Athens-Macedonian News Agency

Austrian President Heinz Fischer begins a two-day visit to Greece on Wednesday, when he is due to meet his Greek counterpart Karolos Papoulias.

He also has meetings scheduled with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, Deputy Premier Evangelos Venizelos and SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras.

Greece is expecting to accept bids for permits to explore for hydrocarbons in the Ionian Sea and south of Crete in the middle of next year, Environment Ministry sources told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency on Monday.

They said that bids regarding 20 blocks would be accepted in March and then reviewed over a three-month period.

Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos on Friday condemned the vandalism of Thessaloniki’s Jewish Cemetery.

Vandals broke into the cemetery in the Stavroupoli area of the northern port city on Thursday morning and damaged graves and headstones.

The future of Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras and the shape that the next cabinet will take were put in doubt on Tuesday amid reports that the head of the government’s economic policy feels he is being made a political scapegoat.

A top Greek court has blocked the planned privatization of the country’s biggest water utility, the Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company (EYDAP), the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (AMNA) has reported, on the grounds the sale could put public health at risk.

Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos said on Monday that he would call a party congress to discuss his anti-austerity grouping’s poor showing in the European Parliament elections and forge alliances with other parties.

United Nations mediator Matthew Nimetz is to visit Athens and Skopje at the beginning of July after meeting representatives of Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) in New York on Tuesday.

Less than 48 hours after NERIT, the successor to public broadcaster ERT, went on air, its president and managing director was removed from his post on Tuesday.

Deputy Culture Minister Pantelis Kapsis, a former journalist who is responsible for the creation of a new public broadcaster, said on Wednesday that he would run in the coming European Parliament elections on the ticket of Olive Tree, which is PASOK’s alliance with center-left groupings.