Disillusionment Plays Big Role in Greek Election

Disillusionment Plays Big Role in Greek Election Many voters are undecided or plan to abstain ahead of Sunday’s vote, mainly to Syriza’s detriment

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GREEK prosecutor calls for 18 to stand trial over defense systems

According to prosecutors, Liakounakos's company SONAK allegedly received a 35-million-euro commission on behalf of the GREEK state but failed to ...

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Scandal hits Tsipras mentor

Alekos Flambouraris under pressure to pull out of Greek election race

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Hungary: Fence needed on Serbian border due to migrant push

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — The razor-wire fence Hungary is building on its border with Serbia is needed to secure the European Union's external border and will remain as long as large numbers of migrants keep trying to enter the country, Hungary's foreign minister said Wednesday. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told The Associated Press that "only a physical obstacle" could help Hungary protect its border with Serbia as long as migrants were able to pour into fellow EU member Greece and then make their way north. "If we are able to defend the border of Greece, then that migration pressure will be much lower in Hungary," Szijjarto said, adding that disabling boats used by human traffickers on the Mediterranean Sea would help reduce the number of migrants.

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Why GREECE still needs a miracle to prosper in the euro

GREECE'S pro-EU conservative opposition, New Democracy (ND), is neck and neck with Syriza, with polls predicting they will gain around a quarter of ...

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Germany Announces Austria Border Checks To Limit Refugee Influx

BERLIN (AP) — Germany will introduce temporary border checks on the Austrian frontier in a bid to limit the influx of refugees, the interior minister said Sunday. The measure might lead to disruption of railway services, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said without giving further details. Germany and Austria agreed over a week ago to let in migrants who had gathered in Hungary, saying it was a one-time measure to ease an emergency. Still, the influx has continued and German officials have said over the weekend that the speed of the arrivals was straining the country's ability to provide accommodation. Hungarian police say more than 186,000 people have passed through Hungary from Serbia this year en route toAustria and the migrants' major destination, Germany, which says it has taken in more than 50,000 newcomers in the past week alone. About 450,000 migrants have arrived in Germany this year. The country is expecting at least 800,000 in 2015 — by far the most in the 28-nation EU. In another tragedy on Sunday, at least 34 people seeking a better life in Europe drowned as they attempted a wind-swept crossing from Turkey to Greece, a journey often made more dangerous because smugglers require asylum seekers to pilot the overloaded craft themselves in choppy seas. Greece's coast guard said the dead, including four infants and 11 older children, drowned when their wooden boat containing more than 130 people capsized near Farmakonissi. The island lies midway between Samos and Kos, two of the favored targets for smugglers sending thousands daily to Greek islands off Turkey's coast. Smugglers typically stay behind to avoid arrest in Greece. Coast guard officials said the boat may have tipped over in part because of wind gusts exceeding 50 kph (30 mph). Rescue officials said 68 others were rescued from the sea while 30 more swam to the barely populated island. They said the survivors and the body of one child were taken to the nearby larger island of Leros. The other dead were taken aboard a Greek navy gunboat and a coast guard vessel bound for Rhodes, which has autopsy facilities. On Saturday, two other boats carrying asylum seekers capsized in the Aegean and at least five people — four children and a 20-year-old man — were presumed drowned. The coast guard said they still were searching for those bodies. Such risks have not deterred scores of boats to make the crossing daily to Greece's eastern islands, from where migrants pursue a more than 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) odyssey to the heart of the European Union via the Balkans and Hungary, where authorities have vowed to fortify their southern frontier and prosecute those who try to evade border police. Hungarian army engineers spent Sunday expanding the country's planned 174-kilometer (109-mile) border fence with Serbia and crowning it with coils of razor wire as the government warned that, from Tuesday onward, any asylum seekers caught breaking through the barrier would be arrested and charged with a criminal offense. Police said 4,330 were detected crossing on foot in the previous 24 hours, more than 700 higher than the previous one-day record, as trekkers strove to reach Hungary before the tougher security measures take effect. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban says he's determined to make his country a more difficult challenge, with deployments of troops and potential prison terms part of the deterrent. Hungary's lawmakers have not voted yet on whether to back government plans to deploy more than 3,000 troops in support of border police, but dozens of soldiers already were patrolling the fence Sunday. Some drove along the dirt track beside the fence in jeeps while others patrolled on foot with attack dogs. While many migrants viewed the military presence with suspicion, they were able to walk through a gap in the fence without being challenged. All soldiers appeared to be armed with assault rifles. ___ Pogatchnik reported from Budapest, Hungary. Associated Press reporters Pablo Gorondi in Budapest and Demetris Nellas in Athens, Greece, contributed to this report.   Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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GREEK snap election: Conservative New Democracy could be surprise winner as opinion polls ...

Could pro-European Vangelis Meimarakis become the next GREEK prime minister? As the snap election draws nearer, the centre-right party New ...

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European migrant crisis: Germany warns it is at 'limit of capacity' as 28 asylum seekers drown off ...

Ms Merkel reportedly called Athens on Saturday requesting that GREECE makes more effort to protect the EU's external borders. European Union home ...

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28 drown off Greece as Hungary absorbs record migrant flow

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — At least 28 people seeking a better life in Europe drowned Sunday as they attempted a wind-swept sea crossing from Turkey to Greece, while a record number of asylum seekers reached Hungary's border with Serbia just two days before the government vows to make its southern frontier more difficult to cross.

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Who Has Been Ruling GREECE In The Last Six Decades? The Right Or The Left?

Anyone following the Greek elections campaign closely probably heard the left blaming the right for the economic mess the country is in. “Who ruled ...

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A chance for GREECE to end its economic trauma

A chance for GREECE to end its economic trauma People walking past pre-election kiosk of the New Democracy conservative party in Athens.

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Conservative leader calls on Greek voters not to 'gamble ...

ATHENS, Greece – Conservative leader Evangelos Meimarakis has called on Greeks to give him the chance to form a government with his New Democracy party ...

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'Greek bailout work must continue' despite election: Eurogroup

European leaders narrowly avoided seeing Greece crash out of the euro zone this summer with a last-minute third bailout deal, but with a snap election in ...

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UK's Labour expected to anoint leftist Corbyn as leader

London (AFP) - Britain's main opposition Labour party was expected to name radical leftwinger Jeremy Corbyn as its new leader Saturday, embracing the anti-austerity sentiment sweeping Europe but threatening deep splits ahead. Corbyn would be the most left-wing political leader in Britain for over 30 years and his policies of ending cuts and taxing the rich are close to those of Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain. The 66-year-old has electrified the race, drawing support from students who had never voted before to older people disillusioned with Labour since it tacked to the centre under Tony Blair in the 1990s and led Britain into the 2003 Iraq war. It is not the power of Corbyn's rhetoric which has made bookmakers slash his odds of winning the race -- whose result is due around 11:30 am (1030 GMT) -- from 100/1 outsider to 1/7 favourite. The bearded, grey-haired vegetarian has crammed in 99 campaign appearances, eschewing soundbites and usually wearing sandals, a vest under his shirt and carrying a cup of tea. "Can't we change the mood music, change the language, stop being so brutal about people who are going through misfortunes and start to approach them in a much more civilised way?" he asked at one rally in eastern England last month. His policies include spending more on public services like schools and hospitals, scrapping nuclear weapons, renationalising industries like the railways and involving Islamist groups Hamas and Hezbollah in Middle East peace talks. The three other more centrist candidates in the race -- Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall -- have struggled to build momentum despite having far stronger support from Labour MPs. "Corbyn’s current popularity has little to do with his own charisma," Andrew Harrop of left-wing think-tank the Fabian Society told AFP. "He has triumphed because he represents a rejection of conventional politics and also because Labour’s mainstream candidates failed to inspire excitement or hope."   - Jagged rocks below? -   Despite the "Corbynmania" of his grassroots campaign, some warn that his leadership would split Labour and consign the party to electoral oblivion for the immediate future. "The party is walking eyes shut, arms outstretched, over the cliff’s edge to the jagged rocks below," Blair, Labour's most electorally successful leader who is now deeply unpopular over Iraq, wrote last month. Kendall, seen as a Blairite, says she would not serve in Corbyn's shadow ministerial team if asked, while other prominent Labour figures are expected to do the same. And some Labour MPs are already talking about getting rid of Corbyn as soon as possible after he takes power. "I would give him about 12 months if he does become leader," one, Simon Danczuk, told LBC radio last month. Eunice Goes, author of a forthcoming book about Labour's last leader, Ed Miliband, whose resignation after losing May's general election triggered the contest predicted that Corbyn would be "torn apart by his parliamentary party and the media". Even if he does somehow manage to keep his party together, few believe Corbyn would be elected prime minister at Britain's next general election in 2020 as his ideas are well left of the political mainstream. For many of Corbyn's supporters, that barely seems to matter. "For the first time in a long time, I feel there is somebody representing me, my family and the wider world," said Gill Whisson, a 55-year-old gardener from south London, after Corbyn's final rally Thursday night.   Join the conversation about this story »

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The Syrian Refugee Exodus Needs a Civil Society Response

The European Union, with its focus inward on the problems with Greece in the Eurozone, is being overtaken by a much deeper crisis. A steady influx of Syrian refugees crossing the Mediterranean under hazardous conditions requires all Europe's states to look beyond the Continent's shores. In the "Open Letter: Europeans Unite to Help Refugees," posted by Social Europe on September 6, 2015, civil society leaders advocate a practical transportation initiative to allow refugees to enter the European Union legally rather than at the mercy of smugglers. German citizens, who were concerned by attacks targeting refugee centers, continue to provide assistance to newly-arrived refugees. Chancellor Angela Merkel has articulated the federal government's commitment as Germany expects to receive an estimated 800,000 refugees in 2015. As Italy urges more coherent Union policy making, the plight of the Syrian refugees in Europe defies national, as well as regional, integration solutions. The centrality of the family in these stories, particularly in the recent tragedy of Aylan Kurdi's death, illustrates the point clearly: the impact of more refugees across the Continent is a local concern regardless of the geographical entry point. Today's reality explains why Europe's family picture needs a different frame. Laura Boldrini, the Speaker of the Lower House of the Italian Parliament, is cited by Roger Cohen in the _New York Times_: "When the Mediterranean is a cemetery, we need a Europe 2.0. Nobody can love this Europe today. It is time for a renewed push for a United States of Europe." On the contrary, the exodus from Syria requires unconventional solutions by leaders who grasp the nature of migration in this century. The present context is that millions of more refugees in Europe impact the lives of citizens within its borders in trans-local ways. A United States of Europe is not the construction to meet the demographic transformation of the Continent or the greatest humanitarian crisis since World War II. Germany's frame in the postwar era, the country's way of seeing the world, is still a reflection of cultural, historical, and political experiences with National Socialism. As Anne Richard recalls in her Bosch experience, Germany has acknowledged, in this new century, that it is an immigrant country. Citizen acceptance of the German vocation as an _Einwanderungsland _requires leaders across its political spectrum to explain the ways in which immigrants are needed if a united country is to compete in 2030 as China rises. This awareness of the need for immigrants must be matched by an understanding of how local areas are transformed by the refugee experience given the federal nature of German parliamentary democracy. As families migrate, different members are often separated. Refugee settlement in local communities is not likely to remain bound by the borders of the German state alone. The acceptance of refugees in the millions over time must be anchored in trans-local democratic experiences displaying the civil nature of society. National policy-making that panders to Far-Right extremism or intergovernmental stalemates that paralyze European decision-making do not provide answers to human security concerns. Germany leads in that its political decisions devolve to local, as well as regional leaders. Local authorities are called to address misperceptions that arise as migration to Europe intensifies. These leaders must respond in their immediate localities to the popular conviction, described recently by Professor Jacques Rupnik in _Le Monde_: "migration from the south today equals 'Islamic suburbs' tomorrow." What is perceived as the failure of the postwar multicultural project must be contested in terms of democracy rather than rejected on the basis of technocracy. The involvement of the newest refugees in transnational social movements, in the economic, political, and social life of the local areas in which they live, continues to transform the democratic experience in Europe. The Syrian refugee exodus brings to the foreground tensions inherent in the contradiction between nationalist popular sentiment that rejects postwar integration and multicultural experiences in society that Syrian refugee families are likely to encounter. Chancellor Angela Merkel read the shift in German public opinion as citizens began to organize their own volunteer initiatives to welcome refugees in the short-term to Germany. As other leaders decide how to address a crisis that is no longer simply Europe's responsibility, only a response from society that is civil may nurture a trans-local, democratic reflex as the humanitarian crisis expands. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Central European Nations Reject Proposed Refugee Quota

The plan was to share 120,000 refugees now in Greece, Italy and Hungary among the E.U.'s 28 nations

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Record Numbers Cross Med Into Europe

The International Organisation for Migration estimated that 309,356 people had arrived by sea in Greece as of September 10, with another 121,139 arriving in Italy, 2,166 in Spain and 100 Malta. It comes as Hungary's prime minister has warned migrants that if they cross the border illegally they will be arrested from next week. Viktor Orban said migrants had rebelled against the country's laws and had failed to co-operate with authorities in recent days.

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Greek Elections: New Diametrically Opposed Poll Results Add Suspense

Nine days before the Greek elections and two new opinion polls show different results as one has SYRIZA leading by five percentage points, while the other has New Democracy ahead by one percent. In a poll conducted by Pro Rata for Efimerida ton Syntakton daily, the Alexis Tsipras party has a five-point comfortable lead over

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Syriza regains Greek poll lead

Greece's radical-left Syriza party has established a narrow lead over conservative rivals New Democracy nine days from a snap election, according to a poll published Friday.

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European markets expect biggest weekly gain since July

* Eurozone economic growth ‘not enough’ to create jobs * Asian markets bank weekly gains after choppy trading session * Latest UK construction data due 9.09am BST How low could oil prices go? Much lower, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs, who suggest oil could slide to just $20 a barrel. Goldman analysts said: The oil market is even more oversupplied than we had expected and we now forecast this surplus to persist in 2016 on further OPEC production growth, resilient non-OPEC supply and slowing demand growth, with risks skewed to even weaker demand given China’s slowdown and its negative EM feedback loop... WHILE NOT OUR BASE CASE, THE POTENTIAL FOR OIL PRICES TO FALL TO SUCH LEVELS, WHICH WE ESTIMATE NEAR $20/BBL, IS BECOMING GREATER AS STORAGE CONTINUES TO FILL. Operational stress is a growing downside risk to our forecast. This further creates the risk that a slowdown in production takes place too gradually forcing oil markets to clear as they historically have, through a collapse to production costs once the surplus breaches logistical and storage capacity. WHILE NOT OUR BASE CASE, THE POTENTIAL FOR OIL PRICES TO FALL TO SUCH LEVELS, WHICH WE ESTIMATE NEAR $20/BBL, IS BECOMING GREATER AS STORAGE CONTINUES TO FILL. 8.28am BST Greece’s elections later this month raise the intriguing possibility of a coalition between the traditional conservative party New Democracy and leftist former governing party Syriza. Opinion polls have put Syriza and New Democracy neck and neck – far from the easy victory Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras imagined when he called the election to shore up support for the controversial bailout agreement. This is the country’s last chance...I am mature. I’m ready, with a plan, with the party’s top brass and a united parliamentary group, to pull the country out of the crisis. 8.11am BST ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE EURO ZONE IS STILL TOO WEAK TO CREATE ENOUGH JOBS, ACCORDING TO A SENIOR FIGURE AT THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK. Benoît Coeuré, a member of the bank’s executive board, told French newspaper group EBRA on Friday that growth was not sufficient for job creation. Growth is still not strong enough to create a sufficient number of jobs. Europe will first have to demonstrate its usefulness by creating more growth and more jobs. The important thing is that Greece and its partners trust each other again. On this basis, there will be room for manoeuvre when it comes to adapting the programme after the elections, for example in terms of labour market reforms and tackling vested interests, provided that the objectives of the programme are met. 7.56am BST GOOD MORNING, AND WELCOME TO OUR ROLLING COVERAGE OF THE WORLD ECONOMY, THE FINANCIAL MARKETS, THE EUROZONE AND THE BUSINESS WORLD. EUROPEAN STOCKS ARE SET TO MAKE THEIR BIGGEST WEEKLY GAIN SINCE JULY, AMID ONGOING VOLATILITY ON GLOBAL MARKETS. Continue reading...

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