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SNIPPET: "A bomb has exploded outside the Athens stock exchange, slightly injuring a female passer-by and damaging the building, police say. The bomb - which set fire to several cars - was hidden in a stolen van. Another bomb went off outside a government building in Thessaloniki, causing minor damage and no injuries. The blasts may be the work of a Greek extremists' group, Revolutionary Struggle, says the BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Athens. Earlier this year the group claimed responsibility for two bombs aimed at the American Citibank group. Flying glass A warning of the Athens explosion was telephoned to...

The object was spotted by the pilot of Olympic Airways flight 266 from Athens, and the sighting was corroborated by staff at Athens Airport and a nearby Greek air force base. Pilots of two other passenger jets also reported seeing the body.The eyewitnesses described it as looking like a large star, although it was moving erratically and constantly changing shape.Two fighter jets were sent to investigate the sighting over the Greek capital in November 2007 but the object shot up into the sky and vanished before they could get a clear view.

04/13/2009 SNIPPET: "A home-made fire-bomb exploded at 3:25 a.m. at the KAPA Marines showcase, and the ensuing fire quickly spread throughout the two land plots where the company's pleasure craft are on display, totally destroying or causing extensive damage to more than 20 boats." SNIPPET: "Police bomb disposal experts are investigating the site, and have so far come up with two propane canisters."

March 20, 2009 SNIPPET: ""Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him" -- Muhammad" SNIPPET: "An Iranian Muslim extremists group identifying themselves as “Hezbollah” sent a letter to three Iranian pastors with a Muslim background threatening them to return to Islam or else risk being murdered. The radical group calls itself “The Hezbollah Party, Army of the World’s Imam” and accused the pastors of being spies for foreign powers, according to Farsi Christian News Network (FCNN). The extremists demanded the Iranian pastors denounce their faith in Christ and return to Islam. In the letter delivered to the Iranian pastors on...

ATHENS, Greece (Dec. 9) - Masked youths and looters marauded through Greek cities for a fourth night Tuesday, in an explosion of rage triggered by the police shooting of a teenager that has unleashed the most violent riots in a quarter century.

Wednesday January 7, 2009 Greek Bishop Sues Homosexualist Group for Defamation By Hilary White   ATHENS, January 7, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Greek Orthodox bishop has launched a defamation lawsuit against a group of homosexualist activists, reports the homosexual news source Pink News. The bishop is reportedly asking for 1 million Euros in defamation after the group issued a press statement denouncing him. The suit is launched against the Greek homosexualist organization, Synthesis, and activist Leo Kalovyrnas, who denounced the bishop after the latter made comments on the sinfulness of the homosexual lifestyle in a Greek newspaper.   His...

"Pay close attention to Greece; at a time of world-wide economic upheaval, it might eerily presage disturbances elsewhere in 2009" ___ reece has been torn apart by the worst riots in decades, now entering their third week. Bands of self-declared anarchist youths have rampaged through the streets of Athens and other major cities causing hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage, setting off a spiral of unrest in which the nation’s unions, among other groups, have taken part. Both shops and hotel lobbies have been ransacked, and hospitals, airports, and transport have been brought to a standstill. What sparked...

How low will they go?? As low as laser blinding Greek Police: "A riot policeman is aimed at with a laser light pointer during riots outside the Athens Polytechnic. Small bands of Greek rioters hurling firebombs attacked an environment ministry building, shops and banks in Athens on Saturday during an eighth day of protests following the killing of a teenager by police." And that's not all: "A warning from Serb intelligence about the mobilization of an extremist Islamic organization in Greece has put the Greek authorities on high alert. Several days ago, Serb intelligence briefed a Serb parliamentary Committee that...

The rioting began in Athens late on Saturday soon after the shooting in the central Exarchia district, where youths threw petrol bombs at police, burnt dozens of cars and smashed shop windows. It quickly spread to Greece's second largest city of Thessaloniki and other towns in northern Greece. Cities on the holiday islands of Crete and Corfu also saw protests at the shooting, which prompted Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos to offer his resignation. Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, whose fragile government has been rocked by a series of scandals, rejected it, a ministry spokeswoman said.

An Albany man who came to town for a conference was arrested on a felony charge and jailed for 18 hours because he had a gun in his hotel room. Eric Dewayne Baylis, 45, said he didn't know that the hotel was owned by the University of Georgia, which put him in violation of a state law forbidding weapons within school safety zones. His employers made the lodging arrangements and he had no idea the hotel is owned by UGA. "I actually didn't know (it) was campus property," Baylis said Thursday, soon after posting a $2,000 bond to get out...

The frontrunner to become Israel’s next prime minister, Tzipi Livni, was a Paris agent for Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence agency, in the early 1980s when it ran a series of missions to kill Palestinian terrorists in European capitals, according to former colleagues. They say Livni, now foreign minister, was on active service when Mamoun Meraish, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organisation, was shot dead by a Mossad hit squad in Athens on August 21, 1983. She was not directly involved in the killing, in which two young men on a motorcycle drew alongside Meraish’s car and opened fire,...

2,500 years ago, a city bigger than Athens in Orissa 11 Feb 2008, 0028 hrs IST,Minati Singha,TNN Experts say Sishupalgarh is the ‘most visible standing architectural monument’ discovered in India (TOI Photo) BHUBANESWAR: From under the ruins of an ancient fort on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, archaeologists have dug out the remains of a 2,500-year-old city which they believe was bigger than classical Athens. Eighteen pillars were found among the remnants of the grand city at Sishupalgarh, a ruined fortification first discovered 60 years ago. The findings include debris of household pottery and terracotta ornaments, pointing to an advanced lifestyle...

Although the White House is poised to back away from misguided attempts to "engage" the Iranian mullahs, don't expect the State Department to play along. Just as State has undermined the president multiple times already on matters relating to every spoke of the "axis of evil," State most likely will continue talking to the mullahs. A recent Washington Post article gave an indication that Foggy Bottom officials may grudgingly embrace a new tough-on-Iran policy—if officially handed down by the White House—noting that State "appears inclined to accept such a policy." But history suggests otherwise. The State Department's top policy official,...

Greek forest fires kill 47 as blaze nears Athens By Roya Nikkhah, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 1:40am BST 26/08/2007 Forest fires have ripped through southern Greece, killing 47 people, injuring 40 and leaving hundreds homeless. A hot, dry summer and a three-day heatwave with temperatures of 40C created the tinderbox conditions A national state of emergency was declared yesterday as firemen fought up to 170 fires which have raged since Friday, forcing the evacuation of dozens of villages. The southern Peloponnese region was described as a "crematorium" by officials, who said the death toll was expected to rise as gale-force...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) -- A man was being detained in New York for the death of a woman who was dragged for several miles under a minivan after trying to stop the driver from fleeing a collision, officials said Monday. Abdelaziz Bilal Hamze, 24, was detained on Delta flight 132 bound for Athens, Greece, Broward County Sheriff's spokesman Elliot Cohen said. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him while the plane was pulling away from the gate at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, Cohen said. Broward sheriff's deputies were en route to New York to interview Hamze,...

Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis - January 19, 2007, Friday Analysis. By GIS Staff. Reliable sources indicate that the Chinese-built RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade fired at the US Embassy in Athens on January 12, 2007, was supplied to the leftist Greek terrorist organization, Revolutionary Struggle, by the Albanian jihadist -linked group, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA/UCK). The confirmation of the link demonstrates the growing linkages between anti-Western leftist terrorist groups and anti-Western Islamist jihadi groups, and there is some suggestion that the reappearance of Revolutionary Struggle may have been prompted directly by support received from the cash-rich KLA. The KLA...

Dig unearths ancient theater Excavation work at a site in a northern Athens suburb, where sections of an ancient Greek theater were discovered on Thursday, should prove whether the structure is the fabled ancient theater of Acharnae, archaeologists said yesterday. Modern Menidi, where the remains of the 4th century BC theater were found by construction workers, is believed to have been built upon the ancient village of Acharnae, the largest of a string of settlements outside Athens, according to chief excavator Maria Platonos-Yiota. If the theater is proven to be that of Acharnae – which is referred to in the...

Greece’s political world unanimously condemned the hit at the US embassy compound in central Athens. A rocket-propelled device was fired early on Friday morning from across the street and hit the third floor of the building, causing minimal damage only. The Greek Government declared its determination to stamp out reviving terrorism, whose latest hit is but a blow against Democracy and Greece’s interests, and affects the bilateral ties between Greece and the USA. Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis was immediately briefed on the attack, and then chaired a meeting at Maximos Mansion attended by Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Public Order,...

Hieromartyr Hierotheus the Bishop of Athens Commemorated on October 4 (Old Calendar Oct 17) The Hieromartyr Hierotheus, the first Bishop of Athens, was a member of the Athenian Areopagos and was converted to Christ by the Apostle Paul together with St Dionysius the Areopagite (October 3). The saint was consecrated by the Apostle Paul to the rank of bishop. According to Tradition, Bishop Hierotheus was present with St Dionysius at the funeral of the Most Holy Theotokos. St Hierotheus died a martyr's death in the first century.

Police arrested a University of Georgia student Tuesday for allegedly running down two women in the parking lot of a local McDonald's after they argued over who was next in line. Ruth Catherine Driscoll-Dunn, 24, was taken into custody at her apartment a half-mile from the fast-food restaurant on Gaines School Road and charged with two counts of aggravated assault. Police said Driscoll-Dunn argued Saturday morning with two women over who was first in line when a new cashier opened up, and that Driscoll-Dunn waited for the women in her Jeep Cherokee in the parking lot and veered into them...

The California Assembly just passed a bill widely described in the press as “an end run around the Electoral College.” It now goes to the California Senate, which is likely to agree. There is only one slight problem with this proposal. It is thrice-times unconstitutional. The bill is an “interstate compact,” and has been introduced in the legislatures of most of the largest states, by do-gooders who are clueless about the Constitution and how it works. The theory is that if states possessing “a majority of the votes in the Electoral College” pass similar bills, those states would be committed...

Typhoid May Have Caused Fall of Athens, Study Finds Nicholas Bakalar for National Geographic News February 27, 2006 An ancient medical mystery—the cause of a plague that wracked Athens from 426 to 430 B.C. and eventually led to the city's fall—has been solved by DNA analysis, researchers say. The ancient Athenians died from typhoid fever, according to a new study. Scientists from the University of Athens drew this conclusion after studying dental pulp extracted from the teeth of three people found in a mass grave in Athens' Kerameikos cemetery. The mass grave was first discovered in 1994 and was dated...

ATHENS (AFP) - Its austere white is on every postcard, but the Athens Parthenon was originally daubed with red, blue and green, the Greek archaeologist supervising conservation work on the 2,400-year-old temple said. "A recent cleaning operation by laser revealed traces of haematite (red), Egyptian blue and malachite-azurite (green-blue) on the sculptures of the western frieze," senior archaeologist Evi Papakonstantinou-Zioti told AFP. While archaeologists had found traces of the first two colours elsewhere on the temple years ago, the malachite-azurite colouring was only revealed in the latest restoration process, Papakonstantinou-Zioti said. Given the testimony of ancient writers, it is not...

Secret of ancient Athens plague is being unraveled Kerameikos, Athens’s ancient cemetery, has yielded conclusive evidence as to the nature of the plague that decimated a third of the population of the ancient city and influenced the outcome of the Peloponnesian Wars. Scientists at Athens University’s School of Dentistry have used molecular biology to help solve the riddle of one of history’s biggest mysteries.Greek scientists find typhoid after excavating graves By Dr Manolis Papagrigorakis (1) Recent findings from a mass grave in the Ancient Cemetery of Kerameikos in central Athens show typhoid fever may have caused the plague of Athens,...

strong earthquake occurred at 11:34:52 (UTC) on Sunday, January 8, 2006. The magnitude 6.7 event has been located in SOUTHERN GREECE. The hypocentral depth was estimated to be 38 km (23 miles). (This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.) Magnitude 6.7 Date-Time Sunday, January 8, 2006 at 11:34:52 (UTC) = Coordinated Universal Time Sunday, January 8, 2006 at 1:34:52 PM = local time at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones Location 36.250°N, 23.498°E Depth 37.7 km (23.4 miles) Region SOUTHERN GREECE Distances 95 km (60 miles) NNW of Chania, Crete, Greece 150 km (95 miles) SE of...

US vows to track down hijacker freed early By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 23/12/2005) The United States has vowed to track down and bring to trial a Lebanese hijacker who has been secretly released after serving 19 years in a German prison for seizing an airliner in 1985 and killing a US navy diver. The Bush administration said it had asked Germany not to release Mohammed Ali Hamadi, who was jailed for life for his role in the hijacking of TWA's Flight 847 from Athens to Rome and the shooting of one of the passengers, Robert Stethem. Despite...

The main square in Athens has been rocked by a bomb explosion, police say. The blast occurred at about 0600 (0400 GMT), in or just outside a post office in Syntagma Square, near the Greek finance ministry building. It was not immediately known if there were any casualties from the blast. TV pictures showed damaged to nearby cars, cafes and shops. A Greek daily newspaper received a bomb warning 30 minutes before the blast, state television said. Police say the device was apparently made from several gas canisters. No group or individual was known to have claimed responsibility for the...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (Nov. 16, 2005) -- An Athens, Ga. native was presented the Purple Heart Medal here Nov. 10 for wounds received in combat in Iraq. Lance Cpl. John T. Shepard, a 31-year-old boat mechanic formerly with Small Craft Company, Headquarters Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, and several members of his unit had been conducting a foot patrol through Ramadi’s streets in August when they were ambushed by several insurgents. The capital city of western Iraq’s Al Anbar province is located approximately 100 kilometers west of Baghdad, and has been a focal point of resistance against U.S....

E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend Version November 07, 2005, 11:15 a.m. Ruin? Was is death or renewal in Athens? EDITOR'S NOTE: Victor Davis Hanson's latest book, A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War has recently been released by Random House. This week National Review Online will be excerpting Chapter 10 of the book. Below is the first part. Check back tomorrow for part two and click on Amazon to purchase A War Like No Other here. Was Athens — or Greece itself — destroyed by the war? An entire...

Paris - A confusing series of alarm signals and the lack of an effective common language between its pilots doomed a Cypriot airliner that crashed near Athens last month, killing all 121 people on board, the daily International Herald Tribune said on Wednesday, quoting investigators. An air system knob that had been incorrectly set during maintenance on the ground prevented the Helios Airways Boeing 737 from pressurising properly, but the crew failed to notice the problem during their preflight checks, people connected to the investigation told the newspaper. Then, as the aircraft ascended through 3 000m, a pressurisation alarm -...

Archeologists uncover ancient coins in the heart of Athens Thu Aug 11,11:46 AM ET ATHENS (AFP) - Scores of silver coins dating back well over two millennia have been unearthed in the heart of Athens, officials announced. More than five kilos (11 pounds) of silver pieces dating primarily from the 4th century BC were discovered in an excavation project of the American School of Archeology, a statement from the ministry of culture said. Some 45 of the silver pieces are believed to date back to the 5th century BC. The discovery at the Athens Agora -- the chief marketplace and...

Archaeologists in the capital’s southern coastal suburb of Palaio Faliro have uncovered what appear to be traces of ancient Athens’s first port before the city’s naval and shipping center was moved to Piraeus, a report said yesterday. A rescue excavation on a plot earmarked for development has revealed artifacts and light structures dating, with intervals, from Mycenaean times to the fifth century BC, when the port of Phaleron — after which the modern suburb was named — was superseded by Piraeus, according to Ta Nea daily. “This is a port associated with two myths — Theseus and the Argonauts —...

Mycenaean port of Athens found? Archaeologists in the capital’s southern coastal suburb of Palaio Faliro have uncovered what appear to be traces of ancient Athens’s first port before the city’s naval and shipping center was moved to Piraeus, a report said yesterday. A rescue excavation on a plot earmarked for development has revealed artifacts and light structures dating, with intervals, from Mycenaean times to the fifth century BC, when the port of Phaleron — after which the modern suburb was named — was superseded by Piraeus, according to Ta Nea daily. “This is a port associated with two myths —...

Venues rot as Greece loses its Olympic gains Helena Smith in Athens Sunday March 6, 2005 The Observer Six months after the Athens Olympics, all is not well. Around the canoe-kayak course, in the city that hosted the world's 'unforgettable, dream games', lights that illuminated the site now swing, hopelessly, from cords of broken wire. It is hard not to miss the galloping necrosis enveloping so many of the 36 venues either purpose-built or upgraded for the Games. For the neglect does not end here. On the other side of the Olympic facility, in the inner sanctum of the world-class...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. .................................................................. .................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should...

As international attention remains occupied with the terror murder of Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh by an Islamic extremist, and the long-term implications of the spread of Islamic fundamentalism within Europe, Greece continues to be roiled by a debate over the proposed construction of the first state-recognized mosque in the vicinity of Athens in modern times. The Islamic Center in the Athenian suburb of Peania, more than 15 miles northeast of Athens near the new international airport, will be financed directly by the King Fahd Foundation of Saudi Arabia. According to the Arab News, an English-language Saudi daily, some 8.5...

The 2004 Athens Games has cost Greece more than seven billion euros making them the most expensive Olympics of all time, the Greek government warned on Sunday. The final cost of bringing the Olympics back home will not be known until the end of the month, but Greek Economics minister Georges Alogoskoufis was preparing the ground on Sunday for some painful news. "The total will be greater than forecast," he predicted in an interview with Ethnos. The last official estimate given by the Greek finance minister Petros Doukas in August put the cost at over seven billion euros compared to...

London — After a summer of fun, Games and frantic spending on the world's largest party, the people of Greece are waking up this week to an Olympic hangover of truly gold-medal proportions. Greeks were proud of an Olympics that took place on schedule and without any serious security or organizational threats, but they are now learning the true cost of all that last-minute construction and street cleaning: a bill that could cripple the country's economy for a generation. Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis conceded yesterday that the country's deficit has soared faster and higher than that of any European...

An apology -- and thank you, before leaving DAVE BARRY ATHENS -- I'm leaving the Olympics and heading home, assuming the plane can lift me. This is a concern because I've gained many kilometers of mass from eating Greek food, especially ``baklava,'' which is the Greek word for ``carbohydrates.'' But before I leave I have something to say to Greece: Dear Greece, I owe you an apology. Every negative thought I had about you before I got here -- every worry, every concern -- turned out to be wrong. When I got to Greece, I thought you wouldn't be ready...

Medal counts - top 20 countries COUNTRY GOLD SILVER BRONZE TOTAL United States 29 35 27 91 Russia 17 23 30 70 China 28 17 13 58 Germany 14 15 18 47 Australia 17 13 16 46 Japan 15 10 10 35 France 11 7 12 30 Italy 9 8 10 27 Britain 7 8 12 27 South Korea 8 10 8 26 Netherlands 4 8 10 22 Ukraine 8 4 7 19 Spain 3 11 5 19 Romania 8 5 5 18 Hungary 8 7 3 18 Cuba 3 7 9 17 Greece 6 4 4 14 Belarus...

Low blow : Egypt's Tamer Hussein employs an unorthodox maneuver against Austria's Tuncay Caliksan during their taekwon-do mens -67kg featherweight match during the Olympic Games in Athens. (AFP/Marco Longari)

With their backs against the wall the United States needed a huge performance and they got it from Stephon Marbury. He broke an American Olympic record, scoring 31 points to help topple previously unbeaten Spain, 102-94 on Thursday. After scoring 21 points in the first five games of the tournament, Marbury exploded, converting 6 of 9 from 3-point land for a team that had been maligned for its long-range shooting coming in. "I just decided I was going to let the game come to me," Marbury said. "I was going to come in and let it flow."

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- A windsurfer whose first name means ``wave'' in Hebrew gave Israel its first Olympic gold medal ever Wednesday, taking a plunge in the Saronic Gulf to celebrate. Gal Fridman sailed a remarkably consistent regatta, never finishing worse than eighth in the 11-race series. He placed second in Wednesday's decisive race. After Fridman crossed the finish line, he took a victory dip and then wrapped himself in an Israeli flag when he came out of the water. Fridman's victory finally gives Israelis the chance to hear their national anthem during a medal ceremony, scheduled for later in...

May-Walsh cap splendid American night on the beachBy CHRIS DUNCAN, AP Sports Writer August 24, 2004 ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Misty May and Kerri Walsh made it look easy, even in the end. The top-ranked American beach volleyball pair defeated second-seeded Brazilians Shelda Bede and Adriana Behar 21-17, 21-11 on Tuesday night, capping the most dominant run in the sport's history with a gold medal. Earlier, Americans Holly McPeak and Elaine Youngs won the bronze medal, beating Australia's Natalie Cook and Nicole Sanderson 21-18, 15-21, 15-9. May and Walsh didn't drop a set in Athens, with the 6-foot-3 Walsh dominating...

ATHENS, Greece - Paul Hamm had his golden moment, and he grabbed it like a starving wolf latching onto a lamb chop. And now he has a golden opportunity, worth a lifetime of moments, and if he doesn’t grab it right now, it will be gone forever.

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Our main sources for early Hoplite warfare come from the writings of Herodotus, who was born in the Greek city of Halicarnassus, on the southwest coast of Asia Minor, in 484 bc. He was an Ionian Greek who traveled widely and lived for a while in Athens, before settling in Thurii, a Greek colony in southern Italy. He died about 424 BC. We also get information from Thucydides, an Athenian who wrote of the Pelopponnesian Wars. We can also find references in the works of several of the Greek playwrights' material on Hoplite warfare. We can find an account of...

TEHRAN (MNA) -- During the latest season of excavations of the northern gate of Takht-e Suleiman, an ancient Zoroastrian fire temple located in northwestern Iran, the stamps of two seals were discovered which indicate that objects entered Takht-e Suleiman from other regions with special tags attached to them which seem to be advertisements. They signify that an early form of advertising was being practiced during the Sassanid era (224-642 C.E.), Yusef Moradi, the head of the excavation team, said on Friday. “The team began its excavations in early August and found the stamps of two seals at the upper levels...

Secrets of an ancient Persian armada sunk off the coast of Greece 2500 years ago are being dredged up by modern archaeologists. A team from Greece, Canada and the United States has just completed a second expedition to retrieve artefacts from 300 ships of the Persian King Darius that were wrecked in a storm off the Mt Athos Peninsula, northern Greece, in 492BC or 493BC. Aucklanders will be among the first to hear the results today when three of the expedition leaders present their findings in a free public lecture at Auckland University. In two trips so far, last October...