This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page The Greek construction company signed a contract for a new 1.5 MW biogas plant kIEFER TEK recently signed the contract for the construction of the 1.5 MW biogas plant in Farsala and will oversee the implementation of all the necessary installation procedures as well as the commission of the project kIEFER’s partner in the project will be a German company which will provide the technical equipment for the construction of the plant The plant will be producing biogas form anaerobic digestion of organic waste and organic crops which will be provided by local farmers and breeders in the surrounding area and in that way the rural economy will be enhanced too The produced biogas will provide electricity thermal energy and fertilisers in both liquid and solid form As stated in the press release ‘With this contract kIEFER TEK Ltd continues steadily rising course in the field of construction of power plants using renewable sources.’ kIEFER TEK is aiming to maintain the leading role in the plant construction in Greece Read more here in Greek European Biogas AssociationAvenue des Nerviens 85 , B-1040 Brussels, Belgiuminfo@europeanbiogas.eu +32 24 00 10 89 By entering your email address and clicking “Submit,” you agree to receive updates from the Open Society Foundations about our work. To learn more about how we use and protect your personal data, please view our privacy policy the Open Society Foundations returns to Greece Nikolia Apostolou posted this after visiting Athens The phone rings often; he runs around printing new case files and continues to take on new clients Konstantinidis dedicates his out of work hours to helping out his own community: the Roma He promised himself he would never stop helping his community—no matter how hard it is to balance the two worlds Konstantinidis dropped out of school to start work when he was ten he managed to fulfill his dream of becoming a lawyer I started at the Second Chance School with a 15-year plan to finish junior high school and the bar exams—all while holding a day job,” Konstantinidis said But Konstantinidis walked a lonely path—while he was studying most of his friends dropped out of school and got married I’d like it if I weren’t an exception,” said Konstantinidis talking about Roma’s access to education but they do not have equal access to basic resources and that’s what we need to change.” Prejudice and discrimination against the Roma in Greece is still strong Konstantinidis describes cases like those in Aspropyrgos where two classrooms were burnt after an announcement that the school would accept Roma children or like the ones in the northern Greek town of Sofades where parents staged a sit-in to protest the admittance of Roma children to the local school blue-eyed girl named Maria at the Roma camp of Farsala in northern Greece Maria was taken away from her family and the parents were arrested although they told police that a Bulgarian Roma woman had given her to them because she was unable to raise the child herself In the weeks before the DNA results were released playing into the tale of Roma kidnapping children who didn’t eat their dinners often told by Greek parents to scare their children into behaving “The media in Greece have no ethics when they deal with the Roma It’s like we’re in the Middle Ages of information,” said Eleni Tsetsekou who has worked for more than a decade with Roma populations around Europe at the Council of Europe “[The media] created panic in the Roma camps and they kept looking for blonde kids If they knew the community at all they’d know that many Roma children are blonde There’s a complete ignorance of Roma issues and a disinterest to learn about them They’ve harmed an already vulnerable community and sent them further into the margins.” The Roma are Europe’s largest and most marginalized minority group. They number 10 to 12 million, 250,000 of whom reside in Greece. According to a cross-Europe survey [PDF] conducted by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights in 2012 more than 90 percent of Roma households live below the poverty lines of their respective countries Only 15 percent have completed secondary education while they have a 10-year shorter life expectancy Back in Farsala, the commotion died down and the media left after DNA tests proved Maria was indeed the child of a Roma Bulgarian woman But the people of the camp are still struggling with subpar living conditions and illiteracy Panayiotis Karakostas is a 22-year-old Roma who supports his four children who are between the ages of one and seven years old He has spent the day delivering scrap parts and now cleans the dust and dirt off of his old he’ll go buy some ceramic pots and try to sell those instead “I go out [for work] every day,” Karakostas said taking a break to smoke a cigarette Things for Karakostas have become more difficult recently after a law was passed that requires a vendor’s permit to sell goods as you need to pay around 500 euros every two months for healthcare and social security “My brother-in-law was sitting next to a kiosk selling shoes,” said Karakostas “He had five pairs and the police came to him and gave him a 5,000 euro fine and took his merchandise.” says the children are free to do what they decide “We didn’t go to school and now what do we do?” Maria asked When you’re illiterate your eyes are shut.” a Roma soccer team meets for practice to prepare for a local tournament a small town about 90 kilometers from Athens The team is made up of Roma between the ages of 14 and 20 The team started in early 2009 and has been going strong ever since “When we started there was blood on the ground in every training,” said Phillip Larsen I’m sure football has saved lives because it’s a very difficult age when you grow up in such a tense environment.” During practice everyone listens to the coach and asks Phillip for pointers The team is proud that it’s the only team in the local championship without any red cards Soccer has proven to be an important outlet for young Roma men like 17-year-old Dionusis Georgiou but we’ve been conditioned to deal with it since we were young There are a lot of problems here on top of all the poverty,” said Georgiou Soccer helps me deal with my stress,” he added The Roma soccer players feel that soccer has changed attitudes toward them “The way people [in the town] see us has changed,” said Georgiou they talk about [our performance] and greet us in the street All this time they considered us to be slower than them but now we don’t have to deal with racism anymore.” There are rays of hope in Greece for Roma but there is still much more to do developed in cooperation with the Roma community and designed to tackle problems in education remains largely unimplemented by municipalities and national government “If the state had the political will to fulfill this holistic program and when we talk about Roma we wouldn’t only think of social marginalization and the horrible social and economic situation Roma are in,” said Konstantinidis media attention has moved on; the legacy of last year’s events a deeper and more damaging prejudice towards Roma and partners about how we’re working around the world to build vibrant and inclusive democracies whose governments are accountable and open to the participation of all people Every year the Open Society Foundations give thousands of grants to groups and individuals that work on issues we focus on—promoting justice Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker Your request has been blocked by our security system due to potential security concerns Please contact us for assistance an Austrian company owned by Russian billionaire businesswoman and philanthropist Yelena Baturina continues the expansion of a project to generate her structures completed the acquisition of a solar park near the city of Farsala in Greece Experts state that energy produced by this relatively small solar park in Farsala may help avoid the emission of 800 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually the total investment into the project by Yelena Baturina's structures could reach € 20 million in the coming year The representatives of the company evaluate the profitability of the acquired park at € 500 thousand per year The venture is responsible for the construction and commercial operation of solar parks in the south and south-east of Europe Before the acquisition in Greece the company also purchased a solar park in Italy Currently the company is considering a number of proposals to expand the capacities; the next acquisitions under consideration are in Greece and Cyprus in an interview with the Austrian newspaper Wirtschaftsblatt Yelena Baturina said: "We see the future of the project not just in expanding the capacities or producing more energy We are now developing a subproject that consists in applying the technology that allows saving the energy obtained from renewable sources which constitutes a whole new system of wise energy consumption" Another trend within the energy project which is no less interesting is "constructing and servicing individual solar parks located mostly on the roofs of enterprises - the consumers of energy" Ms Baturina indicated that a few such projects will be launched soon we are about to exceed the amount of investment we named before." (Photo: Yelena Baturina [right] and Yury Luzhkov TrendForce’s latest findings reveal that government incentives in China are boosting ...more... "They will appear on Monday before a magistrate on charges of abducting a minor after DNA tests revealed they bore no relationship to her," said Lukas Krikos "An extensive investigation is under way around the Roma camp in Farsala with her conspicuous deep-set blue eyes and pale skin when they conducted a raid on the settlement 170 miles north of Athens in search of weapons and drugs The girl appeared disoriented and confused by the abrupt change in her environment when she was taken into the care of a children's charity "She communicates mostly in the Roma dialect and understands only a few words of Greek," said Costas Giannopoulos Greek authorities said it was imperative that they find the child's real parents so they could understand how she ended up in the camp A global search has been initiated through Interpol and international children's groups from the girl being found in a blanket to her having a Canadian father who was found to have two identities and 14 children claimed to have given birth to six of them in the same year At least three were registered in different parts of Greece "This case has reinforced our suspicions of Roma involvement in child trafficking We have discovered how easy it is for anyone to register children as their own," Giannopoulos told the Observer blue-eyed children are clearly being targeted." The parents of Madeleine McCann the toddler who went missing in Portugal in 2007 said the case gave them "great hope" It could also help crack the mystery of Ben Needham the Sheffield boy who went missing on the island of Kos in 1991 This is the archive of The Observer up until 21/04/2025 The Observer is now owned and operated by Tortoise Media But the outcomes have been completely different it'd be a lot easier to draw simplistic conclusions what happened this week in Roma families in Ireland and Greece has only led to more questions Maria is now the subject of a worldwide hunt for her biological parents The case has shed light on what some are calling a serious human trafficking problem in Greece, where, as the BBC's Mark Lowen reports, the country's lax "prevention and prosecution" systems mean children are "subjected to forced labor, sex-trafficking or sold to couples in illegal adoption schemes." But it has also reinforced age-old stereotypes about child-stealing Dan Bilefsky wrote about an explosive recent trial in France over Roma children who were trained to steal – one in which the defense argued about crime in terms of "following age-old Roma traditions and generally operating outside the norms of society." Today one child is back with her parents and another remains an enigma So is it dangerous racial profiling to question the presence of a fair child in a Roma family Does the outcome of the investigation change the answer The two stories reveal in different ways the complexity of the issues surrounding Europe's Roma communities which exist largely outside the parameters of official documentation The investigations now taking place are only going to ramp up They are to some an inevitable response to reports of child-snatching and a "witch hunt" to others the victims of exploitation are not always clearly defined Mary Elizabeth Williams is a senior writer for Salon and author of "A Series of Catastrophes & Miracles." Follow her on Bluesky @maryelizabethw Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com Associated Press articles: Copyright © 2016 The Associated Press Greek authorities discover 4 year old girl in a raid on a Gypsy camp in Farsala Greek police have asked for Interpol’s help in an effort to locate the parents of a 4-year-old girl known as Maria found living with a Roma family near Farsala in central Greece’s region Thessaly Even though a lawyer acting on behalf of the couple arrested for kidnapping the child claims they simply took the girl in when she was abandoned by her foreign national mother police believes the girl was abducted in 2009 The child is being looked after by “The Smile of the Child” DNA tests showed that the Roma man and woman with whom she lived were not her biological parents Police believe the pair that claimed originally to be Maria’s parents were involved in human trafficking as records show them having a total of 14 children registered in three different parts of Greece In response to questions about why the couple had registered so many children their lawyer claimed it was a way of maximizing the state benefits they could receive The case has received international attention and a spokesman for the parents of Madeleine McCann a British girl who went missing in Portugal in 2007 said the child’s discovery had given them “great hope” their daughter would be found alive Anyone with information is asked to call at the European Hotline for Missing Children 116 000, contact “The Smile of the Child” at +30 210 76 09 550 or send an email at 116000@hamogelo.gr Three years after the destruction wrought by the Ianos weather front the nightmare of catastrophic floods returned to the Thessalian Plain submerging entire villages under tons of water as a 49-year-old farmer from Petroto Domokou was found dead while there were reports of six missing persons in several villages in the wider region Anger is mounting with locals referring to an absolute disaster whose full extent will be revealed after about a week when the immediate needs are addressed and the water level which in many areas has risen to more than 2 or 3 meters questions are being asked as to why nothing was done pre-emptively to protect regions like the plain of Karditsa and its villages and why the necessary works were not carried out in the three years since Ianos the damage caused by the floods on Wednesday extended to shops mainly because of the inadequacy of the drainage system The embankments of the Karabalis River were tested on Wednesday afternoon but held due to the immediate mobilization to reinforce them criticisms have been made that in order to prevent the city from being flooded there was no corresponding mobilization to reinforce the embankments on the plain with the result that huge volumes of water spilled out there was also extensive damage in mountainous regions Residents of the regions are blaming regional authorities and local municipalities as the weather phenomenon had been developing since Monday and already at dawn on Tuesday had flooded Farsala “Everyone knows that if there are floods in Farsala after 24 to 36 hours there will be floods in Karditsa and Trikala,” residents said decrying the indifference and delays of the competent authorities an estimated €1 billion has reportedly been allocated for post-Ianos projects of which around €400 million was for flood protection there are many complaints that any projects that have been carried out have been fragmented Enter your information below to receive our weekly newsletters with the latest insights opinion pieces and current events straight to your inbox Crowds flocked to the beaches along Athens’ southern coastline from early Sunday morning with temperatures gradually climbing toward 29–30°C Athenians and hundreds of tourists took advantage of the sunshine and warm weather temperatures in the southern suburbs had already surpassed 25°C and were still rising other parts of the country also experienced temperatures above 30°C today The highest was recorded in Karditsa at 31.3°C the National Observatory forecasts sunshine with scattered clouds increasing in the west and gradually spreading to other regions bringing localized rain or isolated thunderstorms—initially in the Ionian Islands and the mountainous areas of Central Greece Conditions in the west are expected to improve quickly Winds will be variable and light in the North and Central Aegean and moderate (4–5 Beaufort) from the west in the South Aegean winds will generally blow from the south at light intensity temporarily reaching 4 Beaufort in the northern part they will blow from the west at moderate strength (4–5 Beaufort) Athens:Mostly sunny with occasional clouds but will be 2–3 degrees lower in northern and coastal areas with brief northwesterly breezes reaching up to 4 Beaufort in the Saronic Gulf during morning and evening hours Thessaloniki:Mostly sunny with occasional cloud cover Winds in the Thermaic Gulf will be light and variable Follow en.protothema.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news See all the latest News from Greece and the World, the moment they happen, at en.protothema.gr