Troubled Greece: Fears of 'First Domino' to Fall as Austerity Is Counted a Failure

THE GUARDIAN: Greek's leftist party Syriza says recovery depends on a renegotiated bail-out and access to European structural funds

The soup kitchen opens at noon but long before then the queues start to form in the hot Athens sun. A couple of streets away from where sardines, red mullet and squid are piled high in the fish market, those down on their luck line up. While elsewhere life goes on seemingly as normal, students, jobless people, single parents and pensioners swallow their pride and wait patiently. They get two meals a day, at midday and 5pm. This is what a depression looks like.

At first blush, Greece seems no different from any other developed country. People sit in the city centre cafes sipping their iced coffees; yellow taxis cruise the streets; the shops are open for business. But different it is, and it is not hard to spot the signs that this is an economy that has contracted by 20% since the downturn began three years ago and that it is still falling.

You don't need to know that spending in the shops is down by a sixth over the past year; it is obvious from the empty cabs and those shops open but with no customers. You don't need to know that the official unemployment rate is well above 20% and youth unemployment is nudging 50%: it's obvious from the young men idling on street corners and openly dealing drugs.

Greece is broke and close to being broken. It is a country where children are fainting in school because they are hungry, where 20,000 Athenians are scavenging through waste tips for food, and where the lifeblood of a modern economy – credit – is fast drying up.

It is a country where the fascists and the anarchists battle for control of the streets, where immigrants fear to go out at night and where a woman whispers "it's like the Weimar republic [sic]" as a motorcycle cavalcade from the Golden Dawn party, devotees of Adolf Hitler, cruises past the parliament building. Graffiti says: "Foreigners get out of Greece. Greece is for the Greeks. I will vote for Golden Dawn to remove the filth from the country." » | Larry Elliott, economics editor | Thursday, May 31, 2012

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Greek Pensioner Found Hanging from Tree in Athens over 'Unpayable Debts'

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A Greek pensioner who was heavily in debt hanged himself from a tree in Athens yesterday, leaving a suicide note saying his country could only be saved with a leader like Margaret Thatcher.

The 61-year-old electrician and father of two, identified only by the name Alexandros, had owed money to banks and the tax office that he was unable to repay, according to police.

Greece, which used to have one of the lowest suicide rates in the world, has seen a surge of people taking their own lives since it was plunged into the euro zone's worst economic crisis. Experts say the suicide rate probably doubled last year.

In his anguished suicide note he wrote that he always worked hard but had become a businessman late in life and had got himself into debt.

"I hope my grandchildren will never be born in Greece because from now on it won't be populated by Greeks any more," he wrote, according to the police sources.

"At least they will know a foreign language as Greek will be abolished by then unless there is a politician with balls, like Thatcher's, to fix both us and the state," he wrote. » | Source: agencies | Thursday, May 31, 2012

Greece to Hold New Elections
Greek politicians have failed to form a government and will now head towards holding a new election. Polls show the vote could favour the country's leftists who want to renege on the terms of bailout agreed on by the government earlier in the year. This will see the country push closer towards an exit from the eurozone, a situation which IMF chief Christine Lagarde says could get "quite messy". Al Jazeera's Paul Brennan reports from Athens.

Related material here and here

Greece Calls New Election After Coalition Talks Fail

REUTERS.COM: Greece abandoned a nine-day hunt for a government on Tuesday and called a new election that threatens to hasten the nation's slide towards bankruptcy and a future outside the euro zone.

An inconclusive election on May 6 left parliament split between supporters and opponents of a 130 billion euro bailout deal which is reviled by Greeks for imposing deep wage, pension and public spending cuts.

A second election is expected to produce a similarly divided parliament, with opponents of the EU/IMF rescue consolidating their gains and raising the likelihood of an anti-bailout coalition that reneges on the deal keeping Greece afloat.

"For God's sake, let's move towards something better and not something worse," Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos told reporters after a meeting of party leaders failed to agree on a government of technocrats. "Our motherland can find its way, we will fight for it to find its way."

European leaders have said they will halt the aid if promises given in return for the bailout are not kept. If so, Greece could go bankrupt as early as next month. Analysts say that this will almost certainly herald a Greek return to its drachma national currency. » | Lefteris Papadimas and Dina Kyriakidou | ATHENS | Tuesday, May 15, 2012

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Death in the Morning: How One Pensioner's Suicide Has Traumatised Greece
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Until Wednesday morning, Dimitris Christoulas, a respectable middle-class pensioner, was familiar only to the residents of the quiet Ampelokipous district of Athens where he had lived and worked hard for nearly 40 years.

All that changed at 8.45am, rush hour, when the 77-year-old former pharmacist and pillar of his shopkeeping community put a hand gun to his head and shot himself under a giant Cyprus tree on the central Syntagma Square.

He fell to the ground in front of the national parliament that many Greeks have come to blame for the corruption and mismanagement that has plunged their country into crisis, and lay there dead as shocked commuters looked on.

Yesterday, 24 hours after his suicide, the name Dimitris Christoulas is known to most in this troubled country.

"A martyr for Greece" declared the Eleftheros Typos newspaper. "Scream of desperation" said the headline in Avyi next to a picture of Edvard Munch's celebrated painting. Many press commentaries compared his death to the protest suicides that unleashed the Arab spring in Tunisia and across the Middle East last year.

To many – including neighbours in hi close community, he has become a hero.

"He did not rebel from his couch. He was a beautiful man, he will live on in history," said Pannayotta, a housewife in her late 50s, living on the same street as the pensioner.

The incendiary suicide note Mr Chritoulas left behind urging young Greeks to rise up has also struck a chord with millions of people who see their highly indebted nation's social fabric being torn apart by economic recession and externally imposed austerity measures.

"I cannot find any other form of struggle except a dignified end," he wrote. "I believe that young people with no future will one day take up and hang this country's traitors in arms in Syntagma Square just as the Italians hanged Mussolini in 1945." Read on and comment » | Bruno Waterfield | Athens | Thursday, April 05, 2012

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Violent Protests Erupt in Athens over Debt Suicide
Violent protests broke out in Athens last night after an elderly man committed suicide near to the country's Parliament building, claiming he was distraught at the prospect of "looking in the garbage to feed myself".

Read the article and comment here | Matthew Sparkes | Thursday, April 05, 2012
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Austerity Suicide: Greek Pensioner Shoots Himself in Athens

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A cash-strapped Greek pensioner who said he feared having to “scrounge for food” shot himself dead in Athens’ main square in the latest in a series of suicides and attempted suicides triggered by European austerity measures.

The death of the 77-year-old retired pharmacist in the Greek capital's Constitution Square caused an outpouring of anger and grief and came after similar incidents in Italy.

The pensioner, named locally as Dimitris Christoulas, shot himself with a handgun a few hundred yards from the Greek parliament, which has been the focus of numerous violent protests against tough austerity measures in recent months.

Witnesses said he put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger after yelling: “I have debts, I can’t stand this anymore.”

A passer-by told Greek television the man said: “I don’t want to leave my debts to my children.”

A suicide note found in his coat pocket blamed politicians and the country’s acute financial crisis for driving him to take his life, police said.

The government had “annihilated any hope for my survival and I could not get any justice. I cannot find any other form of struggle except a dignified end before I have to start scrounging for food from rubbish bins,” the note said. » | Paul Anast, Athens and Nick Squires | Wednesday, April 04, 2012

A Civilization on Edge: Amid Debt Crisis, Athens Falls Apart

SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: As Greece struggles to master its devastating debt problem, decades of mismanagement have taken their toll on the country's once-proud capital. Athens has degenerated into a hotbed of chaos and crime, where tensions between Greeks and immigrants have led to attacks on foreigners by the far-right.

Massoud starts walking faster as the shadows lengthen. He glances at the scratched display on his mobile phone. It's 7:15 p.m.

The sun is setting behind the large apartment buildings on Patission Street, disappearing behind the few remaining classical facades where the plaster is beginning to crumble. "For Rent" and "For Sale" signs are posted on boarded-up windows or behind sheets of opaque glass.

Massoud is in a hurry. He wants to get home before dark, because that's when the people who are out to get him come out.

The gangs of right-wing thugs, sometimes up to 20 at a time, approach their victims on foot or on mopeds, carrying clubs and knives. They are masked, faceless and fast. They appear suddenly and silently before striking.

The neo-fascists are hunting down immigrants in the middle of downtown Athens, in the streets north of the central Omonia Square. They call it cleansing.

They hunt people like Massoud, a 25-year-old Afghan from Kabul. He has been living in Athens for five years without a residency permit, even though he speaks fluent Greek. He studied geography in Kabul, but in Athens he works as a day laborer.

The gangs also hunt the dark-skinned man pushing a shopping cart filled with garbage and scrap metal through the streets. Or the woman with Asian features, who now grabs her child and the paper cup with which she has just been begging in the streets. » | Julia Amalia Heyer | Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan | Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Part 2: Violence, Drugs and Disease »

Misery in Athens: 'New Poor' Grows from Greek Middle Class

SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Aid workers and soup kitchens in Athens are struggling to provide for the city's "new poor." Since the economic crisis has taken hold, poverty has taken hold among Greece's middle class. And suicide rates have nearly doubled.

If this crisis has reached Piraeus, then it's done a good job of hiding itself. Even on this cold February night, the luxury cars are lined up outside the chic, waterfront fish restaurants in this port suburb of Athens. But Leonidas Koutikas knows where to look. Not even 50 meters off the main promenade, around two corners, misery is everywhere. Koutikas finds a family of five living behind a tangled tent that has been attached to the wall of an apartment building.

Koutikas and his colleagues from the aid organization Klimaka are expected. They hand out their care packages here every night. "Each day the list of those in need gets longer," Koutikas says. He speaks from experience. Until recently, the 48-year-old was sleeping on the streets himself.

Athens has always had a problem with homelessness, like any other major city. But the financial and debt crises have led poverty to slowly but surely grow out of control here. In 2011, there were 20 percent more registered homeless people than the year before. Depending on the season, that number can be as high as 25,000. The soup kitchens in Athens are complaining of record demand, with 15 percent more people in need of free meals.

It's no longer just the "regulars" who are brought blankets and hot meals at night, says Effie Stamatogiannopoulou. She sits in the main offices of Klimaka, brooding over budgets and duty rosters. It was a long day, and like most of those in the over-heated room, the 46-year-old is keeping herself awake with coffee and cigarettes. She shows the day's balance sheet: 102 homeless reported to Klimaka today. » | Johannes Korge and Ferry Batzoglou | Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Riots Herald a 'Dark Day' in Greek History as MPs Vote Through Austerity Cuts

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A young woman staggered down the steps of Syntagma Square blinded by the acrid smoke as thick clouds of tear gas billowed across the heart of the Greek capital.

Bent double and choking, the thin surgical mask across her mouth failing to protect her lungs from the noxious fumes, she crumpled to the ground in front of the Parliament as an army of riot police closed ranks behind her.

Hooded youths, their faces hidden behind gas masks ripped what projectiles they could find from the streets to hurl at police chanting "cops, pigs, murderers!"

Police retaliated with baton charges accompanied by sporadic rounds of teargas and stun grenades releasing terrifying loud bangs - and the crowds fled, regrouping within minutes in other parts of the square.

Such scenes were repeated over and over throughout Wednesday during a second day of protests against a deeply unpopular austerity package.

The protests demonstrate a growing social unrest across all levels of society bubbling into unprecedented public anger at the politicians held responsible for bringing a nation to its knees. » | Fiona Govan, Athens | Thursday, June 30, 2011

Greek PM Survives Crucial Vote of Confidence
Greece's prime minister has won a confidence vote which will give him the backing to push through major budget reforms.

George Papandreou is hoping the cuts will help avoid a major financial catastrophe, and will convince Eurozone leaders that a second bailout is worth their trouble. But the moves are deeply unpopular and protesters continued their campaign long into the night.

Al Jazeera's Tim Friend reports from Athens.

Anti-austerity Greek Protesters Barricaded by Police
Protesters gathered at Syntagma Square in Athens are frustrated in their plan to prevent deputies from attending an austerity debate in the parliament

Fire Bomb Hits Policeman as Riots Break Out in Athens
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Youths wearing ski masks hurled rocks and fire bombs at riot police as clashes broke out in Athens during a mass rally against austerity measures, part of a general strike that crippled services and public transportation around the country. Police fired tear gas and flash grenades at protesters, blanketing parts of the city centre in choking smoke. Thousands of peaceful demonstrators ran to side streets to take cover. A police officer was attacked and his uniform caught fire in the city's main Syntagma Square, before he was rescued by colleagues. To the picture gallery >>> | Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Police Pounded by Gas Bombs in Athens
Feb 23 - A protest by tens of thousands of leftists and civil servants turned violent Wednesday as demonstrators clashed with police in the streets of central Athens. Jon Decker reports

Greece Suffers Fifth General Strike as Metro Blockaded in Madrid
Violence erupted in Bilbao during a one-day general strike. Photo: The Times
THE TIMES: Violence broke out during Greece’s fifth general strike of the year, while in Madrid the Metro was blockaded in a foretaste of a summer of industrial unrest.

As Mediterranean governments push through austerity measures, masked youths took part in running battles with police in Athens, with domestic flights and many ferry sailings from the port of Piraeus cancelled.

Public and private sector unions in the country announced that there would be a sixth all-out stoppage next week, when the package of pay and pension reforms comes to a final vote.

“These measures will not help. They will only lead to deeper recession and poverty,” said Despina Spanou, a board member of the Adedy civil servants’ union, which helped to organise the marches. “We are resisting the slaughtering of our rights.”

The governments of Greece and Spain are increasingly worried about the impact of unrest on tourism — which is a mainstay of both economies. >>> Philip Pangalos in Athens, William Bond in Madrid, David Charter in Brussels | Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Greek Police Clash with Protesters over Austerity Reforms
Riot police fired tear gas and stun grenades. Photograph: The Times
THE TIMES: Masked youths fought running battles with police in Athens today as violence broke out during the country’s fifth general strike this year.

Riot police fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse dozens of protesters who threw chunks of marble and set rubbish bins on fire.

Ferry passengers at Greece’s main port of Piraeus had to run a gauntlet of protesters who succeeded in blockading some departures to Aegean islands and there were marches in other major cities.

The strike was timed to coincide with the start of a parliamentary debate on reforms designed to make it easier for companies to sack employees and raise the retirement age.

Greece has had to agree to sweeping austerity measures in return for help to meet its sovereign debts.

The country avoided bankruptcy last month only after receiving the first instalment of a 110 billion euro emergency loan package from the EU and International Monetary Fund (IMF). >>> David Charter, Europe Correspondent | Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Geert Wilders: Change Jordan's Name to Palestine
YNET NEWS: Rightist Dutch leader wants to end Mideast conflict by finding Palestinians 'alternate homeland'

Geert Wilders, who leads the right-wing Party for Freedom (PVV) in Holland, said last week he believes Jordan should be renamed Palestine. The Jordanian government responded by saying Wilders' speech was reminiscent of the Israeli right wing.

"Jordan is Palestine," said Wilders, who heads the third-largest party in Holland. "Changing its name to Palestine will end the conflict in the Middle East and provide the Palestinians with an alternate homeland."

Wilders added that Israel deserved a special status in the Dutch government because it was fighting for Jerusalem in its name.

"If Jerusalem falls into the hands of the Muslims, Athens and Rome will be next. Thus, Jerusalem is the main front protecting the West. It is not a conflict over territory but rather an ideological battle, between the mentality of the liberated West and the ideology of Islamic barbarism," he said.

"There has been an independent Palestinian state since 1946, and it is the kingdom of Jordan." Wilders also called on the Dutch government to refer to Jordan as Palestine and move its embassy to Jerusalem.

The Saudi Al-Watan carried Jordan's response to Wilders' speech. The kingdom's embassy in Hague was outraged, and said the Dutch ambassador would soon be summoned to explain. >>> Roee Nahmias | Sunday, June 20, 2010

Greece on Brink of Abyss as Three Bank Workers Killed in Riots
A riot policeman falls after being hit by a molotov cocktail near the Greek parliament in Athens. Photograph: Times Online
TIMES ONLINE: The President of Greece warned last night that his country stood on the brink of the abyss after three people were killed when an anti-government mob set fire to the Athens bank where they worked.

“I have difficulty in finding the words to express my distress and outrage,” President Papoulias said. “The big challenge we face is to maintain social cohesion and peace. Our country came to the brink of the abyss. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that we don’t step over the edge.”

Violence flared as tens of thousands of striking workers and civil servants took to the streets of the capital and the northern city of Salonika to protest against the Government’s austerity measures.

The demonstrators gathered as George Papandreou, the Prime Minister, was trying to push through parliament tough budget cuts demanded by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in exchange for a ¤110 billion aid package.

“We are all deeply shocked by the unjust death of three workers, three of our fellow citizens, who were victims of murderous attacks,” he told MPs. >>> Philip Pangalos in Athens | Thursday, May 06, 2010

Greek Protestors Unfurl Banners on Acropolis
THE TELEGRAPH: Greek protesters have unfurled banners over the walls of the Acropolis attacking new austerity measures imposed as a condition of an international bailout.

Greek Communist Party members wave flags from the Acropolis archaeological site behind a banner hung in front of the Parthenon temple. Photo: The Telegraph
About 100 protesters from the Greek Communist Party cut through locks on the gates of the major tourist attraction shortly after dawn and unfurled the banners in Greek and English reading: "Peoples of Europe - Rise Up."

Police did not intervene as the protesters carrying red flags stood beside the ancient Parthenon, next to the two large banners. The demonstrators did not attempt to prevent tourists from visiting the site.

Greece's government announced sweeping spending cuts worth 30 billion euros through 2012, in order to secure a rescue package of loans from the International Monetary Fund and the other 15 European Union countries using the euro. >>> | Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Verbunden: Akropolis aus Protest gegen Sparpaket besetzt: Spektakuläre Aktion zum Auftakt der landesweiten Streiks >>> sda/afp | Dienstag, 04. Mai 2010

Revolution from Greece's Ruins as Crisis Deepens
THE TELEGRAPH: As Greeks face changing their way of life, rioters in Athens clash with police at the start of a very long, painful summer for the country.



The week was already going badly enough for mild-mannered Greek prime minister George Papandreou. After months of insisting that his country would be able to claw its own way out of decades of mismanagement and corruption, his belated SOS to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ensured that Greece's world famous ruins are now financial, not archaeological.

But then things got worse. Even as Mr Papandreou likened himself to Homer's great survivor, Odysseus, his country's fortunes were being sunk between a modern Scylla and Charybdis: German intransigence over a financial bailout on one side, and market jitters that downgraded Greek bonds to junk status on the other.

On Sunday, however, as the details of an economic life raft from the EU and IMF are due to be announced, Mr Papandreou will be forced to survey not simply the wreckage of the Greek economy, but the beginnings of "cultural revolution" that analysts say his homeland's crisis is set to unleash across the continent of Europe. >>> Harry de Quetteville and Paul Anast in Athens | Saturday, May 01, 2010

Violent May Day Protests in Athens
LOS ANGELES TIMES: The rioting signals growing social unrest as the Greek government prepares to announce additional austerity measures to secure rescue loans from the EU and International Monetary Fund.

Demonstrators clash with police outside the Greek Parliament during a massive May Day demonstration by leftist groups to protest austerity measures instituted by the government. Photo: Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Athens

Wielding red flags and hurling crude gas bombs, dozens of militant youths clashed with riot police in central Athens on Saturday, signaling swelling social unrest as the cash-strapped Greek government prepares to announce additional austerity measures required to win rescue loans from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

The clashes came during massive May Day protests called by Greece's powerful trade unions and left-wing political parties in a desperate bid to block the plans for additional wage cuts, tax hikes and pension reductions.

"The bill should go to those who looted this country for decades, not to the workers," said Spiros Papaspirou, head of Greece's powerful Adedy civil servants union. "This is the most savage, unjust and unprovoked attack workers have ever faced."

Saturday's protests drew nearly 20,000 workers to the streets of the capital, bringing traffic and trade to a standstill as demonstrators filed by the Finance Ministry building chanting slogans against the government, the EU and the IMF. >>> Anthee Carassava, Special to the Los Angeles Times | Saturday, May 01,2010