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It is understood DNA tests have proved that a seven-year-old girl taken from a Roma family in Dublin on Monday is their daughter. Police removed the seven-year-old, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl from her home in the Tallaght area. The parents told police the child was their daughter, but officers were not satisfied with the explanation, nor with the documents that were produced. The child was taken into temporary care. The police action took place against the background of international interest in the case of a blonde-haired child being taken from a Roma family in Greece last week. Greek police are investigating whether the girl had been abducted. Meanwhile, a two-year-old boy from a Roma family who was briefly taken into care in County Westmeath has been reunited with his parents. The boy was taken from his family on Tuesday in Athlone and returned a day later. latestarticlesbyiykemandela.blogspot.com Drop your COMMENT Below...

More than 8,000 calls have made to a Greek charity after an appeal to discover the identity of a young blonde girl found living on a Roma settlement. DNA tests revealed the child, known as Maria and aged about four, was not related to the couple she lived with. A woman aged 40 and 39-year-old man are to appear before judges on Monday on charges of abducting a minor and of holding false papers. The Roma community where the girl was found has rallied around them. The head of the Roma association in Farsala in central Greece says the couple treated her better than their biological children and that she loved them. The brother of the man claiming to be Maria's father repeated the defence that she had been given to them lawfully after her birth, says the BBC's Mark Lowen in Athens. But the couple are suspected by social workers of kidnapping the girl and sending her out to beg, or involving her in a sex ring. An appeal has been launched throughout Europe Police initially raid...

Greek police are trying to figure out the identity of a young blonde girl, found living on a Roma settlement with a family she did not resemble. LaNUBlog latestarticlesbyiykemandela.blogspot.com DNA tests revealed the child, called Maria and aged around four, was not related to the couple she lived with. The little girl is now being looked after by a charity. Her photo has been released to help find her family. Officials fear she may have been a victim of abduction or child trafficking. Police are appealing internationally as the little girl looks like she might be from northern or eastern Europe. LaNUBlog latestarticlesbyiykemandela.blogspot.com Raid Police raided the Roma camp, near Farsala in central Greece, on suspicion of criminal activity. The little girl is "confused" and "shocked" by the changes in her environment, the charity looking after her says They noticed the lack of resemblance between the blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl and her parents,...

It is a risk that appears to be paying off. For the first time since the election, Golden Dawn has dropped significantly in the opinion polls - down to about 6%. Daily revelations about weapons found in suspects' homes should, the government hopes, turn the public mood against the party. But its acting spokesman, Artemios Mathaiopoulos, remains defiant. "We are a political movement that has no relation to crime", he tells me outside police headquarters. "We have no involvement in the killing of Pavlos Fyssas." I put it to him that police found Golden Dawn clothing and other items in the assailant's home. "You can buy a T-shirt for 10 euros and you can stab anyone you like. So does it mean Golden Dawn is responsible for your actions?" Is this the beginning of the end of his party, I ask? "It's the beginning of the end of the government", he proudly replies. But Greece's neo-Nazi party is in chaos. Decapitated of its leadershi...

A fortnight ago, Golden Dawn was feeling smug. Greece's neo-Nazi party was riding high in the opinion polls at about 15%, double what it got in last year's election. Its support was soaring among a nation buckling under its worst financial crisis in living memory. It had opened new offices, lectures it hosted presenting the party's view of Greek history were proving popular, its 18 MPs appeared untouchable. But Pavlos Fyssas changed all that. A left-wing hip hop musician and activist, he had spent the evening watching football on TV in a bar near Athens. As he left, he was set upon by a group. The man arrested for stabbing him to death confessed to being an active supporter of Golden Dawn. The murder prompted a national outcry. Tens of thousands took to the streets, demanding that the violent neo-Nazis be reined in. Some of Golden Dawn's arrested MPs have been released pending trial And then, in a weekend morning raid, the government sprang into action. Some 22 mem...

Greek police have arrested the leader of the far-right Golden Dawn party, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, on charges of forming a criminal organisation. Three more Golden Dawn MPs, a leader in an Athens suburb and nine other party members have also been arrested. The arrests come amid anger over the murder on 18 September of anti-racist musician, Pavlos Fyssas. A man held for the stabbing told police he was a Golden Dawn supporter, though the party strongly denies any link. Analysis ByMark Lowen BBC News, Athens Not since the end of Greece's military dictatorship in 1974 has there been a mass arrest of MPs. It is an extraordinary clampdown by a government long accused of taking a soft touch towards Golden Dawn. Some 154 racist attacks were recorded here last year and 104 so far this year - most attributed to Golden Dawn members. Two immigrants have been killed, again blamed on the party. But only now, after the killing of the hip hop artist Pavlos Fyssas, have authorities moved in ...

Two senior police officials have resigned following last week's killing of an anti-fascist activist by a member of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party. The authorities say they quit for "personal reasons". Another two senior policemen were suspended. But it is thought they are blamed for failing to search a Golden Dawn office last week in which weapons were found. The stabbing of Pavlos Fyssas, 34, last Wednesday near the capital Athens prompted mass anti-fascist protests. Giorgos Roupakias, 45, later allegedly admitted killing the activist and was charged with voluntary manslaughter and illegal possession of a weapon. Support drops Mr Fyssas rapped against racism On Monday the authorities announced the resignations of the inspector general for southern Greece and the general police director of central Greece. Another two senior police officials were suspended. In addition, seven other police officers were suspended for alleged links to the party. There have long been...

The traditional way of getting dinner is buy food and cook it, or to go to a restaurant. But what if someone in a nearby street has cooked more than they need and is ready to share it for a small fee? It's already happening in the Greek capital and will soon be coming to London. It's time for Marilena Zachou to get up, make a Greek coffee, get the kids fed and off to school. And when the peace and quiet descends at 10am, the cooking begins. Today it is moussaka. She gently fries the onion and minced lamb in olive oil. She reaches for the pepper, salt, paprika and tomatoes and inhales as the aroma fills the kitchen and escapes from the windows and out into the street. She uploads details of the dish online and watches the screen as people from the area order their portions. There will be no wasted food in her household today. At least five other people in the Athens district of Marousi will be sharing her family's evening meal. By midday, the entire oven dish has been so...

The traditional way of getting dinner is buy food and cook it, or to go to a restaurant. But what if someone in a nearby street has cooked more than they need and is ready to share it for a small fee? It's already happening in the Greek capital and will soon be coming to London. It's time for Marilena Zachou to get up, make a Greek coffee, get the kids fed and off to school. And when the peace and quiet descends at 10am, the cooking begins. Today it is moussaka. She gently fries the onion and minced lamb in olive oil. She reaches for the pepper, salt, paprika and tomatoes and inhales as the aroma fills the kitchen and escapes from the windows and out into the street. She uploads details of the dish online and watches the screen as people from the area order their portions. There will be no wasted food in her household today. At least five other people in the Athens district of Marousi will be sharing her family's evening meal. By midday, the entire oven dish has been so...

The so-called troika of lenders has returned to Athens for its latest audit of the Greek economy. The visit will determine whether twice bailed-out Greece will get its latest instalment of cash. Representatives from the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank will take stock of how effective tough austerity measures have been. Fresh strikes are planned by public sector workers in response. 'Struggle' Sunday's talks will decide on the continued conditions for Greece's financial aid, and a 1bn euro (£844m) instalment which Greece expected to get in October. The EU is calling for the liquidation of Greece's defence industry, a further reduction in civil servant posts, and the health of the key privatisation programme. The main public sector union Adedy said that it would carry out a two day strike on Tuesday and Wednesday, while other unions are following suit. "We will continue our struggle against the destructiv...

~Continued,... The defining moment of her eight years as leader so far came with the eurozone financial crisis. Greece revealed an enormous - and unmanageable - public debt. And it soon emerged that other countries were in similar dire straits. But as Europe waited to see if Germany would agree to bail out the struggling members of the eurozone or force them to sort out their own problems, Merkel was criticised for reacting too slowly. Caution and consensus, however, have always been hallmarks of the Merkel machine. "You can only manage such a crisis if you take a lot of people along the way," says Ursula von der Leyen, who has worked in every one of Merkel's cabinets since 2005. "Angela Merkel always knew where she wanted to end up, but she took time to find a way which everybody could go along with." I don't claim that I have "cracked" Merkel - she is an abnormally complex and multi-layered character, unlike anyone else I can think of in wor...

This weekend, there's an election that will influence the future of much of Europe - Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Greece and many other countries. But none of them can vote. The election is in Germany - and the woman at the centre of this political event is Angela Merkel. For every country in Europe, it's all about the economy. Across the continent, people are still battling with the twists and turns of the financial crisis. And wherever you are, economic recovery depends heavily on how Angela Merkel treats the next stage of the crisis: these days, most roads lead to Berlin. That's why it has long seemed to me that one of the most important political reporting jobs right now is to try to understand Angela Merkel better. But Mrs Merkel is an unusually private and reticent politician - there is no exhibitionism and grandstanding. Even for Germans, she's a hard woman to know. She didn't want to do an interview ahead of the German elections, and certainly not in En...