How the world sees Greece
 Kathimerini | Greece: Former finance minister granted bail MiamiHerald.com The Associated Press. ATHENS, Greece -- A former Greek finance minister has been granted bail of (EURO)50,000 ($66,000) after testifying before a public prosecutor investigating allegations that he submitted false income declarations to tax authorities. Papantoniou Freed On 50000 Euros Bail |
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Olubayo's Entitlement Trapped in Greece THISDAY Live His words: “Our lawyer in Greece informed me that the insurance company that is handling the matter has gone bankrupt and that the bank will not release his entitlements because of a stamp which is not in our late brother's documents. That is what we ... |
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 Yahoo!7 News | Greece gets two bids for stake in betting monopoly OPAP Yahoo!7 News ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's first big privatisation drew little international interest from major companies on Wednesday, highlighting how steep a challenge the country faces to meet its ambitious bailout targets amid a deep economic crisis. Athens ... Greece Receives Two Bids for State Gambling Company OPAP Crisis: Greece; privatizations, Opap bid expires today |
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 Kathimerini | Pressed by human rights activists, Greece pledges to stop deportations of ... Kathimerini Greece on Wednesday pledged to halt deportations of Syrian refugees, as human rights activists called for measures to ensure that asylum seekers from the war-torn Middle Eastern state have access to Greek territory and safety. “No Syrian refugees will ... |
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 Yahoo!7 News | Greece confirms it has two bids for gambling firm OPAP Reuters ATHENS, April 17 (Reuters) - Greece's privatisation agency confirmed on Wednesday it got two binding bids for the sale of a 33 percent stake in the country's gambling monopoly OPAP . The bids were submitted by U.S. fund Third Point and by Emma Delta, ... Greece gets two bids for stake in betting monopoly OPAP Crisis: Greece; privatizations, Opap bid expires today |
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 euronews | Greek protests against public sector cuts euronews In Greece, public sector workers have taken to the streets again in protest, after the government agreed to more cuts in return for bailout funds. The cuts are widely rumoured to include up to 15,000 job losses in the public sector, including workers ... |
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 Voice of America | Greek Health, Civil Workers Protest Cutbacks Voice of America The President of the Greek Hospital Workers Federation Stavros Koutsioubelis said that surgeries had to be cancelled. "We cannot operate, because the hospitals don't have money, they don't have supplies. Suppliers are not stocking hospitals any more. Greek healthcare, civil service workers go on strike in Athens Greek civil servants demonstrate against layoffs Greek Workers Protest The Coming Axe |
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Greek Gene Bank's Struggle Indicative Of Changing Times Intellectual Property Watch The Greek Gene Bank (“GGB”) was established in 1981 in Thessaloniki with the help of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. It holds in its stewardship a tremendous amount of plant genetic resources in the form of seeds. Its purpose is ... |
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 Press TV | Greek healthcare, civil service workers go on strike in Athens Press TV Greek healthcare, civil service workers go on strike in Athens. Doctors and other civil servants rally during an anti-austerity protest in Athens on April 17, 2013. Wed Apr 17, 2013 5:6PM. Share | Email | Print. Healthcare workers in Greece have staged ... Greek Health, Civil Workers Protest Cutbacks Greek civil servants demonstrate against layoffs Greek Workers Protest The Coming Axe |
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Jorgo Chatzimarkakis accuses Berlin of bullying EU's poorer members and criticises Merkel's handling of eurozone crisis
Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, an MEP with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), the junior party in Angela Merkel's governing coalition, says he is so "fed up with German hypocrisy" in its dealings with Europe he can no longer speak for the country.
In an interview with the Guardian, Chatzimarkakis, who was born in Germany to Greek migrant workers and has dual nationality, accused Berlin of bullying the EU's poorer member states and indulging in the very practices it sought to stamp out.
"Germany is setting the European house on fire. I don't want to be with those playing with fire. I would rather be with those in the fire brigade," said Chatzimarkakis, who recently announced that he would be resigning from German politics after representing Germany in the European parliament for the past nine years.
"Germany is focused on national interests much more than EU interests," said the 47-year-old, who did not rule out standing for re-election with a Greek party when euro elections are next held in May 2014. "It is regarded as the hegemon but is not behaving as the hegemon and that is shown by the stereotypes that are used in the Greek case and, even more, the Cypriot case.
"The Germans in their hearts believe it is OK to bribe if it leads to more profit. They have a totally different attitude to corruption as the donor [party]. Many regard themselves as not guilty if they give," he said, listing German companies that he said handed out kickbacks to secure multimillion pound contracts. "The guilty ones are those who take … this is the sort of hypocrisy that I am personally fed up with."
The politician said he had been left shocked by the country's handling of the continent's worsening economic crisis.
"Members of my own party, liberals, came up with the idea of selling Greek islands and the Parthenon because it was an easy way to win votes," he said. "Merkel herself gave a speech to party members saying the eurozone wouldn't survive if countries in the south continued to take long holidays. She used this stereotype and it was not backed by real data, because the reality is that Greeks, for example, work a lot longer than Germans do."
Berlin's treatment of Cyprus had been the last straw, he said. The island was the best proof yet that double standards in the bloc were now at play.
"Look at the money-laundering that is taking place in Germany," he said. "It is well proved that up to €60bn is laundered in Germany every year. How can a country like Germany then accuse a small country like Cyprus of being nothing else than a criminal money-washing system and at the same time execute a whole economy within a fortnight just to send a message to German voters [in September's general election]?" he asked. "It is unbelievable!"
Such behaviour, Chatzimarkakis argued, had aggravated the growing north-south divide in Europe and contributed to the "bad climate" in the EU. It had also created a hostile atmosphere towards German politicians in the European parliament.
With its dogged emphasis on austerity as the only way out of the crisis, he claimed Berlin had become increasingly isolated and out of touch with its partners even if it remained the biggest provider of bailout funds to indebted nations in the south.
"The atmosphere has become tougher in the EP and I'm afraid we won't be able to wait until the German elections to fix it," averred the MEP, saying visiting German MPS on the country's budget committee had expressed surprise that hostility should exist at all.
"A group of us met them last week and they asked us 'is it really true that everyone is against us?' The question, alone, shows you the level of unawareness. They think all this anger is a media phenomenon and nothing to do with reality."
It was urgent, he insisted, that the German government not only "put things right" but stop "a very dangerous policy" for Europe and European integration.
"It should start, possibly, by apologising to Cyprus, at least symbolically," Chatzimarkakis said. "We have a shadow state that is governing Europe," he added referring to the continent's increasingly dominant eurotocracy. "I am specifically thinking of the euro group, the troika, the European commission, bodies that the German government hides behind and all too often controls."
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 Greek Reporter | English Actor Stephen Fry Visits Greece Greek Reporter After the sight-seeing tour was over, the Minister commented that she was very happy with Fry's decision to visit Greece. “The messages coming from abroad for Greek tourism are optimistic this year. However, there is still much to be done and we must ... |
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Dispute over copyright was between Meltwater, which alerts PR agencies to articles, and the Newspaper Licensing Agency
The UK supreme court has ruled that readers who open articles via a website link are not breaking the law, overturning the high court's ruling that browsing was a breach of newspaper owners' copyright.
But the supreme court has decided that the copyright issues surrounding web browsing are so important that it has referred the case it was examining to the European Court of Justice to ensure that the ruling applies uniformly across the EU.
The ruling comes after a three-year legal between the Newspaper Licensing Agency and a media monitoring company, Meltwater, which charges PR companies thousands of pounds a year for alerts about their clients.
After a dispute over fees that has already been through the high court and court of appeal, the supreme court was asked to look at the narrow question of whether the copyright of newspapers was infringed when a user browses content online.
Five supreme court judges led by the president, Lord Neuberger, found against the NLA's arguments that browsing would constitute a breach of copyright because the newspaper article would be temporarily stored in the users' computer and generate what is known as a cached page.
The supreme court said it could not be a breach of copyright as it was a temporary page and the European Court of Justice had already ruled this would be an exception to copyright law, because it was a necessary part of the technical process supporting the internet experience.
The page was "the automatic result of browsing on the internet" and would be overwritten as the reader continued to browse or the cache timed out and was different to downloading or printing out an article, which would be seen as breach of copyright.
The supreme court said if it had found otherwise, it would have been "an unacceptable result, which would make infringers of many millions of ordinary users of the internet across the EU who use browsers and search engines for private as well as commercial purposes".
"The supreme court has ruled sensibly that merely viewing material on websites does not infringe copyright," said Toby Ballard, partner and head of broadcasting at law firm Harbottle & Lewis.
In arriving at its decision, the supreme court considered the case of pub landlady Karen Murphy who won her legal fight with the Premier League, which had sued over her use of a Greek decoder to show games. In this case, it was eventually ruled that merely watching digital TV is not an infringement of copyright.
If it was, said Ballard, viewers would have to pay a copyright fee to watch streamed BBC content on iPlayer in addition to their licence fee.
Ballard said the more significant aspect of the ruling was that it was being referred to Europe.
"The European court of Justice has made about a dozen copyright rulings in the last two years. For 30 years, we've had no ruling and then suddenly this avalanche. I think they are going hell for leather for European integration on copyright so as create a single market and I think the supreme court have seen this and decided to contribute to this," said Ballard.
Andrew Hughes, the commercial director of the NLA, said it was "relaxed" about the ruling as it still charged media monitoring companies and end users fees for aggregation of content.
Jorn Lyssegen, chief executive of Meltwater, said he was "very pleased that the supreme court over-ruled the previous rulings by the court of appeals and the high court that the simple act of browsing the internet could be copyright infringement".
Francis Ingham, director general of the Public Relations Consultants Association, which made the appeal on behalf of Meltwater, said it was "delighted" the supreme court "understood that this does not just affect the PR world, but the fundamental rights of all EU citizens to browse the internet".
Meltwater's own evidence indicated that it sends an approximate total of between 8.4m and 126m extracts from articles to its UK clients every year, which generates more than £7m.
The high court had ruled that the headlines, article extracts and the narrower point which the supreme court has ruled on, the opening of a link to an article, were all a breach of copyright.
Newspapers collected £1.5m from media monitoring companies last year and they will continue to charge fees to the PR companies and cuttings agencies.
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The finding that Germans' net wealth is lower than those in the south is more to do with low wages than imaginary riches
The findings of a recent European Central Bank report into household wealth have inflamed public opinion in Germany. In 2010, the average net wealth of German households – all assets minus all liabilities – stood at €195,000 (£168,000). In the southern member states, the figures were surprisingly high: €291,000 in Spain, €275,000 in Italy, €153,000 in Portugal, €148,000 in Greece and, wait for it, €671,000 in Cyprus. It makes it look as if the German people have been asked to rescue southerners who are often richer than their rescuers. "The poverty lie", says the front page of this week's Der Spiegel. Are German citizens right to be annoyed? The answer is yes, but they have chosen the wrong target.
The answer to why some southerners appear richer than Germans is straightforward: housing. The systems through which European nations meet their housing needs differ widely, reflecting history, politics, and social custom. Germans and Austrians tend to rent their houses. Spaniards, Italians, Greeks, Cypriots and others have very high percentages of owner occupation. With steadily higher inflation in the periphery during the last 15 years, plus outright housing speculation in Spain and Cyprus, the value of houses has risen, making southerners appear richer.
Households also have debts, though, which must be serviced out of income. How do southerners compare with Germans in this respect? Judging by the ratio of household debts to assets, Germans appear to be worse off than southerners, which is quite natural, since southerners have overvalued houses and so large assets. But when it comes to servicing debts, things are very different. The ratio of household debts to income is 37% in Germany, but 114% in Spain, 50% in Italy, 134% in Portugal, 47% in Greece and 157% in Cyprus. Not so rich in the periphery, then.
Low net wealth in Germany has nothing to do with Germans being taken for a ride by southerners, but reflects the failure of the European monetary union. For about 15 years German governments have been following a strict policy of very low wage increases, thus holding inflation below that of other EMU countries, and even below the inflation target of the ECB. By doing so, Germany has kept the prices of its exports low, creating an enormous advantage for its exporters within the EMU.
Peripheral enterprises have thus found it difficult to compete against German enterprises, and eurozone markets have become dominated by German industry. However, in the domestic German economy it has been another story. Since wage increases have been low, demand has been weak, incomes have been rising slowly, and inequality has increased greatly. Most German people have been counting the pennies and, as we know, have not accumulated substantial wealth. Their main benefit has been relatively low unemployment on the back of strong exports.
Meanwhile, the German export juggernaut has caused mayhem in the rest of the EMU. Peripheral countries, unable to compete, have accumulated huge public and private debts. Indebtedness masked their inherent weakness for a while by boosting domestic consumption and, in some countries, leading to a housing bubble. But then the global crisis arrived and the essential failure of peripheral Europe became evident. The southerners have found themselves sitting on overvalued houses while holding large debts that they can hardly service. Riches indeed.
Germany's plan to fix this mess has made things even worse. Peripheral countries have been forced to cut wages to increase their competitiveness as well as adopting austerity. Inevitably, the result is deep recession and rising unemployment. The apparently rich southerners are now teetering on the edge of depression, their incomes falling and the value of their houses declining. Their wealth is disappearing and yet their debts persist and are becoming more and more difficult to service. If Germany forces southerners to commit some of their putative wealth to meeting the costs of the crisis, for example, by having a "haircut" on bank accounts, as has happened in Cyprus, the result will be accelerated economic devastation.
The German public is right to be annoyed at how things have turned out in the eurozone. But it should seek the real culprit, which is the German policy of keeping wages low, suppressing domestic demand and increasing exports. That is the cause of income tightness, and even poverty, in Germany. If Germans want an effective answer, they should not seek to punish the imaginary rich of the south even further but instead aim for higher wages, boosting domestic demand and reducing the weight of exports. Now, that is a fight worth fighting.
• This article was amended on 17 April 2013. It originally stated that average net wealth in a list of southern eurozone countries was much higher than in Germany. In two of those countries, Greece and Portugal, the figure is actually lower than in Germany. This error, introduced in editing, has now been corrected.
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Gold will bounce back, Greek debt is a buy, and other quotables from the heads ... Quartz Gao Xiqing, president of China Investment Corp., the country's $500-billion sovereign wealth fund, recently denounced Japan thusly (paywall): “Treating the neighbors as your garbage bin and starting a currency war would not only be dangerous for others ... |
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 Motherboard (blog) | Greece Is Trying to Kill Its Biggest Anti-Government Website and Radio Stations Motherboard (blog) Via VICE — The Athens branch of Indymedia, an independent open network of journalists who report on political and social issues, was shut down last Thursday. Before its plug was pulled, the site was used for such principled purposes as reporting on ... |
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Greece represented at Thatcher funeral EnetEnglish The coffin of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher rests in the Crypt Chapel of St Mary Undercroft, at the Palace of Westminster in London, 16 April 2013 (Reuters) More than 2,300 guests have confirmed they will attend the funeral of former ... |
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