Greece

ATHENS: A biblical calamity befell the Attica region last Monday. I saw its first sign in the late morning at Athens airport, where I was seeing off my daughter to Australia. A strong whiff of burning wood caused me to look up to the sky, where a whitish-yellow sun beckoned, surrounded by the tell-tale eclipse-like daytime darkness that only thick, sky-high smoke can cause. By the early evening the news had cascaded in. Many of our friends’ and some of our relatives’ houses were destroyed in northeast Attica.

ATHENS – A biblical calamity befell Attica last Monday. I saw its first sign in the late morning at Athens airport, where I was seeing off my daughter to Australia. A strong whiff of burning wood caused me to look up to the sky, where a whitish-yellow sun beckoned, surrounded by the telltale eclipse-like daytime darkness that only thick, sky-high smoke can cause.

What exactly is the matter? It is almost impossible to cull any accurate information enabling us to clarify the situation and shine a light on recent developments.
Let’s first sweep the picture clean of inaccurate assertions and unfounded claims. Commentators who almost always turn to the anti-Western narrative immediately took to the field. The Greek government, they claim, is trying to earn its credentials vis-à-vis NATO and the US.

On July 11, Greece said it would expel two Russian diplomats and barred the entry of two others.
The Duran reported that the formal reason is alleged meddling in an attempt to foment opposition to the “historic” name deal between Athens and Skopje paving the way for Macedonia’s NATO membership. Moscow said it would respond in kind.

Ahead of the NATO summit, Alexis Tsipras made an unprecedented move to expel two Russian diplomats and bar the entry of two others Russian diplomats to Greece.
The claim that Tsipras’ radical left government cites in its expulsion is the tried and true Russia meddling narrative. The SYRIZA Greek government claims alleged “Russian meddling” in an attempt to foment opposition to the “historic” name deal between Athens and Skopje, a deal which coincidently paves the way for FYROM to join NATO.

The formal reason is alleged meddling in an attempt to foment opposition to the “historic” name deal between Athens and Skopje paving the way for Macedonia’s NATO membership. Moscow said it would respond in kind.

sputnik

The expulsion of two Russian diplomats from Greece is unfounded and could seriously damage bilateral relations, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

"Washington… is behind the anti-Russian decision of the government of Greece," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The Greek government has decided to expel two Russian diplomats and bar the entry of two others. The reason given is the accusation of these diplomats’ “intrusion into domestic affairs and illegal acts against Greece’s national security,” according to Kathimerini.

In June 2018 alone, more than 500 refugees drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. Their boats were refused access to land in either Malta or Italy. They were force-driven back by gun-boats to the North African shores they came from, mostly Libya, but many boats capsized and countless refugees didn’t make it.

Ties between Europe and Africa have never been rosy.  A relationship based on predatory conquest and the exploitation of resources (slave flesh, minerals, and such assortments) is only ever going to lend itself to farce and display rather than sincerity.  The late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, whose death must be placed squarely at the feet of the Franco-Anglo-American intervention in the Libyan conflict of 2011, typified the cruelly distorted relationship, a man who morphed from erratic, third way statesman of revo