A new study found:

Over all 67 per cent of Greek Cypriots said they felt happy “all or most of the time” compared to the EU average of 65 per cent. Turkish Cypriots fell below the EU average at 61 per cent.

Compared to the Finns though, this is relatively small:

Greek Cypriots may be happy and full of life but the Finns topped the list with 90 per cent and Denmark 77 per cent. Three quarters of Dutch people are full of energy, they say, compared to 68 per cent of Greek Cypriots that feel the same and only 40 per cent of Turkish Cypriots.

Greek all round however had negative opinions about people suffering from psychological disorders believing they were unpredictable.

And lastly:

Every year over one in four European adults are affected by mental health problems. Annually, mental illnesses lead to 58, 000 suicides in Europe.

The estimated number of Europeans that have suffered from major depression is 18.4 million and from specific phobias 18.5 million within the past 12 months.

Jean Christou wrote the story for the Cyprus Mail.

What the mind and the heart is for a human being, Greece is for humanity.

In Greece, 59 percent of respondents saw their economy as being in recession, with almost a quarter believing that the financial status of their households will improve.

The remainder either believes that their circumstances will worsen or stay the same, said the report entitled Year-End Holiday Survey 2006.

News link: http://english.people.com.cn/200611/16/eng20061116_321977.html

Stockholm’s Museum of Mediterranean and Middle East Antiquities says the marble fragment will be officially returned to Greece this week. It comes from the Erechtheion temple, build around 420 BC. The frieze was taken to Sweden by a naval officer 110 years ago, and remained in his family’s possession until last year, when it was turned over to the museum.

Greece is seeking to become an all-year-round tourist destination by adding new itineraries and increasing investments in the sector, local media reported on Monday.

Ouzo and tsipouro are to be recognized as Greek products by the European Union and will be regarded as drinks that can only be produced in Greece, Agriculture Minister Evangelos Bassiakos said yesterday.

Following an EU meeting of agriculture ministers in Brussels, Bassiakos said that the legal protection of the drinks will be secured across the 25-nation bloc.

“The minister succeeded after difficult negotiations to register the drinks ouzo, tsipouro and tsikoudia as geographically protected,” the ministry said.

According to an unnamed Agriculture Ministry official, Greece had also allowed fellow EU member Cyprus the right to make ouzo when it joined in 2004, Reuters reported.

The EU ministers also agreed yesterday to give Cyprus the exclusive right to produce zivania, a colorless alcoholic drink with a light aroma of raisins.

The EU has previously granted brand

Further reading:

Greek ouzo

Wikipedia’s Ouzo entry

Barbayanni ouzo

Ouzo in Lesbos

by Furio Durando
Ancient Greece was the cradle of western civilization; its influence reverberates today in almost every sphere of life, from philosophy and politics to literature and art. This volume explores in almost 400 stunning colour photographs the best of its architecture, paintings, sculptures and brilliantly sophisticated pottery and metalwork. This superb overview of the extraordinary riches of Greek art encompasses every era, from the abstract purity of the Cycladic figurines and the perfection of the Classical period to the ‘baroque’ of the Hellenistic era. The accessible and wide-ranging text begins in the Bronze Age with Minoan Crete, and proceeds through the glories of 5th-century Athens and the birth of democracy, to the feats of Alexander the Great and ultimately to Greece’s conquest by Rome. Further sections examine other essential aspects of Greek culture, including architecture, religion, theatre, sport and warfare. Completing the volume is a spectacular itinerary that takes in the most beautiful cities of ancient Greece and its colonies, including Asia Minor and southern Italy. Descriptions are brought to life and cities restored to their former glory in specially commissioned colour reconstructions, including several fold-outs. With numerous diagrams, site plans, maps and a glossary, Greece: Splendours of an Ancient Civilization is a panoramic study of one of the most important periods in human history.

Book Two: Meet the Philosophers of Ancient Greece: Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Ancient Greek Philosophy but didn’t Know who to Ask

by Patricia F. O’Grady

Synopsis

Ancient Greece was the cradle of philosophy in the Western tradition. Meet the Philosophers of Ancient Greece brings the thoughts and lives of the pioneers of Western philosophy down from their sometimes remote heights and introduces them to a modern audience. Comprising of seventy essays, written by internationally distinguished scholars in a lively and accessible style, this book presents the values, ideas, wisdom and arguments of the most significant thinkers from the world of ancient Greece. Commencing with Thales of Miletus and continuing to the end of the Ancient Period of philosophy by way of Heraclitus, Parmenides, Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, Epictetus this book explores the major contributions of each philosopher as well as looking at archeological and historical sites where they lived, worked and thought. This book is an outstanding introduction to the world of the philosophers of Ancient Greece.

Book Three: Finding People in Early Greece

by Carol G. Thomas

Synopsis
Progress toward a fuller understanding of preclassical Greece was steady until the 1950s, when a general crisis in all the human-centered disciplines erupted. Scholars undertook a serious reexamination of their tools and data, producing new brands of history, geography, anthropology, archaeology, economics, and sociology. Although these new approaches were widely adopted, the developments also bred a countercurrent beginning in the 1980s and 1990s. The fallout from this backlash was serious in several respects, one of the most important of which was the elimination of the human element in the products of the “new” human-centered disciplines. In Finding People in Early Greece, Carol Thomas addresses these developments and the recent accommodation and rapprochement of the “old” and “new” that has emerged. She then offers two case studies: Jason and the voyage of the Argo, deriving from the “Age of Heroes,” and Hesiod, probably the first literate European, who lived ca. 700 BCE during the “Age of Revolution,” which catapulted Greece out of its long Dark Age into the vibrant Classical Age. With these two examples, Thomas shows that through a combination of scientific tools and historically oriented scholarship, a larger context in which individual subjects lived can be offered.

The Greek sport newspapers show a prostrate Olympiakos and a hopeful Panathinaikos (they play AEK Monday and a victory will lessen Olympiakos’s lead. Something they could not do all last season.)

The Greek headline – Ξεχαρβάλωμα translates to decrepitude. The paper is referring to Olympiakos players ‘ old age and over use.

Sportday tells Panathinaikos “This is your chance.” Meaning to close the gap between them and Olympiakos.

Schoolkids revive ancient Greek culture with sheets and theatre masks. And have lots of fun, says Newsleader.com.

Moldova and Greece sign a tourism cooperation, to strengthen ties, increase tourism education and investment, says Travel Daily News.

A fisherman finds Aphrodite’s love den, says The Scotsman.com.

A LARGE number of ancient stone anchors have been found off the coast of Cyprus near a temple dedicated to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, suggesting it was once one of the most commonly visited places in the eastern Mediterranean.

THE temple of Aphrodite on Cyprus may have been a popular stopping-off point for travellers, but for some reason it failed to make the official tourist guide for the ancient world.