Joanna Kakissis

European tourists on the island of Lesvos are doing more than just lounging on the shimmering Aegean this summer. Some join islanders in assisting the many migrants who are camping in the open.

It's crunch time again in the eurozone debt negotiations. Greece probably won't be able to pay back a bailout loan by the end of the month, as the country refuses to reform its pension system.

The Greek fisherman casting a net from his small wooden boat is a postcard image of the Mediterranean. But fish stocks are so low now that many fishermen say they can't make a living anymore.

Calliope Spanou knows what it's like to feel isolated. As a graduate student in France in the 1980s, she remembers how being Greek didn't feel like being part of the European family. There was, she says, arrogance from northern Europeans toward "peripheral" countries like Greece.

"You were a second-class person," ...

Martin Panovski used to like hanging out in the center of his hometown, Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, a tiny Balkan nation that was, until 1991, part of Yugoslavia. Skopje's an old city, with complex, multi-ethnic layers of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman history.

"Even the communist era produced some interesting ...

Macedonia escaped largely unscathed from the ethnic violence that defined the breakup of Yugoslavia. But the country's Slavs and Albanians live largely separate and unequal lives, until now.

The small Balkan country of Macedonia is in turmoil after it was revealed that the government wiretapped 20,000 people. There have been competing pro and anti-government demonstrations in the capital.

#NPRreads is a feature we're testing out on Twitter and on The Two-Way. The premise is simple: Correspondents, editors and producers throughout our newsroom will share pieces that have kept them reading. They'll share tidbits on Twitter using the #NPRreads hashtag, and on occasion we'll share a longer take here ...

The number of migrants and refugees crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece has tripled since last year. The coast guard and police are overwhelmed trying to document and house migrants.

The coast guard crew encounters migrants — and smugglers — almost every night in the Aegean Sea, and the numbers are rising rapidly. Some come from as far away as Afghanistan.

Emad al-Masaadi, a 41-year-old house painter and taxi driver, fled Damascus with his wife and three young boys after their home was bombed in late 2012, just one of the countless hard-luck stories generated by Syria's civil war. They landed in Beirut, but after more than a year without work ...

The village of Distomo is tucked into the foothills of central Greece, near the ancient city of Delphi. Had recent history been kinder to it, the village might have been known for its 10th-century Byzantine monastery or its postcard scenes of grandfathers like Lukas Pergantas, tending their small vineyards.

But ...

Greeks don't trust their own state to give them good services, so for decades they have evaded taxes.

Germany, which has backed most of the bailout loans to Greece, wants Greeks to stick to austerity measures. The new Greek government says austerity has destroyed the economy.

For decades, Muslims in northeastern Greece were cut off from the rest of the country. Mainstream politicians backed by the Greek Orthodox church ignored them.

In order to win an extension on its debt repayment program, the new Greek government has promised to pursue wealthy tax evaders — but so did every previous administration since the debt crisis began.

Below the snow-capped Pindus Mountains, on Lake Orestiada in northwestern Greece, sits Kastoria — a city that largely survived the country's devastating economic depression by exporting its signature good: fur garments.

"When you're born in this city, you have something to do with fur. So in the end, you end ...

Eurozone finance ministers agreed to give Greece a four-month extension of credit today as long as the Greek government sticks to reforms and keeps its finances in check.

The new leftist Greek government says it wants to revolutionize a country that long has resisted change. So far, that hasn't included finally placing women at the highest levels of government.