News archive of June 2024

A wildfire in a mountainous forest area just outside the Greek capital eased on Saturday but some 200 firefighters assisted by water-carrying planes were still battling to extinguish the flames, officials said.

A new fake work of prominent Greek painter Konstantinos Parthenis has been identified during a technical inspection in Thessaloniki at the request of its owner who is a collector.

It is an unsigned painting titled "Three Female Figures in a Seaside Landscape," which the owner bought from an heir of the painter, Nikolaos Parthenis.

The number of protected, so-called "untrodden," beaches has been expanded by 40 to a total of 238, the Environment Ministry has said.

Authorities are asking citizens to pay special attention on Sunday due to the very high risk of fire (risk category 4) in Attica and 5 other regions.

Main opposition SYRIZA was plunged into further turmoil at the weekend after its leader, Stefanos Kasselakis, whose tenure at the helm has been challenged by party cadres, took his predecessor, Alexis Tsipras, to task in a social media post late Friday asking for support "without games."

Ten Ukrainian civilians held prisoner for years by Russia arrived in Kyiv overnight Saturday after the mediation of the Vatican, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

They were freed Friday. Some had been captured years before Russia's full-scale invasion . The pope has said the Holy See has been involved in past prisoner swaps during the Ukraine war.

Dozens of firefighters were battling on Saturday to stop a wildfire from spreading to a nature reserve in a mountainous forest area on the outskirts of the Greek capital, the fire service said.

The number of people who are hospitalised and are diagnosed with coronavirus has almost doubled since the end of May, Gikas Magiorkinis, a professor of epidemiology and a member of the expert committee advising the Ministry of Health, said on Saturday.

The Civil Protection Ministry issued a warning regarding a significant risk of fires in six regions of Greece on Sunday. 

A 33-year-old man died while swimming in a popular beach in northern Greece, authorities said on Saturday.