
Trump Turns Up the Heat: Australia Pressured to Boost Defence Spending or Face Trade Penalties
The Trump administration is putting mounting pressure on Australia to drastically increase its defence spending, aligning with NATO’s new benchmark of 5% of GDP. While NATO allies recently accepted this demand, Australia is resisting calls

Liberal MP breaks ranks to call for increase to Newstart
Liberal senator Dean Smith has broken ranks with the federal government to call for an increase to the Newstart payment. WA Senator Dean Smith has become the first Liberal MP to publicly back an increase

Aged care homes spending as little as $7 a day on residents food
Some aged care homes spend as little as $7 a day on food for each resident, a royal commission has been told. Celebrity chef Maggie Beer says that sort of budget is inadequate to prepare

Vic wants federal funds to remove cladding
The Commonwealth is being asked to stump up $300 million to help remove dangerous cladding from hundreds of buildings across Victoria. The state Labor government is establishing a $600 million fund, to be overseen by

Asylum seeker tries to set himself on fire at Melbourne detention facility
Another incident of self-harm has occurred in an Australian detention centre. An asylum seeker detained in the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation facility has been taken to hospital after trying to set himself on fire, according

No paperwork, increasing rent: Sydney landlords exploiting international students
International students are being exploited by landlords in Sydney’s tight housing market, a new report has found. International students in Sydney are falling victim to financial exploitation by dodgy landlords, who are overcharging on bonds,

Record number of Aussies rush to file tax returns
A record number of Australians have lodged their tax returns in the hope of getting their hands on a hefty refund. About 650,000 people have already filed their tax returns, with this year’s early rush

Mitsotakis pushes for EU action on Libya migration route and defence funding
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, speaking after the conclusion of the EU Summit, called for urgent action to address a new irregular migration route emerging from Eastern Libya to Crete. “We will use every means available—carrot and stick—to ensure this route is not consolidated,” he stressed. Mitsotakis announced that the

Doctor in Mani wins WONCA 2019 Europe Award of Excellence in health care
Dr Anargiros Mariolis, director of the Areopoli Health Center in Mani, is the winner of the WONCA Europe Award of Excellence in Health Care for 2019. The 5-Star Doctor is an award to doctors, who,

Repatriating two rare ancient vessels
Standing at just under 60 centimeters in height, two 4th century BC marble vessels – a funerary lekythos and a loutrophoros – that the Greek state is in negotiations to repatriate from Switzerland have traveled

Turkish researchers: No Sultan’s edict allowing Lord Elgin to loot the Acropolis
Two Turkish researchers have de-bunked the British claim that the Parthenon Marbles were a gift by the Ottoman Sultan Selim III to Lord Elgin. The Sultan did not issue an edict (ferman) allowing Elgin to

Rights of ethnic Greeks in Albania abused, again
Albania on Saturday reportedly withdrew a decision published in the online version of its government gazette calling for the seizure of properties belonging to members of the ethnic Greek minority in the town of Himara.

Greece furious over north neighbor’s “Wines of Macedonia”
It came as expected and feared. Companies in North Macedonia omit the geographic term and sell their products with state labeling as simple “Macedonian.” And this despite the Prespes Agreement or because of it that

2,300 Year old Greek Necropolis found in Bari, South Italy
Bari, the capitol of south Italy’s Puglia region was one of the many coastal city states of Magna Greacia (‘Great Greece’) settled by the Greeks from the 8th century BC. The enduring legacy of Greek

Trump Turns Up the Heat: Australia Pressured to Boost Defence Spending or Face Trade Penalties
The Trump administration is putting mounting pressure on Australia to drastically increase its defence spending, aligning with NATO’s new benchmark of 5% of GDP. While NATO allies recently accepted this demand, Australia is resisting calls to push its military budget beyond its current trajectory of 2.3% of GDP—well short of

“Surveillance Capitalism”: Google sister company to package and sell location data from millions of cellphones
A subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, Sidewalk Labs, is using real-time mobile location data from millions of cellphone users collected over long periods of time in order to help urban planners make critical decision

Skopje responds to Bulgarian Deputy PM’s threat over Zaev’s “Macedonian language”
The VMRO leader accused the representatives of the former Yugoslav republic of wanting to “validate a false version of history” The Foreign Ministry in Skopje has responded to Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister and VMRO party

FYROM’s name change deal may be an achievement for the E.U., but undemocratic
After the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991, Greece’s northern neighbor stole the Greek name “Macedonia”—but Athens refused to recognize it, saying it gave legitimacy to territorial, historical, and ethnic claims over the millenial old northern

Ancient Greek and Roman artifacts found in Alexandria
An announcement from the Archaeological Mission of Alexandria has revealed that an array of Greek and Roman artefacts has been found in Alexandria, Egypt. That date back to the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. The