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Greece: Debt Leads To Worries Of "New Iceland" Situation

2009-12-01T09:25:51Z

The likelihood of Greece becoming the next Iceland and plunging into bankruptcy looms over a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels today as the Greeks prepare to take another pasting from their colleagues.

Best Places For Smokers Traveling Abroad: A Top-10 List

2009-11-01T20:57:25Z

With so many places around the world instituting smoking regulations, increasing taxes and, quite literally, kicking smokers to the curb, it's getting harder to find cigarette-friendly vacation spots.

UN's Forest Protection Scheme At Risk For Crime And Fraud

2009-10-06T14:11:58Z

Experts on all sides of the debate, from international police to politicians to conservationists, have warned this week that the scheme, called Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (Redd), may be impossible to monitor and may already be leading to fraud. The UN itself accepts there are "high risks".

Socialits Trounce Conservatives In Greek Elections

2009-10-04T12:52:40Z

ATHENS, Greece — Greece's Socialists trounced the governing conservatives in a landslide election Sunday, with voters angered by scandals and a faltering economy ousting Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis halfway through his second term.

Humbled by his New Democracy party's worst electoral performance ever, Karamanlis, 53, resigned as its leader and said a new chief is needed for the party founded by his late uncle Constantine Karamanlis 35 years ago.

Diane Francis: Environmental Warfare in 10 years

2009-09-22T14:50:08Z

Oil company CEOs and Canadian, U.S. and British government officials attending the Global Business Forum in Banff last week heard a chilling forecast of military clashes if there is an environmental meltdown due to climate change.

The world's military leaders have been secretly studying the geo-strategic implications of climate change to prepare for possible outcomes, said noted author, broadcaster and military affairs journalist Gwynne Dyer. He interviewed 100 generals at the Pentagon and throughout Europe and his research has led to columns in 175 newspapers in 45 countries, a CBC series and book called "Climate Wars".

Worse than imagined
"I reached conclusions in my research that I never anticipated," he said. "There is panic among many scientists, who were part of the UN's Inter-government Panel on Climate Change in 2005, that the problem has accelerated in the past four or five years more than was estimated."

He said that governments have agreed, in a protocol, that a two-degree Celsius increase in worldwide warming must be avoided. This increase is the "point of no return", and would destroy food production worldwide and trigger consequences such as ice and glacial melts that would release tons of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, he projected.

Dyer is a persuasive and capable speaker but his conclusions about the environment were not shared by all attendees. One oil tycoon called him a "quack" off the record after his presentation.

And in a panel following his speech, Lawrence Solomon, a founder of Energy Probe in Toronto said there are many scientists who don't agree with the UN's findings. He said some believe that climate warming is minimal and merely the world coming out of an Ice Age.

Denial is not an option
"Whether you believe the science or not, the train has left the station," said Dr. Janet Peace with U.S. think tank the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. "Washington and others are not looking at the science any longer. For Obama, the environment is a signature issue and Congress will be dealing with what to do."

In December, the United Nations' conference on climate change in Copenhagen will focus on reaching some agreement on emissions and other environmental problems.

Dyer, Dr. Peach, Solomon and others were skeptical that the world's governments could reach any binding agreement there due to the complexities and dislocations involved.

But Dyer's research adds an urgency: The Pentagon and others are looking at readiness strategies because an environmental catastrophe will cause starvation, mass refugee flight, failed states and wars.

Drought already started in Australia
"We could see a large collapse in global grain markets in a decade [due to droughts]," said Dyer. "In 10 to 15 years, the U.S. army may have to close its southern border to Mexico and Latin America to stop the flood of refugees."

Europe faces a sea border problem with the Middle East and North Africa as well as internal issues as agriculture in Spain, Italy, and Greece collapses.

"The politics are too difficult. The only stopgap, not a solution, is something called geo-engineering," said Dyer. "That could buy us two decades."

This involves techniques, such as seeding clouds, in order to block sunlight and reduce temperatures.

"We don't know what unexpected outcomes would happen from such a scheme," said TransCanada PipeLines' CEO Hal Kvisle in a panel at the conference.

He said dramatic conservation, research, alternatives to fossil fuels for transportation and power plus lifestyle changes to reduce usage will help, said Kvisle.

In my view, the only solution this December will be if governments impose and enforce a one-child per family policy to stop population growth, which is the root of the problem.

Greeks Lobby For Return Of Parthenon Marbles From UK (VIDEO)

2009-09-18T15:51:48Z

Greece has been engaged in a long dispute over some of the world's most famous sculptures. The sculptures were taken from the Parthenon almost 200 years ago and brought to Britain, and the Greeks argue they should be returned to Athens.

Worldfocus special correspondent Lynn Sherr and producer Megan Thompson report on Greece's efforts to recover the precious statues.

For more stories on World Focus, click here.

Alex Henry: Wine, Music, and the Terroiriste Threat

2009-09-11T15:23:43Z

Being a little behind in my reading, I have only recently started getting through the books I received for my birthday last year. One of these, Bordeaux/Burgundy: A Vintage Rivalry, was an excellent short book by a geographer and former president of the Sorbonne, Jean-Robert Pitte. Of the many interesting and well-researched things Pitte has to say, perhaps the most surprising is that terroir, that principle sacred to French winemakers, isn't everything.

Terroir, in case you avoid wine columns in newspapers, is the idea that each vineyard or region has special qualities in its soil and environment that shape the wine's characteristics. The French for some time have argued the superiority of their wines on terroiriste grounds: only French soil can produce wines of character and authenticity; hence, no upstart winery in America or New Zealand is worthy of consideration.

Even an American, such as Jonathan Nossiter in his entertaining documentary Mondovino, can be seduced by the romance of the land. Nossiter pits the earthy eccentrics of Burgundy and the Languedoc against the modern, monolithic, all-Merlot-all-the-time school of certain Bordeaux and New World producers. The film Sideways incorporates some of the same thinking.

Thus, one might not expect the French wine historian Roger Dion to say, as Pitte quotes approvingly, "The role of the land ... scarcely goes beyond that of the material used in making a work of art." Pitte is not out to do a terroir take-down, but rather to restore some balance to the conversation. He emphasizes the human role in wine's evolution and shows how, in even the most hallowed terroirs, producers' decisions and consumers' choices have done as much as the land itself to produce these regions' distinctive wines. As Dion puts it: "There is more history than geography in a bottle of wine."

This skirmish between what one might simplistically call the purists and the moderates brings to mind similar debates in other contexts, for example, in the performance of classical music. Most of us would accept that a performer brings something of her own to a piece of music, but there are those who would insist that a musician's job is simply to perform the music as it is written. One finds this argument being made in some of the most rarefied quarters, such as in the journals of Sviatoslav Richter, the great pianist, who admired his colleague Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli's performance of a Schubert sonata because it "reproduced the score exactly."

The irony in Richter's case is that he was one of the most distinctive pianists of his time, whose style was imitated by a generation of Moscow Conservatory students. Michelangeli too was a great individualist. Indeed, most good musicians are, and the idea that we can prefer one musician to another confirms this view. The notion of a pure interpretation, then, is as illusory as that of a pure wine, since the score, like the land, allows for numerous valid choices to be made between the lines, or the vines as may be the case.

The question, then, becomes one of quality and preference: whose intervention do I like most? Whose style is best-suited to the material (grapes, notes) in question? If I like Richter's playing, which I do, it is not because he disappears and presents me with Bach, pure and simple; it is because he makes such appropriate decisions and shows such evident love towards the music.

In the same way, we often find that the greatest landscape paintings are not those that reproduce a scene precisely, but rather those in which the artist's distinctive feeling for the subject is most palpable. This lack of distinctiveness is what Nossiter, in Mondovino, seems to finds most abhorrent in the work of Michel Rolland, the wine consultant who is forever shuttling from estate to estate in his chauffeured Mercedes. The problem is not that Rolland is interventionist, which he is, but that he is always interventionist in the same way, dispensing the same advice to plant more Merlot and "Micro-oxygenate! Micro-oxygenate!" whether the client is in Saint-Emilion or Bangalore.

I would suspect that arguments for purity and authenticity have grown more frequent as the world has grown more, for lack of a better word, impure. For every Michel Rolland there must be some charmingly crusty holdout in the Burgundy countryside; for every showman like Lang Lang there must be an early-music festival somewhere. It is a kind of opposite and equal reaction that would, I think, make the ancient Greeks, those lovers of both good music and good wine, glad to have lived in simpler times.

Michael Giltz: Toronto Film Fest Day 1: Peasants, Cats, Goats, Nymphs and War

2009-09-11T02:24:06Z

The Toronto Film Festival kicked off on Thursday. This is my first time at the festival after covering Cannes for a decade. I have a good feel for a lot of the other festivals: Sundance is over-crowded and people get into a frenzy over a lot of films that end up not mattering the day after the festival ends. Venice and Berlin and a lot of other cities have good to very good festivals located in marvelous cities. But Cannes is still the Wimbledon of festivals and Toronto is still the other one that matters most. Come to Toronto and you can catch the hottest films from Cannes, fall releases looking for a platform to tout themselves and Oscar hopefuls.

It's also often called the friendliest and easiest film festival to attend. Day 1 sure backed that up. Getting my press badge was a breeze and oh, by the way, here's a free pass to ride the subways and buses throughout the entire festival. (Thank goodness I only bought a day pass when coming in from my friend's home.) And when a trailer before every film thanks the volunteers, the audience actually burst into applause to thank the volunteers. Only in Canada!

Since Toronto is a vibrant city (my mom's family is from here), you don't get that isolated, everyone around you is talking about cinema vibe of Cannes. You do see festgoers with their badges on the streets near the main cinemas. But you can walk a block away and breathe in auteur-free air whenever you want. And the stress level is way down: I got into every screening I wanted, even though showing up at the last minute for the final film of the day meant I had to sit in the front row. So here are the five films I saw on Day 1.

HUACHO ** 1/2 out of **** -- This is almost the prototypical festival film, one that is intriguing but will never see the light of day outside the fest circuit. Director Alejandro Fernandez Almendras makes his approach clear early on. It's a day in the life of a hardscrabble family in Chile. The morning starts for everyone -- mother, son, grandmother and grandfather -- and then we spend about a reel (20 minutes) seeing the day each of them had. The grandmother makes cheese and then sells it on the side of a street. The mother works for the lady of a grand estate who chides her for not managing her money better and refuses to give her an advance; the mother then returns a dress she's been wearing (she never takes off the tag) to get some quick cash. The little boy spends his day at school yearning to play on a PSP; the other boys call him "peasant." And the grandfather struggles to put up a fence in a field and then has a drink at his local. Very familiar territory, but there's enough detail and specificity to maintain your interest, which is saying a lot when you're talking about a rather routine day and what I assume are mostly untrained actors. The price of milk goes up so the grandmother tries to raise her prices, only to lower it back down by the end of the day so she isn't stuck with cheese. The little boy finally gets to play a video game (one of those dancing game machines at a video arcade) but he gets so few chances to play he's terrible. The grandfather tells long stories but no one ever listens. It all adds up to a more humane, involving film than it might otherwise have been.

DOGTOOTH *** out of **** -- How often can a film have you wondering what the hell is going on but at the same time maintain your interest without frustration? I probably knew too much about this movie, so if you're willing to see a really eccentric movie with a plot straight out of an absurdist play, skip my review and wait to see it. Are you still reading? Here's a little more: two parents in Greece have kept their three children completely isolated from the world. The kids never leave the compound of their off-the-beaten-track home and have been fed tales of the vicious kitties that tear people apart just outside the perimeter. (Yes, "kitties.") But sex will out: the boy is old enough (at least in his late teens) that the parents pay a woman to come in and sleep with him (rather mechanically) while the two sisters lick each other on various parts of the body in exchange for gifts. The children are constantly coming up with games (who can leave their fingers under the hot water tap the longest) and the parents devise ever stranger ways of explaining away terms they don't want the kids to know (the word "sea" is used to describe a leather chair, for example). This could play as a surreal comedy: a couple of scenes find one girl improvising moments from videos of Rocky II and Flashdance she sneakily watched. It also plays as deeply disturbing, with the parents pushed to extremes to protect their kids from the world they fear. The audience I saw took it very seriously indeed. But play it at midnight in New York and it would seem a very different film. Fascinating. I want a second viewing to make sure it doesn't just play once, but it's hard to shake and the cast is right in tune with the wavelength of the film.

THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS * 1/2 out of **** This George Clooney comedy is based on the true-ish stories of the US military's exploration of psychic abilities and the paranormal as potential weapons for war. It's spun into a far too elaborate story of a journalist (Ewan McGregor) who stumbles on Clooney and the loony story of psychic research prompted by hippie and career soldier Jeff Bridges. There are modest laughs in the film but it has a convoluted structure and takes forever to tell a very slight tale of LSD, competing psychics and McGregor's wary acceptance of this story. It doesn't help that the backdrop of 9-11 and prisoner torture takes some of the larkiness out of the goofy tone of the film. Clooney is game and McGregor was lucky casting: the tons of jokes about Jedi warriors naturally have an added spin here. Not much else does.

NYMPH *** for cineastes only out of **** - Not quite sure why I stayed with this one. The Thais sure do love their endless tracking shots and obscure storylines. This one has a girl attacked by men in the jungle who turns into (or was?) a woodland nymph and gets her revenge. Then the film proper begins, with a cute girl who is cheating on her shlubby photographer husband with her much cuter boss. She and her husband head into the jungle for a vacation. But he literally becomes a tree-hugger and either wanders off or is swallowed up by a tree. She heads home distraught but doesn't tell anyone when he shows up unexpectedly, even though the police are searching the jungle for him. Why doesn't she say anything? Because she's imagining it? I knew better than to expect any real answers. But I was held by the visuals and an ominous score filled with the sound of creaking, groaning wood. As an aside, every print of a film includes a marker when a reel is ended, traditionally used to tell the projectionist they should be ready to change reels. It's usually a dot in the upper right hand corner and they appear every 20 minutes on every print. Once you notice them, you can't believe you've been watching movies and never spotted them before. This movie's eerie mood was heightened by the BIGGEST reel marker I've ever seen: it was a gigantic, scrawled 14 or perhaps E14 that covered the entire middle of the film. It was so prominent, I thought at first it was some sort of subliminal message we're meant to spot. But no, it's just the wackiest reel change symbol I've ever seen.

CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH *** despite the weak finale -- This Chinese film tackles the Rape Of Nanking and like the fine Katyn of last year, it's basically a catalog of horrors, presented soberly and well. How do you critique it, I felt at first. Though the horrors pile on, the film takes a few interesting tacks. First, it's shot in beautiful black and white. Second, we see much of the film through the eyes of a Japanese soldier, who is distraught by the horror around him. Since the Japanese soldiers generally partake in one horrific act after another, this was a welcome attempt not to paint them as pure Evil (which frankly would detract from the horrors that occurred -- they were committed by real people, not monsters, which makes it worse). A few brief English language characters are all so poorly and awkwardly voiced, you'd swear the actors were dubbed. I felt a strong emotional connection even as I felt the movie didn't try and manipulate me too much (stock characters of noble woman, cynical whore, and plucky child notwithstanding). They hit a good finale with the Japanese soldiers celebrating their victory with a martial parade. But that's undercut by a soft coda in which the film tries to underplay the misery of what we've seen by emphasizing too much the guilt of our Japanese hero and the potential for a happier future for at least one Chinese survivor. It rings false after a film that rang mostly true. Still, there was decent applause for the movie at the end, the strongest of the day.

Doug Bandow: Pres. Obama: Time for Washington to Do Less Abroad

2009-09-08T04:21:31Z

President Barack Obama was elected proposing to do what most every other modern presidential candidate proposes doing: more.

His international agenda involves the standard litany. The U.S. must strengthen alliances, browbeat adversaries, resolve crises, ameliorate conflicts, protect friends, negotiate agreements, deter wars, combat disease, promote prosperity, and more.

The normal result is an agenda without end -- and almost as long a list of failures. Presidents leave office having suffered multiple frustrations, broken numerous promises, proposed extraordinary outlays, and caused occasional wars.

President Obama seems set to repeat the pattern, unless he learns from his predecessors. The answer is simple, though counterintuitive: do less.

Barack Obama entered office with an ambitious foreign policy. He was aided by the positive international response to his election. No one could deny that he was different from his unpopular, confrontational predecessor. For the first time in years, there was widespread optimism around the globe about an American administration.

However, the president has quickly learned the limitations facing even the world's most powerful nation. Again and again, Washington has failed to achieve its objectives. In some instances the results are delayed or the costs are inflated. In other cases success appears unlikely or well-nigh impossible.

Perhaps the administration's highest current priority is Afghanistan. Yet the military situation continues to deteriorate, with combat commanders requesting more troops. Air strikes continue to cost civilian lives and undercut popular backing for the allied cause. Attacking the expansive drug trade risks increasing support for insurgents. The Karzai government's credibility, already at low ebb due to corruption and incompetence, fell even further with the recent fraud-ridden election. President Obama has been in office for less than eight months and already he appears to be channeling Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam.

The endgame in Iraq appears increasingly likely to be a stalemate at best. Violence remains distressingly high: the latest spate of bombings underlies the weaknesses of the security forces, limits on political reconciliation, and dangers for the future. Baghdad is unlikely to be either a liberal democracy or an American ally. There isn't much for the Obama administration to do but draw down U.S. forces and watch the denouement.

One of the president's most dramatic breaks with the Bush administration was a willingness to talk to America's adversaries. Yet the wheels came off the Barack express with the fraudulent Iranian election and ensuing popular protests. Unsure whether criticism or silence was more prudent, the administration looked ineffective and confused. While engagement remains possible -- and, frankly, essential -- Washington has found it hard to negotiate with an Iranian government that so recently was breaking demonstrators' heads in the streets and even now is conducting Stalinesque show trials in its courtrooms.

North Korea wasn't even supposed to be on the administration's early agenda. But "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il had other ideas, testing a nuclear weapon, shooting off missiles, and arresting two U.S. journalists. Pyongyang now is proposing negotiation, leaving President Obama, who sharply criticized his predecessor's intransigence, to appear to put procedure before principle in refusing to engage outside of the so-called Six-Party Talks. Yet it isn't clear that negotiation in any setting would be more effective under this administration than the last one.

To his credit, the president is determined to reset relations with Russia. However, talking sweetly has had only limited practical impact on Moscow's attitudes since Washington continues to proclaim its support for NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine. Yet the administration's best efforts to promote more responsible governance in those two states, including a visit by Vice President Joe Biden, have had equally little effect. Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili seems chastened neither by his military defeat last year nor growing political unrest at home; politics in Kiev retains its soap opera-like quality as America's favorite, President Viktor Yushchenko, blunders his way towards likely defeat in next year's election.

Europe should be an area of expanded cooperation, given President Obama's popularity throughout much of the continent. However, as part of the European Union the Europeans failed to follow his advice to engage in an American-style spending orgy in the name of stimulating the economy. As part of NATO the Europeans affirmed the importance of Afghanistan but refused to commit substantially more troops or resources; to the contrary, even the British now are talking about drawing down their forces. An international film version of American Alone appears to be in the offing.

Washington continues to push its stalled project for an independent Kosovo, with the half-recognized state divided by the unrecognized secession of ethnic Serbs in its north. Stubborn controversies between Macedonia and Greece and surrounding Cyprus have grown no less stubborn over the last eight months. After having embraced participation in America's missile defense project, Poland has been estranged by the administration's plan to drop the system.

The U.S. has had no more success winning cooperation from Israel, a nation which has received largely unconditional support in the form of money, weapons, and political backing for decades. Insistence on a freeze in settlement expansion, one of the most serious barriers to peace between Israelis and Palestinians, has been met with shock, hostility, and scorn. Along with the demand to keep writing the blank checks, if you please.

The administration has brought its power and prestige to bear on little Honduras and yet has been unable to force Tegucigalpa to restore Manuel Zelaya to the presidency. President Obama risks going from the sublime to the ridiculous by threatening not to recognize the results of the upcoming, regularly scheduled election which would replace Zelaya even if he was reinstated. The administration appears to be intent on destroying democracy to save it.

It is still early, but the incoming foreign policy team has not been able to turn a friendlier attitude towards Caracas into any relaxation of Hugo Chavez's tightening restrictions on opposition activity. A new and long overdue American openness to dialogue with Cuba has not accelerated reform in that impoverished, oppressed land.

China and India are no more willing today to slow their economies to reduce CO2 emissions at American insistence than when George W. Bush was president. The Japanese election result is likely to reduce Tokyo's readiness to underwrite U.S. geopolitical priorities. Egypt's politics remains as corrupt and authoritarian as ever, despite President Obama's high-profile visit and speech.

In short, the world has turned out to be a lot less malleable and willing to adjust to American preferences than the president may have thought before taking office.

The administration could continue muddling along like most of its predecessors. Just not creating any new policy disasters would be a welcome change from President George W. Bush, who bungled an unnecessary war in Iraq, oversaw North Korea's move towards full nuclear status, and damaged relations with both Europe and Russia. Heck of job, George!

Another option is more intensive intervention. More troops for Afghanistan, more lecturing of Georgia and Ukraine, more pressure on Israel, more threats against Honduras, more sanctions on Iran, more recalcitrance with North Korea, more pleas to Russia, more advice for Iraq. Unfortunately, most of these won't work, and their collective cost is likely to be far higher than the benefits of one or another isolated success.

The better choice would be to do less. Involvement in some issues obviously is inescapable: the U.S. is heavily engaged in Afghanistan, for instance. However, Washington should moderate its objectives. The goal of ousting and weakening al-Qaeda has been achieved. Bringing good governance to Kabul, making Afghanistan drug free, and spreading American culture to Pashtuns, whatever their value, are not worth war. Washington should be working to escape, not escalate.

Expanding NATO into the Caucasus and further along Russia's border reduces rather than increases U.S. security. Washington has no reason to meddle in Honduras' political imbroglio. Rather than badger Israel over its policies, the U.S. should cut official support for the Israeli government and step back from the conflict. Kosovo was never an important concern warranting meddling let alone war. And so on.

World War II and the Cold War turned the American republic into a quasi-empire, engaged in constant intervention and war. The demise of hegemonic communism and rise of populous and prosperous democratic states in Asia and Europe allow the U.S. to return to a more traditional role. President Obama should seize the opportunity and initiate real change in U.S. foreign policy.

The president will suffer the usual failures of his predecessors if he continues to attempt to micro-manage global affairs. To leave a positive legacy, he should move in the other direction, returning America to, in Jeane Kirkpatrick's words, the status of "a normal country in a normal time."

Human Rights Watch: Greece: Hunger Strike by 150 Detained Children a Sign of System's Failure

2009-08-24T11:16:07Z

By Simone Troller

Create Open Centers for Migrant Children

(Geneva) - An estimated 150 unaccompanied migrant children being held in a detention center on Lesvos Island were on a hunger strike for four days to protest their living conditions, Human Rights Watch said today. The protest, reported by local sources, follows recent police sweeps of migrant living quarters in Greek cities. The children ended their strike on Friday, August 21.

Human Rights Watch said that the use of detention for unaccompanied children shows the failure of Greece to fulfill its responsibilities toward these children. Greece should house unaccompanied migrant children in open centers where they can receive care, counseling, legal aid, and other basic services, and enjoy decent living standards, Human Rights Watch said.

A year ago, 100 migrant children detained on another island, Leros, went on a hunger strike for the same reasons. At that time, the Ministry of Health dispatched its deputy minister to solve the crisis and opened additional temporary accommodation.

"That children as young as 12 were again on hunger strike in Greek detention is a gross indictment of the government's failure to care for them," said Simone Troller, children's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Greece keeps jailing these children, but still has no system or even a plan in place to house them and cover their basic needs."

Local sources said that up to 150 unaccompanied migrant children ages 12 to 17 started a hunger strike on August 18, 2009, to demand their release from the overcrowded and dirty conditions in a detention centre in Mitilini, the island's capital. They resumed eating on August 21. On August 20 and 22, police released around 120 children to open accommodation centers, putting additional pressure on these facilities, some of which already run beyond their capacity. Several dozen, possibly more than 100, unaccompanied children remain in detention. The detention center has space for 300 detainees, but holds more than double that number.

Greece currently provides around 300 places in state care for unaccompanied migrant children, and these are full. Any child who enters Greece is thus likely to end up in detention or on the streets. Human Rights Watch estimated that at least 1,000 migrant children entered Greece without a parent or caregiver in 2008.

A year ago, the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture described conditions in Mitilini detention center as "abominable," adding that they were "a health hazard for staff and detainees alike." It urged the government to put in place a plan to guarantee basic hygienic standards even when large numbers of migrants arrive.

A 13-year-old Afghan boy who had been detained for 34 days on Lesvos Island told Human Rights Watch at the end of July: "I faced a lot of difficulties in that [detention center] ... everything was very dirty. ... In a week, they just let us into the courtyard for 15 or 20 minutes. ... We got sick day by day there."

In a December 2008 report, "Left to Survive: Systematic Failure to Protect Unaccompanied Migrant Children in Greece," Human Rights Watch extensively documented these children's daily struggle for survival, their squalid living conditions, widespread experience of police and coast guard violence, exploitation in agriculture and construction, and the risks they face of ending up in the hands of trafficking gangs.

The 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by Greece in 1993, requires Greece to provide protection and humanitarian assistance to all children without a parent or caregiver, including those seeking refuge, with the child's best interests as a primary consideration. Under this convention, detention should be used "only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time."

Greece grants asylum to only 0.05 percent of applicants at initial hearings, and changes to Greece's asylum law introduced in July bar meaningful appeal of negative decisions. If children claim asylum in Greece but then go to another EU country, they risk transfer back to Greece under the EU's Dublin regulation, which stipulates that the first country where an unaccompanied child applied for asylum is in charge of that application.

Asylum interviews in Greece are typically short and superficial. Hafiz, a 16-year-old boy, described to Human Rights Watch how an Iranian interpreter instead of a police officer conducted his asylum interview:

"An Iranian woman asked me questions: why I came and what my difficulties were. There were no police officers present ... only the Iranian woman was asking me questions. The police were busy taking fingerprints. ... There were too many people at the police station, so they couldn't do long interviews. They just asked me very simple questions at the police. I answered all the questions she asked me. The questions were short and I couldn't fully explain my case."

Unaccompanied children who do not apply for asylum or who have been refused asylum are without regular status and subject to repeated detention or even deportation, in violation of binding international law.

"Greece certainly faces serious challenges in managing migration because of its location and the lack of EU burden-sharing," said Troller. "But that does not excuse its failure to protect those who are most vulnerable."

Simone Troller, children's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch

Read more: Immigration, Migrants, Children, Greece, World News

Greece: Fire Crews Scramble To Tame Blazes, Save Nuns

2009-08-24T08:00:45Z

ATHENS, Greece — A massive wildfire that destroyed homes and forests receded Monday as a multinational airborne effort beat back flames that at one point threatened Athens' northern suburbs and raged near the ancient battleground at Marathon.

As winds died down late Monday, Greek Fire Brigade spokesman Yiannis Kappakis said there were "no significant active fronts" left of the fire, which for days has sent a pall of smoke over the capital, plunging parts of it into a brown half-light.

Thousands flee raging wildfires in Greece

2009-08-23T08:55:48Z

ATHENS, Greece — A partial drop in gale-force winds early Monday offered hard-pressed Greek firefighters a brief respite after wildfires raged unchecked for two days north of Athens, burning houses and swathes of forest while forcing thousands to flee their homes.

But Fire Brigade officials cautioned that the fires still threatened inhabited areas on the capital's northern fringes, the eastern coastal town of Nea Makri and nearby Marathon – site of one of history's most famous battlegrounds.

Alex Pattakos: The Lost Feminine

2009-08-14T11:20:57Z

The subject of this post surfaced during my most recent visit to Crete at the end of last month. As a Greek-American of Cretan heritage, who has been actively engaged in the process of reconnecting with my roots, I found the standing and role of women in Greek culture and society, both in their religious and secular senses, to be a very meaningful topic; one that deserves serious attention. And I would even go so far as to suggest that it is time to rediscover what has been called the "Lost Feminine" in so-called modern civilization by looking deeply into the ancient, and uniquely Greek-Cretan, past through a meaning-centered lens.

In this connection, I'm referring explicitly to the Minoan civilization, a culture that arose and flourished on the island of Crete from approximately 3650 to 1450 BC. This Bronze Age civilization was later destroyed by natural and man-made forces that are still under debate, and its remains, for better or worse, were replaced or dominated by Mycenaean Greek culture. Rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th Century, most notably through the work of the British archaeologist, Sir Arthur Evans, Minoan Crete took its historic place, as Will Durant said in 1939, as "the first link in the European chain."

It's hard to imagine anyone who has visited Crete who doesn't know about or who hasn't visited Knossos (Κνωσóς), the archaeological site deemed to be the epicenter of the Minoan civilization and culture. And is there anyone who does not believe that the Palace at Knossos is the source of the myth of the Labyrinth, an elaborate maze-like structure constructed for King Minos of Crete and designed by the legendary artificer Daedalus to hold the Minotaur, a half-man/half-bull creature that was eventually killed by the Athenian hero, Theseus?

However, this is not the part of Minoan (pre)history or mythology that served as a catalyst for this particular post. Nor is it the cultural attribute that best describes the centerpiece influence of women on all aspects of life and living at the time the Minoan civilization flourished. In his well-researched book, In Search of the Lost Feminine: Decoding the Myths that Radically Reshaped Civilization, Craig Barnes, who also happens to live in my hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, challenges the inevitability of our commonly-held notion of patriarchy by examining the mystery of the Minoan civilization, traces the collapse of the Minoan world, and describes the emergence of the "warrior" civilization and its implications for surviving in the "postmodern" era.

According to Barnes, the story of Western civilization has been told for some thirty-five hundred years with a "political slant" that worked for the cause of the victors of the Trojan War. This particular story, he argues, effectively shortchanged human nature and disparaged our deepest instincts toward peace-making and reconciliation, as well as toward nurturing and the cycles of the season. In contrast to the uncivil forces (i.e., the suppression of "civil" in civilization) and oftentimes brutal results of patriarchy, Barnes underscores that the alternative values glorified by the Minoan civilization, what he refers to as the "inner feminine" aspect of human nature, have always provided a light of hope into the patriarchal world and illuminated, as well as elevated, the human spirit across the ages and especially throughout Western history.

The foundations of Western civilization, moreover, can be found in the myths, ancient stories, artifacts, and encoded messages left after the decline and subsequent disappearance of Minoan culture. Indeed, over the last one hundred years a great deal of new information about the Minoans and their way of life has been unearthed (both literally and figuratively). As a result, we now know that the status of women was vastly different before the emergence of patriarchy and the mythical storytelling that was used to support, rationalize, and justify its dominance as the guiding paradigm for "civilization." Women in the Minoan era were portrayed as benign rather than dangerous, the latter being a presumed characteristic that has plagued humankind to the present day. Moreover, in what has been called a women-centered, egalitarian, and peaceful society, the "ancient" Minoans, as further proof of their matriarchal mindset, were also conscious of a need to worship the goddess within (or feminine mystique), along with the goddesses who symbolized a very different cultural orientation than, rightly or wrongly, we hold in the contemporary era.

And, remember, this societal and cultural view manifested itself well before--literally several millennia before--the feminist "movement" surfaced in the USA and abroad. Just think for a moment, by way of example, how far it pre-dates feminist author and activist Gloria Steinem, who became a leader of the women's rights movement throughout the 1960s and 1970s AD! Whatever your political, social, religious, faith-based, or cultural persuasion, and whether or not you agree with Mr. Barnes's assessment of the Minoan worldview and how it effectively challenges the inevitability of patriarchy, you have to wonder (at least I do) what human history would have looked like if the "feminine" as espoused by Minoan culture had not been lost. One giant step forward, how many steps backward?
***

You can find out more about Dr. Alex Pattakos, author of the international bestselling book, Prisoners of Our Thoughts, in his HuffPost Bio and at http://www.prisonersofourthoughts.com. See also his "Dr. Meaning" Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/DrMeaning and follow him on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/DrMeaning . You can contact Alex, who is working on a new book on living a meaningful life inspired by Greek culture, at: alex@prisonersofourthoughts.com.

Stuart Feltham Denies Provoking Greek Woman Marina Fanouraki Into Fire Assault

2009-08-11T14:31:51Z

The British tourist allegedly set alight by a Greek woman on Crete last week said that he was "completely innocent" of her accusations of sexual harassment, AFP reports.

Stuart Feltham, 20, received second-degree burns to his chest and stomach after a woman threw her drink on him and set fire to him.

The woman, Marina Fanouraki, 26, later presented herself to police and claims Feltham had harassed her and shown her his genitals prior to the incident.

Fanouraki denied setting Feltham alight, saying instead she had thrown a drink over him in self defense after he fondled her and exposed himself.

Locals hailed her a hero.

The Independent reports that although Feltham was due to give evidence against Fanouraki, he returned home to Britain fearing reprisals from locals who support Fanouraki.

Crete is a highly popular tourist destination for British holiday-makers, and drunken mishaps are not uncommon on the island.

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Marina Fanouraki: Greek Woman Denies Setting Stuart Feltham On Fire For Sexual Harassment

2009-08-07T16:50:45Z

A 26-year-old Greek woman in Crete appeared in court Friday for allegedly setting Stuart Feltham, a British tourist, on fire in response to his drunken sexual advances, the BBC reports. The woman, identified by the media as Marina Fanouraki, claims that she only splashed her drink in Feltham's face after he had fondled her, and then she walked away, only to hear cries begin behind her, according to the BBC report. According to her lawyer, "he [Feltham] fondled my client's breasts and buttocks and she poured her drink over him and left. Shortly afterward she heard cries and saw her friends trying to extinguish him."

But, according to SKY News:

Stuart Feltham allegedly exposed himself to Marina Fanouraki, provoking her to pour Sambuca over his genitals and flick a lighter on.

...
But Feltham's furious father Ian denies her account, claiming the stranger simply approached his son out of the blue before hurling an accelerant on him.

Fanouraki faces assault charges of inflicting "grievous bodily harm", AFP reports, due to the allegations that she lit Feltham on fire after dousing him in alcohol. According to AFP, the incident is part of a larger trend of drunken mishaps in the tourist-driven area.

Excessive drinking and poor-quality alcohol frequently cause incidents between locals and Britons on Crete and other popular island destinations such as Corfu and Rhodes.

Last week, two British tourists were beaten up in Malia after one of them crashed a motorcyle into a local supermarket.

According to the BBC:

The story has made national headlines in Greece, where some have hailed the woman as a heroine.

Mr Feltham's parents have insisted reports their son sexually harassed the woman were "absolute nonsense".

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Greek Woman Becomes National Hero After Lighting Briton's Genitals On Fire For Alleged Sexual Assault

2009-08-06T15:03:40Z

A 26-year old Greek woman has become an overnight national hero after setting fire to the genitals of a 23-year old drunken Briton who allegedly tried to sexually assault her in a crowded bar.

Top Countries To Retire To: Which Fits Your Plans? (POLL, PHOTOS)

2009-07-29T16:04:52Z

Florida may be one of the most popular places for retirees to settle, but many Americans are packing their passports and choosing locations in foreign countries. The HuffPost has assembled a list of increasingly popular locales for retirees. Some spots are known for their sun and sand, others for their adventure and mother nature. Where will you call home?

Have suggestions for favorite spots not included here? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

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Europe Wildfires Rage In Spain, France, Greece, Italy (VIDEO)(SLIDESHOW)

2009-07-24T09:19:00Z

Wildfires continue to rage across southern Europe, challenging local officials in Spain, France, Greece, and on the Italian island of Sardina, resulting in 7 deaths so far, according to the BBC. The fires have been exacerbated by strong wind and high summer temperatures. According to the BBC report, a Sardina prison was even forced to be evacuated due to propinquity of the flames.

According to the AFP, the fire may have been man-made, spurred from the French army's use of illegal tracer rounds during a military training exercise:

"This fire was clearly triggered by a professional mistake," Prime Minister Francois Fillon said late Thursday after the blaze ripped through 1,300 hectares (3,211 acres) of brush and damaged homes near France's second city.

"Tracer rounds are outlawed, not only during this period but in principle in all the camps in the south," a region more prone to forest fires, the prime minister said, announcing that a probe was underway.

Watch:

Ilana Teitelbaum: Discovering Greece: Thessaloniki is Cooler Than You

2009-07-14T10:06:09Z

One of the advantages of living in Israel is that we're located near many of the places we've always wanted to see. So two weeks ago my husband and I zipped over to Greece for a weekend in Thessaloniki.

The location was not entirely up to us -- we were there for the Loreena McKennitt concert. And what we discovered is that while the islands of Greece and all its southern attractions are as enticing to us as ever, we had a wonderful time in Greece's second-largest city and cultural capital, which is otherwise known as Salonika.

Located in northern Greece, Thessaloniki's proximity to the Balkans means that it represents a fusion of Byzantine, Roman, Ottoman and Greek influences (the Jewish influences are mostly gone since the Holocaust). Scattered throughout the city are whatever artifacts that remain -- a Roman rotunda and arch, Ottoman bathhouses which now house contemporary art exhibitions, and a Byzantine wall and churches.

Thessaloniki is very far from the classic tourist fantasy of Greece: there are no nearby islands, and Delphi and Athens are a great distance away. But there are other treasures nearby: Mount Olympus and the fascinating archaeological park that is near it, ancient Dion, home to the remains of several ancient temples and amphitheaters. Gazing at the spectacular and cloud-hidden peaks of Mount Olympus, I could imagine that thousands of years ago, people believed that the gods resided there.

Thessaloniki itself is the epitome of cool. I know, I'm a former English major and yet "cool" is the best word I can come up with to describe the city. I felt, strolling the squares where attractive young people congregated at elegantly lit outdoor tables, music pouring out of the various bars into the streets, that even in my late twenties I was way too old and uncool for this place. I have never seen a city more lively, more fully engaged in a passionate dance with life -- and I have been to several of the world's major cities. The sheer number of cultural events alone is enough to elevate the city's cool factor -- the concert we were there to see was only one of the many that were going on in that week, and free art exhibitions were everywhere.

The downtown area overlooks a waterfront, where the waves gently lap against the port docks. The waterfront is lined with cafes, each more trendy and appealing than the last. In the late afternoon on a weekend, the outdoor tables of these cafes are packed to capacity, where people indulge in ice coffee with cookies (nearly everything in Thessaloniki seems to be accompanied by two things -- pastries and cigarettes). They will sit there for hours until the sun sets over the water.

It's much later by then, since the summer days are long, and that's when people repair to the tavernas and bars located near the waterfront but not on it, near Aristotle Square and the quaint downtown area of Ladadika. Some of these tavernas are famous for serving some of the best food in Greece. The love of desserts is reflected in the myriad patisseries and bakeries that seem to be around every corner.

The bars on Aristotle Square reinforced my feeling that Thessaloniki was cooler than I am. Softly lit tables surrounded by plush couches line the entire square, and the square itself is alive with music and children until very late. Live music is everywhere--we were serenaded by a group of musicians as we sipped coffee by the waterfront. Their rhythmic singing, and the lapping of the water, and the constant sea breeze, are a memory that soothes me every time I conjure it again.

The city is situated on a hill, and at the top are the crumbling remains of an ancient Byzantine castle and wall. From here, you can see panoramic views of the city and the blue water stretching into the distance. Wandering the old Ottoman town that surrounds the castle, Ano Poli, you stroll the evocatively winding streets and alleyways, catching glimpses of the ocean far below. The Osios David, an ancient church from the dawn of Christianity, is situated with a prime view of the ocean. Its fading fifth century mosaic and twelfth century frescoes are explained by an elderly woman who prays as you look around, and at the end demands a euro.

In general, the people of northern Greece were the kindest and most generous that I've encountered anywhere. From a group of elderly men sitting outside their workshop in the middle an industrial zone, to a hotel concierge of a five-star hotel where we were not staying, to the woman who offered me her umbrella at the concert when it began to rain, people would either help us, or go out of their way to find someone who could, even though it was never to their benefit. They rarely spoke English, and we seemed to be a rarity, as most tourists to Thessaloniki are European.

I still want to visit Athens someday, and elsewhere in Greece. But by visiting a place that most tourists overlook, I think we caught Greece with its hair down, and heard it sing.

Greece Cracks Down On Illegal Migrants After Fears Of Crime Spike

2009-07-13T14:57:47Z

ATHENS -- On the morning of June 12, Greek authorities flattened and cleared a squatter camp in the Greek port city of Patras that was home to hundreds of illegal immigrants from Afghanistan. Bulldozers crushed the makeshift houses, setting off a fire, while riot police arrested the few dozen inhabitants who hadn't yet run away.

The demolition of the camp, where many Afghanis lived while trying to board boats to Italy, is evidence of a new crackdown on illegal immigration by Greece's center-right government that has human rights groups worried.

The government says it is overwhelmed by illegal immigration and plans to build new detention centers to lock up undocumented migrants.

New legislation rushed through parliament at the end of June increases the length of time illegal migrants can be held to six months from three. Under certain circumstances, this can be extended for an additional 12 months.

The Greek government also says it plans to create new detention centers in unused military bases to house the migrants. According to Greek press reports, the first of these could be ready by the end of July and will likely be located away from residential areas.

But human rights groups and opposition parties say incarceration is the wrong way to deal with the immigration crisis. Greece's existing detention facilities have been repeatedly condemned by the United Nations and European courts for failing to ensure basic human rights. Critics also say the new regulations make it more difficult for legitimate asylum seekers to access the rights they are entitled to.

"It's not a solution to have more and more detention centers. It's not a solution to the migration or refugee problems," said Georgia Trismpioti, director of the Greek branch of Amnesty International. "They did not commit any crime. Their only 'crime,' so to say, is just to enter another country to find political asylum or to find a better condition of life."

A recent report by the Council of Europe, based on 2008 visits to a number of detention sites, found that despite some progress, conditions in Greek facilities remained unacceptable and that migrants ran a "considerable risk of being ill-treated."

Other human rights groups have found similar problems with existing centers.

"The detention centers in the islands of the Aegean Sea, in Samos for instance, in Evros, which is close to Turkey, where a lot of asylum seekers are detained -- the conditions are deplorable," Trismpioti said.

But the country's governing party feels under pressure to show it is taking action. The party is still smarting from a recent defeat in the European Union Parliamentary election, during which a far-right party made substantial gains by emphasizing immigration issues.

In recent years, Greece has faced a massive spike in illegal immigration and asylum claims, as more migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East find their way to Greece by sea and over the country's land border with Turkey. The government says it is unable to cope with the growing numbers. Last year, nearly 150,000 illegal immigrants were arrested in Greece, although so far this year there has been a slight decline.

The government was slow to respond to the problem, but has recently bumped up diplomacy efforts in an effort to force other European Union countries to shoulder more of the burden and force Turkey to abide by a repatriation agreement.

The move toward detention comes in response to fears that destitute migrants have been resorting to crime and to recent protests in central Athens by Muslim immigrants who alleged that a police officer had defaced a Quran.

Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis acknowledged some problems in Greece's response to immigration issues, but denied that the country was guilty of mistreating migrants and refugees.

But she also said her country needs help from the European Union to tackle the problem.

"In order to be able to manage this in Greece, we need European solidarity," she said. "Greece can never be accused of inhumane policy towards the rights of any people who are in Greece."

But Greece's new policy is also part of a Europe-wide trend to use long-term detention to address illegal immigration. Italy also recently passed new legislation that criminalizes illegal migrants and increases the length of time they can be held to six months.

"Most definitely in the case of illegally staying migrants, countries are detaining more frequently and some are even starting to deport more frequently," said Philip Amaral, policy and advocacy officer at the Jesuit Refugee Service, which opposes the detention of refugees and illegal migrants.

Last year, the European Parliament passed legislation allowing member states to detain illegal migrants for up to 18 months under certain conditions. The law also sets out the conditions under which illegal immigrants can be deported from the EU.

Yiota Masouridou, from the Greek Group of Lawyers for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants, said Greece's tough new laws are intended in part to pressure other EU countries to give more assistance to Greece and other frontline European countries.

"It is a reality that this is a country on the border of the EU, and as in Italy and Malta, they face a tremendous problem," she said. "Now the attempt is to penalize migrants. I think this is to try to bargain on a European Union level."

Currently, most illegal migrants are detained at Greece's borders and held for three months before being released with an order to leave the country within one month. But few actually leave and most end up living in a state of illegality, subject to repeated cycles of arrest and release.

Greek police have stepped up raids against illegal migrants living in Athens, but are often forced to release those they arrest because they lack the facilities to hold them and struggle to deport them to their country of origin.

Human rights groups say there are no accurate statistics tracking the number of migrants and asylum seekers in detention, but in 2008 the French NGO Cimade documented 235 camps in the European Union with a capacity of more than 30,000 people.

Read more at the Global Post.

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Arianna Huffington: Vacationing with My Ex

2009-07-06T15:38:33Z

CRETE -- My ex-husband and I recently celebrated our 12th anniversary. That's how long we've been divorced -- one year longer than we were married.

Just like marriage, divorce isn't easy either, and ours has been no exception. But even though we no longer had a marriage to keep us together, we had something even more powerful -- our daughters. And, spurred by our mutual devotion to them, we have made a huge effort to work through all the difficulties and be friends.

This has included spending Christmas Day and both of our girls' birthdays together as a family every year. And, little by little, with a lot of hard work, we've grown closer and closer. Indeed, a couple of years ago, on what would have been our 20th wedding anniversary, a magnificent bouquet of flowers that included twenty yellow roses arrived at my home. The card said, "Happy 20th Anniversary. We'll always be the parents of two remarkable young women. Love, Michael."

But this is the first time since our divorce we have gone on a summer vacation as a family.

This kind of concentrated together time can often prove to be stressful. But we are having a fabulous time, hanging out as a foursome, eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner together, and exploring the exquisite beauty of Crete -- Kriti to my fellow Greeks. The brilliant sand, the jasmine-filled air, the crystalline sea, the jutting mountains -- and history to be found with practically every step you take. Crete was home to the oldest Greek civilization, as well as Ariadne (who helped Theseus slay the Minotaur and then became the bride of Dionysus), and Nikos Kazantzakis (who gave us Zorba the Greek).

What we are doing more than anything, though, is talking. About anything and everything. We have spent a lot of time strolling down Memory Lane, and also taking mental journeys into the future. These future forays have been both practical (our youngest daughter is heading into her final year of high school, which means another round of college application deadlines!) and fanciful (we spent a lot of time the other night, for example, debating the pros and cons of evening weddings and the names of yet-to-be born -- and, thankfully, yet-to-be-conceived -- children).

The surest sign that my ex and I have reached a better place is a newfound willingness on both our parts to not let our pet peeves get in the way of our having a good time. Even in the happiest of marriages, there are little things that each partner does that inevitably set the other one off. These annoyances are magnified ten-fold when you are no longer together as a couple -- which is why making an effort to avoid them is one of the secrets of a good divorce.

For instance, Michael really hates it when we are together and I check my Blackberry or, god forbid, take a call on my cell. Especially when we are out eating. So I have kept to a 100 percent Blackberry ban during all meals. And he hasn't made a big deal of the couple of times I forgot to turn my phone off and it began to ring (especially since I didn't take the calls).

For my part, I am really put off by the way he openly fumes if I am even one second late for something. Even on vacation (I always thought not having to adhere to a strict timetable was one of the defining features of a vacation!). This trip has been different. When I rolled in a few minutes late to dinner the other night, he wasn't glaring at his watch. Instead, he greeted me with a warm smile.

It's been great. And especially great for the kids to have their parents not only not be on edge with each other, but actually enjoying one another's company.

Our children, after all, are the most important thing in our lives -- and in most parents' lives, for that matter. It's a fact that becomes even more inescapable here in Greece, which is an utterly child-centered society. Children here are treated as little gods, creatures of worship -- little totemic beings everyone wants to touch and nurture. They are made to feel so special, with even the tiniest accomplishment cause for exclamations of appreciation and praise.

The fact that Michael and I have these two girls (young women now, really) together is a bond that transcends all grievances we have had through the years.

And while we did not survive as a couple, at least we've survived in the joint parenting of our daughters. We have gotten to the point where there is really nothing left to work out -- and it feels completely natural to be able to sit on a beautiful beach or stroll through the lovely streets of Agios Nikolaos together.

"God," our youngest daughter said the other day, "it's hard to remember you guys are divorced."

For some reason, that made me very, very happy. It felt like I had reached the end of a long and arduous journey. And we were all the better for having made it.

I only hope that, for the sake of the over one million children a year whose parents get divorced, it's a journey more and more families take.

Read more: Marriage, Vacation, Greece, Divorce, Family, Living News

Iason Athanasiadis: Iran Releases British-Greek Reporter Held For Weeks

2009-07-05T14:07:28Z

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran said Sunday it has released a British-Greek journalist detained for two weeks during its postelection crackdown as opposition forces pressing their claims of fraud called for parliament to dismiss President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The freelance reporter for The Washington Times was accused Sunday of "illegal activities" during the protests that followed the June 12 presidential election. He was believed to be the only journalist without Iranian citizenship among the hundreds of journalists, bloggers and activists detained.

Independence Day Celebrations Around The World (PHOTOS)

2009-07-02T17:35:14Z

As Americans prepare celebrations for July 4th, it's worth taking a look around the globe to other countries who are equally as festive in commemorating their respective Independence Days. Indeed, in a post-colonialist world, most states--from Latin America to the Middle East to East Asia--have some kind of annual commemoration, usually with a national holiday included.

In Colombia, for example, Independence Day is celebrated on July 20 each year to mark the formation of the country's first representative council in 1810 against Spanish rule. Latin American heroes like Simon Bolivar led the cause and by the by the Battle of Boyaca in 1819 had secured independence for Greater Colombia. The day is celebrated each year with national festivals centered on traditional regional folk dance and music and is very oriented around Colombia's flag, similar to the United States' tradition.

Also rather similar to the United States is Pakistan, which celebrates Independence Day with a national holiday, flag-raising ceremonies and fireworks. The day falls on August 14 each year to commemorate independence from the British Raj in 1947, when what is now India and Pakistan were partitioned off as separate states very roughly based on religious-ethnic categories.

Similarly is India next door (for somewhat obvious reasons), which celebrates Independence Day with a national holiday on August 15 each year. The day is marked by flag-raising ceremonies and a central event in the capital, New Dehli, where the Prime Minister raises a flag over Red Fort and delivers a speech to tout the country's accomplishments over the years.

Elsewhere, in Finland, a similar flag-raising tradition is performed at a central location, Tähtitorninmäki ("Observatory Hill"), to kick-start the day. The state then broadcasts screenings of the movie "The Unknown Soldier", based off of Väinö Linna's novel. The Finns gained their independence from Russia on December 6, 1917. Many people mark the day by lighting two candles in their windows, a custom with historical significance as a silent protest against Russia. Overall, the Finns celebrate in a far more toned-down manner than the preceding examples.

A common mistake made by Americans when it comes to other states' Independence Day celebrations involves Mexico. Many think that Mexico celebrates the day as Cinco de Mayo, when this is actually not the case at all. Their real Independence Day begins in the evening on September 15 and goes into September 16 under the name "Grito de Dolores" to mark the day when Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a priest from Dolores, gave a famous battle cry in the Mexican War of Independence in 1810. The remembrance begins with a bell-ringing reenactment ceremony, conducted by the President who repeats Hidalgo's fateful cry, followed by parades all the next day.

In Israel, Independence Day (Yom Ha'atzmaut) is a serious commemoration to mark David Ben Gurion's declaration of an Israeli state on May 14, 1948. The day falls on the 5th of the Jewish month of Iyar and includes an official ceremony on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem with a speech, flag ceremony, march and the lighting of twelve torches. The torches represent each of the twelve Tribes of Israel and the honor of lighting them is granted to twelve individuals each year who made significant contributions to society.

Just across the Mediterranean, in Greece, celebrants enjoy a two-for-one deal, with Independence Day coinciding with a religious celebration, the Feast of the Annunciation. The Greeks celebrate their independence from the Ottoman Empire in March of 1821 with parades and festivals, both religious and secular. And in Athens, the Feast of the Annunciation is a joyous occasion for pomp and fanfare to mark the visit of the archangel Gabriel on the Greek Orthodox calendar.

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Ancient Cyprus Well Discovered With Body At The Bottom

2009-06-24T12:33:23Z

NICOSIA, Cyprus — Archaeologists have discovered a water well in Cyprus that was built as long as 10,500 years ago, and the skeleton of a young woman at the bottom of it, an official said Wednesday.

Pavlos Flourentzos, the nation's top antiquities official, said the 16-foot (5-meter) deep cylindrical shaft was found last month at a construction site in Kissonerga, a village near the Mediterranean island nation's southwestern coast.

Eleni Gage: If We Ask Nicely, Can We Have Our Marbles Back?

2009-06-22T15:45:33Z

Eleni Gage

This weekend Athens is filled with dignitaries in town for the opening of the New Acropolis Museum, a state-of-the-art glass and steel structure at the foot of the Acropolis hill. Practically anyone in the hemisphere who ever rated a bodyguard has come to bask in the sleek, climate-controlled air of the new museum, built to replace the tiny "museum on a hill" at the top of the Acropolis, over 33 years and at a cost of 130,000,000 Euros. Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey was scheduled to stop by Athens' historic Grande Bretagne hotel to freshen up before tonight's official opening. I know this because I overheard some staff members grumbling that they were asked to remove any artworks that had images of the Greek War of Independence, in case the birth of the modern Greek state in 1822, or perhaps the memory of almost 500 years of Ottoman occupation, offended the PM on behalf of his imperialist ancestors.

In the end, Erdogan couldn't make it due to illness, thus sidestepping any diplomatic or interior decorating crises for the Grande Bretagne. But the incident is typical of this weekend's events. The Greeks have been tripping all over themselves trying to be, some would say, uncharacteristically, polite, lest anyone think them rude because the elegant new museum is also a cultural and artistic reproach to the British Museum. Actually, in the mood of this opening weekend, it's more a subtle invitation for the trustees of said museum to return what have hitherto been called the Elgin Marbles, the sections of the Parthenon frieze that Lord Elgin had hacked off the Parthenon temple and shipped back to England in the early 1800s, a time when avaricious art lovers took what they liked, slipped said artifacts into their storage crates while on the Grand Tour, and carried them off to the imperial powers from whence they came. ("But he had permission from the Ottoman overlords!" the British museum trustees might point out. Which was true at the time, but does that make it right? Lots of things are legalized by occupying powers, including the deportation and extermination of unwelcome ethnic groups. But to dwell on that thought would make some people feel bad on behalf of their genocidal ancestors, and not be in the spirit of this weekend.)

The top floor of the Museum, a glass cube with views of the Parthenon temple atop the Acropolis hill on one side, Pnyx Hill on the other, and the modern city of Athens on the remaining two sides, is devoted to masterpieces that once resided on the Parthenon, including the famed "Parthenon frieze", over half of which is now in the British Museum, since Lord Elgin, having lost his fortune and his wife, and acquired the sort of 19th century rich man's infection that led to the removal of his nose (no offense meant to any descendants of Lord Elgin, or, of course, British PM Gordon Brown), sold his finds to the Museum. The frieze is a visual narrative which tells the story of the Birth of Athena (and, in other sections, the battle between Athena and Poseidon for spiritual control of the city -- not to offend any followers of Poseidon who may be hurt by the memory of their loss). For the first time since Elgin's adventure, an attempt is being made to show it in its entirety, with casts of the British Museum segments interspersed with originals that Elgin allowed to remain on the Parthenon.

Joan Paulson

The archaeologists leading journalists on a press preview tour of the gallery last night pointed out that the copies in the reunited frieze were gifts from the British Museum trustees back in 1845, when the new Greek government first asked for the return of the marbles. The trustees refused, arguing that the marbles were safer in Britain (until the birth of the new state, the Turks had been using the Parthenon to store gunpowder, after all, and if Prime Minister Erdogan is reading this in between tending to urgent business, my apologies for being so crass as to mention it). After that argument went up in smoke, the trustees argued that the British Museum could preserve the marbles better than Greek officials (also true at the time, or at least until 1937 and 1938 when the British Museum tried to reverse the effects of pollution from burning coal by treating the statues with bleach, wire brushes, and chisels). As the last century drew to a close, the only argument for keeping the marbles (besides the always effective "finders, keepers; losers, weepers") was that the Greeks had no suitable place to display them.

The New Acropolis Museum is the eloquent answer to that; the marbles would be shown as part of the narrative their creators intended, in view of the temple they once graced. And the entire museum is site-specific; all of the over 4,000 findings come from the Acropolis hill. In this way, the entire museum is a request for the marbles. But the issue is not raised on site, there is no editorializing in the museum plaques, no petitions guests are asked to sign, no snarky comments by the guides ("the original is...you guessed it! In the British Museum!"). New Acropolis Museum officials seem to have been following a policy of speaking softly and carrying a big museum, as Museum Director Dimitrios Pandermalis told Newseek, "We are presenting in a visual way, what was, to this point, a verbal discussion."

At least until last night, when the Minister of Culture, Antonis C. Samaras, in a speech to reporters said, "We cannot dedicate this magnificent new museum with full hearts. We cannot illuminate fully the artistic achievement created in fifth century Athens because almost half of the sculptures from the Parthenon were taken from here 207 years ago to reside in enforced exile 4,000 kilometers away."

At which point an American reporter behind me muttered, "Holy Shit." The Elginphant in the room had finally been mentioned.

Even so, the minister of culture made the point that this wasn't a personal or national issue, but an artistic and moral one, insisting that, "The abduction of these sculptures is not only an injustice to us Greeks but to everyone in the world, the English included, because they were made to be seen in sequence and in total, something that cannot happen as long as half of them are held hostage in the British Museum."

A strong point, and also a rebuttal to the argument that the return of the marbles would unleash a torrent of requests from once impoverished or occupied countries who want their treasures back; the Parthenon marbles, to use the politically correct term, are a special case, a visual narrative from a particular site that now has the means to display the story where it was created.

Eleni Gage

Samaras quoted the former Met director, Philippe de Montebello, who, when he returned eight dubiously acquired works to Italy, including the Euphronios vase, in exchange for a continuous stream of treasures the Italian government would loan to the Met, said, "The word is changing and you have to play by the rules. It now appears that the piece came to us in a completely improper way...as the representative of an honorable institution, I have to say, no, this is not right."

At which point the reporter from Palm Beach Society, offering the American perspective, muttered to a colleague, "It would just be such good P.R. for the British if they gave them back!" But the best the British government has done so far is to offer to loan the marbles to the New Acropolis Museum, in exchange for the Greek government's acknowledging that the British Museum trustees own the works. (Apparently, in the post-imperialist age, words are the new hatchets.) It was an offer the Greeks could only refuse.

I realize this blog, with its judgmental tone and quaint belief in right and wrong, is not in the polite spirit of this weekend's events, and I'm a little concerned I might have to give my commemorative New Acropolis Museum bookmark back. But I can't go along with the "it's the spirit of the times, it's not personal," party line, because I saw just how personal the return of the marbles could be as I researched articles about the New Acropolis Museum last year. Their return would be a feather in the cap of the new minister of culture, Antonis Samaras and a huge coup for Bernard Tschumi, the museum's architect. (When I interviewed him in New York, he said that one of his challenges in designing the site was that "the building had to be good enough to convince the world, and especially the Brits, that the Elgin marbles should come back.")

But there is one man whom seeing the Parthenon Frieze together would thrill more than anyone else. When the museum's Director, Pandermalis, showed me around the museum-in-progress last summer, the eightysomething professor practically danced around the freestanding archaic statues that had been wall-mounted on the old site. "I've been an archaeologist for 68 years, and I've never seen the back of this woman's hair," he gushed. When I told him that Mr. Tschumi is confident that the marbles will be returned eventually, he replied, "So do I. But will I live to see it? Or will it be left to your generation?"

At the risk of being forward, the fulfillment of one scholar's lifelong dream seems to me to be as strong a reason to return the marbles as righting old wrongs and restoring ancient artworks to their entire, original state. So I urge the British Museum trustees to give the marbles back and let Mr. Pandermalis see his frieze reunited. It would be rude not to.