Pages

Welcome, 77 artists, 40 different points of Attica welcomes you by singing Erotokritos an epic romance written at 1713 by Vitsentzos Kornaros

Sunday, November 25, 2012

France says hopeful of a solution to Greek debt


Kathimerini

France says hopeful of a solution to Greek debt
CNBC.com
PARIS (Reuters) - All solutions to help Greece remain financially afloat will have to be applied, including buying back some of its debt, France said ahead of a meeting of euro zone finance ministers on Monday. French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said ...
Euro Ministers Take Third Swing at Clearing Greek PaymentBloomberg
Greece upbeat about signing debt dealFinancial Times
ECB official presses for Greek aid dealThe Associated Press
Wall Street Journal -Kathimerini
all 229 news articles »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.cnbc.com

Michael Heseltine: 'I would have liked to be prime minister'

The Tory grandee on his career, his biggest disappointments – and why he decided to come back and try to help David Cameron sort out the economy

Back in the late 80s, when Lord Heseltine's daughters were belles of the Sloaney Oxbridge scene, the politician got used to finding their friends cluttering up his stately home. The house-guests were sufficiently gilded to feel at ease in its Palladian splendour – but even to these worldly young things, their friends' dad must have cut a daunting figure. The multimillionaire darling of the grassroots party faithful had stormed out of Margaret Thatcher's cabinet only a year earlier, and was now prowling the backbenches, preparing to wield the knife that would finish her off.

Heseltine didn't pay a great deal of attention to his daughters' friends – "They came and went" – but he does just about remember one. "Which is something, I suppose, because there were a lot of them around, you know. But he was someone who was interested in politics, and therefore we presumably talked about politics. So that's when I first met him."

That his house contained a future prime minister would have come as no surprise to Heseltine. He was probably almost certain that it did. He just never dreamed that it wasn't him, but this callow youth called David Cameron instead. "Your language," he corrects teasingly, "not mine." Aren't all youths a bit callow from a father's perspective? "I know, I know," he concedes. "But I'm not in the business of making easy quips about the prime minister."

He certainly is not. Twenty five years after they first met, Heseltine today is Cameron's loyal servant, installed in the Department of Business as a kind of spiritual elder. He was first courted by the party's former policy guru, Steve Hilton, back in 2006, and made chair of the Regional Development Fund in 2010, but it was his recently published review of economic growth, No Stone Unturned, which fully restored him to the headlines. Corporatist, localist, interventionist, the review was vintage Tarzan, and could not fail to raise the question of just how much influence its 79-year-old author enjoys over government today.

If Cameron and his chancellor are wedded to free-market laissez faire, and still believe the private sector will lead the recovery as long as the government gets out of its way, why commission a report from a man who once promised to "intervene before breakfast, before lunch, before tea, before dinner"? Maybe they wanted to appear open to new ideas, but never had the slightest intention of adopting them. Or was George Osborne hoping Heseltine would present a plan B, which could be passed off as plan H as opposed to a U-turn?

Last week Heseltine's call to put the economy on a "war footing" was endorsed by Cameron, but until the autumn statement next month we won't know if any of his policy recommendations will be adopted. His proposal for a National Growth Council has been scorned by some Tory critics as a return to the statism of the 70s, while his public-interest test for foreign takeovers looks like quite a tall order in a globalised economy. The plan to devolve almost £50bn to the regions to boost growth sounds like the sort of thing politicians love to espouse in opposition, but quickly go off once in power. The ideological tension between Osborne and a report that states bluntly, "The message I keep hearing is that the UK does not have a strategy for growth and wealth creation," is surely quite obvious to everyone – but not, it would appear, to its own author.

Private-sector growth, according to Heseltine, has absorbed public-sector jobs precisely as Osborne said it would. "It's been exactly as forecast." He claims that in due course, when properly revised, the data will show that there was in fact no double-dip recession, but merely a misreading of the numbers. If growth has been slower than hoped, this is entirely down to the global recession. The government's economic policy has been blameless.

He doesn't really believe that, does he? "My report contains 89 recommendations, and every one of them is compatible with government policy."

Out of interest, would he have made a recommendation that wasn't? "Probably not, because what's the point?" Because it might be right? "Ah, yes, you're on to a very important point," he agrees quickly, correcting his position. "Would I, if I had believed that there was something fundamentally wrong with government policy? Yes, I would have had to say that, because otherwise the report would not have had the credibility, because in the end it's a very personal report. So, yes, I would have said it. But fortunately I didn't have to. Because what they're doing, in my view, is right." Then he adds a point that feels rather telling. "It's an extraordinarily privileged position to be trusted. None of them – no minister, no special adviser – saw the report until it was on its way to the printers. Not a word was changed as a result of government pressure. Not a word. I think that's an incredibly impressive thing for a government to do."

How does he interpret that? "Well, there's only one way to interpret it. Obviously they were interested in what I had to say, or they wouldn't have set me up." He pauses to chuckle. "I come with baggage. I've been around for much too long and people know what I think and what I believe and what I've done, so they can't have been in any way surprised."

He's right about that – but doesn't that make him a Trojan horse for plan B? "I don't think it is plan B, you see. I think it is the logic of what they've done. Localism, City Deals, the attempt to get mayors, Eric Pickles' work on local business rates. All I've done is say: 'Well, look, take it a step further. Co-ordinate it, do it bigger, now let's go for it.'"

I think Heseltine would sooner burn down his own stately home than gift the government's critics a disloyal headline. He's had 50 years in politics to perfect the art of presenting incompatible positions as perfectly congruous, and with the exception of Peter Mandelson I can't think of any politician whose delight in his own mastery of the art is more palpable, or more languid. The Guardian's economics editor, I remind him, thinks his report is destined for the long grass. If he's right, will it still have been worth it? "Well I had a wonderful 10 months, and an incredible team of civil servants, and I sort of got it off my chest."

Heseltine had a minor heart attack in 1993, and will turn 80 next year, but when we meet he has been in his office at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills since 9am, will spend the afternoon at his publishing company, Haymarket, and deliver a speech that evening at the LSE. He never had any time for the social side of politics, and was famously hopeless at schmoozing MPs in Westminster's bars and tea rooms – "That is true," he agrees drily – so in many ways the role of elder statesman suits him rather well. He can be lofty and Olympian, elevated above the tiresome business of courting allies and ingratiating enemies, which must be a glorious relief. Even so, doesn't he ever get a tiny bit bored with politics?

"Never. You can't be bored! How can you be bored with the opportunity I just had?" Besides: "I was born with too much energy, that's the truth of it. I don't stop. I just get up and do things all the time. You must address this question to the Almighty; He gave me the energy, and here I am. It's for the opportunities. It's for the things you can achieve."

The son of a Welsh colonel, Heseltine was born in Swansea in 1933 and educated at Shrewsbury and Oxford. Severe dyslexia meant he was never going to be a stellar scholar, but didn't stop him founding Haymarket, which had made him his fortune by the time he was elected to parliament in 1966. He served under Edward Heath as a junior minister in the early 70s, and joined the cabinet under Thatcher in 1979, to become the poster boy for urban regeneration following the Brixton and Liverpool riots of 1981, before resigning in 1986 over the Westland helicopter affair. After losing to John Major in the leadership race of 1990 he served as President of the Board of Trade and deputy prime minister.

Heseltine's achievements have been matched by conspicuous failures, but his self belief is almost thrillingly impregnable, making him quite impervious to any such impression. As the Tories' great Europhile he was forever arguing for us to join the euro, and when I ask how the Eurozone crisis has altered his view he says: "It hasn't changed at all. It hasn't changed at all." He still wants us to join the euro? "We will one day."

So even, I begin to ask, when he sees the streets of Greece on fire – "The streets of Greece are always on fire," he interrupts softly, with magnificent ennui. "All my life there have been demos much bigger and more violent than the current ones. But I see Greece holding elections and winning for the government in favour of the European entrenchment policy." He's certain the euro will survive, and equally certain we will one day join. "I have one huge problem, which is that I've lived for a very long time, and I've seen all these arguments endlessly recycled. We didn't want to join Europe – and then, let's put it politely, we changed our mind." He can see no merit in a fresh referendum on EU membership, "Because I personally believe that the job of government is to govern. The creeping use of referenda I don't go for myself."

His passionate support for elected mayors remains entirely unaltered by their rejection at the polls in nine of the 10 local referenda held last May. Yet their unpopularity, Heseltine maintains airily, in no way discredits the policy. The only mistake was to call referenda in the first place, when the government should simply have made the new mayoral positions a fait accompli. "The referenda were lost because there was total public disinterest. Complete lack of interest."

But surely elected mayors only make sense as an expression of local interest. If there is none, maybe they weren't such a good idea? "Ah, the reason why they don't vote is that they don't think it matters and they don't understand the issues. There is no comprehension of what localism could mean, because we haven't got it. Now, you can make great speeches about the purity of democracy and the value of it all – and no one would do so more than me – but let's not miss the point that the central monopoly in this country is such that it has completely deadened any sense of locality and powerfulness, and that's a very unhealthy position."

He did briefly consider running for mayor of London himself in 2000, before deciding he was too old. He thinks Boris Johnson is fabulous – "I'm a great Boris fan" – but when I ask if he thinks he'd make a good prime minster he won't be drawn. "I don't think we're discussing that. I think he should finish the job of being mayor."

Johnson is in many ways the obvious heir to Heseltine – adored by the party faithful but distrusted by politicians, famous for his mane and feared for his ambition. Central to the Heseltine mythology is the back of an envelope on which he is said to have sketched out his life's mission while still an undergraduate – by 25, become a millionaire; by 35, an MP; by 45, a minister; by 55, Downing Street. The envelope has become parliamentary shorthand for the vulgar hubris of ambition – but Heseltine doesn't think it ever existed.

"Well it's so uncharacteristic of me that I don't believe it. I've no recollection of it, and it just doesn't ring true." The source of the story was Julian Critchley, a fellow Tory MP, "And Julian was a good friend of mine, and he said this and wrote about it many times, but I've never accepted it. I just don't think it sounds like me. I'm too cautious."

Another piece of Heseltine folklore is a fabulously snobby comment attributed to the late political diarist Alan Clark who sneered: "The trouble with Michael is that he had to buy his own furniture." Did he ever bring it up with Clark? "Well no one knows who said it," Heseltine demurs, but I'm not sure how convincingly, because moments later he adds icily, "I think he was very lucky that he had a father that could afford to buy his. My father couldn't afford to buy his."

It's funny to think that Heseltine was once regarded as an arriviste – a bit nouveau, ever so slightly non-U – now that he's the grandest of grandees. His wealth is reported to be somewhere in the order of £250m, and has bought him all the luxuries and pleasures of old money, in particular his beloved 50-acre arboretum, which he considers his legacy. He has a butler and nine gardeners, and there is more has more than a touch of a Jane Austen character about him these days. "With privilege comes responsibility," he has said. "It's a philosophy I had all my political life, in other words good enlightened capitalism – paternalism if you like. Noblesse oblige."

He feels centuries apart from a modern politician such as Nadine Dorries, whose jungle sabbatical elicits a chilly shudder. "The whole thing to me is extraordinary." What did he make of her claim that times have changed, and politicians today should communicate with voters through popular television? "It hasn't changed. Nothing has changed. Nothing is new in politics." Ten million people turned on to see Dorries every night, though, but they don't watch prime minister's questions. "On that basis," he observes crisply, "you could have a Muppet elected." Some people think that's what we've got. "Well I think the evidence is to the contrary. Cameron is an immensely serious and able guy."

If it stings Heseltine to lavish loyal praise on his daughter's old friend from the chorus line, he never once lets it show. Critics used to love making fun of his vanity, but today it comes across as dignity. Heseltine always used to be coy about his prime-ministerial ambition, affecting implausible innocence; "My position is a very simple one," he once claimed, "I have never sought preferment in the Conservative party." That was a lie, obviously – but when disingenuousness is perfected to an art form, its sheer audacity is hard not to admire. So when I ask him to name the single greatest disappointment of his life, it's only out of curiosity to see what he'll find to substitute for the unbearable truth.

"Oh I think it would have to be not being prime minister, of course," he admits softly. I almost think I must have misheard. "Yes," he repeats, "life's been very kind to me, so I don't have many disappointments. But I would have liked to have been prime minister."


guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds




READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.guardian.co.uk

How could Greece and Argentina – the new 'debt colonies' – be set free? | Ha-Joon Chang

If nations were able to go bankrupt like companies it would benefit everyone, especially society's poorest

Colonialism is back. Well, at least according to leading politicians of the two most famous debtor nations. Commenting on the EU's inability to deliver its end of the bargain despite the savage spending cuts Greece had delivered, Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the opposition Syriza party, said last week that his country was becoming a "debt colony". A couple of days later, HernĂ¡n Lorenzino, Argentina's economy minister, used the term "judicial colonialism" to denounce the US court ruling that his country has to pay in full a group of "vulture funds" that had held out from the debt restructuring that followed the country's 2002 default.

While their language was deliberately incendiary, these two politicians were making extremely important points. Tsipras was asking why most burdens of adjustment for bad loans have to fall on the debtor country and, within them, mostly on its weaker members. And he is right. As they say, it takes two to tango, so those who condemn Greece for imprudent borrowing should also condemn the imprudent lenders that made it possible.

Lorenzino was asking how we can let one court ruling in a foreign country in favour of one small group of creditors (who bought the debt in the secondary market) derail a painfully engineered process of national recovery. The absurdity of this situation becomes clear when we recall that, partly thanks to the default and subsequent debt restructuring, Argentina, expanding at close to 7% per year, has been the fastest growing Latin American economy between 2003 and 2011.

But there is far more at stake here than the national welfares of Greece and Argentina, important though they are. The Greek debt problem has dragged down not just Greece but the whole eurozone, and with it the world economy. Had the Greek debt been quickly reduced to a manageable level through restructuring, the eurozone would be in a much better shape today. In the Argentinian case, we are risking not just an end to Argentina's recovery but a fresh round of turmoil in the global financial market because of one questionable US court ruling.

Many people argue that, regrettable as they may be, such situations are unavoidable. However, when it comes to debt problems within our borders, we actually don't let the same situation develop. All national bankruptcy laws allow companies with too big a debt problem to declare themselves bankrupt. Once bankruptcy is declared, the debtor company and its creditors are forced to work together to reorganise the company's affairs, under clear rules.

First, a standstill is imposed on debt repayments – for as long as six months in the case of the debtor-friendly American bankruptcy law. Second, subject to the majority (or in some countries a super-majority of two thirds) of them agreeing, creditors are required to accept a debt reduction programme in return for a new company management strategy. This programme could involve outright reduction (or even cancellation) of debts, lowering of interest rates, and extension of the repayment period. Third, lawsuits by individual creditors are banned until there is an agreement, so that individual creditors cannot disrupt the restructuring process. Fourth, the claims of other stakeholders on the company are also taken into account, with wages being typically given "seniority" over debts.

Unfortunately, no mechanism like this exists for countries, which is what has made sovereign debt crises so difficult to manage. Because they don't have any legal protection from creditors in times of trouble, countries typically postpone the necessary restructuring of their economies by piling on more debts in the (usually unfulfilled) hope that the situation will somehow resolve itself. This makes the debt problem bigger than necessary.

What's more, because they cannot officially go bankrupt, countries face a stark choice. Either they default and risk exclusion in the international financial market (although countries can overcome it quickly, as Russia and Malaysia did in the late 1990s) or they have to opt for a de facto default, in which they pretend that they have not defaulted by making full repayments on their existing loans with money borrowed from public bodies, like the International Monetary Fund and the EU, while trying to negotiate debt restructuring.

The problem with this solution is that, in the absence of clear rules, the debt renegotiation process becomes lengthy, and can push the economy into a downward spiral. We have seen this in many Latin American countries in the 1980s, and we are seeing it today in Greece and other eurozone periphery economies.

Meanwhile, the absence of rules equivalent to the protection of wage claims in corporate bankruptcy law means that claims by weaker stakeholders – pensions, unemployment insurance, income supports – are the first to go. This creates social unrest, which then threatens recovery by discouraging investment.

It is not because people condoned defaulting per se that they came to introduce the corporate bankruptcy law. It was because they recognised that in the long run, creditors – and the broader economy, too – are likely to benefit more from reducing the debt burdens of companies in trouble, so that they can get a fresh start, than by letting them disintegrate in a disorderly way.

It is high time that we applied the same principles to countries and introduced a sovereign bankruptcy law.


guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.guardian.co.uk

Eurozone 'very close' to Greek debt deal: France


Eurozone 'very close' to Greek debt deal: France
Economic Times
PARIS: The eurozone is very close to an agreement on Greek debt, French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said Sunday on the eve of key talks between the currency bloc's finance ministers. "I think that in effect we are very close to a solution," he ...

and more »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT economictimes.indiatimes.com

World Week Ahead: Deal or no deal for Greece


World Week Ahead: Deal or no deal for Greece
National Business Review
Meanwhile, EU commissioner Olli Rehn on Thursday said he saw no reason a deal on Greece could not be concluded tomorrow, when eurozone finance ministers, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank meet again. Greek Finance ...

and more »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.nbr.co.nz

St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church celebrates 90 years


St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church celebrates 90 years
YNN Hudson Valley
ALBANY, N.Y. – A solemn service of celebration marked the 90th anniversary of St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church in Albany Sunday. The special service of the diving liturgy was led by His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios, the head of the Greek Orthodox ...

and more »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT hudsonvalley.ynn.com

World Week Ahead: Deal or no deal for Greece?


World Week Ahead: Deal or no deal for Greece?
TVNZ
Two deals might help extend last week's momentum on equity markets in the US and Europe - one that helps the US avoid its fiscal cliff and a second that would end the immediate threat of Greece defaulting on its debt. Optimism was fuelled on both ...

and more »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT tvnz.co.nz

Greece upbeat about signing debt deal


Greek Reporter

Greece upbeat about signing debt deal
Financial Times
Greek officials said on Sunday they were optimistic a deal was close on reducing the country's debt mountain but warned it could still be derailed by German objections to the size of proposed interest rate cuts on bilateral loans from eurozone partners.
Europe mulls Greece 'haircut' in 2015Ninemsn
No Greek debt writedown in next rescue package: ECB's AsmussenReuters
Europe Mulls Greece “Haircut” in 2015Greek Reporter
Wall Street Journal -Eurasia Review -Examiner.com
all 207 news articles »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.ft.com

Catalan Elections May Test Spain's Unity

BARCELONA, Spain — Voters in Catalonia on Sunday are choosing lawmakers for this wealthy Spanish region's parliament amid a threat from the Catalan leader to...

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.huffingtonpost.com

Euro Ministers Take Third Swing at Clearing Greek Payment


Irish Times

Euro Ministers Take Third Swing at Clearing Greek Payment
Bloomberg
Euro-area finance ministers try for the third time this month to clear an aid payment to Greece and forge a blueprint to keeping the country a solvent member of the currency bloc. Finance chiefs from the 17-member single currency return to Brussels tomorrow, ...
Eurogroup meeting on Greece to set toneFinancial Times
ECB official presses for Greek aid dealSalon
Greece's lenders inch closer to debt viability agreement: sourceCNBC.com
Reuters Canada
all 202 news articles »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.bloomberg.com

Senator Lindsey Graham is latest Republican to disavow tax pledge

South Carolina senator tells This Week he will break Grover Norquist's pledge in order "to avoid becoming Greece"

Senator Lindsey Graham has become the second senior Republican in days to publicly disavow a pledge that handcuffs the party to a policy of no tax rises, raising hopes of a deal over the fiscal cliff.

Speaking on ABC's This Week, the South Carolina politician said that the only pledge members of either party should make would be one to make sure the country did not go the same way, economically, as Greece. Regarding a pledge against tax hikes that has been signed by most Republicans in Congress – having been promulgated by the conservative lobbyist Grover Norquist – Graham said: "I will violate this pledge, long story short, for the good of the country."

In the aftermath of the GOP's defeat in the presidential election of 6 November, Norquist is increasingly seeing his influence on the party decline. On Thursday, senator Saxby Chambliss said he would break the Taxpayer Protection Pledge in an attempt to help avert the automatic triggering of $600bn of spending cuts and tax increases, the so-called "fiscal cliff".

Washington has until the end of a year to negotiate a deal to avoid such a situation. Economists have suggested that a package of swingeing spending cuts and tax hikes could be catastrophic for the US economic revival, plunging the country back into recession.

"I care more about this country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge," Chambliss said in an interview, earning a rebuke from Norquist.

A vast majority of Republicans in the House and the Senate have signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which was created in 1986 and which commits them to voting against any increase in revenue taken from personal income. Until recently it had been seen as a litmus test for the conservative credentials of party representatives, but the incoming House of Representatives will have 16 Republicans who have not signed up – an increase from six. One new Republican senator, Arizona's Jeff Flake, has avoided putting his signature to the demand.

On Sunday, Graham – who had already spoken of his misgivings about the pledge – added his name to those who have gone on record about their intention to break with the policy.

"I think Grover is wrong," he said. "When you are $16tn in debt the only pledge we should be making to each other is to avoid becoming Greece. I will violate this pledge, long story short, for the greater good of the country, only if Democrats do entitlement reform."

Speaking on the same show, the Democrat senator Dick Durbin also indicated a willingness for negotiation. After saluting Graham, Durbin said: "What he just said about revenue and taxes needs to be said on his side of the aisle. We need to be honest on our side of the aisle."

Durbin, a Democratic Party whip, noted that Congress was due to begin its new session on Monday.

"We can solve this problem," he said. "Tomorrow, there's no excuse: we're back in town."


guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds




READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.guardian.co.uk

Greek protesters march against Canadian gold mining


DigitalJournal.com

Greek protesters march against Canadian gold mining
DigitalJournal.com
Anti-Gold Greece staged protests in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki on Saturday, attracting around 3,000 protesters. Protests focused on Canadian company Eldorado Gold Corporation which is involved in four gold mining projects. In October the ...

and more »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.digitaljournal.com

ECB official presses for Greek aid deal


ECB official presses for Greek aid deal
Boston.com
ECB official presses for Greek aid deal. AP / November 25, 2012. E-mail |; Print |; Reprints |. Text Size: –; +. E-mail. E-mail this article. To: Invalid E-mail address. Add a personal message:(80 character limit). Your E-mail: Invalid E-mail address ...

and more »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.boston.com

No Greek debt writedown in next rescue package: ECB's Asmussen


The Voice of Russia

No Greek debt writedown in next rescue package: ECB's Asmussen
Reuters
BERLIN (Reuters) - A write-down on Greek debt should not be part of the country's next rescue package, European Central Bank board member Joerg Asmussen told Germany's Bild newspaper ahead of Monday's euro zone group meeting. "We need a ...
Markets unfazed by Greek cliffhangerFinancial Times
Greek debt to be restructured again?The Voice of Russia
Eurozone continues with talks on reducing Greek debtKathimerini
Greek Reporter -The Nation
all 131 news articles »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.reuters.com

St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church celebrating 90 years


St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church celebrating 90 years
YNN Hudson Valley
As part of the occasion, a special service will be led by His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios, followed by a community luncheon. St. Sophia was started by 12 Greek immigrants in 1922. Church officials say the families wanted to purchase a Greek Church to ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT hudsonvalley.ynn.com

Many fear economy may become like Greece's: poll


Many fear economy may become like Greece's: poll
Taipei Times
Hsu Yung-ming, head of Taiwan Thinktank's opinion poll team, yesterday presents the results of a survey on the recognition of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping following the Chinese Communist Party's 18th Party Congress at National Taiwan University's ...

and more »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.taipeitimes.com

Monday meeting to address new Greece bailout


Deutsche Welle

Monday meeting to address new Greece bailout
Deutsche Welle
Euro Group finance ministers, chaired by Jean-Claude Juncker - who is also prime minister of Luxembourg - are scheduled to meet for the third time to resolve a deal over the next bailout installment for nearly insolvent Greece. In the lead-up to the ...

and more »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.dw.de

Greek police recover stolen Olympia artefacts


Aljazeera.com

Greek police recover stolen Olympia artefacts
Aljazeera.com
Greek police have solved a museum robbery in Olympia after a sting operation netted three suspects and recovered dozens of archaeological artefacts. Earlier Saturday, police said they had arrested three Greek men aged between 36 and 50, and were ...
Greek police recover stolen Olympia antiquitiesBBC News
Greek police recover stolen Olympia artefacts, arrest threeYahoo! News (blog)
Greek Undercover Sting Nets Artefact SuspectsYahoo! News UK
Newser -The Voice of Russia
all 188 news articles »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.aljazeera.com

The Greek debt buyback 'Boondoggle' – Questions answered


The Greek debt buyback 'Boondoggle' – Questions answered
ForexLive (blog)
The Greek debt buyback 'Boondoggle' – Questions answered. By Gerry Davies || November 25, 2012 at 14:19 GMT. || 0 comments || Add comment · Zerohedge. Share and Enjoy: RSS · Facebook · Twitter · LinkedIn · email. Category: All, Europe, Mkt News, ...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.forexlive.com

Greek debt to be restructured again?


The Voice of Russia

Greek debt to be restructured again?
The Voice of Russia
Experts say the move is to reduce Greek debt from 144 to 70% of its GDP by 2020. However, Germany is against a write-off, as it would cost Berlin a fortune. Instead, Germany proposes to decrease loan interest rates for Athens. Voice of Russia, Interfax ...

and more »

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT english.ruvr.ru