meeting was organised by Melbourne's Hellenic Cultural Council, the Union of Thessalonians "O Lefkos Pyrgos" and the Pontian Community of Melbourne and Victoria.

Anti-Austerity Anger: Greeks take to streets in light of new cuts (PHOTOS)

Thousands have taken to the streets throughout Greece to protest the drastic budget cuts proposed by the government.
In Athens some 2,000 pensioners marched through the city to protest newly introduced pension cuts.
It was announced that those who earn more than 1,000 euros a month will have 10 percent of their pensions axed. This is despite a 25 per cent cut over the last two years.
"They have cut our pensions into little pieces. They've imposed an unfair property tax, other taxes, taxes on petrol, the supermarkets are expensive. They have squeezed the life out of us, they've disgraced us," a pensioner told AP.

Record Number of Bulgarians Head to Greece

A record number of cars and people crossed the Bulgarian-Greek border in one day, September 6, Bulgaria's Unification Day, for which the country is in a four-day holiday.
Over 15 500 cars and 56 000 people crossed the Bulgarian-Greece border at the Kulata-Promachonas crossing point on Thursday between 8 am and 4 pm EET, announced Boyko Bozhkov, head of the Border Police Directorate in Bulgaria's Smolyan, as cited by the Focus news agency.
The Kulata-Promachonas border crossing, the shortest route between Sofia and Thessaloniki, usually handles 2/3 of all traffic between Bulgaria and Greece, and Bulgaria's Unification Day was no exception.