Greece confirmed it would fail to make a key IMF repayment due yesterday, fanning fears of a chaotic eurozone exit on the same day the nation’s international bailout expires.
At the same time, the European Commission said it had offered an eleventh-hour deal to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to stave off a crisis which could rupture the eurozone and risks a knock-on effect on other troubled nations.
Tsipras has urged Greeks to reject creditors’ tough reform demands in a referendum on Sunday, but has also pleaded for a bailout extension to keep Athens afloat.
Photo: Bloomberg
Failure to pay would see Greece become the first nation to default on the IMF since Zimbabwe in 2001. In terms of standards of living, it would be the wealthiest.
With just hours to go before the deadline, Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis gave an emphatic “no” to questions over whether Greece would make the debt repayment of about 1.5 billion euros (US$1.7 billion) yesterday.
Europe’s main stock markets dropped on the news, though losses were less acute than on Monday.
Tsipras, elected on an anti-austerity ticket in January, on Monday blamed creditors for “suffocating” the banks and making it impossible for the nation to pay up its debt.
Thousands of people poured onto the streets of Greece’s two biggest cities, Athens and Thessaloniki, on Monday night to support their government’s opposition to the latest proposals, after a clash with creditors forced the closure of banks and the imposition of capital controls.
Greece’s international bailout program from its “troika” of lenders — the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF — also expired yesterday.
Talks between Greece’s leftist government and its creditors fell apart after Tsipras called a referendum on the latest proposals.
Tsipras on Monday sought to calm nerves by leaving the door open, saying Sunday’s plebiscite on the creditors’ latest cash-for-reform plans would leave Greece “better armed” in the fight for a debt deal.
European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker set out a possible “last-minute” solution for an accord before the referendum, a commission source said.
A euro-MP from Tsipras’s hard-left SYRIZA party said the plan should be studied.
Juncker told the Greek prime minister that a deal would involve accepting reform proposals that Greece’s EU-IMF creditors made at the weekend and backing a “Yes” vote in Sunday’s plebiscite.
A Greek government source said that negotiations were taking place between Athens and its creditors, though a European Commission spokesman said time was “running out quickly.”
However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she knew nothing about a new offer from Juncker.
EU leaders, including Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi have joined Juncker in warning that the referendum would effectively be a vote on Greece’s place in the eurozone.
The government has called for Greeks to vote “No,” rejecting the creditors’ debt proposals.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy yesterday said that a “Yes” victory in the referendum would allow Greece’s creditors to negotiate with a new government.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS