The same man was suspected of later opening fire on the ground floor of a court building in Athens, with several people wounded there, police said. File image for representation only
| Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Greece’s famed tourist island hotspot, Santorini, has witnessed a sudden increase in seismic activity, prompting the authorities to call for an urgent meeting. As per the Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Ministry, monitoring sensors had picked up “mild seismic-volcanic activity” in Santorini’s caldera, leading to speculation and concerns, especially given the island’s tourism-driven economy and the potential for geological upheaval.

The curved island in the Aegean Sea is located around a flooded volcanic caldera with monitoring stations detecting at least 39 quakes in a single day, mostly magnitude 3.5 or less, as per a report in Live Science.

The island is famous for its historical volcanic activity, particularly the massive Minoan eruption around 1600 BC which is regarded as one of the largest in human history. Between 2011 and 2012, Santorini experienced a similar seismic swarm linked to magma movement beneath the surface, but no eruption ensued.

The most recent eruption in Santorini’s history was recorded in 1950, suggesting that the island’s volcano remains active but not necessarily on the brink of an eruption.

Also Read | One-In-Six Chance Of Massive Volcanic Eruption This Century. Will It Trigger Climate Chaos?

‘No cause of concern’

Reflecting on the recent developments, Efthymios Lekkas, seismologist and head of the scientific monitoring committee for the Hellenic Volcanic Arc, stated on Greece’s ERT television that there was no immediate instance where the volcano may erupt.

“What we must realise is that the Santorini volcano produces very large explosions every 20,000 years. It’s been 3,000 years since the last explosion, so we have a very long time ahead of us before we face a big explosion,” said Mr Lekkas.

“The volcano is a living organism. We will not face a big explosion, but a mild procedure,” said Mr Lekkas adding that volcanic activity increases and decreases, and can cause small earthquakes. “

Despite no immediate danger, scientists continue to monitor the situation to understand if there’s any indication of magma movement or if it’s just part of the usual tectonic activity in the region.

Washington DC:

US President-elect Donald Trump has picked Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host turned political fundraiser and – more pointedly – the fiancee of his son Donald Jr, as the next United States ambassador to Greece. Ms Guilfoyle has been engaged to Donald Trump Jr since December 31, 2020.

In his announcement of Ms Guilfoyle’s posting to Greece, the incoming president called her “a close friend and ally” for years, but made no mention of her relationship with his son.

She is “perfectly suited to foster strong bilateral relations with Greece, advancing our interests on issues ranging from defence cooperation to trade and economic innovation,” he said in a post on the social media platform Truth Social.

“Her extensive experience and leadership in law, media, and politics along with her sharp intellect make her supremely qualified to represent the United States,” the post added. 

However, what preceded Tuesday’s announcement was a report that the president-elect’s eldest son was dating a socialite, Bettina Anderson.

On Tuesday, British tabloid The Daily Mail published a series of photos of Donald Trump Jr with “it girl” Bettina Anderson, describing them as “incontrovertible proof the soon-to-be First Son has moved on” with a “stunning ‘it girl.'” 

So far, there is no official confirmation from Mr Trump’s office or Ms Guilfoyle about the engagement being called off. 

According to a New York Times report, rumours about the closeness between Ms Anderson and the president-elect’s son gained pace in September, when the pair was reportedly seen kissing during a brunch. Ms Anderson was reportedly a friend of Donald Jr’s ex-wife, Vanessa Trump, with whom he shares five children.

The chatter on the love triangle grew in recent days after Ms Anderson’s recent birthday celebration. On the occasion, Ms Anderson posted a story on her Instagram account, showing a big bouquet of flowers, with a gushy card from an admirer. “Many have said that you’re aging out but I think you’re perfect,” the card read. 

 “Tough but fair,” Ms Anderson added to the post, with the NYT report saying Donald Trump Jr’s Instagram handle was noted in the posting.

Guilfoyle Add To List To Trump Appointee With Family Ties

Ms Guilfoyle is not the President-elect’s first appointee with family ties. In November, Mr Trump announced plans to nominate his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, as ambassador to France and to appoint Massad Boulos – the father-in-law of his youngest daughter, Tiffany Trump – as a senior adviser on Arab and Middle East issues.

His pick for ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack is a longtime friend of the Republican president-elect. He’s also a private equity executive and has been previously charged with unlawfully acting as an agent of the United Arab Emirates and was acquitted in 2022 of all nine counts he faced.

Trump described Tom as a “well-respected and experienced voice of reason,” in his post announcing the appointment.

Italy ensured qualification for the Nations League quarter-finals with a victory over Belgium on Thursday that also guaranteed France a place in the last-eight despite a lacklustre display in a scoreless draw with Israel under tight security in Paris. Lee Carsley, whose brief reign as England coach ends on Sunday, enjoyed an emphatic victory in Athens that put his team top of their pool on goal difference. In Brussels, Italy were economical as they beat Belgium 1-0 in Group A2.

The visitors dominated the early stages and scored after 11 minutes. A cross from fullback Giovanni Di Lorenzo deflected into the path of Sandro Tonali for a tap in.

Belgian centre back Wout Faes hit a post with a second-half header.

“We showed again that we give it a go and don’t just sit back in matches, that’s the big change,” Tonali told RAI.

At the Stade de France in Paris, tentative France struggled to create and take chances as they drew 0-0 with Israel before a crowd of just under 17,000 in a stadium that holds up to 80,000.

Around 4,000 police and members of the security forces patrolled inside and outside the ground to prevent a repetition of the attacks on fans of Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam last week.

Stewards had to intervene at one point to stop fans of both nations from clashing in the stands, an AFP reporter saw.

Around 100 Israeli fans attended the match despite calls from Israeli authorities to stay away.

On the pitch, it took until the 20th minute for captain N’Golo Kante, jinking into the six-yard box, to force a first save from goalkeeper Daniel Peretz.

France managed 25 attempts on goal but Peretz had to make only two diving saves in the second half, first from Warren Zaire-Emery and then in added time from Christopher Nkunku.

“Anger. Frustration,” said France fullback Jules Kounde when asked his immediate reaction by French broadcaster TF1. “The only good point from tonight is that qualification is assured.”

Italy lead the group by three points but France could still take first when the teams meet in Milan on Sunday.

“We could have done more but we did what we needed to do against an ultra-defensive opponent,” France coach Didier Deschamps told TF1.

Kane dropped

In Athens, Carsley, forced into a string of changes by a flurry of withdrawals from his last England squad, sprung a surprise by dropping Harry Kane.

Ollie Watkins replaced the England captain and took seven minutes to justify Carsley’s decision. Noni Madueke raced onto a Jude Bellingham pass and crossed for Watkins to stab home.

As in their win at Wembley in October, the Greeks caused England’s inexperienced defence problems in the Group B2 clash.

After 30 minutes, right back Kostas Tsimikas ran into space in the box. Everton’s Jordan Pickford hurled himself to his right to turn away a piledriver from the Liverpool man.

England started the second half in control. Rico Lewis forced a save from Odysseas Vlachodimos and Bellingham hit a post with a header before Fotis Ioannidis drew another diving save from Pickford.

Kane came on but another England talisman, Bellingham, forced the goal that put England top of the group after 78 minutes. His shot struck the post, rebounded into the back of airborne Vlachodimos and flew in.

Curtis Jones, on his debut, added the third five minutes later.

England and Greece both have 12 points with one game to go but England’s goal difference is three better.

“We’re moving in the right direction,” Carsley told ITV. “We have a lot of outstanding talent.”

The top two in B3 are also separated on goal difference as leaders Austria and pursuers Norway both won.

Austria’s Christoph Baumgartner and Michael Gregoritsch scored in the first 25 minutes in Almaty by which time Kazakhstan were down to ten men.

Austria saw out a 2-0 win and lead the pool on goal difference from Norway who won 4-1 in Slovenia with Erling Haaland scoring once.

Morgan Rogers (left) in action© AFP

Panathinaikos and Greece international defender George Baldock was found dead in his swimming pool on Wednesday, Greek news reports said. The 31-year-old English-born right-back died at home in the southern Athens suburb of Glyfada, state agency ANA said. Greece’s Super League and several clubs expressed their condolences. State TV ERT said the player was “at the bottom of the pool” and a bottle of alcohol was found at the scene. ANA said Baldock’s wife, who is abroad, alerted the owner of the residence after unsuccessfully trying to reach the player on the phone.

Police cars and an ambulance were outside the building and a coroner was called to examine the body, ERT said.

Baldock had joined Panathinaikos in May after a seven-year spell with Sheffield United, relegated from the English Premier League to the Championship last season.

Of Greek origin through his father, he was called to the Greek national team in 2022. 

He had 12 caps, but had not been selected for the team’s Nations League match against England at Wembley on Thursday owing to injury, ERT said.

Baldock had featured for Panathinaikos in a 0-0 draw with Olympiacos in a Greek Super League match on Sunday where he played for 75 minutes.

‘One of our own’

Both the Greece team’s official website and his club’s social media sites on X, formerly Twitter, and Facebook, were blackened in tribute to the player.

Manchester United’s England international defender Harry Maguire, a former Sheffield United player, posted “RIP” and a heartbreak emoji alongside an image of Baldock on Instagram.

Sheffield United changed their home page to a black and white photo of their former player with the words: “RIP George Baldock. 

“Sheffield United Football Club is shocked and extremely saddened to learn of the passing of former player, George Baldock,” said the club.

Northampton, where Baldock had a loan spell in 2011, wrote on X: “We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of former loanee George Baldock at the tragically young age of 31.

“George made five appearances in 2011 before playing for Oxford United and Sheffield United. Sending our sincerest condolences to George’s family and friends.”

Baldock’s boyhood club MK Dons said they were “deeply devastated and saddened to learn about the shocking news”.

“George started his career at Stadium MK, where he worked his way through the youth ranks and made his senior career debut at the Club before reaching the heights of the Premier League in later years. 

“You will always be one of our own, George.”

The Football Association in England wrote on X: “We are devastated to learn of the passing of George Baldock at the age of 31. Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with George’s family, friends and team-mates at club and country.”

Baldock was nicknamed “Furious George” by Sheffield United fans in tribute to his uncompromising style.

“I just love winning. I hate losing and I even hate drawing,” he told local media.

Antikythera:

When winter draws in on Antikythera, the already meagre population of the isolated Greek island shrinks to almost nothing.

“There are 20 to 25 of us, no children, no bakery,” said local leader Giorgos Harhalakis, who is fighting an uphill battle to revive the small Aegean island’s fortunes.

“I’m not giving up,” he told AFP.

A speck of land between the islands of Kythera and Crete, Antikythera, like many rural regions in Greece, has suffered steady depopulation.

When the last national census was held in 2021, it had just 39 inhabitants, down from 120 in 2011.

Photo Credit: AFP

Harhalakis, 37, still remembers his first years at primary school in the 1990s, before his family, like others, was forced by “financial problems” to move to the mainland.

At the time, the island was home to “farmers, fishermen and cattle breeders” and had around 15 communities, he said. 

Today, only the port of Potamos is inhabited.

In the rocky heights of Antikythera, the dry-stone walls of terraced fields are still visible between abandoned and collapsed houses. 

The island’s only connection to the outside world is by boat to Kythera and Crete. 

Shuttered schools

The exodus meant that the school closed for two decades before reopening in 2018 for just three pupils — the children of Despina and Dionysis Andronikos, an Antikythera couple who returned from Athens.

“But in 2021, when my eldest daughter finished primary school, we had to leave so she could go to secondary school in Kythera,” Dionysis Andronikos said.

The school was forced to close again — one of dozens across Greece that faced a similar fate owing to lack of pupils when the school year began last month.

Photo Credit: AFP

Greece’s fertility rate of 1.43 children per woman in 2021 is below the EU average of 1.53 children, according to EU data agency Eurostat.

A recent study by the Greek Institute for Demographic Research (IDEM) found that one in three of the country’s municipalities has fewer than 10 births a year.

The institute attributed this to Greece’s ageing population, but also to “the extremely uneven distribution of the population”. 

Athens is home to over a third of the country’s 10.5 million inhabitants.

And with over a fifth of its population aged 65 and over, Greece ranks fourth among EU member states with the highest number of elderly.

Only Italy (23.8 percent), Portugal (23.7 percent) and Finland (23.1 percent) rank higher, according to Eurostat.

To make things worse, over half a million young people left the country during the financial meltdown of the last decade.

Some efforts have been made to attract new residents to areas in need.

In the mountain village of Fourna, in central Greece, the local church invited large families to move in to prevent the closure of the local school. 

In September, this initiative attracted a family with six children. 

But a similar attempt, launched three years ago in Antikythera, has so far failed to bear fruit.

Ancient computer, new hope

For Harhalakis, the island’s community leader, the main problem “is the lack of infrastructure. The state needs to offer incentives” for the construction of houses and shops, he said. 

In winter, the island has only one cafe, which serves both as a tavern and a small store. It is run by a man in his eighties.

“The native population is ageing, and the future of the island is in doubt,” said Catherine Dechosal, a retired Frenchwoman who divides her time between the island and her homeland.

This year the government introduced a baby bonus to counter the demographic collapse.

But experts warn that increasing the number of births is not the only answer. 

“Mortality rates and immigration play a decisive role and should not be downplayed,” Vyron Kotzamanis, director of IDEM, recently told Greek state news agency ANA. 

Harhalakis hopes that the planned climate change observatory on the island will create jobs.

Antikythera already enjoys an outsized fame in the scientific world.

A 2nd-century astrological clock believed to be the world’s oldest computer was found by sponge divers off its coast in the early 20th century among the remains of a Roman-era shipwreck.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Indian investors snapped up Greek properties at a record pace in July and August to secure permanent residency before the country’s Golden Visa Programme underwent significant changes on September 1. Property purchases by Indian investors in Greece saw a remarkable 37 per cent increase between July and August, data show. The surge was led by buyers seeking to capitalise on the existing minimum investment requirements. 

Now the changes in the Golden Visa Programme have doubled the minimum investment required to qualify for a visa through real estate purchases. In Tier I cities, including Athens, Thessaloniki, Mykonos, and Santorini, the threshold has increased €800,000 800,000 (approximately Rs 7 crore). 

In Tier II regions, covering all other parts of Greece, the minimum investment has risen to €400,000 from €250,000. 

Greece Golden Visa Programme

The Greece Golden Visa programme is a premier residency-by-investment initiative designed to attract non-EU nationals to invest in Greece.

In 2024, the programme was updated to better align with Greece’s economic strategies, introducing new investment thresholds and conditions.

Eligibility criteria

• Non-EU/EEA citizenship
• Age 18+
• Clean criminal record
• Medical insurance
• Good character

Benefits

• Residency Rights: Right to reside in Greece without mandatory stay requirements.
• Schengen Area Access: Visa-free travel within the Schengen Zone.
• Family Inclusion: Eligibility for family members to obtain residency.
• Pathway to Citizenship: Potential to apply for Greek citizenship after seven years of residency, subject to conditions.

Application Process and legal requirements

Required Documentation

• Valid Passport: Current and any previous visas.
• Proof of Investment: Property contracts, bank statements, etc.
• Biometric Data: Required for the application.
• Health Insurance: Policy valid in Greece.
• Criminal Record: Clean criminal record from the applicant’s country of residence, officially translated into Greek.

Legal Representation

• Mandatory Lawyer: Licensed to practise in Greece. 
• Role of Lawyer: Facilitates document preparation, and submission, and ensures compliance with Greek immigration laws.
• Power of Attorney: Often required for the lawyer to act on the applicant’s behalf.

Renewal and Permanent Residency

• Initial Permit: Issued for five years, renewable as long as the investment is maintained.
• Permanent Residency: Eligible after seven years of continuous residency in Greece.

Dependents

• Spouse and Partner: Including legally recognised cohabitation agreements.
• Children: Under 21, or older if financially dependent and studying.
• Parents: Dependent parents of the primary applicant or spouse.

Indian investors snapped up Greek properties at a record pace in July and August to secure permanent residency before the country’s Golden Visa Programme underwent significant changes on September 1. Property purchases by Indian investors in Greece saw a remarkable 37 per cent increase between July and August, data show. The surge was led by buyers seeking to capitalise on the existing minimum investment requirements. 

Now the changes in the Golden Visa Programme have doubled the minimum investment required to qualify for a visa through real estate purchases. In Tier I cities, including Athens, Thessaloniki, Mykonos, and Santorini, the threshold has increased €800,000 800,000 (approximately Rs 7 crore). 

In Tier II regions, covering all other parts of Greece, the minimum investment has risen to €400,000 from €250,000. 

Greece Golden Visa Programme

The Greece Golden Visa programme is a premier residency-by-investment initiative designed to attract non-EU nationals to invest in Greece.

In 2024, the programme was updated to better align with Greece’s economic strategies, introducing new investment thresholds and conditions.

Eligibility criteria

• Non-EU/EEA citizenship
• Age 18+
• Clean criminal record
• Medical insurance
• Good character

Benefits

• Residency Rights: Right to reside in Greece without mandatory stay requirements.
• Schengen Area Access: Visa-free travel within the Schengen Zone.
• Family Inclusion: Eligibility for family members to obtain residency.
• Pathway to Citizenship: Potential to apply for Greek citizenship after seven years of residency, subject to conditions.

Application Process and legal requirements

Required Documentation

• Valid Passport: Current and any previous visas.
• Proof of Investment: Property contracts, bank statements, etc.
• Biometric Data: Required for the application.
• Health Insurance: Policy valid in Greece.
• Criminal Record: Clean criminal record from the applicant’s country of residence, officially translated into Greek.

Legal Representation

• Mandatory Lawyer: Licensed to practise in Greece. 
• Role of Lawyer: Facilitates document preparation, and submission, and ensures compliance with Greek immigration laws.
• Power of Attorney: Often required for the lawyer to act on the applicant’s behalf.

Renewal and Permanent Residency

• Initial Permit: Issued for five years, renewable as long as the investment is maintained.
• Permanent Residency: Eligible after seven years of continuous residency in Greece.

Dependents

• Spouse and Partner: Including legally recognised cohabitation agreements.
• Children: Under 21, or older if financially dependent and studying.
• Parents: Dependent parents of the primary applicant or spouse.