Asian markets make gains... but the FTSE100 dips into negative territoryOil extends its rise after the biggest one-day price increase in 6 yearsGreece has a new finance minister: Yiorgas Houliaràkis Central bankers head for the hills 9.10am BST A sense of of déjà vu has returned to Athens this morning with the announcement of a new interim government.With three women in top posts, including Vassiliki Thanou who takes over as prime minister, the new 22-member cabinet will be sworn in at 1 PM local time (11am BST). The inauguration of the interim government, which will lead Greece to polls on September 20, marks the official start of the election campaign. In a pithy 32-word statement to the leftist newspaper Avgi, the outgoing prime minister Alexis Tsipras said: Today the big election battle begins. The Greek people will give a powerful mandate [to the next government] for the present and the future. Greece cannot go back. And it will not go back. It will go forward.” 9.03am BST We haven’t even had September’s snap election in Greece, but political insiders are already talking about a second autumn poll.Stavros Theodorakis, leader of the centrist To Potami party, told Kathimerini that former Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s refusal to cooperate with pro-European parties after next month’s ballot may complicate the formation of a government and force a new poll.The risk is that if SYRIZA doesn’t get an absolute majority in parliament, that if the allies it wants don’t make it to parliament, then we’ll go to new elections again in November and December. Trained at the Sorbonne in Paris, the 65-year-old mother of three has been described by those who know her as a stickler for detail and “deeply principled.” In the five years that Greece has battled with the demands of international creditors, she has played a leading role as a trade unionist protecting colleagues from pay cuts exacted on the judicial sector. Continue reading...
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