Greece will toughen laws to combat sexual abuse and protect minors, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday following a cascade of recent scandals in culture and sport.

“Greek society underwent a shock when it began to learn about its hidden facades,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told lawmakers Thursday, Reuters reports.

The measures he outlined include stricter penalties for crimes against sexual freedom, changing the statute of limitations for cases of child abuse, creating a registry for professionals who work with children and a website where victims can submit allegations in real time.

The metoo.gov.gr will be a new portal where victims will be able to submit complaints via live chat and access information on sexual abuse.

“It is time for acts to break the inaction,” he said.

A number of allegations have surfaced since January, when Olympic sailing champion Sofia Bekatorou testified in court that she had been sexually assaulted as a 21-year-old in 1998 by a sports official. No case was brought against the man, as the statute of limitations had passed.

But her account – and the outpouring of support it provoked – prompted dozens of actors, singers, athletes and students to come forward in what Greeks have compared to the #MeToo movement in the United States and elsewhere.

The former head of the National Theatre, Dimitris Lignadis, is facing child rape allegations after two men who say he raped them when they were minors filed lawsuits against him.

Lignadis, who is in custody, is expected to appear before a prosecutor later on Thursday for a plea hearing. He denies all allegations and his lawyer has called them a “crude fabrication.”

His case has become a major political issue, with the leftwing opposition calling on Culture Minister Lina Mendoni to resign, accusing her of protecting Lignadis.

Mitsotakis said he backed Mendoni and accused opposition leader Alexis Tsipras of seeking to exploit the scandal for “populist” purposes.

“The liberating movement is becoming a field of vulgar populism and vague accusations aiming to harm political opponents, as if rapists are divided into right-wing and left-wing,” he said.

According to a November survey by Actionaid, 85% of female respondents said they have experienced sexual harassment at work.

Sourced By: Reuters

The Greeks discovered Iceland ten centuries before the Vikings, according to a new study by Andrew Breeze, lecturer at the University of Navarra’s Department of Philology.

Using linguistic evidence and after conducting research, Dr Breeze has cast dramatic new light on the mysterious island of ‘Thule.’

Using methods of textual criticism, in an article published in the latest issue of The Housman Society Journal, Dr Breeze attempts to pinpoint the mythical island of Thule, discovered by the Greek explorer and geographer Pytheas some time before 300 BC.

If Dr Breeze’s claim is true, the Greeks discovered Iceland a thousand years before the Vikings did.

The author explains how Pytheas describes a voyage across the Atlantic from Massalia (Marseilles) to an island with ice floes near it, which he called ‘Thule’ and which took six days to reach from Britain.

Although the original text by Pytheas has been lost, references to his voyage by later authors (Diodorus of Sicily, Strabo, Pliny) have inspired many others to try and locate Thule exactly, as the northernmost point of his odyssey.

“For centuries there has been debate on where Thule is. Most people take it as Iceland; others, the Faroes; others again, Norway or the Shetlands,” Dr Breeze explained.

‘Thymele’ – The Vital Clue:

In his research, which Dr Breeze has discussed with academics in British universities, who accept the hypothesis as plausible, the key to unlocking the mystery is in a linguistic crux.

“It seems that the name which Pytheas gave the island has been corrupted with time and become unintelligible. ‘Thule’ (or ‘Thyle’) is meaningless; but, if we add the letters M and E between the word’s two syllables, the result is Thymele, and in Greek this means something: it signifies ‘altar, altar-slab’ and is common in the ancient language,” he argues.

In his article, Dr Breeze maintains that “the name Thymele ‘altar-slab’ could have been given by Pytheas thanks to the landscape of Iceland, with cliffs of volcanic rock resembling the massive altars of Greek temples. Probably, when Pytheas and his men set eyes on Iceland for the first time, seeing clouds rise above it and perhaps columns of ash and smoke from volcanoes like Hekla, it reminded him of a temple altar.”

He adds that “in the ancient world an altar could be immense. The great altar of Pergamum was forty feet high, and others at Parium and Syracus were said to be six hundred feet long.” He thus, has no doubts that ‘Thule’ or Thymele was Iceland.

“Greeks all over the world can now feel proud that their nation was the first to tread Icelandic soil,” he concludes.

Andrew Breeze is a lecturer in the Department of Philology, University of Navarra. He has been a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London since 1996 and of the Royal Historical Society since 1997. He has published various controversial books and is a specialist in Celtic and other medieval languages.

A 6-year-old boy from Iran died of burns suffered during an overnight fire at a migrant camp northwest of Athens, Greek authorities said on Wednesday.

The blaze broke out late on Tuesday at a short-term residence facility near the town of Thebes, about 90 kilometers from the Greek capital. Nobody else was reported injured.

The fire service said in a statement that firefighters sent to the incident were initially prevented by camp residents from entering, and had to call police support to get in and extinguish the blaze.

By then, the boy had already been brought unconscious out of the building where the fire broke out. He was pronounced dead in hospital.

The cause of the fire is being investigated.

Source: AP News.

Greek President, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, honoured Greek shipowner and WWII veteran, Iakovos Tsounis, on Wednesday after he willed his entire estate to the Greek armed forces earlier this month.

In a ceremony at the Presidential Mansion, Sakellaropoulou expressed her gratitude to the 97-year-old and awarded him with the Grand Cross of the Order of Honour, one of the most prestigious of all Greek honours.

“I honor the patriot who was distinguished for his contribution to the homeland since his adolescence, when at the age of sixteen he enlisted as a volunteer in the Greek army and fought on the Albanian front,” the President said.

READ MORE: Greek WWII veteran gifts €23 million to Hellenic Armed Forces.

Sakellaropoulou also stressed that Mr Tsounis was a “real businessman who did not rest of his laurels” and his intention to bequeath his property to the Hellenic Armed Forces “is a deeply patriotic and exemplary act.”

For his part, Mr Tsounis thanked the President for bestowing the honour on him, while pointing out that his selfless offer to the homeland is a “supreme duty.”

The ceremony was also attended by the Minister of National Defence, Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, the Deputy Minister of National Defence, Alkiviadis Stefanis, and the Chief of the General Staff of the Hellenic Armed Forces, General Konstantinos Floros.

Source: thetimes.gr.

Greece is in “technical” talks with the UK over allowing Britons carrying a vaccine passport to travel to its tourist hotspots from May, Greece’s Tourism Minister, Haris Theoharis, has announced in the British media.

This news comes despite concerns in Brussels and other European Union countries.

According to The Guardian, Mr Theoharis said he hoped to “dovetail” with Boris Johnson’s roadmap for allowing Britons to travel, but refused to be drawn on whether Greece would break with Brussels to establish the scheme.

Non-essential travel into the EU is currently largely prohibited. All the leaders of the EU’s 27-member states will say on Thursday that “for the time being” the restrictions need to remain, according to a draft statement.

But Mr Theoharis has confirmed to The Guardian that Anglo-Greek technical teams were working on how a certificate system could facilitate the resumption of mass travel and what format it would take.

“We’ll try to dovetail with the plan that has been announced in the UK,” Mr Theoharis told The Guardian.

“A date of May 17 has been set and we certainly want to be ready by then. The roadmap was a very, very good move by the UK government… planning is a pre-requisite for the travel industry.”

Ekathimerini reports that EU leaders will meet on Thursday to discuss certificates of vaccination for EU citizens who have had an anti-COVID shot, with countries such as Greece and Spain leading the push.

Other countries, such as France and Germany, appear more reluctant to adopt a vaccination certificate however, as officials there say it could create de-facto vaccination obligation and would be discriminatory to those who cannot or will not take a jab.

Mr Theoharis said his government would continue to push for swifter agreement on vaccine passports at the EU level, given the desperate need within countries dependent on tourism to be open to visitors.

“All we are saying is that with this system we’d be instituting two lanes in airports as it were,” Mr Theoharis said.

“The vaccination lane and the non-vaccination lane which would facilitate travel quite a bit. We have to move fast.”

Mr Theoharis went on to address a number of misconceptions around the vaccine, before stressing that “what [Greece] will be bringing to the table is [our conviction] that the certificate is a prerequisite if we are to start travelling with some kind of confidence.”

“There are a number of misconceptions around the certificate, the first being that it would be discriminatory. It’s not, because it’s just an alternative to negative testing,” Mr Theoharis said.

“The idea that it breaches privacy laws is also wrong because, if you prefer, you can travel as if you are not vaccinated and always get tested. A certificate simply allows somebody to travel without needing to test all the time. In that sense it’s hassle- free and cost-efficient.

“And on the health front there is greater probability a vaccinated person has fewer chances of spreading the disease than someone who is negative at some point in time.”