Olympiakos beats OFI 5-1 in Greek league

Olympiakos beats OFI 5-1 in Greek leagueMiamiHerald.comThe Associated Press. ATHENS, Greece -- Costas Mitroglou scored twice and Joel Campbell had four assists to give leader Olympiakos an easy 5-1 victory over visiting OFI in the Greek league Sunday. Jose Holebas, Yannis Maniatis and Sambou Yatabare ...and more »

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Biological mother of girl found in Greek Roma camp denies selling her

The Bulgarian mother of the young girl removed from a Roma Camp in Greece has denied selling her daughter. In an interview with TV7, Sasha Ruseva said that she made a mistake by giving up her child, but said she did not accept any money. The 35-year-old has also said that she wants her daughter back. The four-year-old girl, now known as Maria, has blonde hair and green eyes, and was wrongly ...

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Seasons in the sun and the jet-set junta

by  Andy Carling

This island is known the world over for its tourism, its beaches, sunshine and hospitality, some of it is the mass market booze-a-thon for those who have been given fewer choices in life, some of is for families or couples of all ages who want somewhere sunny and safe to wander around.

The first come because it’s cheap, the second because it’s special. Neither group understands the other, but they both spend money. As the song says, ‘There’s No Romance Without Finance.’

Neither are there schools, hospitals or the basic services that the 99% will need.

Years ago, a businessman in an African town near a string of slightly shabby beach resorts, was trying to explain to an educated friend of mine and asked that he be considerate towards some of the visitors excesses.

“They all come here to get away from it all,” he explained, “Imagine how terrible your life must be if you have to get away from absolutely everything.”

The visitors have almost all returned home by now, but the numbers were good this year, but the prices were bad... for the people who live here. 

Former Commissioner, Neil Kinnock, before losing an election, he warned people not to be poor, sick or elderly. Advice he could have given to Greece before the Troika came in town to make decisions that increased the misery before flying off again, like a jet-set junta.

The tourists started jetting in around 50 years ago and I found a dusty copy of a guide for holidaymakers, “Off You Go” from 1971, which was given to all 300,000 who booked “all-in” breaks.

It doesn’t expect too much from the clients, “The attempt has been made to include just as much as you want to know – and as little,.” it boasts.

Greeks are described as “Great travellers, and there is scarcely a village in the whole country that hasn’t its share of inhabitants who have sailed the seven seas and roamed the wide world before returning to the land they love best. It has always been so.”

It is today, with many searching for a future abroad, while those even less fortunate head towards Greece and the EU.

Others are taking another escape. 

This island has seen an increase in suicide, up by 10 cases a month because of austerity. Many of these are elderly who are making a final sacrifice for their families who just can’t afford to get by. The true figure is higher as police and coroners will try to put in ‘accidental death’ verdicts for the sake of the grieving family.

The old guidebook notes the relics left by subsequent colonists with gentle humour, “The Romans left mosaics and classical sculpture; the British left a cricket pitch, ginger beer and excellent chutney.”

What are the Troika leaving behind? Dead bodies.

It’s time to stop. It’s time to put people first. If we don’t the body count could cross that undefined border, where austerity stops looking like policy and begins to look like a crime against humanity.

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Misconceiving British Austerity

by  Robert Skidelsky

LONDON – Was the British government’s decision to embrace austerity in the wake of the global financial crisis the right policy, after all? Yes, claims the economist Kenneth Rogoff in a much-discussed recent commentary. Rogoff argues that while, in hindsight, the government should have borrowed more, at the time there was a real danger that Britain would go the way of Greece. So Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne turns out, on this view, to be a hero of global finance.

To show that there was a real threat of capital flight, Rogoff uses historical cases to demonstrate that the United Kingdom’s credit performance has been far from credible. He mentions the 1932 default on its World War I debt owed to the United States, the debts accumulated after World War II, and the UK’s “serial dependence on International Monetary Fund bailouts from the mid-1950’s until the mid-1970’s.”

What Rogoff’s analysis lacks is the context in which these supposed offenses were committed. The 1932 default on Britain’s WWI loans from America remains the largest blemish on the UK’s debt history, but the background is crucial. The world emerged from the Great War in the shadow of a mountain of debt that the victorious Allies owed to one another (the US being the only net creditor), and by the losers to the victors. John Maynard Keynes predicted accurately that all of these debts would end up in default.

The UK was the only country that made an effort to pay. Having failed to collect what other countries owed it, Britain continued to pay the US for ten years, suspending debt service only in the depth of the Great Depression.

Rogoff’s discussion about the debts accumulated after WWII is beside the point. It is neither here nor there to claim that “had the UK not used a labyrinth of rules and regulations to hold nominal interest rates on debt below inflation, its debt-to-GDP ratio might have risen over the period 1945-1955 instead of falling dramatically.” The fact is that the UK did manage to reduce its debt using a series of policies, including encouragement of economic growth.

As for the UK’s “serial dependence” on the IMF from the mid-1950’s to the mid-1970’s, there were actually only two episodes: the 1956 bailout during the Suez crisis and the 1976 bailout that preceded the winter of discontent when strikes in many essential industries – even the dead went unburied – practically brought the country to its knees. (It hardly needs stating that borrowing money from the IMF is not a default.)

In 1956, the UK was facing a speculative attack in the midst of the Suez crisis. The country was running a current-account surplus, but the pound was slipping against the dollar, causing the Bank of England to sell its dollar reserves to defend the fixed exchange rate. As its reserves drained away, Prime Minister Anthony Eden was forced to appeal for help, first to the US and then to the IMF.

The IMF’s involvement was necessitated only by America’s unwillingness to provide support. Furthermore, US President Dwight Eisenhower went so far as to use America’s clout within the IMF to force Eden to withdraw British troops from Egypt in exchange for the loan.

The reality of the 1976 bailout is even more complicated. In the aftermath of the crisis, Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey revealed that the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement had been grossly overestimated in the 1970’s, and that, had he had the right figures, the UK would never have needed a loan. According to him, the Treasury even failed to recognize that the UK would have a tax surplus.

Of course, all of this had drastic implications for the economy. Tony Benn, a Labour cabinet minister in the 1970’s, later revealed that the “winter of discontent,” which ushered in a Tory government at the end of the decade, had been caused by the severe cuts in public expenditure demanded by the IMF: “Why did we have the winter of discontent? Because in 1976, the IMF said to the cabinet, ‘You cut four billion pounds off your public expenditure or we will destroy the value of the pound sterling.’”

There is little evidence for Rogoff’s implicit assumption that investors’ decisions today are driven by the government’s handling of its debt in the past. The number of defaults is largely irrelevant when it comes to a country like the UK, which is politically stable, carries significant economic weight, and has an independent central bank.

Consider Germany, the “biggest debt transgressor of the twentieth century,” according to the economic historian Albrecht Ritschl. In the table on page 99 of their book This Time is Different, Rogoff and his co-author, Carmen Reinhart, show that Germany experienced eight debt defaults and/or restructurings from 1800 to 2008. There were also the two defaults through inflation in 1920 and 1923. And yet today Germany is Europe’s economic hegemon, laying down the law to miscreants like Greece.

The truth is that a country’s past failures do not influence investors if its current institutions and economic policies are sound. That was clearly the case when Osborne and his colleagues opted for austerity.

 

    Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2013.

    www.project-syndicate.org

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Greek Orthodox parishioners mark consecration of renovated Tenafly chapel

Metropolitan Evangelos, head of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of New Jersey ... to mark completion of a $500,000 renovation of the chapel, its lobby and church administrative offices. The improvements to the chapel, which is dedicated to the Virgin ...

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Campaign Against Cancer “Pink the Bridge”

A symbolic event entitled “Pink the Bridge” consisting of a passage full of life and hope, is organized by the Association “Alma Zois” of Achaia. The public announcement says “Come with us to cross the Rio-Antirion Bridge on Sunday October 27, 2013, at 11 am, dressed in pink in aim to build a human bridge […]

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Thessaloniki: Minor Incident at “Oxi Day” Parade

The annual school parade to commemorate the anniversary of October 28 (“Ochi Day”) took place in Thessaloniki, with the participation of students from primary and secondary schools, on Sunday. The national holiday commemorates Greece’s resounding “Oxi” (No) to an ultimatum by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s for free passage before invading Greece, during World War II. […]

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Bad Weather Increases the Price of Olives

The British newspaper Daily Mail has an extensive article on its internet page, for the price of olives in Greece. The bad weather in Greece led to shortage in harvest. Sometimes the price of olives rise by 50 percent compared to last year’s price. According to the farmers, we will see a rise in the […]

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Maria's Bulgarian mother denies selling her daughter

Sofia (AFP) - The Bulgarian Roma mother of Maria, a young blonde girl whose fate made headlines around the world when she was found in a Greek Roma camp, tearfully denied on Sunday that she had sold her daughter.

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FOTOGRAFIA: Dilemma in Thessaloniki

These are busy days in Greece's second-largest city, Thessaloniki. Here, Greek Orthodox priests attend a mass on Oct. 26 at the Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Dimitrios', during celebrations for the 101 years since the city's liberation of the Ottoman empire. That came two days before the city would also mark Oxi Day to remember Greece's refusal to surrender without a shot to Italy at the beginning of WWII. Sadly, even that has divided Greeks as Mayor Yiannis Boutaris has threatened not to attend the military parade after the head of the regional authority invited Golden Dawn MPs to join other dignitaries. ?The stance taken by the Central Macedonia Regional Authority is unacceptable,? said Boutaris after Apostolos Tzitzicostas invited the extremist lawmakers to attend other officials. Its leaders are under arrest on charges of running a criminal gang. ?I don?t know if this can be rectified. I will think about it long and hard if I will go to the same podium as these gentlemen,? added Boutaris. Tzitzicostas said he would not ?take lessons? from Boutaris, whose Arctouros bear sanctuary accepted a donation from Golden Dawn but later returned the money. Tzitzicostas said Boutaris was more interested in supporting the Gay Pride parade than the military parade. This year will be the first time for three years that armored vehicles and airplanes will take part in the event. Previously, they had not been present in order to keep costs down during a crushing economic crisis.

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Police Keep Golden Dawn, Anti-Fascists Apart

ATHENS ? Fearful of clashes, Greek police stepped in to make sure that there would be no trouble between some 1,000 supporters of the extremist Golden Dawn party and anti-fascists who were demonstrating near each other in the city on Oct. 26. Golden Dawn backers were protesting the arrest of the party's top leaders on charges of running a criminal gang as the government also moved to cut off the party's state subsidies. Golden Dawn has 18 Members of Parliament and six are being prosecuted, along with several dozen other party members. The extreme-right, anti-immigrant party is under a criminal investigation regarding last month's fatal stabbing of a Greek rap singer.

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"Blonde Angel" of Greece Faces Adoption

The mother of 'Bllonde Angel' Maria ? the little girl who sparked an international investigation after she was found living with a Roma gipsy couple in Greece ? stands little chance of ever being reunited with her daughter. Instead, the youngster?s future will almost certainly be with a foster family in either Greece or Bulgaria. The child has been at the center of a global Interpol investigation since she was found during a police raid on the Tabakou gypsy settlement near Farsala, central Greece, earlier this month. Officers became suspicious because she bore no resemblance to the woman falsely claiming to be her mother ? Hristos Salis, 39 ? or her partner, Eleftheria Dimopoulou, 40. The pair have now been charged with child abduction. Meanwhile, Maria?s birth mother, Sasha Ruseva, 35, remains in Bulgaria, where police are investigating claims that she sold her daughter.

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Greek police search for Roma man who bears "resemblance" to missing Briton Ben Needham

Greek prosecutors have ordered their counterparts in Cyprus to find the man after footage of him was handed in by an anonymous source. The video was received by Panayiotis Avrithis, the president of the Lawyers Association in Kos. The missing Briton would ...

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Puerto Rico's Debt Crisis: Puerto Pobre

A heavily indebted island weighs on America’s municipal-bond market...

ALTHOUGH investors are now less jittery about a possible default by the American Treasury, they are rightly still nervous about a drama unfolding in the market for state and local debt. Since May, yields on bonds issued by Puerto Rico, a self-governing American territory, have shot up to between 8% and 10%, despite their (barely) investment-grade rating and tax-exempt interest.

Puerto Rico carries outsized importance in America’s almost $4 trillion municipal-debt market, which includes bonds issued by states and other local authorities as well as by cities. The island’s current debt, between $52 billion and $70 billion (depending on how it is measured), is the third-largest behind California’s and New York’s, despite a far smaller and poorer population. In America’s 50 states the average ratio of state debt to personal income is 3.4%. Moody’s, a ratings agency, puts Puerto Rico’s tax-supported debt at an eye-watering 89% (see chart).

Puerto Rico’s debt has long been a staple of American municipal-bond funds because of its high yields and its exemption from federal and local taxes--of particular appeal to investors in high-tax states. That let Puerto Rico keep borrowing despite its shaky economic and financial condition, until Detroit’s bankruptcy in July alerted investors to the threat of default by other governments in similar penury.

America won control of Puerto Rico in the Spanish-American war of 1898. Its people have American citizenship and receive American government pensions, but pay no federal tax on their local income.

The economy has big structural problems. Participation in the labour force, at 41%, is some 20 percentage points below America’s. The island has the federal minimum wage, even though local productivity and incomes are far lower than in the rest of America, creating a strong disincentive to hire. Inflated benefit payments, for disability for instance, discourage work. Moody’s Analytics reckons the territory’s bloated public sector accounts for 20% of employment, compared with 3.7% for the average state (though it provides some services that the federal government would on the mainland). Growth and investment are hampered by bureaucracy, stunted infrastructure and crime.

Shrinking, sinking

Puerto Rico has been in recession virtually since 2006, when a federal tax break for corporate income expired, prompting many businesses to leave. As Puerto Ricans with prospects emigrate, the remaining population has aged and shrunk. The government has run budget deficits (prohibited for states) for the past decade, averaging 2.5% of GDP from 2009 to 2012. Its pension fund is only 7% funded, which is abysmal even by the standards of other American states and territories.

The current administration has sought to shore up its finances by increasing taxes by $1.1 billion (about 1% of GDP) and raising the retirement age for government employees, as well as the share of their salaries they contribute to their pensions. It has promised to wipe out its budget deficit, projected at $820m this fiscal year, by 2016.

Such austerity could further hobble growth, making it harder to shrink debt ratios. Luis Fortuño, the previous governor, lost his job last year partly because of public anger at the cuts he oversaw. Like Greece in the euro zone, Puerto Rico has no control over monetary policy (the preserve of the Federal Reserve), and so cannot mitigate a fiscal tightening with lower interest rates or a cheaper currency.

Investors meanwhile are so wary, after years of missed deficit targets, tardy financial reports and accounts opaquer than those of other states, that Puerto Rico has had to cut back on new bond issues. It is filling the gap with more short–term bank loans; but they come at punitive rates of interest and must be rolled over more often.

Investors are now openly debating whether Puerto Rico will default. Its constitution requires that its general-obligation bonds ($10.6 billion of the total) get first claim on tax revenues. Other bonds are backed by dedicated revenue such as sales tax and power bills and by a law authorising the government to pay interest ahead of other claims. "Honouring debts is not only a constitutional but also a moral obligation," Alejandro Padilla, the governor, told investors earlier this month.

Yet politically it may be tough to gratify bondholders if police, doctors and teachers go unpaid. The federal government cannot be counted on for a bail-out: fiscal hawks in Congress would almost certainly balk at the expense and the precedent.

Should Puerto Rico seek to restructure its debts, it would be entering uncharted legal terrain. Unlike a city it cannot declare bankruptcy. It does not enjoy the same sovereignty the constitution grants the states; should it try to renege on its debts, Congress might intervene. Years of litigation would follow.

Puerto Rico’s problems have not yet had much effect beyond its shores. Its debt is held mainly by mutual funds and individuals, although in recent months many have sold to distressed-debt specialists. Some brokers have stopped selling its bonds to their clients. Borrowing costs have risen for a few highly indebted states such as Illinois, but the majority have no trouble selling bonds, says Chris Mier of Loop Capital Markets, which specialises in municipal debt. Happily, state finances are much healthier today than in 2010. But complacency would not be wise. No state has defaulted since 1933. A default by Puerto Rico could come as a wake-up call.

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Study: Greeks Need to Adopt a Healthier Lifestyle

Lounging around in front of the TV with little to no exercise seems to be the modern way of life today, and Greeks seem to be adopting a tendency toward a sedentary  lifestyle leading to obesity. This data was presented after a study was conducted by the Hellenic Medical Association for Obesity from the department […]

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An American's Death, Still A Greek Mystery 65 Years Later

was not the kind of government he fought to save during World War II," William Polk recalls. The Greek government was so unhappy with George's reports that they asked CBS to reassign him. (CBS refused.) He got death threats and was constantly ...

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OXI Day: Iconic Images of Greece in WWII

On October 28th, millions around the world will commemorate OXI Day, a day honoring Greece’s courageous resistance during WWII. On October 28th, 1940, the Italian ambassador to Greece, Emanuele Grazzi delivered an ultimatum from Benito ...

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Is Roma man missing Ben Needham? Greek police to carry out DNA tests

Images and video of a man in living with a Roma family on Cyprus could be the Brit who went missing from Kos, aged, 2, in 1991.

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Passion Pit turns in spirited Greek set

Passion Pit turns in spirited Greek setOCRegister (subscription)Next at the Greek Theatre: The Flaming Lips with Tame Impala and White Denim, Tuesday, $39.50-$49.50; Deftones with Glassjaw, Friday, $39.50; Two Door Cinema Club with Capital Cities and St. Lucia, Saturday, $35. Call: 800-745-3000.

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Austerity may prove the saviour of Greece's far right

Irish ExaminerAusterity may prove the saviour of Greece's far rightIrish ExaminerGolden Dawn — the political party with the most optimistic name on the planet — began life almost 30 years ago, a decade after the overthrow of the military junta in Greece, a small group with beliefs similar to the Nazis. They adopted the same ...When the state turns antifalibcom.orgGolden Dawn supporters protest in Greek capitalMiamiHerald.comall 42 news articles »

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Greek police investigating disappearance of British toddler Ben Needham in 1991 to carry out DNA tests on Roma man

A young man living with a Roma family in Cyprus will be DNA tested after evidence emerged suggesting he could be missing Brit Ben Needham, a newspaper has claimed. Greek authorities believe they may have identified Ben, who was just two went he ...

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'Maria' Case Leads Greek Police to Child Trafficking Ring

NPR'Maria' Case Leads Greek Police to Child Trafficking RingNovinite.comIn a more recent child trafficking scheme that operated in Central Greece, Roma women were "recruited" in Bulgaria; brought to Greece to give birth and the newborns were sold to Greek couples. The authorities are probing about 40 similar cases. However ...Maria's Greek family wants her backTimes of MaltaDNA test: Bulgarian Roma woman is mother of Greek mystery girlThe Seattle TimesGreek Roma couple Christos Salis, Eleftheria Dimopoulou seek release over ...The Daily TelegraphThe Malay Mail Online -StarPhoenixall 73 news articles »

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Greek ambassador visits Newcastle

Greek ambassador visits NewcastleNewcastle HeraldScenes from the special liturgy attended by the ambassador of Greece to Australia Charalambos Dafaranos at the Greek Orthodox Church in Hamilton on Sunday. Picture: Phil Hearne. Scenes from the special liturgy attended by the ambassador of Greece to ...

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Young Greek Entrepreneurs Finding Success

ATHENS ? Over the past three years, the European country most affected by the global economic crisis is without doubt Greece. Today, almost six in 10 young people are unemployed, 58.8% of those under 24. Many have also moved abroad since the country has struggled to recover from the recession. The Troika, (the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and the European Commission in Brussels) returned to review the country?s progress in Athens earlier this month, keeping the pressure on for Greece. ?If we leave, what will be left of Greece when it comes out of this crisis?? asks Georges Spanoudakis. The 29-year-old heads up Pinnatta, a flourishing startup created barely three years ago.

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TAXIDI: Ikaria, Island of Longevity

Wedded to the mantra that money is better spent on experiences than on the latest roll-out from Apple, we visited Ikaria, the deliciously isolated and funky island in the Aegean Sea. It so happened that all four of my grandparents were born on this hardscrabble terrain between 1890 and 1895, before landing at Ellis Island. From the time I was small, for my amusement and enjoyment, they indulged my fantasies about this dusty gem, a 35-minute flight from the capital city of Athens, but within sight of the coast of Turkey. (Funny thing: Ikaria is not even labeled on the map in the seat pocket on our Olympic Airlines flight.) My grandparents waxed poetic with tales of English pirates, abject poverty and deadly diseases. While Ikarians are proud of their stubborn, independent streak ? the 8,000 residents are unabashedly Ikarians first, Greeks second ?- nature has smiled on its dry, unforgiving terra firma.

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Letter To Athens: Greek Products Miss U.S. Market

NEW YORK - What's all this fuss about Greek yogurt in the United States? Coming to New York for a two-week respite from the insanity of Athens and the Greek economic crisis also provided a chance to find out why Americans were all gaga over yogurt that Greeks take for granted. The king of the hill is Chobani, owned by a Turkish-American, Hamdi Ulukaya, who stole the American market from the Greek turncoat company Fage, which gave up on its own country. Fage, like most Greek companies, didn't want to pay to advertise and believed God would spread the message about its product. Fage pioneered Greek yogurt in the United States 24 years ago, putting it on the shelves of Titan Foods in Astoria, N.Y. Where it was gobbled up fast, and not just by Greeks of the Diaspora, but customers who soon realized despite its exorbitant price that it was a lot better than the watery version being sold by American companies.

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Maria: Greece's mystery girl

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Golden Dawn demands party leader’s release

Supporters of the Greek neo-Nazi party stage a rally outside its offices in Athens after police blocked anti-fascist demonstrators from marching on the building

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Greece painter fits door to yoga studio Breathe

They had a problem with a door. It wasn’t just any door. On a trip to Asia, the owners had purchased a 300-year-old authentic Indian door that they meant to install in their new business along with other furniture from India and China.

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Neo-Nazis rain on Greece patriot parade

A political dust-up erupted in Greece on Saturday following a provincial governor's decision to invite the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party to an annual parade honoring resistance to fascism. Thessaloniki's governor, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, insists he is bound by law to invite lawmakers from all parties represented in parliament, including neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, which has 18 members of ...

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National Bank of Greece SA Message Board

Greece, which is about to enter its sixth consecutive year of a deep recession that has pushed unemployment up to 25%, is being kept afloat with rescue loans from its European partners and the International Monetary Fund.

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Tour of impoverished Bulgarian village sheds light on Maria's plight

DNA tests have now solved part of the mystery of Maria, the child called the "blond angel" by Greek media after she was discovered during a police raid on a Roma camp in Farsala, Greece. Her birth parents are Bulgarian -- Saska Ruseva and Atanas ...

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What it Means to be Greek

Greek ReporterWhat it Means to be GreekGreek ReporterTwo Greek immigrants Ivan Silvenberg and Georgia Taxaki created the touching video entitled “What it means to be Greek.” The video lasts for about 12 minutes and it gives us insight on what it means to be Greek. The creators of the video were born and ...

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Blonde angel Maria 'may never be reunited with mother' and will instead almost certainly be placed with a foster family either in Greece or Bulgaria

Meanwhile, Maria’s birth mother, Sasha Ruseva, 35, remains in Bulgaria, where police are investigating claims that she sold her daughter. ‘Given the circumstances of the two women, it is extremely unlikely either will see Maria in the ...

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Human rights lawyer Roma at risk of having children removedRoma parents are at risk of having their children seized after a Greek Roma familys non-biological daughter was taken from them a human rights activist said.

Roma parents are at risk of having their children seized after a Greek Roma family's non-biological daughter was taken from them, a human rights activist said.Greek authorities removed a 4-year-old blond-haired, blue-eyed girl known as Maria from a Roma camp after a DNA test found that the couple she was living with were not her biological parents.On Friday, Bulgarian authorities confirmed ...

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Greek Roma couple Christos Salis, Eleftheria Dimopoulou seek release over 'Maria'

A GREEK Roma couple held for allegedly snatching a young blonde girl known as Maria, will seek release from prison after the child's biological parents were found in Bulgaria, their lawyer says. "My clients will appeal against their detention," lawyer ...

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Mystery girl Maria's parents found

The girl taken by police from a Roma couple in Greece has been proven to be the daughter of a Bulgarian woman.

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No Citi Does Not Say Greece “Devastation” Is Inevitable

Greek debt is a problem, but not a disaster. Greece is not a stable country, and it does not have a thriving economy. The country’s debt problems and political paralysis have been the subject of much analysis. A new Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) report on the ...

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Tests prove biological parents of Roma girl found in Greece

DNA tests confirmed a Bulgarian Roma couple as the biological parents of the girl found in Greece with another Roma couple, authorities said ...

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DNA tests reveal origin of mystery girl living with Roma in Greece

Minka Ruseva, daughter of Sasha Ruseva, covers her face in a Roma neighborhood of Nikolaevo, Bulgaria, Friday, Oct. 25, 2013. Sasha Ruseva, a Bulgarian Roma woman, is under investigation by Bulgarian authorities trying to find out if she is the mother of a suspected abduction victim in neighboring Greece known as 'Maria' whose case has triggered a global search for her real parents. (AP ...

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