We enter the new year with deep wounds and a bleak legacy from 2021, as natural disasters have exposed the shortcomings of environmental policy and civil protection, and the pandemic has cast a glaring light on the ailing public health system.
The year ahead promises to be a tough one for Greece’s relations with Turkey. Not that those before have been easy, but the situation may become even worse if certain quarters seek to exploit emotionally charged historical milestones.
Last there for the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in November, I walked past Eleftherias (Freedom) Square and saw it closed off with metal barriers. I was shocked when I realized where I was.
Citizens need the state more during a health crisis of this magnitude, and the state now has the means to keep its public services functioning properly, even without the physical presence of their staff.
It’s on days like these that I get a nostalgic longing for silence… I am not referring to the existential introspection usually brought upon by the holiday season. I am talking about the silence of politicians in days gone by.
The donation of security equipment to four main Greek universities so that they can keep an eye on who enters the campuses eliminates any excuses for delays.
From the eve of Greece’s 1821 War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire, the Orthodox Christian tradition and the Greek language that came with it fostered a cultural osmosis.
The pricing of medical protective masks whose use is compulsory and a matter of public health cannot be treated according to the usual rules of the free market economy.
Peskov has been called President Putin’s “right-hand man.” He’s a Turkologist, speaks fluent Turkish, and was a high-ranking member of Russia’s diplomatic delegation in Ankara for nearly a decade.
Karolos Papoulias was the embodiment of moderation, composure and tact, but also of the essential. Over the lengthy course of his political career, he neither provoked nor succumbed to populism.
Everyone needs a reality check every once in a while, but no one needs it more than politicians and journalists, and anyone else involved in the public sphere.
OPINION
