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Greece and Turkey fought a brief dogfight on Twitter over Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane due to an error by an aide in Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' office, a Greek official said on Monday. It began in the middle of a summit between Turkey and the European Union on Sunday, when a message appeared on Tsipras' Twitter account saying: "To Prime Minister Davutoglu: Fortunately our pilots are not as mercurial as yours against the Russians." A second tweet issued in Tsipras' name referred to near-miss aerial incidents between Greek and Turkish planes over the Aegean Sea, saying: "What...

France's far-right National Front is set to score huge gains in regional elections on Sunday, redrawing the political landscape of the euro zone's second-biggest economy as it gears up for the next presidential election in 2017. The anti-immigration, anti-Europe party, boosted by fears over the refugee crisis and the Nov.13 Islamic State attacks that killed 130 in Paris, is seen leading in the first round on Dec. 6 in six out of 13 regions, a survey by Ipsos pollsters showed on Thursday. The party, known by its initials FN, has become increasingly popular since Marine Le Pen took over the...

In a somewhat depressing show of the farce that is Europe's immigration policy, local media reports "apocalyptic scenes" on the northern Greek border where "economic migrants" who are not entitled to leave Greece's provisional camps are fighting with 'refugees' who are entitled to leave, and head into other European nations. Petrol bombs and stones flew through the air, fists, kicks and wrestling on the ground as migrants hindered refugees from entering Macedonia (FYROM). People have injured, trampled and faint, among them many babies as some migrants tried to pass together with the refugees and were apparently hindered with stun grenades...

Tensions peaked at Greece’s border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia over the weekend after the FYROM army started building a border fence to keep out would-be migrants. FYROM border guards were photographed by foreign news agencies as they erected a 2.5-meter-high fence along the Greek border on Saturday. A FYROM army source quoted by Agence France-Presse said the crossing from Greece to FYROM would remain open and that the fence was aimed at ensuring migrants did not try to slip across at other spots. FYROM authorities had indicated in recent weeks that they might build a fence to...

In the aftermath of last week's dramatic events which have seen Turkey make a unilateral breach of NATO's unwritten rules of engagement by taking down a Russian jet, coupled with an assault on civil right and expression of speech when two journalists were arrested for exposing Turkish arms smuggling to Syria, culminating with the assassination of a prominent enemy of the state on live TV, one would expect that the "democratic, humanistic" western countries would at least issue a harsh condemnation of Erdogan's behavior. That won't happen: instead, the European Union will pay Turkey $3.2 billion to help it stop...

Here's some footage from today's clashes between the Macedonian police and the supposed "Syrian" migrants.

As if Greece didn't have enough economic market woes, last week foreign investment funds managed to take control of four of the country's largest banks — Alpha Bank, Eurobank, National Bank of Greece and Piraeus Bank — through $6.42 billion worth of capital increases and a complex set of legal manipulations. As a result, bank shares sold like penny stocks, diluting state ownership in these important institutions that have assets totaling $358 billion. The country's stake in the National Bank of Greece dropped to 24 percent from 57 percent, and in Eurobank it fell to 2.4 percent from 35 percent,...

"The reason for the intervention was that Greece cannot be allowed to te this part of the Mediterranean": this is how Ankara explains its response to the 1974 Cyprus coup in which Archbishop Makarios was overthrown (1). The strategic issue came well before any concern for the fate of the Turkish Cypriots, as they soon realised. "Until 1974, we were needed. Once the Turkish intervention was over, we had served our purpose", wrote Turkish Cypriot politician Özker Özgur six months ago (2). Mr Özgur is well placed to testify to the powerlessness of native Cypriots in the face of the...

"As I have little time at my disposal, I will use that time to deal with enlargement, in particular the application of Cyprus. I had the honour of visiting northern Cyprus during the summer with two of my colleagues from the House. To my surprise the ambassador chose to object in the strongest manner on my return. It was not my first visit and it was obvious to me that on the island there exists two democracies and two sovereign states representing their distinct peoples. Turkey has never expressed a wish to make Cyprus a Turkish island or an annex...

Attempted Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in Cyprus	 By Michael Stephen, former British Parliamentarian (1992-97) The assertion by Mr. Christides (May 10, 1999) that there was no ethnic cleansing or attempted genocide of Turkish Cypriots by Greek Cypriots is ridiculous. Until influential Greek Cypriots come to terms with the appalling behavior of their community toward the smaller Turkish Cypriot community and stop trying to persuade themselves and the world that each side was as much to blame as the other, there will be no reconciliation in Cyprus. What did George Ball and Sir Alec Douglas say about the intentions of ...

As the United States debates how to properly vet 10,000 Syrian refugees expected to resettle here, employees with Samaritan’s Purse are stationed on the frontlines in Greece, working to be a “face of compassion” for refugees fleeing war and terror. Ken Isaacs, vice president of programs and government relations for Samaritan’s Purse, spent a week in Greece, where the Christian organization has deployed employees and contractors to the region to assist scores of refugees flowing into the country, with hopes of continuing deeper into Europe. There, the group’s workers meet refugees arriving by rubber rafts on Greek islands and provide...

Archaeologists in Greece have found Roman remains in a submerged ancient port on the Cycladic island of Kythnos, the Greek culture ministry said today. The archaeologists found the bearded head of a man and the torso of a warrior wearing a Roman-era breastplate at a depth of 2.5 metres underwater in the island bay of Mandraki last month. It is unclear whether the fragments were part of the same statue. They had apparently been used as building materials in a wall running along the harbour, the ministry said. The age of the fragments has not been certified. The Romans became...

Three more Syrian men with fake Greek passports arrested on Caribbean island as the extraordinary lengths five others went to in a bid to enter US amid ISIS fears is revealed. [ Full title ] Earlier this week, five Syrians were arrested in Honduras with forged Greek passports . ... Three Syrians apparently attempting to sneak into the United States by traveling with fake Greek passports have been arrested on the Caribbean island of St Maarten.. ... the investigation is continuing to determine their identities and how they obtained the fake documents. They arrived on the island on an Insel...

Greece is under growing pressure to monitor its borders and properly register the thousands of refugees and migrants who arrive each week after it emerged that at least two of the Paris suicide bombers passed through the country on their way to France. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the European Commission would present plans to introduce “obligatory checks at all external borders for all travelers,” including EU citizens, by the year’s end. Previously, only non-EU nationals had their details checked against a database for terrorism and crime when they enter the Schengen area. Earlier, Cazeneuve revealed that a second...

Israel's prime minister is accusing a German department store of a "boycott" after it removed products made in Israeli settlements under new European Union labeling guidelines. Benjamin Netanyahu noted Sunday that Berlin's KaDeWe department store was once owned by Jews before the Nazis seized it. He says its decision to label products from Israeli communities and remove them from its shelves is "a boycott in every respect." ...

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras held cordial talks with the leaders of Turkey's Republican People's Party (CHP) and Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), both left-wing opposition parties, as he visited the Turkish capital for a meeting with Prime MinisterAhmet Davutoglu on Nov. 18. Tsipras and CHP leader Kemal Kelecdaroglu agreed to make joint efforts to turn both the Aegean and the Mediterranean into "seas of peace," sources said. Delegations from the two parties will gather to draft a roadmap to this aim when a delegation from Tsipras' Syriza party visits Turkey next week. Tsipras and the CHP leader met late on...

More than 3,200 years ago, life was abuzz in and around what is now this modern-day Israeli metropolis on the shimmering Mediterranean shore. To the north lay the mighty Hittite empire; to the south, Egypt was thriving under the reign of the great Pharaoh Ramses II. Cyprus was a copper emporium. Greece basked in the opulence of its elite Mycenaean culture, and Ugarit was a bustling port city on the Syrian coast. In the land of Canaan, city states like Hazor and Megiddo flourished under Egyptian hegemony. Vibrant trade along the coast of the eastern Mediterranean connected it all. Yet...

Scientists have identified thousands of sites in the Arctic where methane that has been stored for many millennia is bubbling into the atmosphere. The methane has been trapped by ice, but is able to escape as the ice melts. Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this ancient gas could have a significant impact on climate change. Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after CO2 and levels are rising after a few years of stability. There are many sources of the gas around the world, some natural and some man-made, such as landfill waste disposal sites...

Published on Nov 19, 2015 Three Syrian refugees in Greece are caught on hidden camera talking about using fake passports to get to Europe and the US. They talk about using the same route as one of the terrorists who perpetrated the attack in Paris last week. When asked how to obtain a fake passport one of the Syrian refugees responded: "You need a person who the made the fake passport. And you need to pay for it. Maybe about three thousand Euro. ($3,189).” He also added that that is how a lot of Syrians come to the US and...

UPDATE: 3:05 p.m. EST -- The FBI Saturday said in a statement it is aware of an alleged threat by the Islamic State group to stage an attack on a WWE event scheduled for Atlanta Sunday evening. However, FBI Special Agent in Charge J. Britt Johnson of the Atlanta office said the bureau did not have "specific or credible information of an attack." The FBI is aware of reports of an alleged threat that includes an Atlanta, Georgia, venue and event. ... We have ... made the proper notifications as we continue to work closely with our law-enforcement and private-sector...