How the world sees Greece
 RT | Pictures Of Greeks Scrambling For Food Sparks Fresh Anger Huffington Post UK Greeks scrambling for food in Athens. Living standards are crumbling in Greece, with just over one in four people unemployed and food and fuel prices rising. That's over a million people out of work. greece food ... Man trampled as hundreds of desperate Greeks scuffle for food (PHOTOS) Boy Injured in Fruit, Vegetable Handout |
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Don't dismiss Greek ideals Quinnipiac Chronicle I remember the first time I told my parents I was interested in Greek life. I spoke to them over the phone and after a few minutes of discussing it, they said they would support me as long as I didn't become an infamous YouTube sensation by humiliating ... |
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 Kathimerini | Greece's Stournaras Says Euro's High Level Is a Concern Bloomberg Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said the strength of the euro is a concern even as its current level shows a return in confidence in the 17-nation currency. “I'm concerned about the high level of the euro,” Stournaras told Bloomberg Television ... Greece's Stournaras concerned about Strong euro |
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The vengeful woman was a staple of Greek tragedy. But what was once done in the name of drama is being recast as an ugly political spectator sport
Aeschylus would have had a ball with the Chris Huhne-Vicky Pryce story as presented over the past few days. The spurned wife determined to have revenge on her husband. The angry son furious with his father's behaviour. The way an all-encompassing tragedy envelops the entire cast. It is an Oresteia for political obsessives and motoring enthusiasts.
"I really want to nail him, and I would love to do it soon," Pryce allegedly wrote in an email to the Sunday Times political editor, Isabel Oakeshott. According to evidence presented this week by the prosecution in Pryce's trial, she and Oakeshott concocted a plan to trap Huhne into admitting responsibility for the speeding offence that triggered this modern tragedy. "Her revenge in the end was to pass the story of the 2003 [speeding] points to the newspaper so they would publish it and destroy his political career," claimed prosecutor Andrew Edis QC.
We have yet to hear Pryce's defence (and the whole story might be very different), though she will be claiming "marital coercion" over taking the points that should have gone to Huhne. However, the narrative of a visceral desire to destroy her husband's career because he had left her for another woman is more compelling than the legal technicalities. Revenge was the mainspring of Greek drama, and a persistent theme for Jacobean dramatists. "If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" demanded Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, against which Portia pits the quality of mercy, "an attribute to God himself". Shylock is ultimately denied his revenge, though Portia's mercy proves to be decidedly strained. For all her honeyed words, gentile society has its revenge on Shylock the Jew for his uppityness.
One recoils from the desire for revenge – primitive notions of "an eye for an eye" are not an appealing basis for law. And while, at the individual level one can of course understand it, the evolution of "civilised" society has been concerned with replacing instant retribution by the wronged party with a less bloodthirsty form of justice mediated by the state.
Shakespeare and his fellow dramatists were reflecting themes that preoccupied philosophers in the early modern period: what constituted justice and how could it be achieved? Francis Bacon, a contemporary of Shakespeare's, called revenge "a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out". Bacon advised would-be avengers to overcome their instincts, not just because that was the moral way to behave but because it was in their interests too. "A man that studieth revenge," he wrote, "keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well."
The vengeful woman has become a cliche. (The Greeks started it: Medea, abandoned by Jason, kills not just his lover but her own children. Electra is pathologically obsessed with killing her mother Clytemnestra to avenge the murder of her father Agamemnon.) There are dozens of examples of women in the public eye, or whose partners are in the public eye, who seek revenge. When Robin Cook left his wife, Margaret, she wrote a book detailing his alleged infidelities and heavy drinking. When the then Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik split with his weather-presenter fiancee Siân Lloyd in 2006 and succumbed to the charms of Cheeky Girl Gabriela Irimia – he called it a "meeting of minds" – Lloyd wasted little time in rubbishing Opik. "I regard our break-up as my lucky escape," she said. "It is just a huge relief to be out of that relationship. He's a fool when he's in love and totally oblivious to the damage he is doing to his reputation."
Journalist Maria Shriver reportedly took revenge on her former husband Arnold Schwarzenegger by leaking material on his infidelity and the child he had fathered with his mistress. Lady Sarah Moon avenged herself on her straying husband by cutting up his designer suits, covering his car with paint, and leaving much-prized bottles from his wine cellar on their neighbours' doorsteps. Princess Diana exacted her revenge for her failed marriage in a gripping TV interview watched by 15 million people. More stomach-churningly, there are those stories that periodically appear about women who cut off the penises of their unfaithful husbands, which is taking an eye for an eye to extremes.
Revenge may be a properly Darwinian response, but it is also unseemly. The lust for revenge plays into a male-constructed narrative of wronged women unable to cope with their emotional pain without getting their own back. In the wake of the Shriver-Schwarzenegger bust-up, there was a spate of articles about her "beach body revenge" when she was photographed on Cape Cod "showing off her remarkably flawless figure in a black halterneck swimsuit", as the Daily Mail put it, as if she was sunbathing just to make a point about the collapse of her marriage.
Vengeful women cease to have an independent existence; they are merely refracted through the prism of the man who has done them wrong. What purports to be an expression of independence is, in reality, a further form of enslavement. You show the world how much you have been hurt. Revenge is not a dish best served cold, but put into the deep freeze and forgotten about. "Silence", as Chesterton pungently put it, "is the unbearable repartee."
Psychological studies have shown that revenge gives the perpetrator a brief high – in the short term, it seems, revenge is indeed sweet – but that the feeling rarely lasts. "Taking revenge generally has a low chance of being satisfying for the avenger," says Mario Gollwitzer, a social psychologist at the University of Marburg in Germany. He argues that revenge only works when the wrongdoer signals that the act of vengeance had made its point. In real life, that will rarely be the case. The relationship is likely already to be unsalvageable; also there is no guarantee that the wrongdoer has really got the message and that the offending behaviour will not be repeated. All the avenger is left with is a sense that some retributive pain has been inflicted, but that is rarely enough.
"Research shows that people expect to feel better [after exacting revenge]," says Gollwitzer, "but they don't. Taking revenge leaves them with an empty feeling." Would he seek to avenge himself if someone crossed him? "I would definitely want revenge," he admits, "but I would also have to limit myself." He suggests trying to make your point in what he calls an "aesthetic fashion" – cutting up a designer suit, perhaps, rather than destroying a career. Take the Götterdämmerung option, and the danger is that everyone gets burned. As Bacon says, "Vindictive persons live the life of witches; who, as they are mischievous, so end they infortunate."
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EU country is accused of ignoring supreme court decisions and keeping asylum seekers in unhealthy conditions
It was like a scene from a film, said Arif Mohamed. He was sitting in a Jeep hemmed in by police officers on either side. They planned to whisk him to the airport for immediate deportation to his native Sri Lanka.
By chance, his lawyer spotted him in the Nicosia traffic and hammered on the vehicle, demanding that the police stop what they were doing.
A Tamil who had been an army intelligence operative during the civil war, Mohamed would be at risk from both sides in his still bitterly divided country if he was deported. But Mohamed was out of luck, and the police got him to the airport.
On the plane, after his handcuffs were removed, Mohamed said, he started to shout and throw things around. "The police tried to shut my mouth and one guy grabbed my hand and broke my wrist. I was saying to myself: 'I will die, but at least I will die in front of witnesses.'"
In the event, the pilot refused to take him and Mohamed was bundled off the plane. Similar dramas have taken place in other countries after asylum seekers have had their applications rejected. But what made Mohamed's case remarkable was that it was still pending before the Cyprus supreme court.
The deportation of asylum seekers whose cases are unresolved is one of several complaints made by Amnesty International in a report on Cyprus's treatment of irregular immigrants published last year. The organisation also accused the Greek Cypriot authorities of using detention unnecessarily and of keeping detainees in substandard conditions. The main centre is block 10 of Nicosia's central prison, which Amnesty described as dark and unhealthy.
Elsewhere, asylum seekers are kept in police stations that were never designed for long-term detention. The organisation said some had been held for more than three years.
Andreas Ashiotis, the permanent secretary at the ministry of the interior, called Amnesty's position "extreme and unjustified". He said a new detention centre was being prepared. Asylum seekers were only detained once their case had been rejected.
"It is common practice that the minister decides after two months whether to release them. Then we re-examine the case after six months," he said.
But he did not deny that some, who had appealed to the supreme court, were deported before their cases were heard. "Only if they can get a provisional order forbidding the deportation does [the asylum seeker] have the right to remain in Cyprus," Ashiotis said.
Mohamed's lawyer, Michalis Paraskevas, said that violated a 2005 EU directive giving asylum seekers the right to be heard by a court. On Cyprus, cases are examined by the asylum service and, if an appeal is made, by an independent reviewing authority. Ashiotis said the latter was composed of lawyers and was thus a quasi-judicial body.
Paraskevas said that, even when cases did go to the supreme court, the judges' decisions were sometimes ignored. "On 18 January 2011, I won a case in the supreme court and the judge ordered the immediate release of my client. They did not release him. I was shocked. I couldn't believe it."
He went to the judge in chambers who said there was nothing he could do. Paraskevas then wrote to the ministry of the interior, informed the press and finally, the following March, staged a demonstration, all to no avail. It was only after a radio journalist invited him to talk about the case that his client was released, four months after the original court order.
Ashiotis said: "I am surprised Mr Paraskevas is taking this position that we are not obeying supreme court decisions … in every case we implement the decisions."
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 Yahoo! News UK | Greece ends seamen walkout but other strikes persist Reuters Greece has been forced to push through painful wage and pension cuts demanded by its European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders as the price of bailout funds to avert bankruptcy. FARMERS ANGRY. Greek ships sailed again from the busy ... Greece orders striking seamen back to work Greece: Seamen Ordered To Halt Strike Action Greece orders seamen back to work on 6th day of strike |
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 Gold Seek | The Good, the Bad, and the Greek (Risks) Gold Seek Until the Greek crisis, there was no real need for any eurozone country to actually write a check for any other member. Ireland obligingly shouldered the responsibility for its own bad bank debts, paying off mostly German, French, and British bankers. |
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Securing permanent residence in EU country is major attraction as it offers visa-free travel in union and 'chance of second child'
One of the first things you see after landing at Larnaca airport is an advert for a property development company. It is in Chinese.
It will soon be carnival time in the city of Pafos on the south-west coast of Cyprus – and this year theme is China.
"Everything will be Chinese," says Pafos mayor, Savvas Vergas, in his office in the pretty, whitewashed city hall, fronted by classical Greek pillars. "Meals … folklore … Everything will be on Chinese culture."
The carnival will be a way of celebrating a most unusual boom in a country which, like others in southern Europe, has been stricken by the eurozone crisis. Property prices in Cyprus have fallen by around 15% since 2007. Yet an official survey published last month found that between last August and October more than 600 properties were sold to Chinese buyers, 90% of which were in Pafos.
"The real growth came after August because that was when the government made clear the terms and conditions for third country nationals to get permanent residence," says Giorgios Leptos, a director of the Leptos property group and president of the Pafos chamber of commerce and industry.
The opportunity to secure permanent residence in an EU member state is a huge attraction for Chinese because it offers them visa-free travel throughout the union. Almost 4,500 miles away, Lisha Tang, a young client at a Beijing property firm, is relishing the prospect.
"A house in Cyprus means travelling freely in Europe, which is great for young people," she says.
And not just for young people – older Chinese who obtain permanent EU residence can put their children into European schools and visit them without difficulty. According to the 2012 Hurun report, 85% of China's 1.4 million dollar millionaires plan to send their children overseas for their education.
To obtain permanent residence in Cyprus, investors from outside the EU have to spend at least €300,000 (£260,000) on a property. They must also prove that they have no criminal record and are in good financial standing and agree to deposit €30,000 for a minimum of three years in a local bank account. Their permit normally arrives in about 45 days.
Cyprus is not the only EU state to be exploring this way of reinvigorating a stagnant property market. Last year, Ireland and Portugal also offered residency to foreigners who bought property worth more than a certain amount. In November Spain's trade minister, Jaime Garcia-Legaz, said his country was intending to follow suit in an attempt to clear his country's vast backlog of unsold homes.
For the European commission, the question of whether to grant residence to non-EU citizens remains entirely a matter for national governments. Conditions for the entry of investors into the EU are currently not harmonised.
But François Godement, head of the China programme for the European council on foreign relations, says: "I can see an issue cooking up here."
"I see intelligent and talented young Chinese whose presence in Europe might be to our benefit who run into problems when they try to stay. Yet there are immigrant businesspeople who don't seem to have any problems [in getting the necessary paperwork]."
But, he adds, "Where it really becomes a problem is where the country granting residence is part of Schengen [the agreement on freedom of movement of people]. That is quite problematic. That is going to raise eyebrows in Brussels and elsewhere. Cyprus is not in Schengen. But Portugal is, and so is Spain."
In the case of Cyprus, members of the buyer's immediate family can also get residence, but a further €30,000 has to be deposited for each one. That is almost as much as a Chinese citizen is allowed to take out of the country in a year. But, clearly, ways have been found to get around the restriction.
In Pafos, at this time of year, holidaymakers are thin on the ground and the developments in which the Chinese have bought their properties are mostly empty and locked. But the few who are staying in the town, contacted by the Guardian through agents, were reluctant to talk. Visa-free travel is not, apparently, the only reason for Chinese to want permanent residence in Cyprus.
"Chinese people tell us they may be allowed to have a second child if the child is born overseas," said Leptos. "And it offers them somewhere to live if things go wrong in their own country."
It has been estimated that around $225bn (£144bn) a year has been pouring out of China since worries spread about slower economic growth and falls in the value of stock and property. Cypriot developers have astutely positioned themselves in the path of this river of cash.
According to the China Daily newspaper, Cypriots were the most prominent foreign exhibitors at last year's Beijing international property autumn expo, taking 32 stands. Vergas says there were several reasons why Pafos had been particularly successful in attracting Chinese buyers. "It's a very quiet place with very little crime, and it's different from Chinese cities because its character has been kept intact. There are nice green areas and mountains nearby," he says.
"The Chinese also believe Pafos has a good future. Over the next 10 years there are plans for a new marina, a new port and a network of new roads around the city. In 2017, it will be the cultural capital of Europe. They believe it's a good investment."
Leptos says the influx of Chinese had enabled the city to buck an island-wide trend. "There was a 15% increase in sales of property in 2012 – the first time they have risen for some years. And I expect that, all things being equal, 2013 will be better than 2012."
Additional reporting by Daniel Parrott in Beijing
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Greece's Pre-Summit Homework Wall Street Journal- India (blog) We're a day away from the kick-off of the European Union leaders' meeting to decide (or fail to decide) the gross sum and distribution of the bloc's budget for 2014-2021. All eyes will be on the big players — the U.K., Germany and France – but one ... |
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 New York Daily News | Greece launches probe into alleged police beatings covered up by digitally ... New York Daily News ATHENS, Greece — A Greek prosecutor ordered an investigation Monday into allegations of police brutality in the arrest of four alleged bank robbers after authorities released digitally altered mug shots that covered up extensive bruising on three of ... Greece probes police 'beatings' Selective zero-tolerance: is Greece really a democracy anymore? Investigation into police treatment after altered police mug shots in Greece ... |
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Pireaus in talks to buy Millennium BCP's Greek unit Reuters Greek banks are consolidating to cope with the country's debt crisis and a deep recession, which have caused big losses from government debt writedowns and loan impairments. Millennium BCP (BCP.LS), Portugal's largest listed bank by assets, was looking ... |
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Eat a Traditional Greek Breakfast While Viewing the Acropolis Huffington Post (blog) Have you ever had a Greek breakfast? Most think it is nonexistent, or made up of a cigarette and a coffee. However, Greece has a rich tradition when it comes to breakfasts. Unfortunately though, if you are a tourist, you won't get to taste it at most ... |
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 BBC News | Greece orders striking seamen back to work Los Angeles Times ATHENS – Greece's embattled ruling coalition Wednesday forced striking seamen to return to work and restore suspended ferry services to dozens of Greek islands that have been cut off from the mainland, leading to food and medical shortages. The ... Greece orders seamen back to work on 6th day of strike Greek ferries sail as strikers forced back to work Greece orders striking ferry crews back to work |
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 Eurovision.tv | Greek songs available to watch Eurovision.tv Following a special gala held today in Athens, the four songs and acts seeking to representing Greece in this year's Eurovision Song Contest have been made available to watch online by ERT and MADTV. The national final Ellinikόs Telikόs 2013 will be ... |
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