Russia and Greece signed a deal on Wednesday to start on a joint venture that would supervise structure of the provincial leg of the South Stream gas pipeline. The two countries have equivalent stakes in the venture. The South Stream could be commissioned by 2015. The South Stream pipelines will strait Russian gas from the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk to Western Europe, bypassing Ukraine. Russia has so far signed state accords with Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and Austria on the South Stream project.
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The Greek Ministry of Culture and Tourism has been keen to upgrade Greece’s image as a tourist destination and is keen to woo Asian tourists in the current economic climate. Greece, the southeastern European country with world’s 10th longest coast line and rich historical and cultural heritage welcomed 16 million tourists last year, of which 50,000 came from China. Greece wants to grow in China heavily. Since Chinese people have a strong interest in culture, they want to explore the origin of Olympic civilization in person. Chinese people prefer not to come in summer, they choose other seasons. The Greek Ministry of Culture and Tourism has been keen to upgrade Greece’s image as a tourist destination and is keen to woo Asian tourists in the current economic climate.
Greece has asked Turkey to explain the attendance of a Turkish naval explore ship in the northern Aegean Sea. Cesme hydrographic and oceanographic vessel is exterior Greek waters, between Thrace and the island of Samothraki. The ship is within Greece’s continental shelf, the stretch of the oceanic where Athens claims the rights for exploration and exploitation of possible mineral and fossil fuel deposits. A Greek naval vessel is monitoring the Cesme, which issued signals that it is responsibility marine research.
A flash of lightning illuminates the atmosphere on top of the Parthenon throughout a heavy thunderstorm in Athens early on yesterday. The intense rain led to the fire service receiving too many calls from people in the city’s northern environs to aid pump water out of basements. The lightning also caused streetlights and traffic lights to vacate in some sections of the Athens.
Greek public services will lock down today and the majority transportation will be disrupted by a latest general strike against anticipated retirement fund and manual labor reforms. The debt-ridden country’s two main private and public sector unions resentfully are against draft legislation that will raise retirement ages and formulate it cheaper for companies to fire employees. Parliament will launch discussing the planned reforms today. Regardless of resistance from quite a few of its own lawmakers, government is predictable to succeed the final vote. Greece is wedged in a major debt and shortfall crisis. It only avoided insolvency last month after receiving the first payment of a $136 billion emergency loan package from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. In return, Athens approved hurting severity actions, cutting pensions and salaries and raising purchaser taxes. Today’s strike will leave state hospitals with only emergency staff. Schools, tax offices, and municipal offices will be close. There will be no news broadcasts and no newspapers will be in print tomorrow as the main journalists’ union has united the general strike.
About two dozen striking Greeks were jamming a main way in front of parliament, forcing the driver to contrive inelegantly and divest visitors of their drive. It’s scenes such as these road closures, strikes shutting down archaeological sites, the blockading of the main port of Piraeus turning away thousands of cruise passengers that have shocked people in Greece’s fundamental tourism industry as the country struggles to appear from a ferocious debt crisis that brought it to the edge of bankruptcy. “It’s like we’re poking out our own eyes. These things get around, they create a bad image,” said Anna Anifanti, director of the Hellenic Association of Travel and Tourist Agencies. Greek workers have responded to government forced severity measures that cut salaries and pensions with repetitive strikes and sometimes aggressive demonstrations. With the summer season scarcely under way, images of glowing buildings and riots in Athens where three people died fascinated in a burning bank in May took an early payment, leading to the cancellation of about 20,000 overnight hotel stays in the capital and close by resorts.
Tourism industry experts says in Greece, they presently are seeing a drop of about 10 % to 12 % in bookings compared to 2009, which was itself an unfortunate year. With tourism accounting for about 15.5 % of GDP, Greece can unwell pay for to see a protracted recession in an industry that provides about one in every five jobs. With its mix of luminous beaches, temperate weather and rich antiquities, Greece is one of Europe’s top five summer public holiday destinations along with Spain, Italy, France and Turkey. The Greek tourism industry’s share of GDP is comparable to Spain’s 15.3 % and Portugal’s 14.4 %, but higher than those of Italy’s 9.3 % or France’s 9.7 %.
Greece’s two major sources of visitors are Germany and Britain, with about 2.3 million Germans and 2.1 million Britons visiting the country last year and it is these countries that the industry is most worried about. Britons have been anguishing their own depression, while Germans have been postponing by the unenthusiastic advertising surrounding Greece’s debt crisis. Greece also has faced fierce rivalry for the past decade from cheaper sun-and-sea destinations such as adjacent Turkey. The Mediterranean overall, including Southern Europe, North Africa and Turkey, is a extremely competitive area with about 20 destinations vying to attract visitors.
Iraklis one of Greece’s oldest soccer clubs will participate in the Greece Super League next season after a Hellenic Football Federation appeals panel ruled by two votes to one that the Thessaloniki club should not be relegated for outstanding debts. Iraklis, had been told last month that it could not take part in the Super League because of its unpaid debts, which meant it could not meet the economic promises required by EPO. Nonetheless, this has sparked a campaign by the club and its fans, concerning gigantic public protests in Athens and Thessaloniki, to convince the federation to turn over the conclusion. In its brief statement, EPO said that it acknowledged Iraklis’s request but that it would fine the club 150,000 Euros. “Nobody can defeat Iraklis fans,” the club said. “Nobody can play games with the history and standing of our club.” Iraklis now has to restructure its squad, which was decimated over the summer because of qualms concerning the team’s prospect.
Kyparissia is a very old town on the Western Pelopennese coast of Greece. It is a place of immense attraction and loveliness, subjugated by the Castle of Kyparissia, or Arkadia, as the town was once known. The castle, which was originally built as a defense in opposition to prowling pirates, looks down on the Ioanian Sea. It is floodlit at night rank arrogantly on sentinel above the town. The town is divided into two parts, the higher ground being Ano Poli and the lower Kato Poli. The conserved settlement of Ano Poli is rich with long-established stone houses, Byzantine churches and narrow smooth streets. Below is Kato Poli, the modern part of the gorgeous town which nestles in opposition to the sea and the older port. The long dirty beach of Ai Laoudis provides a welcome interval from the heat. Kyparissia and its shoreline is a well protected secret which is slowly being discovered by tourists, mainly Greek ones.
The strike of the employees in the Greek railways OSE continues on Thursday. They are protesting against the government’s plans to propose the corporation for privatization. For a third day in a row the OSE workers are striking for 2 hours three times a day. The strike causes troubles not only in the railway transportation, but also in the out-of-city railways and subway. The condition at the port of Piraeus is steadily getting back to usual. On Wednesday five ships and hundreds of tourists were blocked by the communist party-affiliated trade union PAME, which was protesting against the cabinet’s financial actions.