Breakaway republic of...Corfu?

Corfu residents want out- out from Greece that is. Fed up with what they perceive as poor infrastructure on the island --considering their financial contributions to Athens, a vocal group of residents have set up a political party and intend to press for autonomy. Athens, as you would expect, calls the clamor nonsense.

via Guardian

New to Corfu? Here's 5 things you need to know:

1)  From 1386 to 1797, Corfu was ruled by Venetian nobility. If you were wondering why the architecture on the island doesn't look like your run of the mill Greek island, now you know.

2)  Corfu is an English name...more precisely, the name Corfu is an Italian corruption of the Byzantine Κορυφώ (Koryphō), meaning city of the peaks, which is derived from the Greek Κορυφαί (Koryphai), meaning Crests or Peaks, denoting the two peaks of Palaio Frourio. When refering to the island in Greek, it's Kerkyra.

3) Pop. approximately 125,000

4) In 1797 after Napoleon had brought about the collapse of the Venetian republic, it was ceded to France. A brief eight-year period of Russo-Turkish rule followed before the Ionian islands were handed over to the French empire again until 1814, when Corfu became part of a British protectorate. The island remained under British rule until 1864 when it was handed to Greece in return for the election of a British-backed candidate to the Greek throne.

5) Saint Spyridon is the patron saint of the island

wikipedia

Enjoy the weeknd everyone.

 

Greece scores low in global Corruption Perceptions Index

Greece was once again among low scorers in the 2008 global corruption perceptions index (CPI) report released by Transparency International on Tuesday, scoring just 4.7 on a scale from one to 10. This was a marginal improvement on its 2007 score of 4.6 but still below the "pass mark" of 5.

According to the international watchdog, this "indicates that the effort for improvement must continue at a more intensive pace".

Countries with the highest CPI score in 2008 were Denmark (9.3), New Zealand (9.3), Sweden (9.3) and Singapore (9.2). Lowest scorers were Haiti (1.4), Iraq (1.3), Myanmar (1.3) and Somalia (1.0).

Why is Greece's score lower than most of its EU counterpart? Representatives giving the report in Athens said that the problem in Greece lay in a failure to uphold certain laws. (Greece had the lowest CPI in the euro zone.)  Turkey is just one place behind Greece.

Check out the full list here.

Today's Picks:

Athens Stock Market bans short selling until December 31. ( Blame it on the economic worries around the world.)

Book Festival continues at the foot of the Acropolis. Do not miss it if your in Athens!

Byzantine Orthodox Icon lecture to be held at the National Library in Buenos Aires, Argentina this weekend.

 

 

Mediterranean meltdown

From today's New York Times:

• "...an epidemic of obesity and related maladies."
• "...two-thirds of children are now overweight and the health effects are mounting"
• A United Nations report saying region’s diet had “decayed into a moribund state.”
• 'In Greece, three-quarters of the adult population is overweight or obese, the worst rate in Europe “by far,” according to the United Nations.'
• "In Greece, average daily cholesterol consumption has risen to 400 milligrams from 190 in 1963."

At this point, you can pretty much throw out any notion that Greeks adhere to the fabled Mediterranean diet. Greeks are fat and getting fatter. The social and economic impact will be immense.

DF: Purely anecdotal, but we saw far more blubber in Athens than in Thessaloniki on our recent trip.

Today's Picks:

- Thank you, Italy.:  Elgin marble fragment returns to Greece via afp.

- Obama/Giannoulias love fest continues... Greek-Americans raise over $1 million for Obama campaign via ABC news

Athens joins cities around the world in celebrating Car Free Day 2008

The streets of Athens were given a small and brief reprieve of  traffic congestion on Monday as the city and country celebrated Car Free Day 2008. Free public transportation was offered to citizens, seminars were given to people to educate them about the city's traffic congestion and a concert was even held at Sytagma.

All of us who have been to Athens know the city is overflowing with cars. An law introduced in 1982 to allow cars into the city centre based on odd or even number license plates has all but become obsolete. Athens had 430,000 cars on its streets then, and that number has ballooned to over 2.8 million today. To make matters even more complicated over 40% of families now have at least two cars.

Our suggestion? More parking garages, more public transportation acceptance by the general public and maybe a small toll to enter the city centre. (To possibly discourage drivers.)

Your thoughts?

Today's Picks -

Craving sweet & sour chicken in Athens? Check out this great Asian grocery store in Ampelokipi.

Patmos to close its ports to illegal immigrants - swamped with nearly 4,000 reaching the island just this year alone! (Remember Patmos has a population of only 3,000)

 

Leaders of the pack

Top 5 Greek owned shipping companies:

Rank	Owners	Company	No. of Ships
1.	George Economou	Cardiff Marine	90
2.	Capt. Panagiotis N. Tsakos	Tsakos Group	74
3.	Peter Georgiopoulos	Genmar Aegean Genco	73
4.	Victor Retsis	Enterprise Shipping & Trading	63
5.	Panos Laskaridis	Laskaridis Shipping	61
			source: status.gr

Today's picks -

What was he thinking?: George Michael drug bust ...via Independent

Pull over mate: Somali pirates hijack Greek ship ...via chinaview

Airport reading

Traveling through Athens airport? Make sure you pick up a copy of 2board, the slick new official Athens airport magazine. We picked up issue No 2 on our recent trip and happily flipped through the glossy pages on our metro ride into central Athens. The mag features plenty of local (Best Greek Island Tavernas) and global (Namibia) themed articles to keep your interest --all of which are printed in Greek and English.

DF: The magazine is issued quarterly and published by Liberis.

Selilng an American Dream: Australia's Greek Cafe runs thru Nov 16 in Canberra

To our readers in Australia, be sure not to miss this great photo exhibit that is ongoing at the National Museum of Australia Canberra. Selling an American Dream: Australia's Greek Café is a photographic exhibition of Australia's Greek cafés. The exhibition explores the key role that Greek Australians played during the formative years of Australian culture. (They say you could find a Greek cafe in every major city and town in Australia.)

This exhibition not only looks at how the Greek café helped transform Australian popular culture, but also the personal stories of those involved.  While the heyday of the Greek cafe in Australia has come and gone, and many our fading the landscape (As they are in the United States and Canada) this exhibit captures moments that flood back memories to many of us.  Be sure to check it out!

Selling an American Dream: Australia's Greek Cafe

Olympic to go private

Olympic's days are numbered as the government announced that the company will now go private, transition into a new company code named Pantheon, and continue to operate many of the routes that Olympic currently operates.

The European Commission gave the green light on the project and transition, glad to see that there is finally some progress being made on the issue (As are we) but still is saying that the company owes Brussels nearly 850 million euros. (Brussels claims that illegal bankrolling kept the airline afloat.)

DF: About time. 

7th village to be relocated because of future lignite mining

The 1,100 residents of the village of Pontokomi outside of Kozani, will join the thousands of other their fellow citizens who have vacated their villages in order to allow Greece's Public Power Corporation to mine the large lignite deposits in the area.

The vote was unanimous in Pontokomi, with residents fearing that the mining would be bad for their health.  Infrastructure to accomodate the move of the whole village is in place and will be complete by 2015. This will mark the seventh village to have been relocated because of the mining.

Lignite is the lowest rank of coal and used almost exclusively as fuel for steam-electric power generation. Greece is the fifth largest producer of this coal in the world. With the heaviest deposits found in northern Greece

Kathimerini

New law limits number of pets per Greek citizen

A law silently passed this past June in Greece which will limit each Greek citizen to having only two pets (meaning dogs or cats) in their possession  The law is an attempt to protect citizen's rights in having pets in buildings that may forbid animals, but at the same time raises the worries that more stray dogs and cats will end up on the streets of large cities, especially Athens.  Citizens with more than two pets have been flooding calls to the Minister of Agriculture Development voicing their concerns, but with little response thus far, many wonder how serious this law will be taken.

The law also stated that increased measures will be taken to neuter the thousands of stray animals that live on city streets an give financial support to organizations that help 'find homes' for stray animals.  Sad to say that after nearly 3 million euros given to such programs, there is no exact account as to how many animals have been neutered and where the money has gone. (We wonder where?)

DF: Do you think its fair to have a 'quota' on the number of animals each Greek citizen is allowed?

Athens News