Tens of thousands of Greeks have gathered peacefully for nearly a week in various cities to demand change, after a year of painful austerity measures.
One way or another, Beijing will get its Olympic flame. At Sunday’s final rehearsal, clouds over the ancient Games’ ruined birthplace prevented organisers from kindling the torch for the 2008 Olympics in the traditional way — using the sun’s rays harnessed in a convex mirror.
Wildfires swept through Greece on Thursday, killing two people and destroying homes after days of record high temperatures that led to at least nine heatstroke deaths and extensive power cuts. An explosion in a power substation in Thessaloniki caused power failures of up to six hours.
The captain of a cruise ship that sank in the Aegean Sea has been charged with negligence, and searchers have failed to locate two missing French passengers. The Sea Diamond had been carrying 1 154 tourists and 391 crew members when it hit a reef off the volcanic Greek island of Santorini on Thursday.