An elderly man shot himself in the head on Wednesday in Athens central Syntagma Square, a focal point of anti-austerity protests, reportedly crying out that he did not want to leave his children in debt. Police said the 77-year-old, whose identity was not revealed, killed himself outside the Syntagma metro station, around a hundred metres (yards) from parliament, which for two years has been the main rallyi ...

News is starting to emerge now about an attack on anti-mining/ water justice activists in the municipality of Megali Panagia on the Chalkidiki peninsula in northern Greece. A media release issued by Initiative 136 notes, “Several hundred men on the payroll of ‘Greek Gold S.A.’, a subsidiary of Canadian company ‘European Goldfields’, attacked a group of local activists that are defending the virgin forests o ...

Gethin Chamberlain guardian.co.uk,   Workers in a factory supplying sportswear to the west. Photograph: Institute For Global Labour And Human Rights for the Observer While Adidas, Nike and Puma make millions out of the Games, their employees are claiming exploitation Workers producing sportswear for Olympic sponsors Adidas, Nike and Puma are beaten, verbally abused, underpaid and overworked in Banglade ...

Source: Athensnews.gr Police in Thessaloniki on Thrusday said they have smashed a multimillion-euro moneylending ring, involving prominent personalities and officials from the northern city. A senior financial crimes squad (SDOE) investigator, senior bank executives, lawyers, police officers, a journalist at a public broadcaster ERT, a tax bureau employee, a doctor, local businessmen and even a former footb ...

As American consumers ogle over shiny new gadgets at this week's Consumer Electronic's Show, the workers that make those products are threatening mass suicide for the horrid working conditions at Foxconn. 300 employees who worked making the Xbox 360 stood at the edge of the factory building, about to jump, after their boss reneged on promised compensation, reports English news site Want China Times. It's no ...

By Chloe Hadjimatheou BBC World Service, Athens Greece's financial crisis has made some families so desperate they are giving up the most precious thing of all - their children. One morning a few weeks before Christmas a kindergarten teacher in Athens found a note about one of her four-year-old pupils. "I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her," it read. "Please t ...

Thu, Jan 05 10:38 AM EST By Karolina Tagaris ATHENS (Reuters) - When an Athens taxi driver learned his passenger was the boss of an Istanbul-based company that brings Turkish TV dramas to Greece he reached for his phone, called his wife and put her through to the man sitting in the back seat. "She had to know what happens next," Global Agency chief executive Izzet Pinto said with a laugh. "I was expecting s ...

The woman is young, and slim, and fair. She lies on her back surrounded by four soldiers, two of whom are dragging her by the arms raised above her head. She's unresisting – maybe she's fainted; we can't tell because we can't see her face. She's wearing blue jeans and trainers. But her top half is bare: we can see her torso, her tummy, her blue bra, her bare delicate arms. Surrounding this top half, forming ...

Anarchist band react with 'total and absolute outrage and horror' after Nigel Farage appearance accompanied by song Anarchist pop band Chumbawamba expressed horror after their anthem to resilience, Tubthumping (I Get Knocked Down), was used at the Ukip conference in Eastbourne, East Sussex. Band member Dunstan Bruce said his reaction to the news was one of "total and absolute outrage and horror". He suggest ...

On 6 December 2008, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15-year-old student, was killed in cold blood by two policemen in Exarcheia in central Athens. The murder of Alexandros by the police resulted in large protests and demonstrations, which escalated to widespread rioting, with hundreds of rioters engaging riot police with Molotov cocktails, stones and other objects. Demonstrations and rioting soon spread to seve ...