Greece has admitted it still faces a tough job in persuading the EU and IMF to save it from bankruptcy even after parliament approved savage extra budget cuts, provoking a night of looting and burning in central Athens.
A suspicious EU has told leaders of the two parties left in the government of technocrat Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos to give written commitments by today that they will implement the pay, pension and job cuts after elections expected in April.
As parliament debated the austerity package on Sunday night, riot police fought running battles with protesters outside. By daybreak on Monday, 93 buildings had been wrecked or seriously damaged in the city center, some of them historical monuments.
The written undertakings are not the only demand eurozone finance ministers have made before they decide whether to approve a 130 billion euro (US$172 billion) bailout, part of which Athens must get if it is not to default chaotically when 14.5 billion euros in debt repayments fall due on March 20.
Weary of broken Greek promises, the eurozone ministers have also told Athens to say how it will fill a 325 million euro gap in its plan for an extra 3.3 billion euros in savings this year before they meet in Brussels today.
Government spokesman Pantelis Kapsis accepted that Athens had work to do.
“The Eurogroup on Wednesday will obviously be a tough one but the government believes the political leaders’ positions show we are determined to continue,” he said.
Greece had to seal the “Private Sector Involvement” (PSI) deal to reduce its debt burden. “The next three weeks will be hellish. The list of actions regarding the PSI and the memorandum is extremely pressing,” Kapsis said.
Terms of the PSI, under which private creditors will take a major cut in the value of their Greek government debt holdings, are set to be announced after the Eurogroup meeting, sources familiar with the talks said on Monday.
Greece’s creditors will take a net loss of 70 percent, two of the sources said.
Many Athens residents fear that Sunday night’s violence may lead to something like the riots in 2008, which spread across the country and lasted for weeks after police shot dead a 15-year-old schoolboy — or something yet worse.
“It is very likely that such protests will be repeated because people are very angry, they are outraged,” said Vassilis Korkidis, head of the Greek Commerce Confederation.
“People sent a message yesterday: Enough is enough! They can’t take it any more,” said Ilias Iliopoulos, general secretary of public sector union ADEDY. “The social explosion will come one way or another, there is nothing they can do about it any more.”
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS