Νέο επεισόδιο έντασης με βαρείς χαρακτηρισμούς, προκλήθηκε στη Βουλή μεταξύ Ζωής Κωνσταντοπούλου και Άδωνι Γεωργιάδη, για την υπόθεση των Τεμπών και με αφορμή το γεγονός ότι αύριο (15/05) το πρωί στις 09:30 στην Επιτροπή Κοινοβουλευτικής Δεοντολογίας θα συζητηθεί το ενδεχόμενο άρσης της βουλευτικής ασυλίας της Ζωής Κωνσταντοπούλου, μετά από μηνύσεις οι οποίες έχουν γίνει εις βάρος της. Το γεγονός αυτό ανέβασε κατακόρυφα τους τόνους της πολιτικής αντιπαράθεσης και προκάλεσε σκληρή κόντρα ανάμεσα στον υπουργό Υγείας, Άδωνι Γεωργιάδη και την πρόεδρο της Πλεύσης Ελευθερίας, με την Ζωή Κωνσταντοπούλου να κατηγορεί την κυβέρνηση για παρακρατικούς μηχανισμούς, ενώ χαρακτηρίζει και παρακρατικό τον Άδωνι Γεωργιάδη και τον υπουργό Υγείας να σηκώνει το γάντι και να κατηγορεί την πρόεδρο της Πλεύσης Ελευθερίας για υποκρισία. Να θυμίζει δε, ότι μία από τις μηνύσεις που έχουν κατατεθεί στο πρόσωπο της κυρίας Κωνσταντοπούλου προέρχεται από την κουνιάδα βουλευτού του κόμματος Πλεύση Ελευθερίας, την κυρία Τζώρτζια Κεφαλά. Δείτε περισσότερα στο ertflix.gr | Ακούστε περισσότερα στο ertecho.gr Ρεπορτάζ: Κώστας Κωνσταντόπουλος www.ertnews.gr

Αντίστροφη μέτρηση για τον μεγάλο τελικό της Eurovision 2026 το Σάββατο (16/5), με τις προετοιμασίες να κορυφώνονται και τον Akyla να ετοιμάζεται να δώσει τον καλύτερό του εαυτό στη σκηνή, ερμηνεύοντας το «Ferto» με το ίδιο πάθος και την ίδια εκρηκτική ενέργεια που εντυπωσίασαν κοινό και τηλεθεατές στον Α’ Ημιτελικό. Οι προσδοκίες για την ελληνική συμμετοχή παραμένουν ιδιαίτερα υψηλές, καθώς η Ελλάδα συνεχίζει να βρίσκεται ανάμεσα στα μεγάλα φαβορί της φετινής διοργάνωσης. Η δυναμική του Akyla εκτοξεύεται Η πορεία του Akyla μέχρι τον τελικό της Eurovision 2026 εξελίσσεται με εντυπωσιακό τρόπο, κάτι που αποτυπώνεται ξεκάθαρα και στους αριθμούς. Το βίντεο της εμφάνισής του στον Α’ Ημιτελικό ξεπέρασε το 1 εκατομμύριο προβολές στο YouTube μέσα σε λιγότερο από 24 ώρες, προκαλώντας πανικό στα social media και χιλιάδες σχόλια από fans της Eurovision σε όλη την Ευρώπη. Οι αριθμοί δείχνουν πως οι προβολές, τα viral στιγμιότυπα και η συνολική απήχηση στα social media αποτελούν πλέον βασικό δείκτη δυναμικής για τους φετινούς διαγωνιζόμενους, με τον Akyla να βρίσκεται στην κορυφή της σχετικής λίστας. Συγκεκριμένα: 1,3 εκατομμύρια προβολές στο YouTube 3,7 εκατομμύρια προβολές στο TikTok Πάνω από 5 εκατομμύρια προβολές στα επίσημα social media της Eurovision για την εμφάνισή του στον Α’ Ημιτελικό «Όταν βλέπω τον κόσμο, παίρνω δύναμη» Σε συνέντευξή του, ο Akylas μίλησε για τα συναισθήματα που βίωσε πάνω στη σκηνή της Eurovision, αποκαλύπτοντας πόσο διαφορετική ήταν η εμπειρία της ζωντανής εμφάνισης σε σχέση με τις πρόβες. «Ενώ έκανα την εμφάνιση, σκεφτόμουν: “Θεέ μου, τώρα είμαι στην εθνική τηλεόραση. Τι συμβαίνει;”. Ήταν όμως πολύ διαφορετικό από τις πρόβες, γιατί όταν βλέπω τον κόσμο εκεί κάτω, λαμβάνω τόση αγάπη και αυτό μου δίνει τόση δύναμη». Δείτε περισσότερα στο ertflix.gr | Ακούστε περισσότερα στο ertecho.gr Η σκηνική παρουσία που έκλεψε τις εντυπώσεις Ο Έλληνας εκπρόσωπος αναφέρθηκε και στη σκηνοθετική επιμέλεια της εμφάνισής του, η οποία απέσπασε εξαιρετικά σχόλια μετά τον πρώτο ημιτελικό. Όπως αποκάλυψε, η ομάδα του δούλεψε εντατικά για να δημιουργήσει ένα απαιτητικό και εντυπωσιακό σκηνικό αποτέλεσμα. «Δεν μπορείς να φανταστείς πόση δουλειά βάλαμε σε αυτή τη σκηνοθεσία. Πολλές πρόβες. Οδηγώ ένα σκούτερ στη σκηνή, ανεβαίνω σε αρχαίες κολόνες, κατεβαίνω από στύλο, τρέχω, πηδάω. Περνάω τόσο καλά στη σκηνή και είμαι τόσο χαρούμενος που είμαστε στον τελικό και που έχω την ευκαιρία να κάνω αυτή την εμφάνιση ξανά», τόνισε. Η συγκινητική αναφορά στη μητέρα του Ιδιαίτερα συγκινητική ήταν και η αναφορά του στη μητέρα του, την οποία χαρακτήρισε ως τον άνθρωπο που στάθηκε δίπλα του από την πρώτη στιγμή και συνεχίζει να στηρίζει τα όνειρά του, αναφέροντας «Η μητέρα μου είναι τόσο περήφανη και τόσο χαρούμενη. Όταν άκουσε το τραγούδι για πρώτη φορά έκλαιγε πολύ. Μου τηλεφώνησε και μου έλεγε: “Γιατί μου το κάνεις αυτό;”. Είναι πολύ σημαντικό για όλους τους γονείς να αγαπούν τα παιδιά τους όπως είναι και να υποστηρίζουν τα όνειρά τους. Μην προσπαθείτε να τα αλλάξετε». Απόψε ο Β’ Ημιτελικός Το ενδιαφέρον πλέον στρέφεται στον Β’ Ημιτελικό της Eurovision, που διεξάγεται απόψε στις 22:00 και μεταδίδεται απευθείας από την Ελληνική Ραδιοφωνία Τηλεόραση μέσω της ΕΡΤ1. Από τη βραδιά θα προκριθούν ακόμη 10 χώρες, οι οποίες θα συμπληρώσουν το παζλ του μεγάλου τελικού του Σαββάτου 16 Μαΐου, εκεί όπου ο Akylas θα διεκδικήσει μία από τις κορυφαίες θέσεις της φετινής Eurovision. Eπιμέλεια βίντεο – Μίνα Σπηλιωτοπούλου www.ertnews.gr

A ruling by a Court in Athens put an end to the so-called “illegal” imposition of a monthly charge of 0.80 euros on deposit accounts of National Bank customers. The move of National Bank to automatically and without the consent of customers to converted their bank accounts from “simple savings/simple current” to “privilege account” with […] The post Court rules against National Bank monthly charge on deposit accounts appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

A Navy submarine reportedly entangled in trawl nets of fishing boats between the islands of Andros and Tinos in the Aegean Sea. Despite the accident, the submarine did not lose its propulsion and has already surfaced, thus continuing its participation in the exercise “KATAIGIS 26” – STORM 26- , sources told media. The submarine of […] The post Submarine entangled in trawl nets during Navy exercise in the Aegean appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

Hegesias of Cyrene was the philosopher whose radical pessimism led to a royal ban. Credit: Greek Reporter archive Most Ancient Greek philosophers were focused on how to live a good life and the pursuit of happiness, or eudaimonia, as they called it in Greek. But then there was Hegesias. Commonly remembered as “the Death Persuader,” it is often claimed that he was the most dangerous intellectual of the Hellenistic era. The reason was simple yet gruesome. His brand of pessimism was so convincing it actually generated a wave of suicides in ancient Alexandria. While his exact dates of birth and death have been lost to history, the philosopher Hegesias flourished around 290 BC. Hegesias began his journey in philosophy with the standard teachings of the Cyrenaic school, an ultra-hedonistic branch of Ancient Greek philosophy founded in the 4th century BC by Aristippus of Cyrene, a student of Socrates. Its core belief was that immediate, physical pleasure is the supreme good and ultimate goal of human life, prioritizing present-moment pleasure over future planning or mental tranquility. Hegesias warped these beliefs into something completely bleak, drastically changing its foundations. Rather than pointing out that life is tough, he used cold, relentless logic to argue that existence was fundamentally pointless. The pain, he reasoned, will always outweigh those few, fleeting moments of pleasure that defined the Cyrenaic school. This is why his nickname, Peisithanatos, was a literal description of what he did to the young Egyptians of the Hellenistic era who showed up to hear him speak. Archaeological site of Cyrene. Credit: Giovanni Boccardi cc by-sa 3.0 Hegesias took a radical shift to nihilism To comprehend his brief but profound impact, we have to look at his roots. The Cyrenaic school, founded by Aristippus, focused almost exclusively on chasing immediate, physical pleasure. Hegesias, however, drove that philosophy straight off a cliff. He became so profoundly disillusioned that the pursuit of joy morphed into a frantic escape from pain. Happiness, he argued, is a total fever dream. In practice, our bodies are constantly breaking down or hurting, and our minds are forced to carry that weight right along with them. He even wrote a book (sadly lost to time) called Apokarteron (The Man Who Starves Himself). From what is known from secondary sources, it revolved around a guy who actively fasted to death and took the time to explain to his friends why dying is actually better than living. This was the calculated endgame of a thinker who genuinely believed the only rational way to exist was a total, icy indifference to whether you woke up the next morning. Why Ptolemy stepped in You can probably imagine what happened next. His lectures were bizarrely charismatic, and they sparked what we would call a public health crisis today. Young men were taking his words to heart and actively seeking the “painless” exit he talked about. It got so bad that King Ptolemy II Philadelphus actually had to step in. In a pretty rare move for the ancient world, the King banned Hegesias from teaching and ultimately kicked him out of the city altogether. This was a fascinating historical parallel to the arguments we still have today about free speech and public safety. Think about Socrates, for example. He was executed for “corrupting” the youth with tricky moral questions. Hegesias, on the other hand, was exiled because his logic was literally putting his audience in immediate danger. Ptolemy’s ban had nothing to do with a tyrant flexing his political muscle. It was a desperate move of the Hellenistic state of Egypt to stop a booming city from bleeding its young citizens dry. It’s hard not to draw parallels with Hegesias to our own world. Whenever things get socially unstable, radical pessimism has a way of creeping back into the mainstream. You can draw a straight line from the Death Persuader to later thinkers such as Schopenhauer, or even to today’s antinatalist movements, which argue that it is morally wrong to bring kids into a world full of suffering. Looking at Hegesias’ life, we can see that mental health struggles and the contagious nature of sheer despair aren’t modern problems. They have been part of human life probably since the beginning of our existence.

Chinese President Xi Jinping inspects an honour guard with US President Donald Trump during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, 14 May 2026. Credit: EPA, Maxim Shemetov via AMNA China’s President Xi Jinping welcomed US President Donald Trump to Beijing on Wednesday with a somber reflection on the weight of history. Invoking the “Thucydides Trap,” the historical theory that a rising power and an established, leading one are frequently destined for war, Xi posed a fundamental question to his American counterpart, saying: “The world has reached a new crossroads: can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides Trap and create a new model of relations? Can we face global challenges together and provide greater stability to the world? Can we, in the interest of our world, our two peoples, and the future of humanity, build a brighter future for our bilateral relations?”  The summit in China is widely viewed as a pivotal moment for the “negotiation of the century,” as the world’s two largest economies grapple with disputes ranging from trade and artificial intelligence to the conflicts in Iran and the Taiwan Strait. Thucydides Trap in Ancient Greece Xi Jinping reminded the world that the lessons of the Peloponnesian War, contested between ancient Athens and Sparta, still apply to the complex geopolitical landscape of the 21st century almost 2,500 years later. Fought between 431 BC and 404 BC, the Peloponnesian War plunged Greece into turmoil, as the two superpowers of the day—Athens and Sparta—fought for hegemony over the Greek world. Greek historian Thucydides famously chronicled the war, seeking to explain why Athens and Sparta were destined for conflict. Today, some historians and International Relations scholars believe Thucydides can offer insights into the growing tensions between the two superpowers of our time, the United States and China. They worry that these two superpowers may fall into a “Thucydides’ Trap” and plummet headlong into a deadly confrontation. The Thucydides’ Trap in the modern world According to International Relations scholar Graham Allison, the Thucydides’ Trap is “a deadly pattern of structural stress that results when a rising power challenges a ruling one.” Allison quotes Thucydides, who explained, “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” According to Allison, this pattern of behavior was not isolated to the Peloponnesian War. The scholar claims it has occurred no less than sixteen times over the past five hundred years. Of the sixteen historical cases that Allison identifies, twelve resulted in a full-scale war, while only four avoided violent conflict. The pattern stems from a fundamental power dynamic: a rising power disrupts the established order, challenging the dominance of the ruling state. This creates a cycle of fear, miscalculation, and mutual suspicion, escalating tensions to the point where war often seems inevitable. In the case of Ancient Greece, Sparta viewed Athens’ rapid expansion of power, particularly its maritime empire, as a direct threat to its dominance in the region, leading to a breakdown in diplomacy and eventual war. The US and China Children hold Chinese and U.S. flags as U.S. President Donald Trump attends a welcome ceremony with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, 14 May 2026. EPA/Maxim Shemetov / POOL via AMNA Allison and others applied the Thucydides’ Trap concept to analyze modern geopolitical tensions, particularly between the US and China. As the long-standing global hegemon, the US faces the rise of China as an economic, technological, and military power. This dynamic echoes the conditions Thucydides described: the fear within the ruling power (the US) and the ambition of the rising power (China) create a volatile environment. While the modern world includes nuclear deterrence, global interdependence, and international institutions, the structural stress of power transition remains a key driver of conflict risk. Indeed, recent tensions between the US and China have escalated across military, economic, and technological domains, underscoring a growing strategic rivalry. Militarily, the Pentagon reported that China has expanded its nuclear arsenal to over 600 operational warheads, with projections to exceed 1,000 by 2030. This and increased Chinese military maneuvers near Taiwan raised regional security concerns and strained US-China relations. Beijing announced a 2026 defense budget of $281 billion, marking a 7% increase from the previous year. While this official figure remains below 1.5% of China’s GDP, international observers note that actual spending is likely much higher when accounting for research and development, paramilitary forces, and regional contributions, reflecting a disciplined but steady pivot toward technology-intensive “intelligentized” warfare. Economically, disputes persist in the global trade arena. Donald Trump’s second term trade war, which escalated rapidly in early 2025, has profoundly reshaped the Chinese economy by accelerating “de-risking” and forcing a shift in global supply chains. Following his return to office, the administration launched the “Liberation Day” tariffs, which saw average levies on Chinese goods surge by as much as 145 percentage points by April 2025. This aggressive stance caused China’s share of U.S. imports to plummet to just 9% by the end of 2025—down from 22% prior to the original 2018 trade war. While a temporary truce in late 2025 capped reciprocal tariffs at 30%, the volatility has driven major manufacturers to diversify away from China, leading Beijing to implement strict retaliatory measures Technological competition remains another critical flashpoint. The US recently revised its science and technology agreement with China to narrow its scope to basic research, excluding sensitive areas such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. This update reflects concerns over intellectual property theft and the strategic implications of technological advancements. While China seeks to challenge US dominance in emerging technologies, the US aims to safeguard its innovation ecosystem. These developments illustrate the multifaceted nature of US-China tensions, driven by structural competition, mutual suspicion, and efforts by both nations to secure their global influence in an increasingly interconnected world. Criticism of the Thucydides’ Trap Theory Critics of the Thucydides’ Trap theory argue that it oversimplifies complex international relations and overstates the inevitability of conflict. They point out that historical examples vary widely in context, and that successful management of great power transitions depends on diplomacy, mutual accommodation, and restraint. For instance, the peaceful transition of global leadership from the British Empire to the United States in the 20th century is often cited as evidence that war is not inevitable. However, proponents counter that such cases are exceptions rather than the rule and that avoiding the Thucydides’ Trap requires extraordinary foresight and effort from the rising and ruling powers. The relevance of Thucydides’ insights in the modern era highlights the enduring lessons of history. While the Peloponnesian War unfolded in a vastly different context, the underlying dynamics of power, fear, and rivalry resonate strongly today. Understanding these patterns can help policymakers navigate the precarious balance of great power competition, emphasizing the importance of dialogue, cooperation, and managing the structural tensions inherent in such rivalries.

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A month after Guinea deployed troops to its border with Liberia, President Joseph Boakai claimed to be in touch with his Guinean counterpart Mamady Doumbouya, in an interview with FRANCE 24. "We've been speaking very well," Boakai said, adding that he told Doumbouya the border situation is "getting under control". Asked about the state of democracy in West Africa, Boakai stated that Liberia has "learned that war is not the way to go". "We have learned to live with our neighbours. And we are doing everything possible to show them that we are avoiding conflict."

The new Syrian administration is trying to provide justice for the tens of thousands tortured and hundreds of thousands more killed by the regime of former dictator Bashar al-Assad. But is enough being done to investigate and prosecute those accused? Some tentative steps have been taken. A trial is underway in Damascus of Assad himself and his brother Maher, although neither are in the country and are being tried in absentia.