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Having spent weeks talking amongst themselves about the chronic and dangerous rise of youth unemployment in Europe (as we warned here), the Center of planning and Economic Research in Greece has proposed a controversial measure. As GreekReporter reports, the measure includes unpaid work for the young and unemployed up to 24 years old, so that companies would have a strong motive to hire young employees. "Unpaid" work sounds a lot like slavery to us... but it gets better; the report also suggested "exporting young unemployed persons." No comment... Europe's youth unemployment problem is epic - 24.4% of Europe's under-25 population...

It is one the oldest mathematical problems in the world. Several centuries ago, the twin primes conjecture was formulated. As its name indicates, this hypothesis, which many science historians have attributed to the Greek mathematician Euclid, deals with prime numbers, those divisible only by themselves and by one (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, etc.). Under this assumption, there exists an infinite number of pairs of prime numbers whose difference is two, called twin primes (e.g., 3 and 5), but nobody has been able to confirm this so far.

The number of banks in the eurozone fell by almost 4 percent in 2013, according to data published Tuesday (21 January) by the European Central Bank. There were 6,790 monetary financial institutions (MFIs) based in the euro area at the start of 2014, compared with 7,059 one year ago, a 3.8 percent reduction. Crisis countries Cyprus and Greece saw the largest reductions, losing 26 percent and 17 percent of their financial sector firms over the past year. Greece now has just 62 financial institutions, while Cyprus’ sector has fallen from 409 firms when it joined the EU in 2004 to...

Support for Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ New Democracy coalition has finally crumbled to pieces. For the year things had been close between New Democracy and opposition "Radical Left" party SYRIZA. Not anymore. The Greek Reporter notes SYRIZA Killing New Democracy, PASOK in Attica, a critical Athens region of Greece. A series of scandals, unresolved talks with the country’s international lenders, and the escape of a terrorist seem to be taking their toll on Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ coalition government and his New Democracy Conservatives, who have fallen 7.7 percent points behind their rival, the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA)...

The UN has invited Iran to the Peace Conference on Syria in Geneva on January 22 . It was confirmed last night by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki -moon, who stressed the potential positive role of Tehran in the future transition in Syria. The decision, however, has been challenged by the anti-Assad opposition that threatens a boycott of the conference, as well as by the United States : they have set support for points set out in Geneva in 2012 as a condition for participation. If Iran were to accept more than 40 countries will be present at the...

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Sunday that he had invited Iran to attend this week's Syria peace conference in Switzerland, also known as Geneva II. "I have decided to issue some additional invitations to the one-day gathering in Montreux. They are: Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Greece, the Holy See, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, and Iran," Ban told reporters here at a press conference. "I believe the expanded international presence on that day will be an important and useful show of solidarity in advance of the hard work that the Syrian government and opposition delegations will begin...

Welfare spending in Britain has increased faster than almost any other country in Europe since 2000, new figures show. The cost of unemployment benefits, housing support and pensions as share of the economy has increased by more than a quarter over the past thirteen years – growing at a faster rate than in most of the developed world. Spending has gone up from 18.6 per cent of GDP to 23.7 per cent of GDP – an increase of 27 per cent, according to figures from the OECD, the club of most developed nations. By contrast, the average increase in welfare...

EU and US diplomats have voiced dismay after Ukraine on Thursday (16 January) criminalized almost every aspect of the pro-EU protest movement. President Viktor Yanukovych’s ruling Party of the Regions rushed through the legislation via show of hands in parliament. Reports say that electronic tellers in the Verkhovna Rada kept flashing up a figure of 235 votes in favor just a few seconds after each round of voting, before the hands could be counted. The laws impose fines of up to $1,275 a head or 15 days’ detention on people who install or supply equipment, such as tents or loudspeakers,...

The “troika” of international lenders, which sets the terms of eurozone bailouts with little or no democratic oversight, should be replaced by an EU system which is accountable to the European Parliament, MEPs say. “All European instruments that are not based on EU law are provisional. EU instruments should be based on the community method, with the European Parliament acting as democratic legitimator and control body,” Austrian center-right deputy Othmar Karas told press in Strasbourg on Wednesday (15 January). Karas is drafting a report together with a French Socialist colleague, Liem Hoang-Ngoc, on the work of the troika. The name...

About 25 years ago, I started diving in the clear blue waters of Zakynthos. Many times I passed through the water seeing small broken pieces of ceramics and I asked myself where they were from. I thought that maybe there was something buried in the sand. I believed that there was definitely something ancient around the area that deserved more investigation. For many years I didn’t find any other clues to prove this. My love for the sea made me buy an underwater camera to start taking photographs of my diving excursions. It was then that the secret was...

Britain told its European Union partners on Wednesday the EU’s treaties were “not fit for purpose” and there must be reform or it would quit the bloc. In the latest blast of euroskepticism from Conservatives in Britain’s coalition government, finance minister George Osborne said EU treaties had to be changed to protect member states like his own that don’t use the euro. The comments, made at a conference in London on reform of the 28-nation EU, are unlikely to be embraced by integrationists in Brussels, who want Britain to remain in the bloc but have become irritated by its demands...

Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Luxembourg are the only EU countries where citizens approve the European Union’s leadership with a clear 50% majority, according to a recent poll by Gallup. Approval ratings in nearly all other member states have dropped dramatically since 2008, especially in the crisis-hit south. The approval of the EU leadership is lowest in Greece (19%), Cyprus (21%) and Spain (27%), according to Gallup poll released on Wednesday (8 January). Other countries with critically low approval ratings include the United Kingdom (29%), Sweden (30%) or the Czech Republic (30%). The EU is still backed by a majority of...

Emily Catherine Egan, a doctoral student at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, studied the floor of the Throne Room at the Palace of Nestor, one of the best-preserved palaces of Mycenaean Greece, a civilization from the late Bronze Age. She found that the floors of the palace, located in the present-day Greek town of Pylos, were made of plaster, and were often painted with grids of bright patterns or marine animals. The creative decorations show how ancient Mycenaean artists used floors — together with painted ceilings and walls — to impress palace visitors, Egan said. "Mycenaean palatial floor paintings...

Luke 17:31-33 The Voice Since people are easily distracted, Jesus says that they shouldn’t get so caught up in the routines of daily life that they forget to remain faithful to Him. 31 When that day comes, if you’re on the housetop, don’t run inside to try to save any of your belongings. If you’re in the field, don’t bother running back to the house. 32 Remember Lot’s wife. Turning back is fatal for those who do so. 33 If you try to hold on to your life, it will slip through your fingers; if you let go of your...

Shots were fired at the German ambassador's residence in Athens early on Monday, without causing injury. Bullets were found embedded in the steel gate, Greece's Kathimerini news website reports. Ambassador Wolfgang Dold's residence is in the Greek capital's Halandri district. The raid took place at around 03:30 local time (01:30 GMT). It is not clear who the attackers were. Germany's insistence on budget cuts has caused much resentment in Greece. At least 60 spent bullet casings were found at the scene of the attack. Police say the bullets came from two Kalashnikov assault rifles. So far no-one has admitted carrying...

PROTESTERS stormed the streets of Turkey’s biggest cities yesterday as a deepening corruption scandal threatened to bring down the government and sparked fears of a military coup. Riot police fought back with water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets in Istanbul’s Taksim Square six months after violent scenes in the city over Turkey’s shift away from its leanings to western democracy. To cries of “catch the thief”, a slur aimed at prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, protesters threw rocks and firecrackers as riot squads attempted to block demonstrators from taking over the square. At least 70 were arrested.

American progressives like to think of their country as backward and reactionary compared to Europe. And they have never been more right than now when Europe and the rest of the First World have gone right while America under Obama has been left back. Recently Australia, Japan and Norway welcomed in conservative governments. Tony Abbott, Australia’s new prime minister, is a former heavyweight boxer who attended Oxford and is putting a spoke in the wheel of the Global Warming ecohoax. Japan is casting off its pacifism and standing up to the People’s Republic of China and Norway gave its left-wing...

Gods.Resolved by the Boule and the People.Themistocles son of Neocles of Phrearrhioi made the motion. The city shall be entrusted to Athena, Athens' protectress, and to the other gods, all of them, for protection and defense against the Barbarian on behalf of the country. The Athenians in their entirety and the aliens who live in Athens shall place their children and their women in Troezen, [to be entrusted to Theseus ?] the founder of the land. The elderly and movable property shall for safety be deposited at Salamis. The treasurers and the priestesses are to remain on the Acropolis and...

There's a very big story developing in Turkey that all foreign policy mavens should be watching closely. Exactly how big remains to be seen, but the stakes are huge. At issue: Will the decade-long domination of Turkish politics by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist-leaning Justice and Development Party (AKP) continue? Or is the Erdogan era about to come crashing down, fatally weakened by scandal, infighting, and authoritarian overreach? Early Tuesday morning, police in Istanbul and Ankara carried out a wave of stunning arrests that included powerful businessmen, the sons of three cabinet ministers, and the head of...

The conflict between Greek Catholics and Orthodox in Western Ukraine has to be resolved from both sides, said Cardinal Kurt Koch, head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. “Only by recognizing this can we move together into the future,” he said December 17, responding to journalists' questions at a press conference in Moscow. A correspondent from Blahovest-info asked about the cardinal’s attitude toward the issue, which, the Russian Orthodox Church believes, complicates the preparation of a possible meeting between the Moscow Patriarch and the Pope. The journalist quoted statements recently made by Metropolitan Hilarion’s at a Russian-Polish conference:...