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How the world sees Greece
Friday, May 3, 2013
German Politicians Face Nepotism Scandal
Lawmakers in the wealthy German region of Bavaria are under fire for employing close family members, sparking embarrassment at a time when Germany has been lecturing countries such as Greece about corruption.
Fleeing Syria, Refugees Arrive to a Different Kind of Hell in Greece
Fleeing Syria, Refugees Arrive to a Different Kind of Hell in Greece The Atlantic Greece is the gateway into Europe for thousands of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan. They cross into Turkey and hire smugglers who transport them into Greece, but more importantly into Europe. It costs thousands of Euros, but it's worth the promise ... |
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McMahon: Greek life needs to get a life
McMahon: Greek life needs to get a life KTAR.com Hey -- all of you folks who bask in the radiant glamour of Greek life on college campuses, ASU has a new fraternity -- I Kappa Plea! Listen, years ago, I mean years and years ago when I was in college, I didn't understand the magnetic attraction ... |
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Greek tragedy resonates with modern audience
 euronews | Greek tragedy resonates with modern audience euronews The Greek National Theatre is currently enjoying one of its most successful runs with a critically acclaimed production of Mourning Becomes Electra selling out, night after night. The play was originally penned by the American playwright, Eugene O ... |
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Greek Lawmaker Accused of Trying to Punch Mayor
Greek Lawmaker Accused of Trying to Punch Mayor ABC News A lawmaker from Greece's extreme-right Golden Dawn party allegedly tried to punch the mayor of Athens on Thursday, swinging at him but reportedly missing and hitting a 12-year-old girl instead. The confrontation came hours after police used pepper ... |
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Greek Police Stop Xenophobic Party From Holding "Greek Only" Food Handout
 Sydney Morning Herald | Greek Police Stop Xenophobic Party From Holding "Greek Only" Food Handout Reason ATHENS — Greece's anti-immigrant Golden Dawn party scuffled with police who stopped them from distributing food exclusively to Greeks in Athens' central square on Thursday ahead of the Greek Orthodox Easter holiday on May 5. Television footage ... Greek Nationalists Set Up Whites-Only Soup Kitchen - RTTNews Parliament Gets Case of Kaminis Attacker |
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Feeling Syria, Refugees Arrive to a Different Kind of Hell in Greece
Feeling Syria, Refugees Arrive to a Different Kind of Hell in Greece The Atlantic Greece is the gateway into Europe for thousands of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan. They cross into Turkey and hire smugglers who transport them into Greece, but more importantly into Europe. It costs thousands of Euros, but it's worth the promise ... |
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Neo-Nazi gang trial to get under way in Germany after chaotic start
Beate Zschäpe charged with nine racially motivated murders in country's highest-profile trial since second world war
The string of murders shook Germany but remained unsolved for years, eventually revealing an underground Nazi cell and raising questions about the competence of the German intelligence services.
Now the surviving member of a neo-Nazi gang accused of carrying out nine racially motivated murders and the killing of a policewoman will go on trial on Monday in one of the country's highest-profile court cases since the second world war.
Beate Zschäpe is charged with complicity in the murder of eight Turkish people, a Greek and a German policewoman, as well as involvement in 15 bank robberies and two nail bombings. Other charges include arson, founding a terrorist organisation and facilitating robbery. The 38-year-old will be joined in the dock by four others who have been charged with assisting the group.
But though the spotlight falls on Zschäpe, the trial is also expected to raise serious questions about the German intelligence agency that failed to detect the National Socialist Underground (NSU), which operated undetected for 13 years, carrying out its killings between 2000 and 2007.
Its existence only came to the attention of authorities in November 2011 by chance, after Zschäpe's alleged accomplices Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt committed suicide in a joint pact after a bank robbery went wrong. Police found the Ceska pistol used to murder all their victims in their torched caravan in the eastern town of Eisenach.
A DVD in which the NSU introduced itself and its militant racial hatred policy was also found. In it the bodies of the murder victims are shown, while a Pink Panther figure adds up the number that have been killed. The group claimed responsibility for the killings in the film.
Zschäpe subsequently set fire to the flat the trio had shared in Zwickau, 112 miles away, and fled, turning herself in to police four days later.
The discovery of the cell only in 2011, despite the fact a bomb-making factory had been found in Zschäpe's garage as far back as 1998, sparked a lengthy catalogue of accusations as to how and why the authorities had failed to seize the group.
Police and intelligence agents have been charged with everything from carrying out amateurish investigations, failing to share information with each other, having a firmly rooted apathy towards the far-right threat as well as a general disregard of the victims because they were foreign.
"The really terrible thing," said Hans-Christian Ströbele of the Green party and a deputy member of the parliamentary NSU committee that has been investigating the authorities' failures, "is that while information about the NSU was known again and again, it was not pursued. Huge mistakes were made – in short, it was a huge failure".
The federal and domestic intelligence agencies have been reshuffled since details of the bungled investigation, which Chancellor Angela Merkel referred to as a "disgrace" for Germany, started emerging. Before the cell came to light, investigators had seen little reason to pursue the line that the murders might have been racially motivated, concentrating instead on what they suspected was a connection to organised crime within immigrant circles – a suspicion that turned out to be groundless.
Many of the victims' families have avoided media attention. But the most vocal, Semiya Simsek, wrote a book about the murder of her father, Enver Simsek. A shepherd's son from the Taurus mountains in southern Turkey, Simsek emigrated to Germany in search of a better life in 1986 and set up as a flower seller. The 39-year-old was gunned down at close range in the back of his delivery van in Nuremberg, southern Germany, in September 2000, in what was the first in a string of killings that were dubbed the "doner murders" by the media.
"I will be looking closely at how Germany conducts the trial," Simsek, who will be one of the joint plaintiffs, said in an interview. Her book accuses the police of trying to implicate her father in criminal activity, and says the Simsek family felt they were treated like suspects rather than victims of a horrific crime.
Other victims included other businessmen – eight of them Turks, and one Greek – and a policewoman.
"I feel like the neo-Nazis shot him [but] the German authorities killed him a second time," Simsek said.
More embarrassment was heaped onto German authorities last month with the discovery of a sophisticated network of far-right prisoners. The network, whose members have communicated with a secret code undetected by prison authorities, has repeatedly attempted to contact Beate Zschäpe, who has become something of a heroine of the far-right scene.
A case of this scale has rarely been seen in Germany. Sigmar Gabriel, leader of the Social Democrats, called the case a "farce", saying it had damaged Germany's image abroad, making it "the laughing stock of the world".
The trial is expected to last about two years.
Battle for media seats causes diplomatic row
Media places for the NSU trial have been allocated by lottery after the first attempt to distribute the 50 seats set aside for journalists on a first-come-first-served basis led to no Turkish or Greek journalists gaining access – despite the fact that eight of the NSU's alleged victims were of Turkish origin, one of Greek. It created a diplomatic row between Berlin and Athens.
But the subsequent decision to delay the trial by three weeks to introduce a complex lottery involving three groups, each with several sub-categories (but with no online provision), has been yet more controversial.
A huge media furore was prompted after major newspapers and television outlets – including state TV channel ZDF, the dailies Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and Die Welt – failed to secure seats. In contrast, several small local radio stations and a women's fashion magazine got lucky.
Neither was there to have been an English-language representative at the trial until the German press agency DPA offered last week to relinquish one of its places to news agency Reuters.
Suggestions to the court by politicians and experts that it either move the trial to a larger court or install a television screen outside the courtroom – similar to the process adopted at the 2012 trial of the Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik – were dismissed as unconstitutional.
Several journalists have lodged complaints with Germany's highest court but these were not expected to delay the trial's start. The court has brushed off the journalists' criticism, justifying the lottery procedure by arguing it had "weighed up which process would best ensure equal chances for all".
Asked why it had not simply put a few more chairs into the courtroom, the court official added: "that would have entailed a whole new procedure just for the Turkish journalists over who got those seats and other journalists would then have complained".
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Green Shoots in Greece?
Green Shoots in Greece? Wall Street Journal Greece's headline numbers make for grim reading: six years of recession and unemployment of 27%. But beyond the headlines, conditions may finally be taking a turn for the better. The benefit won't be tangible in the near term: The European Commission ... |
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Greek Easter Week, Dish by Dish
 Culinary Backstreets | Greek Easter Week, Dish by Dish Culinary Backstreets After Greek Orthodox Lent, which lasts for 40 days starting on Lent Monday, Greece observes Holy Week, which leads up to Easter. (Orthodox and Western Easter only rarely fall on the same day, and the date of Orthodox Easter – which is May 5 this year ... Sunday marks Greek Orthodox Easter Greek Orthodox congregation gets ready for Easter Greek Orthodox patriarch washes the feet of bishops |
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Greek 10-Year Yield Falls Below 10% as Crisis Concern Subsides
Greek 10-Year Yield Falls Below 10% as Crisis Concern Subsides Bloomberg “Greek bonds have been major beneficiaries of the scramble for yield and the move towards global easing in the U.S., Japan and now finally in Europe,” Bill Blain, a strategist at Mint Partners Ltd. in London, said yesterday. “Europe has come far indeed ... |
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Eldorado turns to loss on Greek tax rate change
 Kathimerini | Eldorado turns to loss on Greek tax rate change Kathimerini Canadian miner Eldorado Gold Corp posted a first-quarter loss on Thursday, hit by $125.2 million charge related to a change in the Greek tax rate. The gold producer posted a net loss attributable to shareholders of $45.5 million, or 6 cents a share, in ... Eldorado turns to loss on Greek tax rate charge 2013 First Quarter Financial and Operating Results Gold and Democracy Don't Mix – Eldorado Gold Faces Determined Opposition ... |
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Brussels sees smaller GDP contraction in Greece
 Kathimerini | Brussels sees smaller GDP contraction in Greece Kathimerini The spring estimates on European economies issued on Friday by the European Commission point to an improved condition in Greek economy that will shrink by 4.2 percent this year against an original forecast for a 4.4 percent contraction, against a ... EU Cuts Eurozone Outlook As Unemployment Woes Unlikely To Ease - RTTNews Eurozone recession 'will continue' |
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'More potatoes than meat' as Greece prepares for Easter
 euronews | 'More potatoes than meat' as Greece prepares for Easter euronews Orthodox Christians mark Great and Holy Friday, considered the most sorrowful day of Holy Week. In Jerusalem's Old City pilgrims took part in a traditional procession around the 14 stations of the cross, retracing the last steps of Christ before his ... Epitaphios: Traditions of Holy Friday |
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Germany ready for Munich trial of alleged neo-Nazi Beate Zschaepe
Munich is readying itself for the biggest neo-Nazi trial in its history, as the sole survivor of Germany's self-styled National Socialist Underground is accused of involvement in the killings of eight Turks, a Greek and a policewoman.
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Position changes result in new Greek advisers
Position changes result in new Greek advisers The Gustavian Weekly (blog) “I've been advising the Greeks for over ten years, so I think it's a good time to allow someone else to come in and share their new ideas and fresh perspectives,” Ruble said. “I trust and value Virgil, and am confident that he has the skills and ... |
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Enjoy your triumph Nigel Farage – it takes stamina to reach the top
Ukip may celebrate its midterm success, but the climb to power gets stonier the nearer you reach the summit. Ask Alex Salmond
Ukip's leader, Nigel Farage MEP, prides himself on being a no-nonsense realist as well as a pint-in-hand cheeky chappie. So he can make no complaint in this moment of triumph if a different school of realism reminds him of the transient nature of his party's overnight triumph in this week's English elections or the fickle impulses which prompted so many of its votes. We have all been here before – and often.
Or is this time different, as Farage himself insists today? He dreams of Ukip staging a reverse takeover of the Conservative party – as the Reform party of Canada, populist and socially conservative, managed in the 90s. In that scenario he becomes the kingmaker for a post-Cameron right-leaning winner, a Boris or a Michael Gove?
It's a clever pitch, Farage is not daft, but the odds remain daunting even as the two-party electoral model atrophies. Its prospects depend on multiple failure, that Ed Miliband as well as David Cameron fails to meet the challenges of our times, that those tenacious local Lib Dems – a bad night for them too – get wiped out and the economy fails to recover, here or in wider Europe.
After all, the tactical fickleness evident in yesterday's votes is typical of midterm ballots. It covers the not-so-subtle game of footsie which large chunks of Fleet Street – and Ukip's most conspicuous Tory fellow-traveller, Lord Tebbit – have been playing with the Faragistas these past few weeks, confident that Cameron is currently too weak to call Tebbit's bluff and kick him out of the party for disloyalty.
Flattering, deeply nostalgic, pint-and-fag photos of Nige sitting outside pubs (looking for all the world like his nemesis, Ken Clarke) in the Tory papers, coupled with the Sun's refusal to endorse any of the major parties (the first such refusal in 44 years), Tebbit's crafty "vote tactically for Ukip if it keeps out Labour" message (hollow laughter), it all adds up to the press lords familiar urge to weaken an incumbent government it does not like. Remember the simmering Leveson controversy.
Yes, Ukip far exceeded its own and the pollsters' predictions, as John Curtice, the Prof Branestorm of psephology, is excitedly telling radio and TV audiences this morning. Second place behind Labour in the heartland, northern byelection in South Shields – the fourth such runner up's spot for Ukip this past year – plus 50-ish county council seats and likely to rise. It's a classic midterm protest vote by citizens enduring squeezed incomes and little prospect of an early economic recovery. Europe? Immigrants? Gay marriage or human rights? The tabloidesque search for scapegoats – and for panaceas – in an age of insecurity is inevitable.
In its time the old Liberal party would have benefitted from a third party protest vote. So did the breakaway Social Democrats (SDP) who later merged with the Libs to become the Lib Dems, now debarred from that role by virtue of sharing coalition power. Beyond the English heartland assorted nationalists, SNP, Plaid, rival Irish parties have thrived at the expense of the old duopoly. Within it the Greens (15% in the 1989 Euro elections), the BNP/National Front, Respect (who have I forgotten?) have all enjoyed their moment in the sun.
Put it another way, in 1951 Tories and Labour got 96.7% of the votes cast, the third parties just 9 MPs (six of them Liberals, five in electoral pact with the Tories). In 2010 the duo got 68% of votes cast, the third parties 32% and 91 seats. That pattern may fluctuate in response to a charismatic leader, a Thatcher or a Blair. But it won't go away, however discouraging the effect of Britain's first-past-the-post voting system. Coalitions are part of the new mix.
So it's easy for metropolitan commentators (part of the problem, so Farage reminded us at a recent Westminster lunch) to dismiss yesterday's vote as a "send in the clowns" result. I have just heard the BBC's Nick Robinson do so on air. In a lively but dismissive column in today's Times ex-Blair speechwriter, Phil Collins, calls the protest [£] "a dish of revenge on the cosmopolitan world", a good phrase with some resonant truth. The more that London looks richer, more separate from the rest of Britain – its rackety, over-mighty banks and house prices – the stronger that anti-elite feeling will be. It's true in France, in the US and other countries with over-dominant capitals.
Nick Robinson goes further than I would go. Ukip has changed from being a one-issue pressure group – " Let's get Out of Europe" – into a proper political party, he asserted, though he to assure Radio 4's solid Middle England audience that Ukip has no MPs and Farage no prospect of No 10.
All this sounds a bit mean, a bit dismissive, yes? I agree and it's neither wise nor decent to dismiss voter concerns over their jobs and homes, their living standards and public services, even if it's hard to see Ukip providing any serious answers.
Yet it's hard to respond honestly in any other way when faced with any "Stop the world, we want to get off" party of left or right, Green, breakaway nationalist or Little Englander. Farage thinks Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, is living in a "dreamland'' because independence inside the EU is a contradiction in terms. Salmond, who strikes me as a very similar cheeky chappie populist, could reply in kind.
There is a lot wrong with the way the EU functions, but its break-up under the pressure of the rolling eurozone crisis, or our own voluntary departure, would make a bad situation worse for all concerned. Cameron knows that as he manoeuvres to appease Ukip voters with a renegotiate/referendum strategy that will keep Britain in. He is playing with fire and should realise it.
Farage's strategy has been to broaden the party's appeal with a nostalgic political version of those golden-oldie radio stations beloved (I should know) of the middle-aged and elderly where Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers, The Beatles and The Animals, Roy Orbison and Dusty Springfield play all day. In his UK Gold party they play the greatest hits of all time all the time. So there are grammar schools in every town, smoking rooms and busty barmaids in every pub but fewer immigrant fruit pickers from eastern Europe (Ukip did well in agricultural Lincolnshire this week). There are better public services and lower taxes on the lower paid (at least in theory, though he's a flat-tax man), no gay marriage.
Lovely, lovely, if you like that sort of thing, but largely an illusion. Who will staff our hospitals and care homes (let alone our pubs) without immigrants? What happens to Ukip supporters kids who don't get into grammar school? And so on.
Anti-elite populists are entitled to be cynical about the mainstream parties whose leaders look and sound rather similar. But the elites are entitled to be cynical about them in return. It is one thing to run the town council in Ramsay (population 6,000) efficiently, quite another to run a county, let alone a country. What exactly has Nigel Farage done as distinct from said?
Sounds mean? Yes, again. But people who lack historic perspective and think they are voting for something "new" that does away with the "old" politics of the metropolitan elites are being just as much conned. In politics as in war, few battle plans survive contact with the enemy – as the coalition is discovering, but at least it has a battle plan. As for petty political feuds, read the ex-Ukip rebels website – it's called Junius – and voters may find Ukip backstabbing to be as petty as its rivals.
So enjoy your triumph, Nigel Farage. As Alex Salmond has been discovering the road to power gets stonier the nearer you reach the summit. Few have the stomach or stamina to make it to the top.
As for the non-Ukip majority, it might take comfort from looking around recession-battered Europe, at the Greeks Golden Dawn, the True Finns and Dutch Freedom party, at the French National Front (whose leader got into the French presidential finals or even Italian clown, Beppe Grillo's stalled Five Star movement, and conclude that as populist challenges go we could do nastier than Ukip.
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Greece Still Awaits First Crematorium
Greece Still Awaits First Crematorium Greek Reporter With urban cemeteries filling so fast that bodies are dug up after three years and put in ossuaries so plots can be reused, Greece gave approval for cremation in 2006. Although Athens gave licensing authority to local governments, no one has been able ... |
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