Greece | featured news

Greece has imposed a nationwide ban on smoking in enclosed public and private workplaces under a new slogan "cut smoking, gain life."

Serbia basketball player Nenad Krstic, a center for the Oklahoma City Thunder, was released Friday after being held in police custody overnight following a chaotic brawl during a match with Greece.

The state-owned railway loses about $3.8 million a day, prompting a search for solutions: maybe a foreign investor or a complete overhaul.

Road closures, strikes and blockades have horrified people in Greece's vital tourism industry as it struggles to emerge from a vicious debt crisis that brought it to the brink of bankruptcy.

Protesters marched through Athens Thursday, the first since three people died when a bank was torched.

Greek unions announced on Wednesday that they would stage a 24-hour nationwide strike on May 20, the second major protest against tough austerity measures pledged in exchange for billions of euros in aid.

The International Monetary Fund on Sunday approved a 30 billion euro ($38.6 billion) loan for Greece as part of a larger European Union-led effort to help ease the country's economic crisis.

Euro zone leaders decided on Friday they have special measures ready before financial markets open on Monday to prevent financial turmoil in Greece spreading to other countries such as Spain and Portugal.

Stocks are plunging as investors give in to fears that Greece's debt problems will spread and halt the global economic recovery.

European debt problems sent another wave of pessimism through the markets.