However, the support to same-sex marriage does not extend to gay adoptions. “It is a difficult issue that requires dialogue,” said Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras when asked about the subject recently. “There are disputes in the scientific community about this and we will not include it in our policy program.”

To read more, please visit greekreporter.com

By Philip Chrysopoulos
 

I was interested to dig deeper—so when Anthe Mitrakos of Portes Magazine put me in touch with two brothers, one who served in the Evzone Company and the other who served in the Command Company of the Presidential Guard, I was chuffed to be afforded an interview with them!

Background - What’s an Evzone?

They’re the soldiers that stand outside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (where most of the tourists head to have their photos taken—oh, and me too!), the Presidential Palace and the gate of the military camp, where the Evzones stay during their time.

It’s important to say, here, that Evzones are not paid for their service. It is part of the nine month military service that all Greek males must undertake. Not everyone is selected to be an Evzone—and for this reason, it is an honour. More on that later.

They are two parts of the Presidential Guard section of military service guards:

1) Command Company

– Not the ‘men in kilts’ (Foustanella) i.e: not the evzones themselves
– Consists of one platoon whereby they undertake administration duties such as:
• chefs
• office work
• laundry
• looking after the uniforms
• drivers
• guards of the military camp
• soldiers who manage the restaurant: serve food, etc 

To read more, please visit: Life Beyond Borders

However, Samar means midnight whispers between two lovers in Arabic, and as it happens, love is what was meant to radically change her life, not her enormous professional success. “I was born in London to Arabic parents.

I found myself in Greece a year and a half ago because of love”, she tells us with a smile. My parents are from Iraq. They have been living in London since they were 17. Unfortunately, I’ve never been to Iraq, but my parents made sure to pass down Arabic culture and traditions to us. Holding on to their Arab roots, they gave us Arab names, they taught us to be open-hearted people, and to follow our dreams.

When I turned 18, I went to all of the record companies and told them “I want to work, give me something, I’m not interested in money”. The music industry was always my dream. I got a job at Sony interviewing musicians. At the same time, I was studying management because my parents told me that I could do what whatever I wanted, as long as I got a ‘serious’ degree. I graduated at 20 and started working at a music management company. I made coffee, tea, photocopies.. I started learning about the business and soon enough they started assigning me events that wealthy friends of my boss wanted to do. For example, one client wanted to have a party for his wife with only 10 guests.. and Sting singing live. Then I moved to EMI . I was working in the international department where each world-famous artist would need a specific person that would accompany them to their events, their shows, their interviews and photoshoots all around the world. In addition, I was the point of contact for all of the countries who wanted to book in an interview e.g with Katy Perry. I was their agenda. I was with them everywhere and always. Most of the time, it was one of the most glamorous jobs in the world. The rest of the time, it was 2am, I was in front of my computer, trying to eat and send emails at the same time. My brain was in Japan but my body-clock was still in Europe.

Of course, there were the 5 star hotels, the dinners, the parties and all of that – but there was also the jetlag, the constant running, the craziness. Think about it – we had to go to 20 countries in 2 months. I was the only constant person in the lives of the artists I was looking after. I was there to give them a sense of calm in such a chaotic whirlwind.

From the most famous artists that I looked after - Norah Jones, Katy Perry and David Guetta

– I can’t choose who was ‘the best’. And it wouldn’t be a fair thing to do being I had unforgettable experiences with all of them, and unlike some other artists, they were very nice and polite. I was closest with David Guetta because we started working together before he was famous. I was assigned to him when he was still an ‘underground’ DJ. Since my father spends his summers in Ibiza, I had heard David’s name and when I told EMI that I had heard of him, they assigned me to him immediately. I had just turned 24 and no one expected David to get so famous. For 6 months, it was just the two of us travelling everywhere. There were times when he would play in front of 50,000 people and call me to come to the side of the stage to have a look at the audience going crazy. Those are the kind of moments I’ll never forget.

The best part of the job was the annual party that happens in Miami, the Winter Music Conference. There were parties, DJs, people having a great time, we’d just hang out in Miami. I saw countries that I never dreamed of seeing. I went to Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Australia, Singapore. When I could, I’d take a few days off, and I’d stay on a little and spend some times actually seeing the countries I was in. The worst part of the job, however, was when I missed my mother’s birthday, important moments with the people closest to me. My friends just stopped calling me because I wouldn’t answer. I was so busy that I would forget to call back, and every time they would call, I was abroad. I lost touch with my friends, my life had become about my work. In the beginning, I was young, enthusiastic, free, I didn’t care. When I started realizing that I wanted to focus more on time on my personal life, I met Yannis.

I met Yannis in Tinos. When I was studying at university, there were a lot of Greeks, so I made a lot of Greek friends and I would holiday in Greece every summer. One summer, I met Yannis. It was the 6 th of July; we were like “hey, you’re great, I really like you”, everything was rosy, but then I had to go back to London. Yannis is a lawyer who lives in Greece - so when I went back to London, we both agreed that each of us had their own life and this summer-time romance didn’t really mean anything. But we kept in touch and soon enough, we realized we couldn’t stop talking. Two weeks after we met, he told me he had a few days off and suggested that we meet. I was supposed to go to Brazil and Argentina for work and I was really excited about it, so I told him it couldn’t happen because I was dying to go on the work trip. But then the trip got cancelled, so I took a few days off and suddenly found myself back in Greece with Yannis. We toured all of Western Greece together in ten days. I go back to London after the trip and again we tell each other that it’s a summer romance and it doesn’t mean anything. But then, Yannis came to London and we realized that we were kind of stuck with each other.

At first, I made an agreement at EMI that I could work one week a month from Greece. I went to my boss and told him “For 5 years I hadn’t been able to have a relationship because of work, and now I’ve found someone, I like him, and I need your help.” I explained that I needed some time for me. Everyone in the music business kind of gets it because we’re all in the same boat, so it wasn’t an issue. When EMI was put up for auction and sold to Universal and Warner Music, I decided I didn’t want to continue on and that this was my last chance to start something new in my life” she says, as she re-applies her lip gloss.

I was with Yannis for a year and a half, and I know he was never going to leave Greece because he had a good job and really loved his country. So I decided to come here permanently. I already had a lot of friends in Greece, which was really important to me. I didn’t come here just to be “Yannis’ girlfriend’. As soon as I came, I started Greek lessons. My parents thought I was crazy. But I wanted another quality of life. I knew about the crisis. But I wanted to come to Greece and offer what I could to the country, because at the same time I knew that this country had a lot to teach me. I came to Greece and I learned to be more relaxed, happier, to sit at a café with friends for 3 hours, to walk around my neighbourhood saying hi to all the locals and stopping for a chat. I came to Greece ready to let in whatever the country wanted to teach me. The only bad thing about Greece for me is that it tests my patience every day. All jokes aside though, I love Greece even though it tests my patience. The fact that my parents are from Iraq really helped me to understand and love the Greek mentality. We have a lot in common. I walk out on to my street and I know the butcher, the florist! I love all of that. Here in Greece, my friends call me just to say ‘hi’ – I still can’t believe that, that never happened in England. The weather, the people, the islands, the sun, I love everything about Greece. I totally changed my life, everything is new. I took a big risk, I don’t know if its all going to work out in the end but the truth is that in my heart I believe that I want to be here for the rest of my life, and to be with Yannis. I truly believe that.

We take a little break and Samar shows us her ‘crazy diamond’, her ‘child’, as she calls it. “Crazy Diamond is me. I started it because I wanted to do something I love and I wanted to use the experience I gathered over the last few years. A lot of people have said to me “Come for me, you’re never going to make it opening a company by yourself”. But I take the risk because I believe in myself. I bring all of the lessons I learned in London. I used to talk with many different countries in one day at EMI, and I’ve learned that you have to speak different with people in each country because every country has its own customs and cultures. I would speak differently with the team in Japan relative to how I spoke to the team in Italy. I learned to adjust to different situations. At Crazy Diamond, we organize events and we provide PR services, in a different way. One of our biggest successes was a party we organized for a very well-known baby stroller company. We brought in a barman who made non- alcoholic cocktails and served them in baby bottles, we had hairdressers and masseurs who pampered the mothers. All of this was something very different and it was a big success. We try to have fun and be different in everything that we do”. Samar talks with a lot of enthusiasm about her company, and shows us the little diamonds that are everywhere around her house. Even on the kitchen worktop there are little diamonds.

“Do you cook?”, I ask. “Once a week, my mother-in-law comes over and teaches me how to cook Greek food”. The day before yesterday she came over and showed me how to make pastitio, biftekia, keftedes and pumpkin soup. Next week she’s going to show me to how make yemista. I love it! I feel so welcomed in so many ways in Greece. Greeks are open people. I miss my family a lot but I see them often. I’m really close to my mother and she comes as often as she can. She gets on really well with my mother-in- law, they watch the same Turkish TV shows, they have a lot in common. When my mother came to Greece for the first time, she said it reminded her of Iraq and that was really touching”.

Everything sounds great, Samar hasn’t stopped smiling and talking about Yannis, Greece, and Crazy Diamond, but I’ve got a question turning around in my mind that I just can’t shake: “And if you and Yannis break up, what will you do? Would you stay in Greece?” “You know, Yannis and I were talking about that the other day. You see, he’s a pragmatist. He asked me what I’d do if we broke up. And I told him that I have really good friends here, a good life, I’ve invested time, effort, money .. and a lot of myself into Greece. So I told him that I’d stay even if we broke up because I want to be where my ‘child’ is. Then again, I might end up moving to Japan tomorrow. You never know where life is going to take you. For the meantime though, I know that I want to have my children here, give them Greek names, and to learn Greek as well as I can so that my kids don’t make fun of my accent!”

www.crazydiamond.gr

This article was originally published in Greek here: http://grekamag.gr

Kyriakou will represent Greece at the first Eurovision semifinal on May 19. A second semifinal takes place on May 21, with the final set for May 23.

“One Last Breath” features music by Efthyvoulos Theocharous and Kyriakou and lyrics by Vangelis Constantinidis and Evelina Tziora.

To read more, please visit ekathimerini.com

During a teleconference discussion, Giorgos Houliarakis fleshed out the six proposed reforms Athens intends to discuss with representatives of the country’s international creditors in a bid to clinch a portion of a 7.2-billion-euro pending loan installment.

Those measures include tackling the country’s humanitarian crisis, reforming the public administration, introducing a payment scheme for Greeks with debts to the state and overhauling tax collection.

Greek efforts to prepare the ground for the Eurogroup came as European officials indicated that the country has little room for maneuver.

At a joint press conference with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel refused to speculate on the possible need of a third loan package for Greece, noting that much work remained with the current program. “I think we now have all our hands full to make this... succeed,” Merkel said.

To read more, please visit ekathimerini.com

According to high-ranking government sources, the six reforms which Mr. Varoufakis intends to submit in Brussels are:

1-2 Humanitarian crisis – Administrative Reform: The government sources claim that this will be an effort to combat the “poverty triptych” of food, housing and energy sufficiency, which will be combined with the necessary administrative reform.

3. Addressing outstanding debts towards the state and insurance funds: The goal is to get millions of debtors to begin paying taxes and to create a “tax awareness”. The debts will not be slashed and the bill will aim to reward consistent taxpayers.

To read more, please visit tovima.gr/en

The former Greek government put in a request late last year to become an EBRD 'country of operation' and make it eligible for the development bank's support, but the process was put on hold during the uncertainty of the country's recent elections.

However this week's four-month Greek aid extension by the euro zone has put it back on track and EBRD sources said the bank's shareholders -- 64 countries plus the European Union and European Investment Bank -- were voting on the proposal on Friday.

To read more, please visit thetoc.gr/eng

“We have not discussed anything with the Greek side,” a European official told Sunday's Kathimerini after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced on Friday night that four bills would be tabled in the House this week.

In a televised address to his cabinet, Tsipras said that four draft laws would be unveiled this week in order to tackle the social impact of the crisis, to introduce a new payment scheme for overdue debts to the state, to protect primary residences from foreclosures and to reopen public broadcaster ERT.

At the Eurogroup on February 20, Greece and its lenders agreed that the government would not adopt any measures unilaterally that “would negatively impact fiscal targets, economic recovery or financial stability, as assessed by the institutions.”

It is not clear if Greece’s creditors believe that the bills due to be submitted to Parliament this week fall into this category but sources suggested that there is concern about the lack of of communication between Athens and its partners.

However, the immediate problem that must be overcome is ensuring that the government can meet its funding needs over the next few months, starting with a 1.6-billion-euro payment to the International Monetary Fund in March. On Saturday, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis went as far saying that Athens would try to negotiate the summer payment of 6.7 billion euros’ worth of Greek bonds held by the European Central Bank.

“Shouldn’t we negotiate this? We will fight it,” he told Skai TV. “If we had the money we would pay... They know we don’t have it.”

To read more, please visit ekathimerini.com

The government said on Thursday that it will wait for other eurozone parliaments to vote on the deal, a process which should be completed on Friday, before deciding when or if legislation paving the way for the loan extension would be submitted to the Greek Parliament.

Tsipras’s hesitancy comes after a meeting of SYRIZA’s parliamentary group on Wednesday that lasted more than 11 hours. During the debate about Greece’s new agreement with its lenders, a number of MPs expressed disagreement with the deal. At Tsipras’s insistence, a vote was held at the end of the meeting and some 30 of the party’s 149 lawmakers either voted against the agreement or failed to vote for it.

While it is unlikely that there would be such a big rebellion in an actual parliamentary vote, the signs of dissent have been enough to cause concern among Tsipras and his aides, who are even considering the possibility of not bringing the agreement to Parliament and finding another way of ensuring its extension.

To read more, please visit ekathimerini.com