At a time when political tension is absorbing so much of our energy, it is fascinating that we still have the power to be affected or shocked by a piece of art
It has always been useful to check the Greek-American print media as an alternative insight into U.S. and Greek relations. Some with a publishing life more than a century old, have enough professional aptitude, giving us useful information to complete the puzzle.
The latest announcement landed in my inbox on Saturday evening. “The Board of the Association of the Constantinopolitans utterly condemns the provocative action by the Turkish authorities to allow the calling of prayers and the reading of the Quran inside the Hagia Sophia, in the presence of the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet).
President Tayyip Erdoğan likes to hit out at Europe over its “mistaken” attitude toward Turkey.
“I would like to say how very pleased I am with the result and how very pleased I am to have had the overwhelming support of my colleagues in the House [of Commons] and the people from the party in the country,” she said, standing outside her official residence at Number 10 Downing Street, but refusing to answer any questions from the crowd of journalists and photographers.
It still feels like yesterday, although it was in the autumn of 1981
For Greece, last week was a bad week. First, the government could not secure an agreement on a relief of its huge debt in a meeting with finance ministers of the Eurozone and the IMF on May 22.
It is the middle of May, almost two weeks before the end of the month, and high on the agenda came, once again, the issue of the Hagia Sophia.
At the time when this article was being written, we knew that most opinion polls were giving the frontrunner centrist Emmanuel Macron a 20-point lead over his opponent Marine Le Pen.
