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Nikos Aivatzidis hasn't been paid since 2012 because his employer is in a dispute with the debt-ridden government. But he's afraid that if he stops working, he'll lose decades' worth of severance pay.

The LGBT community says Greece is a macho country where being gay means being anti-Greek. Greece currently holds the EU presidency, and activists are using that to spotlight their struggle.

More than 40 percent of Greeks over 15 smoke, among the highest percentages in the world. Three years ago, the government banned smoking indoors in bars, restaurants and cafes — but the ban has never been enforced.

Leaders in Dublin have declared that unemployment in Ireland is finally dropping, especially among youth. The reason there are fewer young people looking for jobs, however, is because many have simply left the country.

The Greek government is pushing stores to open on Sundays, just like the tourist shops around the Acropolis. But mom-and-pop shops that are participating in a pilot program to open seven Sundays a year, say they lost money last weekend — the first Sunday the program was effect.

The Roma have lived in Europe for centuries, and face persecution and isolation. Many are illiterate and are more likely to be unemployed, impoverished and in poor health than other Europeans. They have been in the news after a blond, blue-eyed girl was taken from a Roma couple in Greece.

George Polk was a CBS correspondent covering the Greek civil war when he was murdered in 1948. Three men were convicted of involvement, but now an ex-prosecutor wants to reopen the case.

The estimated 250,000 children that go missing each year range from teenage runaways escaping abuse at home to kids who have fled war-torn countries such as Afghanistan.

Jews have lived in Greece since the time of Alexander the Great; the overwhelming majority of the community died during the Nazi occupation. Now, 70 years later, the community — and Greece — is confronting the rise of the Golden Dawn Party, a group that espouses neo-Nazi ideology.

Greece's government registered a $3.5 billion primary budget surplus for the first half of this year. It's a rare bit of good economic news for the country. The figure does not include interest payments, social security payments or local government debt. But the figure suggests that public financing is getting back on track.

The factory in northern Greece once produced glue for ceramic tiles. But when the country's economy collapsed and workers lost their jobs, they took it over to make environmentally friendly laundry products. Workers do everything from accounting to driving. Their effort is a hit with left-wing groups, but it's not showing up in workers' paychecks.

Greece's two largest unions held a general strike and anti-austerity demonstrations on Tuesday. Now, the country's parliament will debate and vote on deep civil service cuts. Greece must downsize the public sector in order for it to keep getting international bailout loans.

The Greeks have been eating octopus since ancient times, but there's an art to grilling these tentacled sea creatures. An octopus has to be dried in the sun for at least a day first. Otherwise, the flesh just steams and turns into "a rubbery mass."

In the first few months after reporter Joanna Kakissis' family moved to the U.S., her father bought a junky, gigantic gold Oldsmobile for $200. Kakissis says Old Goldie was hard to love, but she was a symbol of the good life her father wanted to make for them.

The Greek government abruptly shut down ERT and fired its staff in an effort to downsize the public sector, which has been criticized as a bastion of corruption and bloat. But many Greeks see the rushed closure as a dictatorial move that will compromise the country's troubled media.

Greeks are growing weary of the nonstop international criticism the country has faced during its economic crisis. Some grassroots groups are trying to rebuild the country's tattered image.

A traveling Greek exhibit on the Olympics included two ancient statues of nude young men. That didn't go over so well in the conservative Muslim emirate.

Throughout the region that was once the Ottoman empire, people make coffee pretty much the same way: using coffee beans ground into a fine powder, then boiled in a little brass pot. But ordering "Turkish" coffee today doesn't go over well in some Balkan or eastern Mediterranean countries that have some lingering anti-Turkish feelings.

Instead of stepping out into the world, many young adults are moving back in with family. "How can someone who makes 300 euros a month ever be independent?" one unemployed 24-year-old asks.

Many are expecting Russian billionaires to flee Cyprus in the face of a tough eurozone bailout plan. But in the city of Limassol, there's a large middle-class Russian community with deep roots. Many are angry that their entire community is being portrayed as a group of money-laundering oligarchs.