They are not on stage at the moment. But they are still watching closely and sometimes intervening. How do they see the unformed landscape now that both parties are looking for new leadership and a new compass?
It’s a great day for Kevi, a young waiter at a cafe that’s popular among the diplomats working at the foreign embassies flanking Skenderbeu Street in downtown Tirana.
When a wildfire tore down a hillside towards Athens last month, its southernmost flank halted in a treeless area burned by fire two years before. A few miles west, however, the blaze found fresh fuel: woods and scrub that offered a path towards the city’s suburbs.
After the intense heat and drought of summer, the threat of a repeat of the devastating floods that swept through Greece’s central breadbasket last September is making farmers like Achilleas Gerotolios consider giving it all up.
It is widely believed that northern Greece is rich in water resources, but the reality is quite different. A steady decline in water levels has been recorded across all large and small lakes in the region.
After a series of record-breaking years, the island is seeing a decline in arrivals. This drop is often attributed to the pressures of rapid development. However, visitor satisfaction remains high.
Unauthorized migration to European Union countries dropped significantly overall in the first eight months of this year, even as political rhetoric and violence against migrants increased and far-right parties espousing anti-immigration policies made gains at the polls.
Public opinion is subject to change. We live in a time of profound political, social, economic and sociocultural upheaval, each affecting how people think and feel to varying degrees. The image of Germany in Greece is no exception. Greek perceptions and attitudes towards Germany are changing.
Like ghosts from the past, sunken villages at the bottom of water reservoirs are not meant to be seen. But the ruins of Kallio in the mountains of central Greece are becoming very much visible – and they have a warning to deliver.
To an unsuspecting passer-by, almost nothing would have suggested that just a week ago, the city of Volos in central Greece had resembled a dystopia, with thousands of dead fish floating in the waters of the Pagasetic Gulf.
Only 0.1% of Greek territorial waters are currently adequately protected from overfishing and other environmentally damaging activities, according to a report by the international organization Pristine Seas, delivered last month to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Rastislav Pucovski held a fistful of soy beans shriveled to the size of peppercorns on his farmland in northern Serbia where the soil, dried to dust by drought, swirled in the wind.
As temperatures soar and tourist arrivals swell, Greece is under pressure to reimagine a tourism model that climate change is making increasingly untenable.
Sun seekers are turning to package holidays in Europe as soaring hotel and flight prices revive demand for the all-inclusive deals that had fallen from favour, bolstering the balance sheets of some travel companies.
One could paraphrase Winston Churchill to say that Greeks “produce more history than they can consume,” and stick to that cliche.
At first, the proponents of marriage equality seemed vindicated. Until the European elections came along and ruling party officials – even some who had voted for the controversial law – said that the party had “lost its soul.”
“This is the worst year we’ve seen in three decades. There are no grapes. We are in the second year of drought, and the plants cannot survive; the vines have burnt leaves. We have already requested assessors from ELGA [the Hellenic Organization of Agricultural Insurance] to come and start the compensation process,” says Matthaios Dimopoulos, CEO of Santo Wines, describing the dire situation in the vineyards of Santorini, where the renowned Assyrtiko is produced, just weeks before the harvest begins on the island.
On the evening of July 7, a deep sigh of relief from Athens accompanied the lively celebrations on the streets of France
In mid-June a fire started on Milos. The island’s sole firefighter headed straight to the location in an antiquated fire truck, calling the head of the volunteer rescue team on the way.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar Assad have recently signaled that they are interested in restoring diplomatic ties that have been ruptured for more than a decade.
Dubbed by Newsweek “Greece’s Summer of Hell,” the tourist season is off to a precarious start. At least 10 tourists have gone missing or been found dead over the past weeks in Greece.
As temperatures and humidity soar outside, what’s happening inside the human body can become a life-or-death battle decided by just a few degrees.
[nx_login_form]x
