A technology startup, Workable, was founded in Athens, in 2012, by two experienced executives of Upstream, Nikos Moraitakis and Spiros Magiatis, who saw a gap in the international market, concerning software that would manage online recruitment. Workablehas been very successful so far, especially abroad, given that it sells its product mainly in the international market.

The company now has over 1,500 clients and has multiplied its turnover tenfold in one year alone, "which is a growth rate of 20% per month," the CEO Nikos Moraitakis noted at the To Vima daily [in Greek].

Workable's

The company Coffee Island was established in 1999, in the city of Patras by a physician who thought that the city was lacking a good old coffee shop with modern looks and traditional habits. Within some years, the company enjoyed success and a network of 256 stores, employing 1,300 people in Greece alone.

Coffee Island established its own coffee production and processing unit, took lessons from Italian masters, invested in architectural revamping of the sales points and took the risk of expanding abroad. First came Nicosia, Cyprus (2009), followed by a network of shops in Romania, Bulgaria

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met yesterday with Prem Watsa, founder and Chief Executive of Canadian insurance conglomerate Fairfax Financial Holdings, who expressed optimism for Greece. Watsa’s company owns a 13.6% stake in the Greek financial institution Eurobank. Speaking to senior executives of Eurobank and subsidiary property firm Grivalia, Watsa said: "I’m optimistic for Greece. In a year from now, the environment will be different. In the new environment, the economy will recover significantly. Greece has numerous advantages."

Turning his attention to Eurobank, he said once

Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis in an op-ed, published in "Project Syndicate" yesterday (25.5) writes that a common fallacy pervading world media coverage is that "Athens is unable or unwilling – or both – to implement an economic reform programme." The reality of the talks is very different, according to Varoufakis: "Our government is keen to implement a reform agenda that includes an independent tax agency; reasonable primary fiscal surpluses forever; a sensible and ambitious privatisation programme; genuine pension reform; liberalization of markets for goods and services, etc.

The

The Greek pharmaceutical industry suffered a major blow in the first years of the economic crisis (2010/11). However, since 2013, pharmaceutical companies are once again profitable, according to a report by Grant Thornton - Greece on the industry responsible for the development, production and marketing of medications, which is generating about 6€ billion in sales annually.

The Greek pharmaceutical sector (approximately 400 companies) is dominated by large and very large companies (70%), while small and medium sized companies account for 30% of the market. The industry’s portfolio is

A bilingual (Greek-Russian) book Ancient Greek Myths: Cosmogony featuring 279 illustrations of ancient Greek myths was published for the first time in Russia. This unique edition was created as part of the Year of Literature, which is currently being celebrated in Russia, ahead of the 2016 Year of Friendship between the two countries.

“I did the editing and literary description of Hesiod’s Theogony with much love,” says professor and writer Irina Beletskaya, who has been teaching Greek in various educational institutions in Moscow since 2001. The poem Theogony – written in Homeric Greek -

The Athens and Epidaurus Festival 2015 is celebrating its 60th year and is opening its doors from June 1st to August 31 with a rich theatrical and musical programme, including directors and theatre companies of international acclaim, such as Romeo Castellucci with Societas Raffaello Sanzio and Thomas Ostermeier with Schaubuhne, as well as Companies such as She She Pop from Berlin, Young Jean Lee’s Theatre from New York.

This year’s programme will open on June 1st with Dimitris Mavrikios’ theatrical version of Emanuel Roidis' Pope Joan.The performance is based on a text that interweaves

Greece is hosting the 2015 European Maritime Day (EMD).

Launched in 2008, the European Maritime Day is traditionally celebrated annually across Europe on May 20 to raise the visibility of maritime sectors and support an integrated approach to maritime affairs. The city and port of Piraeus will be at the heart of the European celebrations this year.

On May 26 - 27, Piraeus welcomes the 3rd Posidonia Sea Tourism Forum. The two-day event provides a unique platform to evaluate new investment opportunities in the industry.  


In particular, the Cruise sessions focus on the

The water at Europe’s beaches, rivers and lakes was generally of high quality in 2014, with 95 % of these sites meeting minimum requirements according to the annual bathing water quality report published on May 20 by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the European Commission. Greece came in 4th with high proportion of sites with excellent bathing water quality (97%) after Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta.

In Greece, a total of 1540 bathing waters have been reported – 7.2% of all bathing waters in Europe. Out of all bathing waters in Greece, 1.43% have been newly identified in the 2014

The city of Thessaloniki hosted a three-day event (May 22-24) celebrating and promoting the use of foreign languages, either well known or less spoken. In its third edition, the  Multilingualism Festival invited foreign consulates, cultural institutes and Erasmus students to join in, while sending out a message of friendship, understanding and tolerance.

On behalf of Greece, the festival welcomed the contribution of Foreign Literature Departments of Greek universities, as well as public entities which come into contact with non-Greek speakers, such as the city’s immigration bureau.

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