Greece has a bright future - EU

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso cited Greece, in a statement made public yesterday, as an example of the benefits of EU expansion. On the 25th anniversary of the Greece joining the EC, Mr Barroso said, “The accession of Greece…made Europe bigger and stronger. If they continue to progress over the next years as they have over the last decades, then they — and Europe as a whole — can look forward to a very bright future indeed.”

Police in Rethymnon, Crete, were yesterday bracing for a possible outbreak of interethnic tension following the fatal stabbing of an Albanian youth by a group of Greeks on New Year’s Day.

The head of the Supreme Court prosecutor's office has ordered a preliminary investigation into the death of an escaped Russian murderer.

The Greek Consumer Organization EKATO warned parents yesterday about their children looking for Santa Claus on the Internet on websites that feature Father Christmas but also call for personal details, such as credit card numbers. Ekato said that parents should supervise children surfing the Net, especially if they are under the age of 12, as there have also been occasions where paedophiles set up such sites to lure victims.

Spain is planning to give refugee status to those fleeing persecution on grounds of gender or sexual orientation in a revision of its asylum laws. And it seems the UK has an – unofficial – variation on this theme:

Following on from yesterday’s post regarding a call for zero tolerance towards foreigners who commit criminal acts in the UK, claims today that the immigration service does not check passports to see if immigrants are ‘wanted’ abroad – because immigration staff are too lazy.

The claim is in an article alleging a ‘sex for visas’ racket at the UK’s main immigration centre: “A pretty girl would only have to smile, bend over the desk and she'd get a visa. Officers said about ugly girls: She's bloody disgusting - let's send her back."

Just before we celebrated Agios Vassilis, Archbishop Christodoulos warned that ‘enemies of the state’ are trying to "de-Christianise" Greece. Maybe it isn’t just Greece - an Italian judge has ordered a priest to appear in court this month to prove that Jesus Christ existed.

For most people, one of the places where we learn about religion is in school – but should schools be scrapped? Here’s an extract from an article I’ve posted at ELSOKAI: Schools are structured today in much the same way as they have been for hundreds of years. Schools should simply cease to exist as we know them. We need to stop producing a nation of stressed-out students who learn how to please the teacher instead of pleasing themselves. We need to produce adults who love learning, not adults who avoid all learning because it reminds them of the horrors of school. We need to stop thinking that all children need to learn the same stuff. We need to create adults who can think for themselves.

Well, I can imagine what Archbishop Christodoulos would make of a woman ‘marrying’ a dolphin, I wonder what Spain will make of the idea? Or the UK immigration staff? And how about this - news of a new internet-dating website in Greece – for animals.

More in the ELSOKAI Forums

Hm, wonder if the EU has a bright future?