The Cat in the Hat

A cat takes a look at the snowy Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens, Greece. Photo: Reuters.

Partnership With a Higher Power

A young girl takes pictures of a snowy Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens, Greece. Photo: Pantelis Saitas/EPA.

Sky Lines

Birds fly over on an unique 1,000 m long spider-web covering the road beside the Lake Vistonida, in Porto Lagos, Xanthi regional unit, Greece. Photo: AFP/Sakis Mitrolidis.

Floating umbrellas

A woman with an umbrella walks under the rain past a sculpture called Umbrellas by Greek sculptor George Zongolopoulos along the waterfront in Thessaloniki, Greece. Photo: AFP/Sakis Mitrolidis.

You’ve Got Mail

A refugee child participates in an anti-racist rally in Athens, also marking two years of the EU-Turkey deal and the closing of the borders. Photo: AFP/Louisa Gouliamaki.

The Athena Algorithm

The Parthenon temple is dusted white following a rare snowfall in Athens, Greece. Photo: Eurokinissi/Reuters.

Nowhere Land

Oinofyta refugee camp, Greece: Afghan refugee Rukhsar Sameem, four, covers her face with a teddy bear while playing at the camp, where more than 62,000 refugees and migrants reside. Photo: Muhammed Muheisen/AP.

The Courage to Stand Alone

Greek Prime Minister Alexīs Tsipras was the only European leader to attend Fidel Castro’s final farewell at Plaza de la Revolución in Havana, Cuba on November 30, 2016. In his passionate speech to the crowd, Tsipras praised Fidel as an “international symbol of struggle and resistance whose example inspired popular struggle across the world for independence, freedom, justice, and dignity”. Photos: ethnos.gr.

Farewell for now

Greek Prime Minister Alexīs Tsipras announced one-off measures to ease the burden on pensioners and island residents. Tsipras said the government will distribute a total of 617 million €uros this Christmas to some 1.6 million low-income pensioners. In a nationally televised address, Tsipras said the cash will come from a larger-than-expected surplus in Greece’s primary budget, which excludes the cost of servicing the country’s crippling debt.

Alexīs Tsipras (@atsipras)

Before flyng to Cuba to attend Fidel Castro’s funeral, Alexīs Tsipras issued a tweet to pay tribute to his comrade: “Goodbye Comandante. Until the peoples’ eternal victory”.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist Daniel Etter, whose images from Kos touched the hearts of millions last year, returned to Greece this September to photograph the islanders who feature in the new documentary short Ode to Lesvos, created by Johnnie Walker® to shine a light on the inspirational acts of compassion shown in response to the refugee crisis. [Read more].

• Daniel Etter, Ode to Lesbos, the villagers who helped refugees – in pictures, The Guardian, October 5, 2016

“We all wanted to help. It’s natural to want to help. Having babies safe in my arms is a blessing”, Maristsa Mavrapidou says of the role she and other islanders played in providing care and comfort to thousands of refugees who arrived in 2015. Mavrapidou, photographed collecting eggs from her chickens in Skala Sykamineas, was one of those who helped care for refugees. Photo: Daniel Etter.

Asymmetric engagement

Athens, Greece: A pensioner stands in front of riot police after they fired pepper spray at retirees protesting against pension cuts. Photo: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images.

The Cemetery Without Graves

London, United Kingdom: Rehab Sidiqi, a trustee of the charity Women for Refugee Women and originally from Afghanistan, stands in London’s Parliament Square among 2,500 lifejackets worn by refugees who crossed from Turkey to the Greek island of Chios. Photo: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

珍惜你拥有的，即使你有的不多， 因为有许多一无所有的人，仍然尝试着保有微笑。 Zhēnxī nǐ yǒngyǒu de, jíshǐ nǐ yǒu de bù duō, yīnwèi yǒu xǔduō yīwúsuǒyǒu de rén, réngrán chángshìzhe bǎoyǒu wéixiào. Be happy with the little you have. There are some people with nothing who still manage to smile.

Idomeni, Greece: Children attend an English language lesson at a makeshift cultural centre in a refugee camp near the Macedonian border. Photo: Kostas Tsironis/EPA.

Worldsharing

Athens, Greece: A child takes part in a protest calling for open borders and better living conditions in the accommodation centres for refugees stranded in Greece. Photo: 新华通讯社 (Xīnhuá News Agency)/Shutterstock.

Giving and Taking

Investigation into impact of refugees in Europe finds rising public debt will be offset by a much greater rise in GDP Refugees who arrived in Europe last year could repay spending on them almost twice over within just five years, according to one of the first in-depth investigations into the impact incomers have on host communities. Refugees will create more jobs, increase demand for services and products, and fill gaps in European workforces – while their wages will help fund dwindling pensions pots and public finances, says Philippe Legrain, a former economic adviser to the president of the European commission. [Read more].

• Patrick Kingsley, Refugees will repay EU spending almost twice over in five years – report, The Guardian, May 18, 2016

Migrants and refugees wait in line under the rain for food distribution at the makeshift camp in the northern border village of Idomeni, Greece. Photo: Bülent Kiliç/AFP/Getty Images.

Noughts & Crosses

Idomeni, Greece: Syrian girls play noughts and crosses on a train wagon at the northern Greek town on the border with Macedonia. Hundreds of unaccompanied minors have gathered in Idomeni since the border was arbitrarily shut by Macedonia. Photo: Petros Giannakouris/AP.

Tales from the End

PM climbs down, saying he will not stand in way of amendment for UK to take in unaccompanied children already in Europe David Cameron has given in to calls for the UK to accept unaccompanied refugee children from Greece, Italy and France in a bid to avoid defeat in the House of Commons. The prime minister climbed down in the face of a growing rebellion among Conservative MPs who were preparing to back an amendment by Labour peer Lord Dubs. [Read more].

• Anushka Asthana, Rowena Mason and Karen McVeigh, David Cameron announces concessions on Syrian child refugees, The Guardian, May 4, 2016

Idomeni, Greece: A woman carrying a baby is helped up a slope at a camp for migrants and refugees near the Macedonian border. Photo: Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images.

The Flying House

Idomeni, Greece: A woman feeds a child next to railway tracks at refugee camp next to the Greek-Macedonian border. About 54,000 people, many of them fleeing the war in Syria, have been stranded in Greece since the closure of the migrant route through the Balkans in February. Photo: Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images.

Pursuit of Happiness

Idomeni, Greece: A girl plays with a doll at a makeshift camp for migrants and refugees. Photo: Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images.

Kindergarten

Myrsini, Greece: A child plays with a plastic create a few metres away from a summer resort sheltering nearly 350 Syrian refugees under the care of a Syria-born mayor. The LM Village resort had previously been abandoned for years and extensively looted, a side-effect of the economic crisis gripping Greece since 2010. Photo: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images.