s Secret Intelligence Service thought it, "a revolutionary wave, like 1848". Paul Mason agrees: "There are strong parallels – above all with 1848, and with the wave of discontent that preceded 1914.' [2] Alain Badiou suspects a possible "rebirth of history" in a new age of "riots and uprisings" after a long revolutionary "interval".[3] Eventually, however, history is miscarried or stillborn and Badiou...
As Greece's finance minister, I am optimistic about the future. In 2014 Greece will return to positive rates of growth after six years of deep recession Greece is implementing one of the most challenging economic adjustment programmes of modern history. The substantial financial support that Greece receives from its European partners and the IMF is combined with the necessary fiscal and structural...
During three decades as press attache and then head of the press office at the Greek Embassy in London, my father, Nikos Papadakis, became, in many ways, the voice of Greece in Britain. Nikos, who has died aged 68 after suffering a stroke, joined the embassy's press office in 1976, serving as head of the London office from 1989 until his retirement in 2004. He had two short placements during this...
s largest property company, clients come and go, agents slip in and out and brokers pace the corridors barking into mobile phones. For Christos Vergos, it means a frenetic work schedule of 12-hour days and a client base that is ever growing. "At all hours, people call in wanting to sell or wanting to rent or wanting to expand because places now are so much cheaper," says the estate agent in a conference...
lives, our documentary puts the Greek capital's public space in the spotlight How does a global financial crisis permeate the spaces of the everyday in a city? Our documentary Future Suspended, funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council , traces the multiple transformations of crisis-ridden Athenian public space and those who traverse it. In three parts, Future Suspended navigates its way...
Watch an excerpt from Future Suspended, a documentary on the privatisation of Athens that accompanied the 2004 Olympics ...
s largest commercial fleet with bank accounts and property portfolios that, even by the standards of the super-rich, elicit awe. But in the high-risk business of trading the high seas, Greek ship-owners – in line with international maritime tradition – have also been granted special tax status on their vessels. This week, the cash-strapped government in Athens insisted the preferential treatment –...
Encouraging rise in business investment, but manufacturing recovery wasn’t as strong as first thought Graeme Wearden ...
s admission that the wrong solutions were applied to the crisis seems crass, given what Greeks are suffering On Thursday, Christine Lagarde made some comments in an interview for Australia's ABC which have passed largely unreported, Greece no longer being the crisis en vogue . She admitted that the troika – the entity consisting of the European commission, the European Central Bank and the International...
s rejuvenation after its 1974 invasion by Turkey, the high-end boutiques of Nicosia's main shopping street are boarded up, its fashion shops plastered with "for rent" signs, its thriving cafes closed and shuttered. Eleven months after the Mediterranean isle's near economic collapse, the Cypriot capital's pre-eminent avenue embodies the destruction wrought by a financial hurricane that, for a few dramatic...
My uncle, the painter John Christoforou, who has died in Paris aged 92, had an artistic career spanning more than 60 years. He became known for his powerful expressionist figure paintings, reflecting his solitary and slightly dystopian view of the human condition. His work was of heroic scale, with vivid colour, dynamic blacks and vigorous brushwork. John was born to Greek parents in London. Both...
s civil war have swelled the numbers arriving. The influx has increased pressure on Greece's cash-strapped government to step up patrols along Europe's eastern border. Under the watchful eye of the EU, and that of the country's neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, the administration of prime minister Antonis Samaras has cracked down on illegal migrants, often employing controversial measures to round them up...
s claim of 'Hitlerian agenda' as 'too much hyperbole washed down with a few whiskies' George Clooney has dismissed comments made about him by the London mayor, Boris Johnson, as "too much hyperbole washed down with a few whiskies". The actor spoke out after Johnson criticised him for suggesting Britain should return the Parthenon marbles to Greece. Accusing Clooney of losing his own marbles, Johnson...
s a widely held and perfectly respectable view – certainly not a "Hitlerian agenda" for London's cultural treasures, as Boris Johnson would have it. But is it right? There are certainly bad reasons to return the marbles. One is that Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman empire in the early 19th century, denuded the Parthenon of much of its sculpture immorally, or even illicitly. He certainly...
The recommencement of talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriots is encouraging ( Report , 11 February). It is time, long after the Greek Cypriot Coup in 1974, that a settlement is reached. The economy of Greek Cyprus has been undermined and the political instability in Turkey is not helpful to the Turkish Cypriots. It is stated that the discovery of oil and gas reserves has strengthened...
s debt crisis – intensified on Wednesday with the arrival in Athens of MEPs conducting the investigation. In a reversal of roles, the seven-strong team of MEPs began an on-the-ground examination of the tough cost-cutting policies that Athens' "troika" of lenders – the EU, European Central Bank and International Monetry Fund – has prescribed as a cure for the nation's financial woes. The two-day visit...
worth, survives absolutely intact. Otherwise, she is known by fragments and shards of lines – and still adored for her delicate outpourings of love, longing and desire. But now, two hitherto unknown works by the sixth-century lyricist of Lesbos have been discovered. One is a substantially complete work about her brothers; another, an extremely fragmentary piece apparently about unrequited love. The...
Western Greek island experiences 6.1-magnitude quake with dozens of aftershocks, and it is unclear whether worse is to come Schools were ordered to close and a state of emergency was declared on the Greek island of Kefalonia on Monday after an earthquake damaged homes and injured at least seven people. Hundreds of the island's residents slept in their cars after a quake listed by the US Geological...
t care. They had guns, they were shooting in the air. We told them the boat had broken down, its engine didn't work but all they wanted was to take us back to Turkey." And that, he says, is when the Greek officials got the rope, tied it to the bow of the ship and began towing it "so fast that the boat began bouncing this way and that, like a snake, across the water." It didn't last long – maybe 10...
s bailout. The Greek economy minister, Yannis Stournaras, was steeling himself for a dressing down – even though he is chairing the session in Greece's capacity as current EU president – amid evidence of spiralling tensions between the debt-crippled nation and its international creditors. The EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, which have already postponed completing their latest...