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Welcome, 77 artists, 40 different points of Attica welcomes you by singing Erotokritos an epic romance written at 1713 by Vitsentzos Kornaros

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Britain's long history of spying on visiting dignitaries

Revelations of cold war bugging and a botched attempt to examine Khrushchev's ship have caused scandal in the past

Spying on visiting foreign dignitaries is a longstanding habit not only of the British, but of many other countries as well. Most embassies in foreign capitals are designed with windowless safe rooms, on the assumption that their host country will be doing its best to monitor all their communications.

In 1985, the British government obtained injunctions attempting to gag the Guardian and Observer after they published disclosures by the renegade MI5 officer Peter Wright of wholesale British bugging. He and his colleagues had "bugged and burgled their way across London", during the cold war, he said.

He disclosed that MI5 bugged all diplomatic conferences at Lancaster House in London throughout the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the Zimbabwe independence negotiations in 1979.

MI5 were alleged to have bugged diplomats from France, Germany, Greece and Indonesia, as well as the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's hotel suite during his visit to Britain in the 1950s, and to have broken into Soviet consulates abroad to spy on them.

Khrushchev's 1956 visit to Britain aboard a Soviet battleship led to a famous scandal. The spy agency MI6 hired a middle-aged ex-navy frogman, "Buster" Crabbe (pictured), to inspect the battleship's advanced propellor in Portsmouth harbour. Crabbe's dive went wrong, his headless body was found in a frogman suit, and the Russians gleefully made a public diplomatic protest.

Much more recently, in 2003, in a case which has distinct echoes of Edward Snowden's current decision to expose western electronic spying, a 29-year-old GCHQ translator, Katherine Gun, revealed in the Observer how the US had sought help from GCHQ under the Blair government to spy on delegates to the UN security council, to try to influence votes over the unpopular US-UK plan to invade Iraq. Her US counterparts in the NSA wanted to "give US policymakers the edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals".

"Good God, I thought, that's pretty outrageous," she later recalled. Gun was charged under the Official Secrets Act, but her Old Bailey trial was dropped at the last minute by the authorities, after she maintained her action was necessary to try to prevent an illegal war.


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Korres Project 4: The Greek Supercar With A Corvette Heart


Korres Project 4: The Greek Supercar With A Corvette Heart
Jalopnik
Have you ever wondered why Greece isn't represented in the world of supercar manufacturers? Me neither. But to answer a question that technically does not have an answer, a company called Korres has announced the Project 4 and here it is, announced ...


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Bismarck versus Bismarck



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ATHENS – The centrality of Germany to Europe and, more widely, to world affairs has been amply, and often bloodily, demonstrated over many centuries. Indeed, Germany’s strategic position at the heart of Europe, as well as its huge economic and military potential, made it first a prize to be sought, and then, following Otto von Bismarck’s completion of German unification in 1871, a nation-state to be feared. Bismarck’s legacy was a Germany that dominated European politics until the end of World War II.

That legacy is now reasserting itself. After the interlude of the Cold War, during which Germany served as the center of discord between East and West, reunification permitted the reassertion of German power within the context of the European Union and, most notably, the eurozone. Today, however, the question is whether Germany is ready and willing to provide leadership in the conduct of the EU’s affairs – and, if so, to what end.

Europe is currently facing its most challenging crisis of the postwar period. After six quarters of recession, the slump is spreading to the eurozone’s core countries. Unemployment, above 12% on average, is at a record high. In Spain and Greece, more than one-quarter of the labor force is jobless, while the unemployment rate hovers around 60% among young people. Despite harsh austerity, large fiscal deficits persist, and banks remain undercapitalized and unable to support a sustained economic recovery.

Social malaise is deepening as expectations – and actual prospects – for economic improvement are likely to remain poor for the foreseeable future. Faith in the European project is declining, and, given the eurozone’s lack of cohesion, stagnation and recession may lead to popular rejection of the EU, accompanied by serious challenges to democracy, including the rise of neo-fascist parties.

And yet, despite the risks, European leaders remain remarkably inactive, apparently reassured by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s promise to do “whatever it takes” to protect the monetary union from collapse. But prolonged inaction, induced by relative calm in financial markets, will perpetuate stagnation and eventually lead to a breakup of one sort or another. Either gradual attrition, with weaker countries defaulting, will lead to a more restricted German-led club of “virtuous” countries, or Germany itself will choose to pursue a policy of narrow fiscal advantage by seceding from the eurozone.

The political and economic weakness of France and Italy, together with Britain’s gradual withdrawal from EU affairs, highlight Germany’s key role in rescuing the eurozone from the current crisis. But true leadership requires a sense of direction and a willingness to pay up, and, here, Germany has lately been found wanting.

Despite German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s evident political skills and high domestic standing, her government lacks a concrete design for “ever closer Union” in Europe. As a result, it, too, is in a weak position to mobilize the resources and competences required to restore Europe. Instead, Merkel’s Germany has been doing as little as possible, as late as possible, to prevent the euro’s collapse.

This policy cannot endure for long. Either stagnation will lead to the eurozone’s breakup, or circumstances will force a policy change.

So, in which areas must Germany lead? First, European public debt should be partly and gradually mutualized. National banking systems should be unified, in order to separate private losses from sovereign debt, with centralized supervision and resolution authorities, as well as a deposit-insurance scheme, forming the core of a European banking union. Strong central institutions, responsible to a directly elected parliament, are needed to coordinate fiscal and economic policies.

In the shorter term, the single market should be extended to services, and free-trade arrangements should be promoted either multilaterally or bilaterally with major trading partners such as the United States. Austerity should be eased, particularly in the fiscally stronger core economies, and substantial resources should be devoted to boosting youth employment and investment in small and medium-size firms in the over-indebted countries.

Germany’s reluctance to lead on these issues partly reflects historical inhibitions, which are always difficult to overcome. The persistence of pre-Keynesian orthodoxy in German economic thought, with its moral abhorrence of the “sin of borrowing” (and thus its neglect of aggregate demand), does not help, either. The federalist structure of Germany’s political system, moreover, favors parochial approaches over grander designs.

Nonetheless, Germany must accept that the alternative to a democratically unified currency union is German economic hegemony. In the longer run, that outcome would destroy the common European project, in turn undermining Germany’s own economic prosperity and strategic security – a Bismarckian scenario from which Bismarck would have recoiled in horror.
© Project Syndicate 1995–2013







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Cyprus: sifting through reform options



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Pensions in Cyprus have been suffering a time of uncertainly, like their neighbours Greece, this part of southern Europe is  enduring a protracted bloody nose following the financial crises. 

The fall out has not been quite as destructive as Greece in terms of pensions, but has still provoked street protests a seen in Athens. Employees at the failed Laiki Bank, and the Banks of Cyprus have called for brief strikes over concerns about their pension funds, this is with the support of their union ETYK. 

In April there were suggestions that pensions for civil servants could go unpaid, as the government was simply running out of money. 

Cyprus was brought to its knees due to investing in Greece, and holding a significant amount of Greek government bonds, partly due to the deep historical ties that exist between the two countries. 

After the value of Greek government bonds was halved in the ‘haircut’ deal of last year, there became a gigantic black hole in the Cypriot finances. This was inordinately damaging as the size of the banking sector, according to World Bank, accounted for eight times the output of Cypriot GDP, leaving the country’s finances in a perilous state. 

In response, an agreement between the Cypriot government and the ‘troika’ of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF, produced an economic adjustment programme, that begins this year and will be in place until 2016.

The package includes loans of up to €10 billion, with €1 billion arriving from the IMF, this will be in return for addressing the banking crises, action to continue fiscal consolidation, and structural reforms to support a more competitive economy. 

These measures will assist a pension system that comprises of three main pillars, the General Social Insurance Scheme(GISS), that is joined by the Social Pension scheme, and occupational pension plans. 

The GISS is the public compulsory earnings related scheme, that covers every employee in Cyprus, including the public sector and the self employed; and also covers other benefits such as unemployment, employment injury, and invalidity benefits. It became an earnings related system since reforms in 1980, which replaced the previous flat rate pension structure. 

For those who did not participate in the public pension system through the labour market, the Social Pension Scheme provides a means tested benefit to pensioners who are 65 years of age and over, where the principle is to ensure a universality in pension payments. 

The occupational pensions are in place to supplement the GISS, and its estimated by the Ministry of Labour in Cyprus that currently the participation rate is 45% of employees. 

In the public sector the Government Employees Pension Scheme delivers pensions for civil servants, members of the educational service, the police and the armed forces. Although as the financial crises began to deepen in Cyprus, the scheme was closed off to all newcomers into these professions from 2011. 

As part of a sometimes complicated mosaic of pension options, there is the ‘semi government’ fund option, that covers employees of semi-state utility organizations, local governments and of other public law authorities.  They  operate under the same terms as those for civil servants, and for central government employees. 

They are financed by the employer and the employee, and are calculated on what is termed a ‘balanced cost basis’. 

Fund arrangements for occupational pensions in the private sector are incentive based through the tax system , by exemption on contributions and from lump sum benefits. 

The framework of occupational funds is based on defined contribution, financed from employers and employees; and is administered from collective bargaining whether this be from a single employer, or industry sector wide basis. 

Retirement ages are 65 for men and for women, although a pension can be drawn two years prior to the statutory age, but this comes a penalty through an actuarial reduction. 

The pension reduction rate if taken at 63 is 3% for this year, but this will increase by 3% per year up to 2016, where the actuarial reduction of pensions will reach 12%, leaving the incentive to stay in the labour market for longer. 

Every five years there will be a review of retirement ages and whether to raise the ceiling on them, in correlation to the changes in life expectancy rates. The Ministry of Labour say that this process will begin between 2018 and 2023. 

To ensure that the Cypriot pension system remains stable for the future, a number of measures have been taken: including raising the age of taking a reduced pension up to 65, increasing the contribution to the GISS by 1%, and the freezing of pensions under the Social Security Fund over the next three years, in line with the economic adjustment programme. 

For public sector workers, retirement ages will increase by two years, and the introduction of a penalty of 0.5% per month of early retirement. 

A ministry of labour spokesperson reflected that all the measures are, “expected  to significantly decrease the public pension expenditure in the long-run. In addition, an actuarial study for the GSIS will be carried out by end of July 2013 to provide additional reform options, if needed, to ensure the long-run viability of the national pension system.” 

“The study will analyse the impact of additional reform options such as benefit reductions, an increase in the statutory retirement age, and increases in contribution rates or combinations thereof taking into account the impact on labour costs.” 

With unemployment figures reaching 15.6%, the fourth worst in the EU according to Eurostat, and economic growth worsening by 0.7% to -4.1% for the first quarter of this year, the conditions for an improvement in the pension system are hardly advantageous. It’s a situation that Cyprus will have to begin to improve by cleaning up its own balance sheets. 


 







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Confidently blaming the other



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Francois Hollande is the latest to pronounce that the Eurozone debt crisis is over. Brave words while Europe continues to fall into economic disrepair (not least his own country). But no, the crisis, he insisted during a state visit to Japan, is a thing of the past; solidarity will bring stability, growth is now the way forward. And to prove he means business, he has vowed to end youth unemployment, and rescue a whole generation. He has even got together with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, no champion of growth policies, to prompt a new direction for the EU, one, preferably, with the European Commission having less of a say in things.

The commission is on the defensive after recent criticism by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over its handling of the Greek economic meltdown. The back-and-forth continues. The IMF is self-flagellating, according to Economics Commissioner, Ollie Rehn, washing its hands of own failures, and then throwing the dirty water over European citizens for good measure.

There has been an error here somewhere, but, surely, it is the fault of the other guy.

The IMF admitted that it had been too casual about Greece, and that stringent conditions attached to the terms of the country’s bailouts were somewhat misplaced, leading to a social crisis that seriously undercut the confident predictions made by the troika (EU, IMF and European Central Bank (ECB)), which, along with underestimating the effect on social conditions of  spending cuts and tax hikes, optimistically predicted a 5.5% decline in GDP on 2009 levels. This proved to be way off; as did predictions for the number of unemployed, currently standing at around 27%. 

This ‘mea culpa’ (as it was dubbed by all and sundry) by the IMF that the estimates on recovery were far too optimistic was an obvious admission that the economic foundations of the bailout conditions were far from concrete. Moreover, it seemingly revealed that economics is far from an exact science; being less about formulae, calculations, graphs and the like, and more about abstract notions such as confidence. The troika placed confidence in Greece (as they would do in other failing Eurozone economies), in the hope that investors would follow suit; but the plan didn’t work. Economics, if the powers-that-be didn’t know it before, know now, is a human, not an exact science.

Greece is still in trouble. The political told-you-so’s are not going to change things; indeed the shutting down  of the Greek national broadcaster, oddly welcomed by one German newspaper, is an ominous foreshadow of what might be; a public service closure that by definition curbs political discourse. Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras may have initially used the critical IMF report to embolden his political position, but the austerity course cannot be changed. 

It is true that things need to change; a very definite division of responsibility needs to be determined between the commission and its partners for any future interventions. In addition, detailed and independent reports need to be drawn-up concerning other bailout countries, which should provide an insight into what, if any, problematic divisions exist between the different strands of the troika.

Hollande, who has ambitions to shape the economic direction of the Eurozone, may regret resorting to bradaggio about the single currency’s prospects if such analyses do indeed emerge. 


 







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Another Greek Prison Break

An all-night thriller took place in Boeotia and Fthiotida, with police setting up roadblocks at key points so as to locate Trikala prison escapees, who did not hesitate to open fire with Kalashnikov guns. It all started just before 11 p.m. on June 15 when a stolen car was spotted near Polydrosso (Souvala) which authorities said was used to help prisoners get away. Under chase, the prisoners car ...

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The closure of ERT: public service broadcasting and austerity politics in Greece


The closure of ERT: public service broadcasting and austerity politics in Greece
Open Democracy
On Tuesday, the Greek government announced the immediate closure of their public broadcaster, ERT. This simple piece of news from Greece came as a shock to the world. Yet this event is symptomatic of the relatonship between media and politics in today ...


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Greek PM Samaras accuses coalition partners of 'hypocrisy' over ERT closure criticism

Greek Premier Antonis Samaras has accused his coalition partners of "hypocrisy" for criticizing public broadcaster ERT's closure but supporting public service job cuts. He also shot down talk of an early election.

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Feel like you're in Greece


TheChronicleHerald.ca

Feel like you're in Greece
TheChronicleHerald.ca
Minutes after the gates opened Saturday, people were lined up for the platefuls of food that makes the Halifax Greek Festival Hali-famous. Table after table of moussaka, spanakopita and souvlaki and tray after tray of cakes, pastries and cookies were ...

and more »

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Perks Daily Deals


Perks Daily Deals
WEEI.com
The team finished one spot away from being promoted to the top-tier Greek Basket League this past season. … Adetokunbo has signed a four-year contract with Zaragoza of the Spanish league but reportedly has an affordable NBA buyout clause.

and more »

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Bartiromo: Chobani CEO at center of Greek yogurt craze


Bartiromo: Chobani CEO at center of Greek yogurt craze
USA TODAY
We are taking advantage of this coolness of Greek yogurt. And we have a duty to make sure that the consumer knows what to expect from Greek yogurt. Q: Yours is an amazing expansion story over the last five years. And that first plant was the plant you ...

and more »

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Magda Abu-Fadil: Dear NSA, George Orwell Is Watching You

It's a month of ironies focused on Net freedom and somebody is benefiting from it - with a great sense of humor to boot. Irony...

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ERT Crisis Restarts Greek Protest Mood

(AP Photo/Alexandros Katsis/Phosphotos Thousands of protesters take part in a rally outside the Greek state television ERT headquarters during a 24-hour general strike in Athens, on June 13, 2013 after the fragile governing coalition failed to reach a compromise about the closure of the state-run ERT broadcaster. A critical meeting has now been set for June 17. ATHENS - Greece was back in protest ...

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ERT Crisis Could Push Early Elections

Just when it seemed that Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras had quelled social unrest and said he was putting the country on the road to recover, his snap decision to shut down the national broadcaster ERT without warning has plunged his government into a crisis that could force early elections, more analysts believe. Samaras, the New Democracy Conservative leader will meet on June 17 – ...

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Who says the American Dream doesn't exist anymore? How immigrant who came to U.S. with just $3,000 created a billion dollar yoghurt empire in just FIVE years

Hamdi Ulukaya, a 41-year-old Turkish Kurd immigrant has created Chobani, the country's leading Greek yogurt brand with sales of more than $1 billion, in just five years.

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Greece: Rift Over State Broadcaster Widens

Greece's ruling coalition is in disarray as disagreement over the sudden shutdown of the country's state broadcaster widens.

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Greek PM accuses coalition of hypocrisy on state broadcaster

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on Sunday accused his coalition partners of "hypocrisy" for denouncing the closure of state broadcaster ERT after they backed public service job cuts.        

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Athletics-Greek federation chief slams closure of public broadcaster

ATHENS, June 16 (Reuters) - Greek athletics chief Kostas Panagopoulos believes the government's closure of public broadcaster ERT is a disaster for the sport. ERT was Greek athletics' main outlet for broadcasting and with its current status in limbo following the government's decision to close the organisation due to austerity measures, Panagopoulos fears for the future exposure of the sport in ...

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To Syria's loyalist stronghold of Tartus, victory seems imminent

The bustling coastal city, itself untouched by war, sends its mostly Alawite and Christian sons to battle for Assad and honors those slain with colorful posters.

TARTUS, Syria — War may be ravaging much of Syria, but there is no sign of conflict on bustling streets here, where diners wearing designer sunglasses order freshly caught fish at seaside cafes and gaze out on a palm-fringed expanse resembling a slightly tattered version of southern France or the Greek isles.
    

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My friend, Malcolm, the broadcaster, out of darkness, remembering hell

Helena Smith tells the story of her former colleague, the BBC correspondent Malcolm Brabant, who endured years of unimaginable mental torment after a routine immunisation

My friend Malcolm Brabant has gone to places none of us would like to go. He has been possessed sitting on his veranda under a dark, Attic sky; he has heard voices in his head that have urged him to kill; he has been drunk with delirium, believing he was the chosen one, the Messiah come to save the world. He has grappled with inner demons, devilish thoughts that have made him believe he was Lucifer, too.

For almost two years, my friend Malcolm has slipped in and out of madness, dancing on the edge of an abyss most of us will never know. Spirits he calls guardian angels – friends and relatives who died prematurely – have sometimes accompanied him along the way. They have spoken to him in commandments, urging him to drink his urine or eat his excrement – or brush his teeth with a lavatory brush. And, like those satanic thoughts, they have inhabited his soul.

My friend Malcolm, a spirited man in his 50s, conquered by furies; an award-winning BBC foreign correspondent and storyteller par excellence who should never have been narrating this particular tale.

"There is a very fine dividing line between madness and sanity," he says. "I have slipped between the two very easily. It is extraordinary, really, how rapidly it can happen."

I had not heard his voice since he left Athens in October 2011. The departure had been "hasty", a shocking end to an illustrious career covering the killing fields that were the Balkans and the savagery of Chechnya before setting up in Miami and returning to Greece for a second stint in 2003.

For years, Malcolm's was the familiar face that we saw on our screens reporting from all those spots. Like so many BBC veterans polished in the school of pitch and pace, his voice remains confident and strong. But as he speaks from his new home in Copenhagen, it is imbued with something else. "The doctors say there is a good chance I will fully recover, but there is also a chance I could relapse, too." "Relapse", a word I would never have associated with bold, brave, get-on-and do-it Malcolm. "I'm still on drugs, antipsychotic medication, even if it has been much reduced."

It all began, Malcolm believes, with a pinprick – a yellow-fever jab administered for a trip to the Ivory Coast. Well before most, Malcolm had become a one-man band, self-taught in the art of making films, creating packages and doing lives. But his choice to be based in Athens also came with its challenges. In a country long perceived to be a non-news maker – before its dramatic economic collapse – editorial indifference meant life as a freelance was marked by periods of feast and famine. There was no fixed salary or paid holidays. Enterprising freelances survived by broadening their skills and rooting for stories elsewhere.

In the early spring of 2011, Malcolm was doing just that when he elected to go to the Ivory Coast on a non-BBC assignment to make a film for Unicef. The vaccine, a dose of Stamaril, administered at a municipal clinic in Athens, was part of his preparations for that trip. It was Friday 15 April 2011. Pressed for time, Malcolm stopped at the clinic while doing the school run with Trine, his Danish wife. "She asked: 'Shall I come in with you?' and I said, 'No.' It was routine. And there seemed nothing wrong with the clinic," he recalled.

Within hours, the symptoms erupted. Gripped by a raging fever, he turned lobster red, shivering so violently the headboard above the couple's bed shook uncontrollably. It took two weeks – after admission to hospital – before his temperature could be brought down.

Then came psychosis. A shooting star, glimpsed after supper from the balcony of their home, quickly convinced Malcolm that he had witnessed the Second Coming and, as such, had been invested with all the powers of a modern-day Messiah. Trine, by turns, suddenly found herself confronting a man she did not know. One minute he was Baby Jesus – demanding he be swaddled in a sheet – the next he was ranting incoherently or daubing crosses on the walls of their home with the juice of crushed strawberries.

Often, the couple's son, Lukas, would witness his father consumed by fury and despair. "He was an innocent 12-year-old boy who should never have seen such things," says Malcolm. "He is as much a victim as me."

Incarceration began in Athens with Malcolm spending his first three weeks in a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of the capital. But there was worse to come. And when it did, it came in the form of Lucifer himself. Unable to keep up his job in Athens – following a bout of treatment in his native Ipswich – it was decided that the couple should retreat to Copenhagen.

"What happened in the Greek hospital was completely mild to what happened here," says Malcolm. "We left in a hurry, a real hurry, and in November, soon after we got here, I just collapsed. It was as if I had been stabbed in the lungs and all the air had been taken out of me. I was convinced I was the devil and that my actions would lead to both Trine and Lukas being killed."

There was no option but to be committed, this time to a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Copenhagen. "It was a locked-in ward known as 811. I spent seven days rocking back and forth saying I was the devil," he remembers. "I grew a long, spikey beard and just rocked and rocked."

Forced to endure the "guttural screams and shrieks of other patients" and not speaking a word of Danish, Malcolm thought he was experiencing hell on earth. For Trine, whose father had been incarcerated in the same ward before taking his own life 20 years earlier, it was hard beyond words.

Imagining himself, in his first bout of madness, to be the Messiah was one thing. "But to believe I was the instrument of the devil, to be consumed by such dark thoughts, was quite another."

Dogged by depression, his life in complete ruins, Malcolm underwent four sessions of electroconvulsive therapy which, initially at least, spurred the couple into thinking he was on the way to recovery. "On Christmas Eve I was allowed back home for three hours. Trine had cooked a wonderful meal, but as I was standing in the kitchen, carving the meat, a 10-inch blade in my hand, all I kept hearing were these voices saying 'kill', 'kill', 'kill', and they were incredibly loud. I was like a camera outside myself … my conscious and corporeal being were never going to give into them, but I was really very shocked."

Was he a schizophrenic or a potential psychopath? Both thoughts raced through his mind.

On New Year's Eve, utterly persuaded he would kill his wife and son, he placed a belt around his neck and tried to take his own life, instead. A nurse caught him, just in time.

In July last year, Malcolm was let out of the hospital. He has not been readmitted. But what he regards as a fluke of fate has destroyed his life. His job, his beloved Greece have both been lost. And, in being taken to places no one would want to go, he has been brought to the brink of penury.

The couple do not doubt that the yellow fever vaccine is to blame. "From when the fever first started, it was clear that Malcolm was having an adverse event," insists Trine, a journalist herself. "All the experts I have spoken to believe the batch was contaminated."

Steadfastly they have pursued the manufacturer, Sanofi Pasteur, for compensation. The company has vehemently denied any link, arguing that the batch of vaccine in question had "passed the numerous quality controls" and suggesting that perhaps Malcolm's breakdown was the result of being predisposed to mental illness.

Although the company admits that reports of side-effects have included mental disorders, it says there have been fewer than 10 such reports, including Malcolm's, after the distribution of more than 300 million doses of the vaccine worldwide.

Out of the darkness, scrambling for light, Malcolm has written eloquently, in his book, Malcolm is a Little Unwell, about his descent into madness. It was, as I have said, the story he was never meant to tell. But as a friend, I can only thank the gods that he is here to tell it.

Malcolm is a Little Unwell, Kindle Edition, Andartes Press, £6.70, available on Amazon


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