Latest News from Greece
Greek pensioners take to the streets angry, betrayed (video)
Angry Greek pensioners took to the streets of Athens on Tuesday to protest against the new austerity plan submitted by the Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) government on Monday. Feeling betrayed by the measures that further burn into their already meager pensions the silver-haired army of giagades and pappoudes (grannies and grand-pahs) rallied with placards.
Don't expect Greek upswing just because of deal, Rogoff says
A deal between Greece and its creditors is unlikely to cause an economic upswing in the country, Harvard University Professor Kenneth Rogoff said.
?Nothing sharp on Greece is going to turn on exactly what happens in the next week,? Rogoff said in an interview in Zurich late on Tuesday.
WikiLeaks: France's Hollande feared Greek exit back in 2012
French President Francois Hollande called a secret meeting of his cabinet about the potential consequences of a Greek exit from the euro zone as early as May 2012, WikiLeaks said on Tuesday, citing US National Security Agency secret intelligence reports.
Wikileaks: French President had called secret Grexit meeting in May 2012
French President Francois Hollande had called a secret meeting of his cabinet as early as May 22, 2012, to discuss a possible Greek exit from the eurozone said Wikileaks on Tuesday citing secret intelligence information from the U.S. National Security Agency.
Greek deal or not, the euro is now a different beast
By Mike Dolan
By invoking a Greek euro exit as a possible outcome of failed bailout negotiations, European governments have effectively rewritten a key tenet of the shared currency - and maybe even for the better.
Scoreboard: New Greek reform proposals made pallatable
The 11-page document submitted by Athens on Monday is being discussed by the Eurozone’s finance ministers in Brussels on Wednesday evening. If they agree, then Athens will secure a life-saving 7.2 billion euros in financial aid that has been benchmarked for the country.
Where do you live? I’ll tell you what you suffer from (see map)
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle carried out a survey of the world’s disease burden in 2013. These have just been published in the Lancet medical journal. Here is what most people suffer from. In Greece, like most of the world it’s lower back pain, though depression seems to be gaining ground.
Time runs out as Greece and creditors meet on Wed. for a deal
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is visiting Brussels on Wednesday for a meeting with the heads of Greece’s three creditors: European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Central Bank Chief Mario Draghi and International Monetary Fund Head Christine Lagarde. This meeting comes just a few hours prior to the Eurogroup meeting scheduled for Wednesday.
Greek Minister on Trust-Building Mission to Macedonia
The Greek Foreign Minister, Nikos Kotzias, is visiting Macedonia on Wednesday on a mission to rekindle ties between the estranged neighbours.
Yanis: Tsipras signed doc with list of proposals… not me
Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, himself a prolific “Twitterati”, on Tuesday dismissed other Tweets claiming that a document with his government’s most recent (tax-laden) proposal to institutional creditors was returned because it featured his signature rather than Greek PM Alexis Tsipras.
Yanis took to Twitter himself and wrote:
Schwarzenegger 'back' as Terminator
Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke about being ?back? as the Terminator in a new sequel to the sci-fi film series that made him famous and about how he?s still an action star at age 67.
Sicilian town gives away homes on one condition…
Here’s one interesting way to rejuvenate certain abandoned regions of mainland Greece, mostly in rugged mountainous areas, or even remote islands: grant people an abandoned residence on the condition that it will be restored!
That’s what one town in Sicily, Gangi, is doing, and it’s apparently working.
Reactions, deliberations within ruling SYRIZA after plan given to creditors
Top government and ruling SYRIZA party officials met in the Maximos Mansion on Wednesday in a much-anticipated session chaired by PM Alexis Tsipras, a day after his government presented and won conditional support of a tax-for- cash deal with institutional creditors.
IMF, Lagarde lukewarm towards Greek govt’s ‘tax-and-tax’ plan
European creditors (Commission and ECB) may be happy with the Tsipras government’s nearly eight-billion-euro package of higher taxes, social security contributions and higher VAT rates, but the IMF apparently isn’t.