Athens awoke as if it were bombarded. The Athens early birds going to work could not believe their eyes – the central part of the city is reduced to ashes, the store windows are broken and their contents plundered, on the streets there are burnt cars, trash cans, stones, bats, bottles. The police categorizes last night as the worst night of riots.

Last night 12 buildings were on fire at the Greek capitol, including the buildings of the Greek Foreign Ministry, the Diplomat Academy of the Foreign Ministry, and the National Ministry of Economy. Different bank branches were on fire on the squares Omonia and Syntagma and the streets “Patission,” “Panapesitmiou,” Syngrou,” and “Stadiou.” Destroyed are dozens of stores and no one has taken the responsibility to calculate the damages. For the burnt 3 story building of “Sprider” the damages account for over 2 million Euros.

Here is a video from Athens shown by CNN last night: http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/12/08/pleitgen.berlin.greece.riots.ap

Seven people have been taken to the hospital last night with breathing problems because of the smoke and the tear gas and another four were mildly injured. The cabinet of Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis announced that last night that an extraordinary session took place in order to find a solution to the situation. It was also announced that at 9:30 am this morning he will have talks with the president Karolos Papoulias and later with the leaders of all parliament parties. The Greek media were discussing the possibility of an extraordinary situation but this thesis was refuted by the government spokesman Evangelos Andonaros.

At 3:30 pm today is the funeral of the 16 year old Alexandros Grogoropoulos who died Saturday night by a police bullet and his death freed the anger wave in Greece. Students from all over Greece will attend the funeral and their presence will probably start the biggest demonstration in his memory. It is a wish of his parents that their mourning would not be a reason for more children to get hurt. As grreporter.info already wrote, the schools and universities today will remain closed as a sign of mourning.

Meanwhile after the US and Britain, France also warned their citizens to be careful when they visit Greece, where more riots are expected.