A strong earthquake jolted Athens on Friday, knocking out phone and cellphone connections, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

Athens on Friday installed its first Alexander the Great statue, a project mired in bureaucratic delays for nearly three decades.

Germany "takes total responsibility for crimes committed" by the Nazis in Greece, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday on a visit to Athens.

A homemade explosive device went off early Thursday in front of a church in central Athens injuring its caretaker and a police officer, police said.

U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday issued a warning against "crude" nationalism following Donald Trump's shock election win as he visited Europe on a mission to reassure jittery allies.

Obama, making his last foreign trip as president, said the NATO alliance was "absolutely vital" to U.S. interests and stressed a strong, unified Europe was good for America, after Trump, on the campaign trail, appeared to play down the importance of transatlantic ties.

Thousands of refugees and migrants arrived in Athens on Wednesday, piling further pressure on increasingly divided European nations as they struggle to cope with the unprecedented influx.

Fresh protests also erupted in Hungary, a key transit point for the huge numbers of people trekking up from Greece through the Balkans in search of a new life in northern Europe.

Thousands of Syrians, some still bearing the scars of war on their faces, landed at the main Greek port of Piraeus early Thursday, hoping to continue their journey to safety towards northern Europe.

Some 2,700 people -- mostly Syrian with some Afghans -- poured onto the dock, relieved to be a step closer to their destination but anxious to move on.

The EU canceled a full 28-nation summit on Sunday to decide Greece's fate in the single European currency, although a meeting of leaders from the 19 countries in the eurozone will go ahead as planned.

The announcement by European Council President Donald Tusk came as eurozone finance ministers met for a second day to continue "difficult" Greek bailout talks, with the aim of reaching a deal that eurozone leaders can sign off on.

Greece is being put before a "clearly unviable" agreement by its EU-IMF creditors but remains committed to staying in the eurozone, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told Irish radio on Friday.

"The Greek side has bent over backwards to accommodate some rather strange demands by the institutions. It is now up to them to come to the party," he told the public broadcaster RTE.

Greece and Macedonia on Wednesday agreed a set of measures to build trust between the two countries, in a bid to solve a 20-year long name dispute that has blocked Macedonian EU and NATO membership.

Athens denies Skopje the use of the name Macedonia -- claiming to have a historical right to it -- and the two neighbors have been in dispute since the former Yugoslav republic proclaimed independence in 1991.