Page 3 - Greece

Greece evacuates 19,000 people as wildfire blazes on the island of Rhodes

Some 19,000 people have been evacuated from the Greek island of Rhodes as wildfires burned for a sixth day on three fronts, Greek authorities said on Sunday. The Ministry of Climate Change and Civil Protection said it was the largest evacuation from a wildfire in the country. Local police said 16,000 people were evacuated by land and 3,000 by sea from 12 villages and several hotels. Six people were briefly treated at a hospital for respiratory problems. A person who fell and broke a leg during a hotel evacuation and a pregnant woman remained hospitalized, the latter in good condition, authorities said. Package holiday companies TUI and Jet2 canceled flights to Rhodes. Jet2 said it was canceling five regularly scheduled passenger flights to the island on Sunday but would fly the planes to Rhodes empty to retrieve customers. TUI said it was canceling all its flights to the island until at least Tuesday. British tourist Kevin Evans was evacuated twice on Saturday with his wife and th

Pak collects DNA samples from 200 families of those missing after boat sank

Pakistan has collected DNA samples from more than 200 families following last week's sinking of an overcrowded smuggling vessel off Greece that left more than 500 migrants missing, including scores of Pakistanis, authorities said Thursday. The families had approached authorities, saying they suspect their loved ones were on the boat, spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch of the Foreign Ministry told a news conference in the capital of Islamabad. Pakistani police, meanwhile, arrested 10 more suspected traffickers, bringing the number of traffickers detained in the nationwide crackdown to 17, she said. Nearly three dozen other suspects have also been taken into custody in connection with the case. However, she said the government still cannot verify the number of Pakistanis among the dead or missing from the sinking. The crackdown followed orders from Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif for security forces to dismantle human smuggling networks in the country. The overcrowded fishing trawler ..

UEFA Euro Qualifiers: France emerge victorious, defeat Greece 1-0 at home

In the UEFA EURO Qualifiers match, France defeated Greece 1-0 in a thrilling encounter on Tuesday at the Stade de France stadium.

300 Pakistanis dead as boat capsizes in Greece: Here's what happened

Between 400 and 750 people were believed to have been aboard the vessel, when it sank about 80 km off the southern Greek town of Pylos

Greece boat tragedy: Pak PM orders crackdown against human smugglers

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday ordered a crackdown against human smugglers as the country announced a day of mourning for the victims of the Greece boat tragedy, several of whom were from Pakistan. An overloaded boat carrying around 750 people, aiming to enter Europe illegally, sank in open seas off Greece. It is believed that several Pakistanis were among the victims, though their exact number is not known. So far, at least 12 Pakistanis have been found alive, Pakistan's Foreign Office (FO) said. According to a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the premier said that June 19 would be observed as the Day of Mourning across the country, and the national flag would fly at half-mast. In another statement, the PMO said that Shehbaz directed the law enforcement agencies to track down agents involved in human trafficking and called for them to be brought to justice. He directed the FO to immediately take action on the boat capsizing and the report

Greece declares three-day national mourning for 79 shipwreck victims

"Everyone's thoughts are with all the victims of the ruthless traffickers who take advantage of human misery," said caretaker Prime Minister Ioannis Sarmas

At least 79 dead after overcrowded migrant vessel sinks off Greece

A fishing boat crammed to the gunwales with migrants trying to reach Europe capsized and sank Wednesday off the coast of Greece, authorities said, leaving at least 79 dead and many more missing in one of the worst disasters of its kind this year. Coast guard, navy and merchant vessels and aircraft fanned out for a vast search-and-rescue operation set to continue overnight. It was unclear how many passengers were missing, but some initial reports suggested hundreds of people may have been aboard when the boat went down far from shore. An aerial photograph of the battered blue vessel released by the Greek coast guard showed scores of people covering practically every inch of deck. Greece's caretaker prime minister, Ioannis Sarmas, declared three days of national mourning, "with our thoughts on all the victims of the ruthless smugglers who exploit human unhappiness". Coast guard spokesman Nikos Alexiou told state ERT TV that it was impossible to accurately estimate the number of ...

79 migrants dead, dozens feared missing after vessel sinks off Greece

A fishing boat carrying migrants trying to reach Europe capsized and sank off Greece on Wednesday, authorities said, leaving at least 79 dead and many more missing in one of the worst disasters of its kind this year. Coast guard, navy and merchant vessels and aircraft fanned out for a vast search-and-rescue operation set to continue overnight. It was unclear how many passengers might still be in the water or trapped in the vessel, but some initial reports suggested hundreds of people may have been on board. Authorities said 104 people have been rescued so far after the boat sank overnight in international waters some 75 kilometers (45 miles) southwest of Greece's southern Peloponnese peninsula. The spot is close to the deepest area of the Mediterranean Sea and such depths could hamper any effort to locate a sunken metal vessel. Twenty-five survivors were hospitalised with symptoms of hypothermia. At the southern port of Kalamata, around 70 exhausted survivors bedded down in sleep

Cyber attack in Greece disrupts high school exams, causes political spat

Greece's Education Ministry says it has been targeted in a cyberattack described as the most extensive in the country's history, aimed at disabling a centralised high school examination platform. It said the distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks aimed at overwhelming the platform occurred for a second consecutive day Tuesday. The attack involved computers from 114 countries, causing outages and delays in high school exams but failing to cripple the system, the ministry said. The cyberattacks prompted a judicial investigation ordered by a Supreme Court prosecutor, to be assisted by the police's cybercrime division. It is the most significant attack ever carried out against a Greek public or government organisation, the Education Ministry said, describing the incidents on Monday and Tuesday as large scale and of sustained duration. End-of year high school exams in Greece are administered using an online platform known as the Subject Bank, designed to to set a uniform stand

An incredible turnaround

Greece's decade of recovery vindicates austerity

Polls open in Greece's first election since international controls ended

Polls have opened in Greece's parliamentary election, the first since the country's economy ceased to be subject to strict supervision and control by international lenders who had provided bailout funds during its nearly decade-long financial crisis. The two main contenders in Sunday's vote are conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, 55, a Harvard-educated former banking executive, and 48-year-old Alexis Tsipras, who heads the left-wing Syriza party and served as prime minister during some of the financial crisis' most turbulent years. Although Mitsotakis has been steadily ahead in opinion polls, a newly introduced electoral system of proportional representation makes it unlikely that whoever wins the election will be able to garner enough seats in Greece's 300-member parliament to form a government without seeking coalition partners. The winner of Sunday's election will have three days to negotiate a coalition with one or more other parties. If that fails, the mandate to .

Cyprus, Israel, Greece join forces on energy, defence, economy and tourism

The foreign ministers of Cyprus, Israel and Greece agreed to cooperate more closely on issues including energy, defence, economy and tourism.

India, Greece allies, looking forward to boost cultural ties: Ambassador

Greece Ambassador to India Dimitrios Ioannou has said as "natural allies" he was looking forward to bringing the cultures of his country and India's, "both ancient civilisations", nearer. Ioannou, who was talking to PTI on the sidelines of an exhibition of artefacts at the office of Administrator General and Official Trustee of West Bengal in New Secretariat building here, said he could discern Greek influence in some of the statuettes on display and vice-versa. "There is a two way street - we call it Greek Indian art - I hope such exhibitions will rekindle public interest in both countries to explore, to bring to the knowledge of everyone about this ancient heritage link which is somewhat forgotten. "Such exhibitions will strengthen ties between India and Greece, because there are too many things which are common between us," he said. Among the exhibits were statuettes of Gautam Buddha, yakhsis, Hindu gods and goddesses and mythological figures, on which the influence of the Gandh

India playing significant leadership role with G20 Presidency: Argentina

Responding to a question regarding India's G20 Presidency, Dimitrios Ioannou, Ambassador of Greece to India, said, "It's a very ambitious presidency. I am sure that they will achieve their goals"

Anger in Greece over poor safety grows as train crash toll rises to 57

The majority of the passenger involved in the accident were young, ERT reported citing a local hospital

Greece Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigns over fatal train crash

The government has promised a thorough investigation into the causes of one the worst train disasters in the history of Greek railways, according to the Greek national news agency AMNA

Fiery Greece train collision kills 26, injures at least 85, says official

A passenger train and an oncoming freight train collided in a fiery wreck in northern Greece early Wednesday, killing 26 people and injuring at least 85, Fire Service officials said. Multiple cars derailed and at least three burst into flame after the collision near Tempe, some 380 kilometers (235 miles) north of Athens. Hospital officials in the nearby city of Larissa said at least 25 people had serious injuries. The evacuation process is ongoing and is being carried out under very difficult conditions due to the severity of the collision between the two trains, Fire Service spokesman Vassilis Varthakoyiannis said. Hospital units used to treat burn victims had been alerted in the area, he said, and dozens of ambulances were involved in the rescue effort. Rescuers wearing head lamps worked in thick smoke, pulling pieces of mangled metal from the rail cars to search for trapped people. Passengers who received minor injuries or were unharmed were transported by bus to Thessaloniki,

European investment tool worth $27 billion adopted in Greece this week

The program aims to unlock investments of over 372 billion euros across Europe, to support the EU's strategic priorities, these include the European Green Deal and the digital transition

Death toll rises to 23 from overloaded migrant sailboat wreck in Greece

The body of one more migrant has been found in the western Aegean Sea near where an overloaded sailboat smuggling dozens of people to Europe sank in rough seas this week, Greek authorities said on Friday, raising the total death toll to 23. A coast guard statement said the number of survivors so far remains at 12, which leaves another 34 people reported missing from Tuesday's accident in a dangerous strait between the islands of Evia and Andros. The dead include five children. Two of the 12 survivors have been arrested on suspicion of working for the smuggling gang that had organised the voyage from Turkey, by skippering and crewing the sailboat. Others among the survivors who were all men said the vessel had departed from the area of Izmir in western Turkey with 68 people on board, and capsized before sinking in high seas. It was the latest in a series of recent deadly shipwrecks of boats carrying migrants through Greek seas. At least 27 people drowned in two separate shipwrecks

Greece says Turkey stripped naked 92 migrants, forced them to cross border

Greek authorities accused Turkey of forcing 92 migrants to cross into Greece and stripping them naked before doing so. Greek police on Saturday said that police officers found the migrants stark naked on Friday, "some with bodily injuries" who had entered the country using plastic boats to cross the Evros River, which forms a border between the two countries. The migrants told police and officers of Frontex, the European Union's border agency, that they had been forced by Turkish authorities to board three vehicles that took them to the border. The migrants testified that they had been forced to strip naked before boarding the boats. Police said it had provided clothing and food for the migrants. "Turkey's provocative behaviour exceeded all limits," Greece's Ministry of Asylum and Migration said Saturday. Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi posted a photo of the naked migrants on his Twitter account Saturday, commenting, in Greek and English: "Trkiye's behaviour towards 92 migrants