The Greek Islands - Crystal Clear Water and a Paradise for Foodies | DW Documentary | Reupload

Jun 13, 2024 | The island world of the Aegean Sea is both fascinating and incredibly diverse. Each island has its own charm and character. The film travels to the Greek Cyclades island group and visits five islands. Along the way, viewers meet people whose love for their islands is tangible.

Ikaria, in the north-eastern Aegean, is known as the island of 100-year-olds. It’s one of the world's five "Blue Zones", where people live to an exceptionally old age. Sifnos is the foodie island. Greece's most famous cook and cookbook author, Nikolaos Tselementes, was born here on this western Cyclades island and it’s no accident that it’s a place where food is important -- on Sifnos, traditional Greek cuisine is interpreted in a modern way. Kimolos is a small island that’s also home to the 95-year-old captain Augusti Galanos. He’s the archipelago’s most famous resident. Polyegos, with its wild goats, who all have names, is the largest uninhabited island in the Aegean. And Mykonos, the jet-set island that everyone knows, still holds plenty of surprises.

Greek Islands: Santorini, Mykonos, and Rhodes

Migrant 'Chaos' on Greek Islands - UN Refugee Agency

BBC AMERICA: The refugee crisis on the Greek islands of Kos, Chios and Lesbos is "total chaos", the UN refugee agency UNHCR says, with inadequate accommodation, water and sanitation.

Around 50,000 people arrived in Greece in July alone, the organisation says.

Greece's leader said the country was unable to cope, and called for EU help.

Separately, Italian police arrested five suspected traffickers over the deaths of about 200 people after a migrant boat sank on Wednesday.

They included two Libyans, two Algerians and a Tunisian, held on suspicion of multiple murder and people trafficking.

Survivors have said that traffickers used knives to slash the heads of African migrants and belts to thrash Arabs to keep them in the hull. (+ BBC videos) » | Friday, August 7, 2015

Qatari Emir Buys Six Greek Islands for a Song
THE GUARDIAN: Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani pays €8.5m for Ionian retreats for family with seller happy to strike deal after 18 months of red tape


The suitor is one of the world's wealthiest men; the location happens to be the eurozone's poorest country. But in an unlikely coming together of economic circumstances, the emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, has opted to splash out €8.5m (£7.35m) on six idyllic isles in the Ionian sea.

Closure of the deal – the latest in a global shopping spree that has seen the sheikh's property portfolio spread from London to Beijing – has been met with glee in Greece, the west's most bankrupt state, and Doha, where the royal household experienced 18 months of excruciating drama to take possession of the outcrops.

"Greece is that kind of place," said Ioannis Kassianos, Ithaca's straight-talking Greek-American mayor. "Even when you buy an island, even if you are the emir of Qatar, it takes a year and a half for all the paperwork to go through."

The isles, known as the Echinades, caught the oil-rich monarch's fancy when he moored his super-yacht in the turquoise waters off Ithaca, took in the view and liked what he saw. That was four summers ago.

When the royal eventually got off the yacht, he inquired about the pine-covered chain as he strolled about Ithaca in sandals and shorts. "They have a fund with a couple of hundred million in it," enthused Kassianos, a former US economics professor who assumed the mayorship of Homer's fabled isle three years ago. "And as far as I know they want to buy all 18 of the islands, the whole lot." » | Helena Smith in Athens | Tuesday 5 March 2013