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Cyprus' deputy government spokesman says the Cabinet has ratified a preliminary agreement with U.S. firm Noble Energy and its Israeli partners Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration on their participation in the development of a planned natural gas processing facility. Victoras Papadopoulos didn't disclose Wednesday details of the deal. Cyprus is looking to have the estimated 10 billion euro ($13.41 billion) facility up by 2020 to process offshore gas reserves for domestic use and export. The bailed-out country hopes the project will boost its struggling economy. Noble, Delek and its subsidiary Avner are partners in a gas field off Cyprus'...

The United States said on Saturday it would keep F-16 fighters and Patriot missiles in Jordan at Amman's request, and Russia bristled at the possibility they could be used to enforce a no-fly zone inside Syria. Washington, which has long called for President Bashar al-Assad to step down, pledged military support to Syrian rebels this week, citing what it said was the Syrian military's use of chemical weapons - an allegation Damascus has denied. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has approved a Jordanian request for American F-16s and Patriot missiles to remain in the Western-backed kingdom after a joint military exercise...

Zack Snyder's been a busy man - not only is he currently promoting his new Superman movie Man Of Steel but on the day of the premiere he also released a teaser trailer for his next comic book movie - 300. The director took to the blue carpet in London's Leicester Square on Wednesday night alongside Henry Cavill. But while the hype builds over the Henry Cavill film, he's already looking to the next as he gears up for the 2014 release of follow up movie 300: Rise Of An Empire, which he returned to albeit as a producer and...

Japan’s Nikkei index fell 6.35% overnight after months of gains. The Yen surged past 95 per dollar rising to the strongest in two months, after government data showed Japanese investors were net sellers of overseas bonds. The Japanese sovereign curve has risen 30 basis points since May 2nd. Across the China Sea, the Shanghai Composite Index dropped 2.8 percent to a six-month low today as trading resumed after a three-day holiday. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index of mainland companies listed in Hong Kong dropped 2.7 percent, extending declines from this year’s peak on Feb. 1 to more than 20...

German outrage over a U.S. Internet spying program has broken out ahead of a visit by Barack Obama, with ministers demanding the president provide a full explanation when he lands in Berlin next week and one official likening the tactics to those of the East German Stasi. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman has said she will raise the issue with Obama in talks next Wednesday, potentially casting a cloud over a visit that was designed to celebrate U.S.-German ties on the 50th anniversary John F. Kennedy's famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech... In a guest editorial for Spiegel Online on...

The Bank of Japan decided to hold back on its unprecedented monetary stimulus (at least on hold). Soveregin yields around the world rose on the news. Japan and the US yields only rose 4 basis points, but Greece 10 year yields spiked 86 basis points. The global fear of retracting Fed support is palpable. Equity markets fell around most of the world as well. The USD/JPY Yen exchange rate? Since May 2nd, the USD/JPY rate rose after May 2nd, but has been declining as of late. And Fannie Mae 30 year 3.0% duration (risk) continue to rise since May 2nd....

The potential for social unrest in European Union countries is higher than anywhere else in the world and the already yawning gaps between rich and poor, a major trigger, are likely to widen globally, the International Labour Organisation said on Monday. Those most vulnerable, the report said, were Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. However the risk of social unrest had declined in Belgium, Germany, Finland, Slovakia and Sweden since 2010. Overall, the risk of unrest in the EU "is likely to be due to the policy responses to the ongoing sovereign debt crisis and their impact...

Czech archaeologists excavate Ancient Greek town flattened by Bohemian Celts [20-09-2005] By Pavla Horakova Listen 16kb/s ~ 32kb/s For twelve years, Czech archaeologists have been helping their Bulgarian colleagues in the excavations of an Ancient Greek market town in central Bulgaria. The twelve years of work has yielded valuable results, including a hoard of coins, and discovered a surprising connection between the ancient town and the Czech Lands. PistirosThe river port of Pistiros was founded in the 5th century BC by a local Thracian ruler. From the excavations we know that wine from Greece was imported to the town in...

A new doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, shows that, in contrast to traditional scholarly claims, Dionysian cultic activities may very well have occurred in archaic Rome in the decades around 500 BC. A strong scholarly tradition rooted in the 19th century denies the presence of Dionysian ecstatic rites, cults, and satyr plays in Roman society. Although people in nearby societies evidently engaged in such behaviour around the same time in history, the Romans simply did not, according to early scholars. British scholars often stressed how much their people had in common with the Romans, not least as...

LONDON. A possible solution to the Parthenon Marbles dispute between the British Museum and the Greek government has come from a most unlikely source — a gathering in Greenland. Meeting in the depths of the Arctic winter, museum professionals and representatives of indigenous peoples recently assembled in the tiny capital of Nuuk (formerly Godthab) to discuss global strategies on repatriation of cultural heritage. The Greeks had originally decided to send Minister of Culture Georgios Voulgarakis, but when his officials examined the flight schedule, they realised that he would have to leave Athens for a whole week, missing too much government...

Thousands of demonstrators massed on streets surrounding Istanbul's central Taksim Square, long a venue for political unrest, while protests erupted in the capital Ankara and the Aegean coastal city of Izmir. Broken glass and rocks were strewn across a main shopping street near Taksim. Primary school children ran crying from the clouds of tear gas while tourists caught by surprise scurried to get back to luxury hotels lining the square. The unrest reflects growing disquiet at the authoritarianism of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP). Riot police clashed with tens of thousands of May...

ISTANBUL — Police officers attacked a group of peaceful demonstrators on Friday in Istanbul’s Taksim Square with water cannons and tear gas, sending scores of people, protesters and tourists alike, scurrying into shops and luxury hotels and turning the center of this city into a battle zone at the height of tourist season.

Police in Corfu have arrested an illegal Afghan immigrant after he robbed a 20-year-old student and callously threw her over an eight-meter coastal wall. Police were surprised to find the Afghan had tattoos of swastikas and other Nazi symbols on his body. Pantelis Haidos, the father of the young history student that was viciously attacked

During the past 2,500 years, the Parthenon—the apotheosis of ancient Greek architecture—has been rocked by earthquakes, set on fire, shattered by exploding gunpowder, looted for its stunning sculptures and defaced by misguided preservation efforts. Amazingly, the ancient Athenians built the Parthenon in just eight or nine years. Repairing it is taking a bit longer.

Anagnostis Agelarakis, Greek professor and Chair of Anthropology at Adelphi University in Long Island, New York, transported some of the remains of a wounded ancient Greek warrior from Greece to Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Medical Center, with the Greek Archeological Service’s permission... LIG radiologist Helise Coopersmith performed an X-ray on a bone fragment from the soldier, whose remains date back to more than 2,500 years. In the left ulna (a major bone in the forearm) a bronze arrowhead is embedded. It was deduced that the shaft of the arrow and part of one of its three lobes had been removed...

The gilded lifestyle of MEPs has been compared to the uncontrolled excesses of ancient Rome after research showed their perks have not been dented despite biting austerity measures. From Italian MEPs who enjoy free haircuts to Maltese ones who get 52 free gallons of petrol a month, the perks—and expenses—continue unabated for the representatives of European Union nations. MEPs from the 27 EU nations are paid salaries of £137 million ($207 million) a year, according to research by German pricing watchdog Preisvergleich.de, and some earn 740 percent more than the average citizen. …

The media blame Golden Dawn for being racist, but they don't say that the situation in Greece is beyond tolerability. 90% of illegal immigrants to Europe go through Greece, the gateway to our continent. One million immigrants are reported to be in Greece, half of whom illegal. Ordinary, non-racist Greeks, whose life have become unbearable due to the very high level of immigrants' crime wich makes them scared of going out at night, vote for Golden Dawn because the party is the only one that tackles the problem and helps. A Golden Dawn voter is the florist in the...

TEL AVIV, Israel, May 17 (UPI) -- Nobel Energy of Houston, which discovered Israel's big natural gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean, is pressing the government to decide on an energy export policy as the prospect of an undersea pipeline to Turkey gains credibility. Israel's deep-water Tamar field, found in 2009 and containing an estimated 9 trillion-10 trillion cubic feet of gas, began production March 31. But Nobel and Israeli partner Delek Energy, the team that discovered Tamar and other fields off Israel, is reluctant to develop the much bigger Leviathan field, found in 2010, until it the government makes...

Word is that both Israel and Turkey are seriously entertaining the notion of constructing an undersea pipeline to deliver Israeli natural gas to Turkey and, perhaps, hence to Europe. The Turks reportedly have expressed willingness to foot part of the estimated $2 billion bill. Such pipelines exist elsewhere in the world, most notably from Russia and from Norway. It is becoming evident that a veiled agenda underpinned the recent Turkish willingness to consider a rapprochement with Israel. Turkey, it appears, hankers after Israeli gas. The perceived Turkish softening was fueled by Israel’s offshore gas discoveries, a fact which nevertheless did...

A new investigation released by Wall Street Daily just revealed a disturbing pattern of price manipulation in the energy markets. The six-month investigation, conducted by renowned energy analyst, Karim Rahemtulla, was triggered by the incredible disparity in gas prices between the United States and Europe. The price of natural gas in the United States is presently about $4/mcf. Yet the price in Europe is upwards of $15/mcf. “Such mispricing simply cannot occur in an efficient market,” says Rahemtulla. For the global economy to function properly, the energy markets must be priced efficiently. It can be no other way. Any malfeasance...

The European Union is to ban olive oil jugs and dipping bowls from restaurant tables in a move described by one of Britain’s top cooks as authoritarian and damaging to artisan food makers. The small glass jugs filled with green- or gold-colored extra virgin olive oil are familiar and traditional for restaurant goers across Europe, but they will be banned from 1 January 2014 after a decision taken in an obscure Brussels committee earlier this week. From next year, olive oil “presented at a restaurant table” must be in prepackaged factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labeling in...

Turkey is closer to coming to an agreement over joint energy projects with Israel, according to a report on Friday in the Turkish daily Today’s Zaman. The recent natural gas discoveries off Israel’s coast led to a discussion over how to best transfer the gas to Europe. The paper quotes top Turkish officials as stating they are moving to be in favor of “extensive cooperation” with Israel and Cyprus. Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Energy Minister Taner Yildiz were said to have discussed the issue on Friday at an energy conference in Istanbul. Gul said at the conference that Turkey...

President Hollande of France recently got a whiff of what is coming from an open letter addressed to him by a 20-year old student named Clara G. “This will probably shock you, but it is mainly for fiscal reasons,… simply because I do not feel like working all my life to pay taxes, a large part of which will only service the 1.9 trillion Euros of debt that your generation has kindly left us. If these borrowings had at least been invested to prepare the future of the country, if I was getting a small benefit from them, it would...

On Sunday, an estimated 150,000 people marched in Paris and gathered in the Place de la Bastille to listen to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the Left Front. Afterwards , the Socialist Party officials were prompt to call the event highly divisive for the left. Accusations of populism and gauchisme (unrealistic policies) also rapidly surfaced from Solférino, the Socialist headquarters. To paraphrase Bertolt Brecht: would it not be easier for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?

Even as President Obama is following in Eurosocialist footsteps, the 14-year utopian experiment on a single currency is collapsing. The architect of the euro just ran up the white flag on the biggest policy mistakes in history. Former German Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine called his own brainchild a "catastrophe". "The economic situation is worsening from month to month," he wrote on his Left party blog. "unemployment has reached a level that puts democratic structures ever more in doubt." "Catastrophe" is the right word. Today Greece is suffering more than 50% unemployment. That's worse than the Great Depression in the US....

Only by combining their forces will Israel and Cyprus be able to make a significant dent in the global natural gas economy, the Cypriot energy minister stressed on Tuesday. “We feel that through a close collaboration with Israel we will be able to be a major player in the world energy market, something that for each country individually might be too hard to achieve,” said Energy, Commerce, Industry and Tourism Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis. Lakkotrypis was addressing a group of Israeli and Cypriot business leaders and government officials at a seminar entitled “Cyprus: An International and Professional Center,” held in Tel...

Amid growing calls from Tory MPs for David Cameron to respond to the Ukip threat by bringing forward legislation on an EU referendum, Farage warned that his party would not go away even if No 10 "starts singing the same song". William Hague, who famously suffered a major defeat in the 2001 election after tacking to the right, called for a cautious response to Ukip as he warned of the dangers of "quick fixes". Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, said many Ukip voters were "frustrated Conservatives". As the Tories work out their response to Ukip, which won nearly a quarter...

Even if Germany had to write off the loans it extended to Southern European countries as part of the eurozone’s emergency rescue measures, the economic advantages of its membership would still be overwhelming, according to a recent study by the Bertelsmann Stiftung. … “Without the euro, growth of the real gross domestic product [GDP] in Germany would be lower by about 0.5 percentage points per year,” the study says, warning that without that euro, Europe “would fall apart politically” and become “a losing player in international competition.” And projections for the future are looking bright, the study adds. “Adding up...

The World Gold Council has advised Italy to deploy its 2,000 tonnes of gold to break free of EMU austerity dictates. By using the reserves – the world's fourth largest – to collateralise the first chunk of any losses for bondholders, Italy could raise €400bn or so on the capital markets and determine its own future for a while. Italy did this in 1974 when it borrowed $2bn from the Bundesbank, using gold as collateral. Portugal did the same thing to borrow $1bn from the BIS in the 1975-1977, and India used its gold to borrow from Japan in 1991....

Nigel Farage, well known for his anti-centralized government diatribes in which he has repeatedly targeted European leadership and finance ministers for the destruction of the Eurozone economy, warns yet again that the consequences for the actions of elite politicians and bankers will soon pour into the streets. You won’t see straight forward candidness like this from mainstream politicians, because most are terrified of speaking the truth and accepting blame. They know it’s coming and the fallout won’t be limited to just Europe. My fear is that, in the end, what will break up the Euro isn’t the economics of it....

Members of Greek extremist political party Golden Dawn try to open a 'Greeks only' soup kitchen in Athens, as anti-immigrant feeling bubbles against a backdrop of increasing poverty. Mayor Giorgos Kaminis had banned such events in the city's central square and vowed not to allow the "soup kitchen of hate" to take place

The Greek government began its first mass-firing of public-sector workers in more than 100 years this week, part of an effort to lay off 180,000 by 2015 under Europe-imposed austerity. Pushed by its European creditors amid its crippling economic crisis, Greece began this week to do something it hasn't done in more than 100 years: fire public-sector workers en masse. Following weeks of tough negotiations with its lenders – the "troika" of the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and the European Central Bank – the Greek government started laying off public-sector workers in an effort to implement the austerity...

Damascus (AsiaNews) - There is no sign that two Orthodox bishops kidnapped four days ago near Aleppo have been released, this despite numerous reports about their liberation. "Nothing; there is nothing; only unreliable reports," a source, anonymous for security reasons, told AsiaNews. "We can talk about their release only when the two bishops are in front of us and can talk to us." Mgr Yohanna Ibrahim, bishop of the Syriac Orthodox Diocese of Aleppo, and Mgr Boulos Yaziji, archbishop of the Greek Orthodox diocese of the same city, were abducted on Monday in Kafr Dael, 10 km from Aleppo, on...

BEIRUT, Lebanon, April 24 (UPI) -- Syria's top rebel commander is reportedly seeking Western support for taking over oil fields held by Islamist factions but the real conflict over Syria's energy resources is likely to be vast natural gas fields under the eastern Mediterranean. Whatever is under the seabed in Syrian waters remains undiscovered but in the wake of major strikes by Israel and Cyprus, and Lebanon supposedly sitting on similar prizes, it's a pretty good bet Syria has significant gas holdings. There seems little doubt that Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime will eventually be displaced as rebel forces, disunited...

The disappearance of the Mycenaens is a Mediterranean mystery. Leading explanations include warfare with invaders or uprising by lower classes. Some scientists also think one of the country's frequent earthquakes could have contributed to the culture's collapse. At the ruins of Tiryns, a fortified palace, geologists hope to find evidence to confirm whether an earthquake was a likely culprit. Tiryns was one of the great Mycenaean cities. Atop a limestone hill, the city-state's king built a palace with walls so thick they were called Cyclopean, because only the one-eyed monster could have carried the massive limestone blocks. The walls were...

Eleven people have been arrested following a joint investigation by the police and Financial Crimes Squad (SDOE) that revealed a clinic in Thessaloniki was paying foreign women 1,000 euros each for their ovaries, which it then sold to patients in Greece and abroad who were seeking assisted pregnancies. The head of the Athens security police, Dimitris Georgatzis, said the clinic, which had a branch in Athens, had a number of clients from Northern Europe. A similar case was uncovered in 2010, when a clinic in northern Athens was accused of using ovaries from Bulgarian and Romanian women. The clinics in...

Greece is planning to pursue a long-dormant claim for reparations from Germany over World War Two, a further strain on relations with Berlin, which foots most of the bill for its 240-billion euro rescue. The Finance Ministry has compiled a report that takes stock of all relating available documents spanning more than six decades, Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos told parliament on Wednesday. It will be submitted to Greece's legal advisers and then Athens will decide how to officially press its claim, he said.

Something is dead wrong with societies like Obama's America and Greece of today. I'm no big fan of this Swedish-Greek reporter, but Pascalidou sometimes is worth listening to (see clip below). Perhaps, the rest of the World one day will learn it can't live off productive nations like Germany and the Scandinavian countries. We can't finance your Obama and suchlike clowns forever. You too know tools like science, democracy and free enterprise. You too are grown up individuals and you too ought to know how to master your own house. We will aid America, a nation that is one of...

House prices in Spain dropped 9.7% YoY in Q4 2012. That is the biggest drop in house prices on record. Welcome back to 2004 levels. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in Greece climbed to 27.2%. There is news from Cyprus as well. Less than a month after Cyprus bailout deal was agreed, the bailout bill has risen to €23bn – larger than the size of the Cypriot economy. But here is the strange part. Germany is helping the bailout of Cyprus, but Cypriots are five times wealthier than Germans before the crisis. The Germans are bailing out Cypriots who are wealthier...

Greek newspaper To Vima claims a secret report details millions of euros owed to Athens by Germany for World War Two reparations and unpaid loans. The story has been picked up by the online edition of German newspaper Der Spiegel, who quote Greek organisations calculating the value of loans from Athens to Berlin taken by the Nazis between 1942 and 1944 at 54 billion euros. Der Spiegel also puts the figure owed to Greece for reconstruction after the Second World War at 108 billion euros. Though the details of the report are being kept under wraps by the Greek Finance...

Eurozone Faces New Challenge As Portugal Blocks Cuts The eurozone crisis threatens to flare up again this week after Portugal's constitutional court blocked the country's planned austerity programme. By Philip Aldrick 07 Apr 2013 The single currency bloc has already been destabilised by Cyprus and now faces fresh uncertainty if Lisbon cannot find new savings to meet the conditions of its €78bn (£66bn) bail-out. Pedro Passos Coelho, Portugal’s prime minister, said last night that the rejection posed “serious obstacles and risks” to Portugal’s progress in meeting its bail-out commitments, but that it would “do everything to avoid a second rescue”....

The archaeological deposits of the cave date back to between about 39,000 and 100,000 years ago to the Middle Paleolithic period. During the height of the ice age, the area still possessed a mild climate and supported a wide range of wildlife, including deer, wild boar, rabbits, elephants, weasels, foxes, wolves, leopards, bears, falcons, toads, vipers and tortoises. In the cave, the researchers found tools such as scrapers made of flint, quartz and seashells. The stone tools were all shaped, or knapped, in a way typical of Neanderthal artifacts. Now, the scientists reveal they discovered 14 specimens of child and...

President Vladimir Putin said Russia had confidence in the euro and had made the right decision to keep much of its reserves in the European currency. "I would like to say it outright: yes, we trust the euro," Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript of an interview with German public broadcaster ARD before a trip to Germany and the Netherlands. Putin said Moscow and the European Union have disagreements, but that the leading euro zone countries were moving in the right direction in handling the current crisis. "That gives us confidence that we have made the right move to...

The global financial convulsion of 2007-2008 was followed by the resounding announcement of new priorities: international finance was to be better regulated and there was to be no mercy in the fight against tax havens. In short, we were to put an end to the black holes in a system that was wide open to abuse—at least if the very virtuous conclusions of the G20 held in London were to be believed. … Revelations of individual cases, no matter how fascinating they are, should not be allowed to distract attention from the underlying problem: tax havens are a threat to...

Italian archaeologists have uncovered Pluto's Gate, the so-called "gate to hell," in southwestern Turkey. In Greco-Roman mythology the cave was considered the portal to the underworld. It was found in the ancient ruins of Hierapolis, now called Pamukkale, and was described by Cicero and the Greek geographer Strabo in their writings. According to Strabo, the opening was filled with deadly vapors. "This space is full of vapor so misty and dense that one can scarcely see the ground. Any animal that passes inside meets instant death," Strabo wrote. "I threw in sparrows and they immediately breathed their last and fell...

“Welcome to reality,” is pretty much the greeting going out to attendees of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) in Thessaloniki, Greece. In one hotel, more than 50 undercover and uniformed police, and units of soldiers are patrolling the neighborhood streets. In the new European era, a Jew can’t be a Jew outside of the synagogue, without glancing over his shoulder. But it wasn’t like this for Greek Jews until about two years ago. The community of Thessaloniki, one of the oldest and most opulent in the history of European Jewry, lived here quietly. It had been this way from the...

Divers returning to the site of an ancient wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera have found artefacts scattered over a wide area of the steep, rocky sea floor. These include intact pottery, the ship's anchor and some puzzling bronze objects. The team believes that hundreds more items could be buried in the sediment nearby. The Antikythera wreck, which dates from the first century BC, yielded a glittering haul when sponge divers discovered it at the beginning of the 20th century. Among jewellery, weapons and statues were the remains of a mysterious clockwork device, dubbed the Antikythera mechanism. Bar a...

Under conditions expected to be announced on Saturday, depositors in Bank of Cyprus will get shares in the bank worth 37.5 percent of their deposits over 100,000 euros, the source told Reuters, while the rest of their deposits may never be paid back. The toughening of the terms will send a clear signal that the bailout means the end of Cyprus as a hub for offshore finance and could accelerate economic decline on the island and bring steeper job losses. Officials had previously spoken of a loss to big depositors of 30 to 40 percent.

Like in the movie “Jaws,” investors were breathing a sigh of relief over the $13 billion bailout of Cyprus: It’s safe to go back in the water. But as Roy Scheider famously said in “Jaws,” “You’re going to need a bigger boat.” All is not well in Cyprus despite the promised bailout. According to Reuters, depositors in Bank of Cyprus will get shares in the bank worth 37.5 percent of their deposits over 100,000 euros while the rest of their deposits may never be paid back. Officials had previously spoken of a loss to big depositors of 30 to 40...

Good riddance to deposit ‘insurance’ By Detlev Schlichter, on 28 March 13 Once the public furor and shrill media coverage have died down it will become clear that events in Cyprus did not mark the death of democracy or the end of the euro but potentially the beginning of the end of deposit ‘insurance’. If so, then three cheers to that. It may herald a return to honesty, transparency and responsibility in banking.Let us start by looking at some of the facts of deposit banking: When you deposit money in a bank you forfeit ownership of money and gain ownership...