Greece

15 Jan 2022; MEMO: Greece has received a strike from the US after freezing the excavation works of US-owned ExxonMobil and French company Total off the island of Crete in the East Mediterranean, CNN Turk reported on Friday.

ATHENS, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Greece is introducing new restrictions on the hospitality sector from Thursday, bringing forward measures planned for early January as coronavirus infections surge.

Health authorities reported on Wednesday that daily confirmed COVID-19 cases had jumped by more than 7,000 to 28,828, a new all-time record, with 72 deaths.

Authorities said the Omicron variant, which is highly contagious, appeared to be dominant in the community, barely a month after it was first detected.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — At least 16 people died after a migrant boat capsized in the Aegean Sea late Friday, bringing the three-day death toll from such shipwrecks in Greek waters to at least 30.

The deadly accidents came as smugglers who arrange sea crossings for Europe-bound asylum-seekers increasingly favor a perilous route from Turkey to Italy, avoiding Greece’s heavily patrolled eastern Aegean islands that were a prime destination for years.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece says it will renew a request for European Union funds in 2022 to extend a border wall along its frontier with Turkey and promised to expand a powerful surveillance network aimed at stopping migrants entering the country illegally.

A public order minister, Takis Theodorikakos, told a parliamentary committee that Greece expects some countries bordering the EU to continue to exploit migration to exert political pressure on member states, citing the recent crisis in Belarus on its border with Poland and other EU members.

05 Dec 2021; MEMO: Pope Francis told journalists and officials on Saturday that the world is seeing a scaling back of democracy, Anadolu Agency reported.

"We cannot avoid noting with concern how today, and not only in Europe, we are witnessing a retreat from democracy," said Francis at his welcoming ceremony at the Greek Presidential mansion.

The pontiff said the migration issue is a "horrendous modern Odyssey," aiming to draw attention to the refugee crisis in Europe.

ATHENS, November 28. /TASS/: The visit of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to Russia on December 8 will open a new chapter in relations between both countries, Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece and Co-Chair of the Russian-Greek Commission on Economic, Industrial, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, Miltiadis Varvitsiodis, reported on Sunday. The diplomat will take part in the 13th session of the commission in Moscow on November 29-30, as well as prepare the visit of the Greek prime minister to Russia.

ATHENS, Nov 22 (Reuters) - International air traffic to Greece rose further in October, at the end of the peak summer tourism season, civil aviation authority data showed on Monday.

Arrivals more than doubled in that month to 1,683,723, from 741,932 a year earlier when COVID restrictions hurt international travel.

Greece, where about a fifth of economic output comes from tourism, suffered its most severe air traffic slump on record in 2020, with arrivals down 75% from the previous year.

18 Nov 2021; MEMO: The trial of two search and rescue volunteers opened in Greece today, with the pair facing up to 25 years in jail. Amnesty International has described the proceedings as "farcical". The two are among a total of 24 aid workers facing similar charges in the trial.

ATHENS, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Greek public health sector workers protested in Athens over pay and conditions on Monday as hospitals struggled with a new surge in COVID-19 cases and authorities considered further restrictions.

The protesters said they were underpaid, overworked and understaffed. They called for more hirings, for the government to include them on a list of hazardous professions which receive hazard pay benefits, and for private doctors to be ordered to help.

ATHENS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The fallout of a new wave of the pandemic in Europe dominated discussions between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte in Athens Tuesday evening.

"The measures are common everywhere. We have decided to avoid shutting down our society and economy, to extend the use of mask and social distancing, to give more support to our national health systems, to keep on with vaccination program and booster shots in order to surpass the crisis," Mitsotakis said following the meeting.