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How the world sees Greece
Saturday, October 27, 2012
List of Swiss Accounts Turns Up the Heat in Greece
A Greek magazine published the list on Saturday, raising the stakes in a battle over whether current and former Greek government officials had used it to check for possible tax evasion.
Panionios beats Panthrakikos 2-1 in Greek league
Panionios beats Panthrakikos 2-1 in Greek league San Francisco Chronicle ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Christos Aravidis scored twice, including an 87th minute winner, to lead Panionios to a 2-1 victory over host Panthrakikos in the Greek league Saturday. Aravidis had opened the scoring in the 18th but Juan Manuel Munafo equalized ... Greek Football Results |
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Greece to vote on labor reform despite coalition split
 swissinfo.ch | Greece to vote on labor reform despite coalition split Reuters ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's government plans to put labor reforms demanded by foreign lenders to a parliamentary vote despite a junior coalition partner's refusal to back them, the finance minister said on Saturday. The government will present the 2013 ... Greece in crisis talks Emergency Meeting in Athens to Tackle Big Funding Hole |
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Greek cabinet prepares week of debt-crisis talks
 AFP | Greek cabinet prepares week of debt-crisis talks AFP ATHENS — Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras went into a huddle with his cabinet ministers Saturday to prepare another week of talks with international partners on how best to resolve the country's debt crisis. "We discussed all pending matters ... |
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Lagarde List Leaked: Greek Politicians, Big Names
 Kathimerini | Lagarde List Leaked: Greek Politicians, Big Names Greek Reporter A closely-kept secret by the Greek government – the names of 1,991 people who made $1.95 billion in deposits in the Geneva, Switzerland HSBC bank branch – has been released by a Greek investigative journalist and immediately went viral on the Internet, ... Politicians said to be on so-called Lagarde list |
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Ash dieback: This shambles fills me with fear for my beloved countryside
Failure to stop the spread of ash tree disease is just the latest example of a government far too focused on urban concerns
News that a fatal disease has landed on British soil understandably causes alarm. Today, the disease in question – Chalara fraxinea – threatens trees, not humans, but it's a sign of the esteem in which we hold our ash trees that the alarm bells have been so loud. This could be like Dutch elm disease all over again, an unstoppable plague that transforms the countryside.
As someone who manages a 10-acre woodland in Somerset, I've always thought that Fraxinus excelsior, our native ash, is the most magnificent specimen in the woods. It's beautiful, with a smooth, honey-coloured bark and a clean, white wood. Its delicate, pinnate leaves let in the light and the tree is useful for almost anything: it's both strong and elastic, so we use it for making all sorts of furniture, anything from chairs to four-poster beds. Ash can be used to make snooker cues, tennis rackets, hockey sticks and oars. It's also the finest firewood: as the old saying goes, "ash wet or ash dry, a king shall warm his slippers by". In both Greek and Norse mythology humans were made from it. Odin was speared to an ash – the mythical Yggdrasil. Ash was used both for the symbolically important maypole and the Yule log.
For the last three years, since we set up our woodland shelter for people in crisis, we've been thinning out the willow, hazel and hawthorn to give more space and light to our ashes. Believing the old planter's proverb – that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the next best time is now, we've added 200 ashes in various clearings. We've protected the coppice against deer.
So the news that they're now endangered fills me with melancholy and something close to fear: when you heat your house and your water with wood, ash is your oil. And when the ashes are the tallest trees in the woodland, they're your canopy, your roof. It's as if someone had told you that, pretty soon, your fuel will run out and your tiles will disintegrate.
The government's reaction to the crisis has been flat-footed. A disease that had destroyed 90% of the ash trees in Denmark was first noticed here eight months ago: in Buckinghamshire, Leicester, Scotland, Yorkshire and County Durham. There were links to imported saplings. Last week was simply the first time the dreaded disease had been witnessed in mature trees rather than nursery stock.
So for eight months nothing has happened. A ban should have been imposed on imported ash saplings immediately. Bear in mind that this pathogen was first discovered in Poland in 1992. It's not as if we haven't had time to act. It's the sylvan equivalent of knowing about HIV/Aids, but forgetting to advise about condoms.
This is the umpteenth time the countryside has felt aggrieved by metropolitan policymakers. In recent years, the squires of the countryside have been dismayed by the ban on foxhunting, a piece of legislation which put wind in the Countryside Alliance's sails. They've been infuriated by politicians lacking the cojones to cull badgers and have also been appalled that their incomes are dwindling as costs rise. Milk prices are just the most recent example of hard-working farmers being screwed. Our bees are dying out, either because of the weather or the varroa mite. The cost of feeding our pigs has increased 25% in two years. Even urban visitors to the shires recognise that the government's idea of selling off a third of the Forestry Commission's 1.85m acres was barmy; and that cutting the commission's budget by 25% would drastically reduce its ability to combat this catastrophe.
Rising fuel prices also affect rural areas unduly; mobile reception and broadband coverage is patchy; access to public transport and other services is often woeful. This year has also seen the worst harvest for a generation. It's understandable that rural residents feel hard done by.
Our instinct is to blame politicians. Many feel our metropolitan MPs inevitably have a blind spot when it comes to the countryside. In a democracy in which 90% of the electorate live in urban areas, they're bound to. "The countryside," says Jonathan Dimbleby, a former president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, "is a second-level problem for politicians. Over the last 20 or 30 years they've concentrated so much on the urban environment that they only wake up to the countryside when it becomes a problem."
Of course us agriculturalists will always moan. As the English humorist AP Herbert wrote:
The Farmer will never be happy again;
He carries his heart in his boots;
For either the rain is destroying his grain
Or the drought is destroying his roots.
If we're honest, we should be grateful for the huge subsidies and grants that have come our way in recent times. Our woodland is a tiny operation, but we have received a few thousand quid to create a 5,000-gallon pond, plant 450 trees and control Japanese knotweed.
And yet anyone who lives in a rural area still feels there's something wrong in the representation of the countryside as somewhere to "escape" to. Television offers a deeply sentimentalised view of it, an idyll where stress is replaced by serenity. For most people it's not, then, a place of toil and blisters, but the backdrop for weekend recreation: it's where daytrippers go for walks, see birds, or shoot birds, enjoy stately homes and roaring fires. For most Brits, the countryside is a pleasurable museum, not a tough place to live.
In other countries it's different. France has its mythical "France profonde", the deep soul of the nation that resists urban fashions. In Italy, Sicily was known as the "granary of Rome" and, even now, the country's beloved pasta is provided by native wheat fields. America has its corn belt and even elected a peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter, as president.
In other nations it just seems as if rural labourers are a vital niche of the electorate. That, perhaps, is why no British politician that I can remember has ever spoken so clearly to the farming community as Eisenhower did when he said, parodying bureaucrats: "Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the cornfield."
The problem is perhaps historical: we were the first industrialised nation and our ancestors left the land in such large numbers that, even now, the terms "agricultural" or "a bit village" are easy insults. The idiot in any Shakespearean production always has a Somerset accent. Britain was the first global superpower, meaning that long before we became obsessive foodies, we already had exotic tastes for foreign foods and timbers. Sugar, tobacco, tea and mahogany became commonplace. The reason the UK imports 42% of its food isn't just because we're a crowded island, it's because we insist on eating what our climate can't accommodate.
The result is a complete lack of connection between what's on our plates and what's in our fields. And I'll bet my fine breeding sow, Harriet, the chair you're sitting on to read this isn't made from native timber. If it's wooden at all, chances are it's from the forests of Russia or Poland that supply Ikea.
We want everything to be cheap, whether it's furniture or milk. That's understandable, but there's a hidden cost. I remember when I was buying those 200 ash saplings, a woodsman warned me not to save a few quid by buying from a nursery that imported them from Hungary. "Never know what might come in," he said, looking suspicious. At the time, I thought his comment was the woodland equivalent of racism, but I did as he advised. At a marginally increased cost, I bought all our saplings from a nursery that guaranteed British provenance.
I assumed the woodsman was mildly ignorant. In fact, he was very wise – because it's absurd that we've been importing ash saplings when they regenerate so prolifically from our 18m UK specimens. From tomorrow, Owen Paterson, the environment secretary, will introduce a ban on imports, but it's far too late. The disease is here and spreading. Fifty thousand ashes have already been burnt. Shakespeare's "blessed plot" will soon, sadly, be a lot more bare.
Tobias Jones is the warden of Windsor Hill Wood (windsorhillwood.co.uk)
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German finance minister rules out Greek debt "haircut": radio
 The West Australian | German finance minister rules out Greek debt "haircut": radio Reuters Schaeuble added he would not speculate on a debt repurchase program until the troika of the European Central Bank, European Commission and International Monetary Fund had presented their final report on Greece's progress. "That is a consideration that ... 10:33 Schaeuble: it's not sure that Greece will stay in the Euro |
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Picture of the day: Golden Dawn Office, Aspropyrgos
A photographic highlight selected by the picture desk. Photographer Eirini Vourloumis documents the impact of Greece's Golden Dawn party for Weekend magazine
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Greek Reporter Survey Says … It's Obama!
Greek Reporter Survey Says … It's Obama! Greek Reporter A poll of Greek Reporter readers asking about Presidential preferences related to issues concerning Greece and the Diaspora has given incumbent Democrat Barack Obama a wide preference over Republican challenger Mitt Romney, the former ... |
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Week in FX Europe
Week in FX Europe - Netherlands and Germany Unsure About Greece Business Insider Dean Popplewell has a wealth of forex experience: professional currency trader for 10 years, fixed income trader for four years, and head of the global trading desks at various financial institutions in Canada. |
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Greek Orthodox Priest Murdered in Syria
 Greek Reporter | Greek Orthodox Priest Murdered in Syria Greek Reporter The body of the Greek Orthodox priest Fr. Fadi Jamil Haddad, was found today in the Jaramana neighborhood (north of Damascus ) near the place where he was kidnapped on October 19th, by an unidentified armed group. Father Haddad served the St Elie ... |
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LISA TIFFIN: Nominations sought to recognize Greece youths
LISA TIFFIN: Nominations sought to recognize Greece youths Rochester Democrat and Chronicle That's the same philosophy behind the new Greece Rotary Recognizing Outstanding Youth Program. Rotary member and organizer Bill Selke says the intent behind the program is to recognize young people who go out of their way to make a difference in ... |
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Evaggelos Vallianatos: A Greek Movement for a Better World
The Greeks invented epic and tragic poetry, history, philosophy, science, political theory and democracy, the civilian control of the military, secular literature, theater, and athletics...
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Further cuts leading to collapse of Greek health system
 New Straits Times | Further cuts leading to collapse of Greek health system World Socialist Web Site Every newly released detail of the fifth Greek austerity package demonstrates that the European Union is prepared to resort to the most brutal measures to secure the profits of speculators. One of the hardest hit victims of the austerity program ... No Job, No Health Care, Left to Die Greece's New Americanized Health Care System |
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Greece: Haris Hatzimichelakis: Never Again Unarmed
Greece: Haris Hatzimichelakis: Never Again Unarmed Infoshop News In Greece, the presence of the IMF—an entity whose name is intertwined with bankruptcy and tyranny over problematic economies around the world, some characteristic examples of which would be Argentina or, more recently, Hungary and Ireland—signals ... |
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Spain and Greece in crisis
 National Post | Spain and Greece in crisis Examiner.com Labour reforms and recession blamed for Spanish jobless rise.The news that the Spanish unemployment rate has hit 25% in the last three months highlights the steady deterioration in Spain's economy, which has been shrinking all year.An extra 85,000 ... Euro zone ministers to hold call on Greece October 31 Greece says it has been given more time on austerity Greece 'off track,' will badly miss debt target |
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IIF Dallara Holds Talks With Greece Ex-Finance Minister Venizelos
IIF Dallara Holds Talks With Greece Ex-Finance Minister Venizelos - IIF Wall Street Journal Charles Dallara, head of bondholders lobby group, the Institute for International Finance, held "informal" talks in Washington on Friday with the former Greek Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos, the IIF said in a statement. |
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The Greek's Trifecta: Week 8
The Greek's Trifecta: Week 8 WPEC Each week here on CBS12 the Greek from Real Radio 94.3 joins us to give his Greek's Trifecta for the weekend of football. Here is the Greek. Thanks Josh. This week we start with the biggest cocktail party in the world. And guess who's behind the bar ... |
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A Greek Movement for a Better World
A Greek Movement for a Better World Huffington Post It was from this understanding of the Greeks -- that Greek and non-Greek and male and female, shared a common humanity -- that convinced the West in the eighteenth century to end slavery and, a century or so later, to close the gap in the inequalities ... |
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FOREX-Euro little changed vs dollar after 3 straight days of losses
 Business Recorder | FOREX-Euro little changed vs dollar after 3 straight days of losses Reuters Greece uncertainty keeps euro under pressure. * Spain seen on track to correct problems in financial sector. NEW YORK, Oct 26 (Reuters) - The euro was little changed against the dollar on Friday after three straight days of losses, though concerns ... Euro gains on hopes for Greece help FOREX-Euro flat after three days of losses; yen fares best The Fluctuating Euro: Why Investors are monitoring the Fortunes of Greece |
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