World Media on Greece - Highlights for 2008

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is among Time’s 100 most influential people in the category of “Leaders and Revolutionaries”, which  includes  Vladimir  Putin,  Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Dalai Lama among other foremost personalites. He ranked 11.

According to Time, Patriarch Bartholomew stakes out a clear moral and spiritual vision that is profoundly loyal to the traditions of worship and reflection in the Eastern Orthodox Church: his vision is dominated by his concern for the environment, stressing that ecological questions are essentially spiritual ones. Read more...

On Tuesday 29.04.2008, Greece signed a deal to join Gazprom's South Stream gas pipeline in a move that Russian and Greek leaders said would strengthen energy security in Europe.

Welcoming Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis to the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin praised Greece's decision to join the 10 billion euro pipeline, which will carry 30 billion cubic meters of Russian gas per year to southern Europe. Putin said the project could double gas consumption for Greece. "We guarantee this volume for Greece itself and upon realizing this project Greece will become an important link in the energy politics for all Europe."

Read more:
The pipeline in Google News
Greece agrees to join South Stream pipeline
Greece, Russia sign deal on South Stream natural gas pipeline
Greece signs on to South Stream

Conde Nast Traveler has published a lengthy special on the Greek Isles. Contributor Bob Payne shares his 20 years of  experinece travelling around Greece, in order to help readers plan their trip to the Greeks Isles.

He focuses on 20 Greek Islands (covering Crete, Ydra, the Cyclades, the Sporades, the Ionian and Dodecanese Islands) and gives away tips on finding the best beaches, the most charming harbors, the hottest party scenes and the particularly pictoresque villages. Read more...

Kate Armstrong goes on an odyssey to the heart of Greek culinary history: Armstrong heads for the Peloponnese, "this exquisite region that features fertile valleys, sun-kissed beaches, lush forests, magnificent mountain ranges, ancient sites, and thousands of olive groves and trees cover the region. "

Her first stop is Kalamata, in the southern Peloponnese, home of the famous kalamata olive, where she tastes handfuls of these plump, black fruits. Her pilgrimage ends in Sparta, a stunning region covered with olive groves, known not only for its brave Spartan soldiers but, more recently, for its Museum of the Olive and Greek Olive Oil  Read more...

Daniel Flynn visits Kefalonia and reports on the revival of Greek viticulture: Many consumers, when they imagine Greek wine, think retsina, but a new generation of winemakers are using unique local grape varieties to put the country's vintages back on the map.

The Greek government has a trheefold strategy to nurture the industry. Firstly, it is paying farmers to uproot old and diseased vines, second, it is subsidising the husbandry of the remaining vines and finally, it is promoting exports of Greek wines through marketing campaigns.

Germany remains the most important destination for Greek exports, but new markets are gaining ground such as Britain, the United States and Russia, with its growing middle-class. Read more...

According to this Variety article by Will Tizard, a Hellenic film renaissance is underway: Greek features like “El Greco”, “Little Godfather” and “Wedding Party” are gaining larger audiences in Greece and world sales rights are better than ever. Films picked up by foreign distributors include hits El Greco and Little Godfather, but also arthouse films like "Tale 52" and "Correction".

Most of the funding for Greek films comes from the Greek Film Center. The organization’s Stavroula Geronimaki says that “the steady upward in admissions for Greek films and the international distinctions garnered have generated new hope and development possibilities”.

The renowned International Thessaloniki Film Festival is doing its part to promote Greek films: local picture “Without” unspools in competition at the festival and the picture is expected to nab foreign sales. Read more...

The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens made it to the list of the 200 leading global universities, with the publication of the latest "Times Higher Education - QS world University Rankings," as announced on October 9. This achievement makes it the first Greek university ever to enter the list that is considered a quality benchmark.

The Greek university ranks 200, however it must be noted that there are 4,000 universities in the world, and as the magazine’s contributing editor Martin Ince says: "Being on this list means you are one of the top ones, whatever your position. Many universities want to be globally important and being in these rankings is the measure of their success – most don’t manage it."

Read more:
QS Top Universities School Profile: University of Athens
Greek Universities make the grade (Greek News Agenda, 13.10.2008)

The Antikythera Mechanism, a clockwork device made in Greece around 150–100 BC, astounded the world two years ago when scientists deduced how this machine was used to make complex astronomical time-reckonings. Now they say that the instrument, discovered in 1901 in a Mediterranean shipwreck, did much more than that.

Their latest findings reveal that it links the technical calendars used by astronomers to the everyday calendars that regulated ancient Greek society — most strikingly, the calendar that set the timing of the Olympic Games.

Researchers reporting in the journal Nature said they had now discovered that the device, made at the end of the 2nd century BC, used an intricate set of bronze gearwheels, dials and inscriptions to set the games' date. “The mechanism is full of surprises,” says Alexander Jones of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in New York, who is one of the decoding team, which also includes Greek physist Yanis Bitsakis. Read more...

See also:
More world media articles about the latest research on the Antikythera Mechanism
The Antikythera Mechanism Reseach Project
Abstract of the paper published in Nature, entitled "Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera Mechanism"

He has won praise from the likes of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and T&E (a sustainable-transport think tank) for fighting to preserve Europe’s credentials as an environmental standard bearer.

Now Mr Dimas faces his hardest task yet: defending Europe’s hard-won commitments on the environment against politicians and companies fearful of looming recession. Read more...

In the Broadway smash-turned-big screen musical, Amanda Seyfried stars as a blushing bride who invites three men to the Greek island Kalokairi - all of whom could be her father! Meryl Streep stars as the mother of the bride, while Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard co-star as possible papas. The movie musical takes its music from hit '70s band ABBA.

To create the enchanting -yet imaginary- island of Kalokairi, film shootings took place on the islands Skopelos, Skiathos and on Damouchari Beach in Pelion during August & September 2007. Most of the filming was done in Skopelos, were locations included Kastani beach, Agios Ioannis, Amaranto and Nisi Glisteri.

For the world premiere of Mamma Mia!, London's Leicester Square was transformed into a star-studded Greek paradise, decorated with lemon trees and a Greek church which were fittingly bathed by the summer sun. The movie opens in Greece on July 3 and in theatres worldwide on July 18.

Stars go Greek for Mamma Mia! gala (BBC News, 30.06.2008)
Mamma Mia! island's star turn (Telegraph, 05.07.2008)
Official Movie Website

In his online interview with China Daily, ambassador to China Michael Kambani speaks about how the transfer of Olympic expertise from Greece to China has helped to develop closer cooperation between the two countries, citing "The Cultural Year of Greece in China" as a good example of cultural collaboration.

The Ambassador says: "In the years ahead we would like to witness the expansion of our bilateral relations in new fields and on a more permanent basis. It is my understanding that modern Greece and China are very much alike in the sense that they are the heirs of ancient civilizations." Read more...

Peter Aspden, an FT columnist, who in his own words, has spent "years listening to the arguments trudge back and forth", and by virtue of his attibutes "as an interested observer and of Anglo-Greek parentage" proposes a five-point Manifesto, in an effort to help break the deadlock of negociations for the Parthenon Marbels.

Aspen describes the New Acropolis Museum as "a provocation, an enticement, a tease", a building finally giving Greeks the "physical authority" support their argument for the return of the Parthenon  Marbles. Asden takes a brief tour of the recent history of the marbles issue from Melina Mercouri's appeals in the 80's to the Greek government's focus in the past decade on the need to unify the various various pieces that comprise the Marbles in one place.

In his five-point Manifesto, Aspden stresses that the New Museum, like the succesfull 2004 Olympic Games, sympolises modern Greece's jouney to self-confident maturity, and therefore "it is worthy of celebration" with a "proactive, public offer of a three-year loand from the British Musum, so that these magnificent pieces of storytelling, and those stories can be told, for once, in one place".

Aspden proposes that after that period, "the reunited pediments should come to London for the opening of the Olympic Games of 2012 and remain there for four years". By that time "there will be so much goodwill flowing from one country to the other that there will be regular meetings between the two institutions to discuss constructive strategies of co-operation." Read more...

Marcus Binney, Architecture Correspondent for the Times, reports that the new rooftop gallery built to display the Parthenon marbles is one of the most beautiful exhibition spaces in modern architecture. Sunlight fills the gallery through floor-to-ceiling glass, and the windows have such slender supports you might be standing in the open air enjoying blue skies and the crystal light which is the wonder of Attica.

Besides the Parthenon friezes, the new museum will also display the superb sculpture from the outside of the temple with the statues of gods, horses and chariots from the end pediments and other famous sculptures, such as the female caryatids from the Erechtheion and friezes from the Temple of Athena Nike. Read more...

According to the Doing Business 2009 Report, Greece has improved its overall Ease of Business index, moving up to rank 96 (from 106 in 2008).

Greece cut the minimum capital requirement to start a business by 80%, reduced capital tax and made publication of company statutes quicker. It also introduced electronic payment of social security tax, and passed a new bankruptcy law that is expected to allow more companies in distress to emerge as going concerns. Finally, Greece strengthened director accountability by making it easier for shareholders to sue directors for damages caused by related-party transactions.

The Doing Business Report, published by the World Bank Group, is tracking reforms aimed at simplifying business regulations, strengthening property rights, opening up access to credit and enforcing contracts in 181 economies. Greece's areas of reform were: Starting a Business, Protecting Investors, Paying Taxes, Closing a Business. Read more..

BrandingGreece.com: According to a new series of reports issued by “EastWest Communications,” Greece has the 26th best nation brand in the world. The report is based upon the tone of the mention every country gets every time in leading world media. With algorithms, EastWest can analyze whether the mention’s tone is positive or negative.

East West Nation Branding Global Index 200: Quarterly and annual rankings of 200 countries and territories, including all 192 UN members, based on how they are described in major media. This initial index tracked five million mentions of countries and territories in 38 leading media sources, between April 1 and June 30, 2008.

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Acropolis and the Parthenon Marbles

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