Lina Mendoni

Archaeological site guards walked off the job for four hours until noon on Tuesday to express their opposition to government plans to outsource ticketing for the Acropolis.

Culture Minister Lina Mendoni underscored that the government does not consider the exchange, loan or recognition of the British Museum's possession of the Parthenon Sculptures, in answering a question from an opposition MP in parliament on Monday. 

Culture Minister Lina Mendoni chaired a meeting with local officials and experts on Tuesday to discuss Greece's bid to have the archaeological site of Nikopolis inducted onto UNESCO's World Heritage List.

The Greek government is working systematically toward the reunification of Parthenon Sculptures, Culture Minister Lina Mendoni said on Monday in response to a question in Parliament by Zoi Konstantopoulou, leader of the Course of Freedom party. 

The campaign pledge by newly elected Athens mayor Haris Doukas to reopen the closed-to-traffic Vasilissis Olgas Avenue has triggered a public debate, with Culture Minister Lina Mendoni asserting her opposition, saying antiquities have been found there and therefore asphalt cannot be laid. 

Doukas takes over as Athens mayor from defeated incumbent Kostas Bakoyannis on January 1.

A new scheme was launched on Monday at the Acropolis site in Athens to avoid overcrowding and to protect the monuments. From this point on, the daily cap on visitors will be 20,000.

The government has a strategic plan to reclaim the Parthenon Sculptures, according to Culture Minister Lina Mendoni, stressing that Athens is closely following developments regarding the theft of artifacts at the British Museum.

Against the backdrop of the scandal of the theft of hundreds of valuable objects from the British Museum, Culture Minister Lina Mendoni has told MPs that "the government has a strategic plan regarding the claim for the Parthenon Sculptures."

Against the backdrop of the scandal of the theft of hundreds of valuable objects from the British Museum, Greece's Culture Minister Lina Mendoni stressed that the institution's argument for the non-return of the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece has collapsed.

The Culture Minister has said that her ministry is following developments at the British Museum "very carefully" after it emerged that the London institution's curator of Greek collections, Greek sculpture and the Hellenistic period was sacked after the disappearance of precious objects.