Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis moved forward to yesterday a planned trip to Paris that was to launch the anti-austerity Greek government’s search for EU allies, his office said, after the government on Friday dramatically escalated its battle with its international creditors.
“The minister will travel to Paris on Saturday instead of Monday,” a spokesman told reporters, adding that Varoufakis was expected to hold meetings today.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel underlined the refusal of Greece’s European creditors to consider forgiving part of the debt-ridden nation’s rescue loans.
Photo: EPA
Athens insisted that it would honor pre-election promises to seek a cut on the nation’s rescue debt and to scrap painful budget measures that were demanded in exchange for the loans.
Merkel said in an interview published on Saturday by the daily Berliner Morgenpost that Europe would continue showing solidarity with Greece and other strugglers, “if these countries undertake their own reform and saving efforts.”
Asked whether there would be a debt cut for Greece, she replied that Athens was already forgiven for billions of euros by private creditors, adding: “I don’t see a further debt haircut.”
Varoufakis, an economist opposed to fiscal cuts, was to meet with French Minister of Finance Michel Sapin and French Minister of Economy Emmanuel Macron tomorrow afternoon.
Sapin’s office said that he would see Varoufakis at 4pm GMT today and that statements would be made to reporters 90 minutes later.
The government of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was elected last Sunday on a platform of renegotiating Greece’s EU-IMF bailout and erasing half its debt.
Tsipras is also to see Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Tuesday and French President Francois Hollande on Wednesday.
Greece’s government dramatically escalated its battle with the country’s international creditors on Friday, saying that it would no longer meet with EU and IMF auditors and rejecting fresh loans offered for this month.
Athens had been promised another 7.2 billion euros (US$8.13 billion) in funds from the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank (ECB) if it completed reforms required by its lenders by Feb. 28.
Varoufakis said Athens preferred to do without the funds.
“This government was elected on the basis of analytically questioning the very logic of the program now being applied,” he said.
“Our first act ... will not be to reject the logic of questioning this program by requesting to extend it,” he told a news conference.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique