New Greek Leader’s Cabinet Signals Willingness to Confront E.U.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s new cabinet includes Yanis Varoufakis, an economist who has called the eurozone austerity policy “fiscal waterboarding.”

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Yanis Varoufakis: maverick economist with Greece’s fate in his hands

Confrontational Greek Australian MP assumes government’s most sensitive post ready for a fight with Europe over austerityYanis Varoufakis, Greece’s new finance minister, has been described variously as maverick, brilliant, visionary and self-obsessed. The 53-year-old economist, who has flourished on the back of intensive commentary on Europe’s financial crisis – delivered through blogs, tweets, lectures and books – is no stranger to controversy.Of all the economists who have united around Alexis Tsipras, the country’s new far left leader, he is by far the most confrontational. The terms attached to the bailout programmes propping up the Greek economy are tantamount to “fiscal waterboarding” he says. But he has Tsipras’s ear. Continue reading...

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Markets too relaxed about risks from Greece, thinktank claims

Expectations for Greece’s departure from the euro are still low – but Capital Economics argues calm is unlikely to lastAre markets too sanguine about contagion from Greece? The short answer is yes, says thinktank Capital Economics, which argues that the calm is unlikely to last. That verdict seems correct. It is bizarre that bond yields across the eurozone, apart from Greece’s, continue to hug Germany’s. Spanish 10-year yields are 1.4% even as the anti-austerity party Podemos, which wants a debt restructuring, makes the running in opinion polls.Capital Economics offers a few reasons why markets might be relaxed before concluding that bond prices are still wrong. First, expectations for Grexit, or Greece’s departure from the euro, are still low. Second, Grexit is deemed less risky than in the past because the European Central Bank has greater crisis-fighting powers than in 2012. Third, even Portugal’s position is not as dire as Greece’s and cheaper oil prices may give everybody a lift. Continue reading...

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Greece says No to EU statement on Russia

The new far-left government in Greece dropped a bombshell on its first day in office by abjuring an EU statement on Russia. It said in a press ...

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New FinMin Varoufakis will continue blogging, despite day job

Greece’s new Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, famous anti-austerity economist, author,  writer and blogger with thousands of followers said that he will continue blogging -despite his new day job. In a post uploaded Tuesday morning, just a couple of hours before he sworn-in,  Varoufakis wrote: Finance Ministry slows blogging down but […]

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Germany Deserved Debt Relief, Greece Doesn't

Syriza, Greece's new ruling party, makes an attractive argument for writing off Greek debt: Wasn't Germany, now the biggest opponent of debt relief, ...

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Greece's new premier repudiates EU line on Russia sanctions, says Greece was not consulted

by  Associated Press New Greek premier repudiates EU line on Russia sanctions Associated Press - 27 January 2015 15:47-05:00 ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's new prime minister has lashed out against the European Union even before his new radical left government was sworn in. Alexis Tsipras' office said Greece has expressed displeasure over Tuesday's joint declaration by EU leaders threatening fresh sanctions against Russia over Ukraine. In a statement released just before his government was sworn in, Tsipras' office said Greece had not been consulted on the declaration, and didn't consent to its content. The rare joint declaration was triggered by Moscow's perceived "growing support" for separatists in eastern Ukraine during intensified fighting over the past days. The EU has imposed economic and political sanctions on Moscow and officials linked with last year's annexation of Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula. Tsipras took office Monday, a day after his election victory on an anti-austerity platform. News Topics: General news, Sanctions and embargoes, Government and politics, Foreign policy, Government policy, International relations People, Places and Companies: Alexis Tsipras, Moscow, Greece, Crimea, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Western Europe Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Names of 2 Greek pilots killed in F-16 crash announced

Dead are 35 years old Flight Lieutenant Panagiotis Laskaris married and father of one and 31 year old Flight Lieutenant Athanasios Zagras married and father of two

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Merkel says ‘nein’ to Greek debt relief request

German chancellor stated “surprised” by Tsipras request - The last installment shall be released only if Greece honors its commitments

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Handing over the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not an easy case

Kotzias: Whoever believes that we will give up in European policies due to debt makes a huge mistake - Venizelos: Greece did not accept for a minute any pressure in the name of economic policy

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Tsipras picks anti-austerity professor as Greek finance minister

The 67-year-old former member of the Greek communist party's central committee is the only cabinet member with experience of government, having ...

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New Greek PM Alexis Tsipras forms cabinet

Greek PM Alexis Tsipras has formed a new cabinet with Yanis Varoufakis as finance minister and right-winger Panos Kammenos as defence minister. Mr Varoufakis is an outspoken critic of the conditions imposed on Greece in return for the 2010 bailout.

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New Greek Govt Could Mean Cheaper Holidays in Greece

Tourist agencies see that the election of the new Greek government could mean cheaper holidays, fewer strikes and better transport in Greece, according to a Telegraph report. The slump of the European common currency is an important factor, especially for visitors outside the Eurozone. Greece has many visitors from the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian countries who may find that this year’s holidays in the Greek islands will cost them less. Noel Josephides, chairman of travel association Abta and managing director of Greek specialists Sunvil Holidays, suggested that trips to Greece from the UK “can only get cheaper,” according to the Telegraph. The possibility of Greece exiting the Eurozone is not very big, but if that happens, holidays in Greece could get cheaper, according to Nick Trend, Telegraph Travel Consumer Editor. “A new drachma would be worth far less than the euro,” he said. “Independent travellers would benefit most at first because they will be paying for their accommodation in drachmas – as opposed to the prices in sterling offered by tour operators.” The leftist SYRIZA government could also mean that there will be fewer strikes, protest rallies and general social unrest in big cities such as Athens and Thessaloniki, said Josephides. “There will not be any violence because this is a popular movement – people are fed up with the old political regime and have voted for change,” he added. Nick Trend concurred that strikes and protest rallies — “the bane of travel in Greece” — will be less likely than before. Another factor that may benefit visitors is the SYRIZA promise of nationalizing ferry services. “Huge improvements could be made to ferry services in Greece – if they are looking to address this, then that’s good news for travellers,” Josephides said. So far, the political uncertainty of the past few weeks has not deterred tourists who want to visit the country. Bookings for holidays in Greece for 2015 are slightly up compared to the same time last year.

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Paint the Town Red: Syriza's Historic Victory and the Steep Road to Greek Recovery

The decisive victory of Syriza, the Coalition of the Radical Left, is a historic event for the Greek left. Still, it would be a mistake to interpret Syriza's win as reflecting an ideological shift among Greek voters, rather than an act of desperation against austerity.Alexis Tsipras, leader of the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza), speaks in Thessaloniki, Greece, a few days before the national elections of 2015. (Photo: via Shutterstock) Do you want to see more stories like this published? Click here to help Truthout continue doing this work! After six years of a severe depression in which output has shrunk by 25 percent and unemployment went through the roof, rising from 9 percent in 2009 to 27.8 percent in the first quarter of 2014 before dropping to still unbearably high levels at 25.5 percent in the third quarter of 2014, the Greek electorate seems to have had enough with austerity, misery, poverty, authoritarianism and national humiliation. (1) In the general elections held on January 25, voters resolutely turned their back on the two mainstream political parties - the conservative party of New Democracy and the center-left Pasok - that have functioned as servants to the troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has essentially ruled the nation since the introduction of a financial bailout agreement back in May 2010, (2) by handing power to the radical left Syriza party. Syriza won 36 percent of the vote (finishing eight points ahead of the conservatives) and will hold 149 seats (two short of an absolute majority) in the 300-seat parliament. The decisive victory of the Coalition of the Radical Left, as Syriza is formally known, is a historic event for the Greek left, as it has never ruled Greece in modern history - although it has always been at the forefront of the struggle for democracy, freedom and social justice, with its leaders and many of its supporters ruthlessly persecuted by the right for nearly 30 years after the end of World War II. Still, it would be a mistake to interpret Syriza's victory as reflecting necessarily an ideological shift among voters. The majority of the people who voted for Syriza did not suddenly turn left but did so out of despair over their own predicament and from anger regarding the condition of the country. The policies of the troika have caused massive economic damage that will take decades to repair, and have produced untold social pain and misery, which in many cases can never be reversed. (3) The infamous bailout packages ensured the repayment of loans to Europe's banks and preserved the euro at the expense of an entire nation, which became subject to inhumanly harsh austerity measures while the national interests and dignity of the country were shred into pieces by non-elected and unaccountable officials, neoliberal barbarians in the European Union and the IMF working at the behest of banks and the financial elite. In the midst of this unfolding catastrophe, only Syriza challenged systematically and with courage the EU-IMF duo's decisions and stood up to the lackey domestic governments that were enforcing its respective policies. Only Syriza was able to produce an alternative, even if rather moderate, economic program for dealing with the unfolding humanitarian crisis. Only Syriza created a vision for tomorrow and articulated it with passion and in a way that included all citizens irrespective of political and ideological differences. In the end, it was all these realizations that drove a significant percentage of Greek citizens to cast their vote for the left. The notion of a Greek recovery proved to be one gigantic lie. (4) All this is not to say that Syriza lives in a dream world. Syriza is fully aware of the realities and challenges facing the party and a Syriza-led government. First, with the overwhelming majority of Greek citizens clinging almost irrationally to the euro, Syriza's leadership abandoned talk of Greece leaving the euro and focused its rhetoric on changing Greece while simultaneously changing Europe with its post-austerity vision. The party leadership's determination to rise to power apparently required the adoption of a "realistic" strategy, but one which is still injected with emotional, political rhetoric powerful enough to move the downtrodden and humiliated masses. What comes to mind in trying to provide a functional understanding of Syriza's transformational vision is President Obama's "Yes We Can" proverbial rhetoric. By the same token, Alexis Tsipras' speech delivery pattern and body movement sought to imitate Pasok's founder and longtime prime minister, Andreas Papandreou, who was by all accounts a magnetic orator. Hopefully, however, Syriza's vision won't have the same fate as Obama's "Yes We Can" while it is virtually certain that Tsipras will not end up imitating Papandreou's own politics, which relied mostly on lying, deception and the manipulation of public opinion. Apropos of the above strategic outlook, Syriza retreated from its early, openly confrontational stance toward Greece's international creditors, which called for a unilateral end of the bailout agreement; instead, the party opted for a policy of renegotiation of Greece's debt, with an emphasis on the need for a significant write-down of Greek public debt, which has increased substantially since the introduction of the bailout agreement and most of it is held by European institutions. How Syriza's leadership will react in the event (which is the most likely one) that Greece's international creditors refuse to agree to debt relief is still something of a mystery. Realistically speaking, what will probably happen once such negotiations get under way is that Syriza's government will be provided with more favorable debt repayment terms in a take-it-or-leave-it package. Both the IMF and the ECB have already emphasized that they won't take any losses against Greek debt while the voices coming out of Berlin stress the fact that Greece must continue on the path of the already agreed terms. In 2015, Greece has to repay in principle and interest loans, which amount to 22 billion euros. In the meantime, Syriza's economic program - which involves (a) helping out those who have been hit hardest by the crisis and are in need of access to free electricity, food and rent subsidies; (b) restoring the minimum wage to 751 euros per month; and (c) creating 300,000 new jobs for the unemployed via the implementation of public employment schemes - is estimated to cost 12 billion euros, if not much more. According to Syriza's calculations, the cost for these measures will be covered by cracking down on tax evasion, by issuing new Treasury bills that will be purchased by Greek banks and as a result of maintaining a not so large surplus account as a result of a write-down of Greece's debt. Unfortunately, Syriza's financing plan for its economic program is as shaky as a three-legged giraffe. It is highly questionable at this point in the game that much money can be generated by cracking down on tax evasion while a write-down on Greek debt is a most improbable event as virtually all major actors inside Europe, but also certain parties inside Greece, such as bank analysts and mainstream economists, seem to be convinced that Greece's current public debt-to-GDP ratio is sustainable even though it stands close to 176 percent. As for the issuing of Treasury bills to be purchased by Greek banks, it is highly doubtful that this can happen as Greece has apparently "already reached the issuance limit for its Treasury bills." (5) Furthermore, Greece has been locked out from the ECB's quantitative easing measures, which means the pressure on a Syriza-led government to stay the course on austerity and structural reforms will only intensify if it wishes to access the available liquidity. (6) Having said all this, it should be rather evident that Syriza's historic victory ensures that "interesting times" lie ahead both for Greece and Europe. Syriza's debt renegotiating team will have its hands full with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, the ECB boys, and the hard-liners from Holland and Finland. Syriza's mixture of Keynesianism and Marxism to economic issues also won't sit well with institutions like the IMF in spite of the latter having advocated in the past the need for a restructuring of Greek public debt (although it is against a "haircut" involving its own loans to Greece). In the meantime, Syriza leader Tsipras lost no time following the elections to form a coalition government with the party of Independent Greeks, a populist, right-wing political organization that has opposed austerity and the troika's presence in Greece all along. This collaboration appears to have been in the making long before the outcome of the elections and in preparation of the eventuality that Syriza may fail to attain an absolute majority. The party of Independent Greeks has promised to provide unequivocal support to Syriza's project for lifting the country out of its extreme crisis and, while in politics, everything is possible, the fact of the matter is that the junior coalition partner has nothing to gain by seeking to undermine Syriza's hold on power when the tough gets going, as some on the left seem to be concerned about, given the obvious ideological gap that divides the two parties. The leader of Independent Greeks receives the crucial post of defense minister and there is also a role in the new government for a few other members of the party. In sum, this is a political marriage that should last for some time - at least as long as the struggle against the troika lasts! A Syriza-led government will restructure several ministries in order to make them more flexible and thus more effective, and promises to put its program into action without any delay. Without a doubt, this is the first time in the country's recent history that a political party takes the reins of power, which does not consist of political frausters and carpetbaggers. The people around Syriza's inner circle have been for the most part long-time activists and true devotees to radical change, even if the party had to accept in its ranks various kinds of opportunists and former apparatchiks of the now virtually defunct socialist party as part of its strategy for coming to power. Following its electoral victory, Syriza made history for a second time when Tsipras refused, as a declared atheist, to be sworn in as new prime minister of Greece by taking a religious oath and opting instead for a secular oath. This was in itself a bold, revolutionary act, if you wish, considering how conservative Greek society really is and how intertwined church and state have been throughout Greece's modern history. This gesture is also probably suggestive of a logic that Tsipras will not compromise on values he holds dearly and when he knows that his non-compromising stand will not adversely affect the well-being of his people. As further evidence in his belief that "the heart beats on the left," after he was sworn in as new Greek prime minister, Tsipras visited the National Resistance Memorial in the Athens suburb of Kaisariani and laid a wreath in memory of the hundreds of communist resistance fighters who were executed by the Germans on May 1, 1944. Greece's path to recovery remains long and steep. But with Syriza in power there is at least a fighting chance against the austerians and those who wish to keep Greece financially subjugated, forever under debt and locked inside the neoliberal prison. This is why Greek voters gave their consent to Syriza's vision - out of awareness that the left's history is about resistance, revolt and social transformation. Footnotes: 1. See C.J. Polychroniou, "Greece: A Nation for Sale and the Death of Democracy." Truthout (July 31, 2014). 2. See C.J. Polychroniou, "A Failure By Any Other Name: The International Bailouts of Greece." Public Policy No. 6, 2013. Annandale-on-Hudson, NY: Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. July 2013. 3. See C.J. Polychroniou, "The Tragedy of Greece: A Case Against Neoliberal Economics, the Domestic Political Elite, and the EU/IMF Duo." Public Policy No. 1, 2013. Annandale-on-Hudson, NY: Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. March 2013. 4. See C.J. Polychroniou, "The Greek 'Success Story' of a Crushing Economy and a Failed State." Truthout (January 19, 2014). 5. Stratfor Global Intelligence, "Greece's New Government Faces Serious Discord Over Debt." (January 26, 2015). http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/greeces-new-government-faces-serious-discord-over-debt#axzz3Q1M8OaeY 6. See C.J. Polychroniou, "ECB: The Ultimate Enforcer of the European Neoliberal Project?" Truthout (January 27, 2015).

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The Guardian view on Syriza’s Essex connection

Oxbridge graduates may rule in Britain. But a different British university is making the running in GreeceOne consequence of Syriza’s victory in Greece has been a flurry of publicity for the alma mater of some of the new governing party’s most prominent leaders. Until Sunday, Rena Dourou MA (Essex) was Syriza’s highest-ranking elected official, as governor of the Attica region. On Tuesday, Yanis Varoufakis PhD (Essex) was named as Syriza’s economics minister, tasked with the daunting job of renegotiating Greece’s debt. Both are among nearly 4,000 Greeks who have graduated from Albert Sloman’s once famously non-deferential university in the past half-century. Publicity and Essex University are words which have not always sat happily together from the days when the future Lord Triesman BA (Essex) was suspended for trying to create the Free University of Essex there in 1968. All the above, though, are part of the rich social science tradition with which Essex has long been associated, from the time of the poverty guru Peter Townsend onwards. Today that tradition continues with Essex’s indispensable British Election Study and its authoritative Institute for Social and Economic Research. With exquisite timing, however, Essex’s new dominance in Greek radical politics coincides with the reign of a hierarchical new Essex university regime under the soldier turned vice-chancellor Anthony Forster which smacks more of the Greek colonels than Athenian democracy. First Greece, then Spain, they chant. But there may be a job to do in Colchester too. Continue reading...

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Finance minister Varoufakis: Greece's 'Dr Doom'

Yanis Varoufakis, handed the potentially explosive role of finance minister in Greece's new anti-austerity government, is known as "Dr Doom" over his stance on the country's deep economic woes. Varoufakis believes the shattered country can never begin to recover until its massive international rescue package is completely renegotiated. Varoufakis, a shaven-headed 53-year-old economist who has ...

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Greek PM Alexis Tsipras unveils cabinet of mavericks and visionaries

New finance minister says debt negotiations will not continue with hated troika of technocrats representing foreign lendersGreece’s prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has lined up a formidable coterie of academics, human rights advocates, mavericks and visionaries to participate in Europe’s first anti-austerity government.Displaying few signs of backing down from pledges to dismantle punitive belt-tightening measures at the heart of the debt-choked country’s international rescue programme, the leftwing radical put together a 40-strong cabinet clearly aimed at challenging Athens’ creditors. Continue reading...

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Greece elections: In times like these, the EU has far more dangerous adversaries than Syriza

… both the eurozone and Greek governments want Greece to stay in the … party and the nominally Socialist Pasok party which had created and … reforms in Greece then this can only come through a Greek government …

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Ben Wright: Things could get ugly if Greece’s never-never actually means never

… coalition with the right-wing Independent Greeks party would appear to preclude … period then you are reducing Greece’s debts. There are, however … written off. Amending and extending Greece’s debts will help finesse …

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New Greek cabinet to hold first meeting on Wednesday

The first meeting of Greece's new cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, will take place at 10:30 local time on Wednesday in Parliament. It will be followed by the ministry hand-over ceremonies. ANA-MPA

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Syriza teams up with right-wing Independent party

Alexis Tsipras, the new Greek prime minister, has formed a coalition with the right-wing populist Independent Greeks. Opposition to Europe's imposed austerity has been the one issue to consistently unite the parties.

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To Potami slams new Greek government as 'bad with very few exceptions’

The new Greek government unveiled on Tuesday was "bad" with a "very few good exceptions" and built on the "unprincipled alliance" between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his junior coalition partner, Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos, the opposition

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Fed opens policy meeting with rate hike looming

Washington (AFP) - The Federal Reserve opened its first monetary policy meeting of the year Tuesday to take the pulse of the US economy and mull the first interest rate hike since 2006.The Federal Open Market Committee, the central bank's policy arm, gathered as a powerful snowstorm blanketed the Northeast, grinding activities to a halt, in a reminder of the unusually severe winter weather in the first quarter of 2014 that helped to push the economy into contraction.The world's largest economy has since been back on the growth path, putting in a robust five percent expansion in the third quarter that is expected to slow to 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter, but still leaving the US a relative bright spot among developed economies.The FOMC meeting "will provide another chance for the Fed to assess the impact of the higher dollar and lower oil prices on the policy outlook.  We don't anticipate major changes to the statement," said Barclays in a research note.After months of mostly positive data -- in December, the US unemployment rate fell to 5.6 percent and consumer confidence rebounded -- weak spots have emerged.Job growth slowed but remained solid; wages sagged, barely keeping up with inflation; and retail sales plunged broadly in a critical month for stores in the holiday shopping season.Data released Tuesday kept up the barrage of mixed signals.Consumer confidence, an indicator of how willing consumers are to opening their wallets, soared in January to its highest level since 2007, according to the Conference Board."Lower gasoline prices have boosted consumer sentiment to post-recession highs in recent months, and the particularly strong reading for January suggests the consumer sector remains upbeat" in the early part of the first quarter, Barclays said.In the housing sector, the Commerce Department reported new-home sales picked up sharply in December from November, and were up 8.8 percent from a year ago.The underlying trend in the housing market, however, pointed to a continued slowdown in price gains. The Case-Shiller 20-city price index rose 4.3 percent year-over-year in November, compared to 4.5 percent in October.A gloomy report on new orders for long-lasting manufactured goods was unexpected. Durable goods orders fell 3.4 percent in December, and November's revised decline was more than double the prior estimate.The durable goods orders, and a slew of big companies reporting weak earnings and blaming the stronger dollar, weighed heavily on Wall Street. The S&P 500 was down more than one percent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dived more than 300 points in midday trade. - How 'patient' is Fed? -The FOMC's post-meeting statement Wednesday will be pored over for clues to the central bank's thinking on the timing for the first interest rate hike since 2006.The Fed has kept its key federal funds rate pegged between zero and 0.25 percent since late 2008 to support the economy's recovery from the deep 2008-2009 recession.In October, the Fed ended its massive asset-purchase program, or quantitive easing, and has signaled that a rate hike would be coming this year.According to a Bloomberg News poll of 53 economists, 45 percent see the hike coming at the Fed's June meeting, six percent put it in July and 30 percent in September.The FOMC in December said it "can be patient" in beginning to raise rates as it monitors the economy, with the labor market improving but inflation remaining well below its 2.0 percent target, which the central bank attributes to "transitory" factors such as lower energy prices.Since the December FOMC meeting, the rapid slide in oil prices has pulled weak inflation even lower, corporate earnings season has gotten off to a bumpy start, and the ailing eurozone was dealt a blow by Sunday's resounding victory of a leftist, anti-austerity party in Greece.The European Central Bank's announcement last week of full-scale QE to stimulate growth and avert deflation in the 19-nation eurozone, was expected to at least help the huge US trade partner in the short term.Join the conversation about this story »

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Greek fears, US data dampen European stocks

Anxiety over Greece's new anti-austerity leadership and unexpectedly poor US performance data weighed down European stock markets on Tuesday, analysts said. Syriza are the first anti-austerity party to govern in Europe, but they fell two seats short of a 151-seat majority in parliament and were thus forced to forge the coalition with the small nationalist Independent Greeks (ANEL) party.

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Greece: Syriza comes to power, as old ruling parties collapse

What is the importance of the Greek election results? We can describe the result as of historical significance because it represented the collapse of the old forces that ruled the Greek political scene for decades. Also the rise of a new left formation ...

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Greece Looks To Renegotiate Bailout Terms

The newly elected leadership in Greece is against budget cuts imposed by the European economic zone in return for bailing it out. Renee Montagne ...

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Lois Curtis puts HERSELF on eBay to raise money for a holiday

Lois Curtis, from Haywards Heath, West Sussex, hoped a 'rugged, gorgeous Greek guy' would snap her up, but decided to halt the bidding after notching up a £205 bid in just over 12 hours.

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'Greece's coalition won't survive as parties can't agree on policies', analysts say

Analysts said the Independent Greeks party (pictured left is leader Panos Kammenos), which has formed a government with Syriza (right is leader Alexis Tsipras), is unpredictable at best.

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Holocaust Remembrance Day observed in Greece; around the world

International Holocaust Remembrance Day was observed around the world on Tuesday, as Jan. 27 marks the day Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by Soviet forces in 1945. Some 300 survivors of the notorious Nazi death camp — located in modern-day Poland — were joined by official delegations from 40 countries on Tuesday. A delegation of Greek Jews […]

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Greek election reflects country's differences with the EU

Syriza's leader Alexis Tsipras signs a book as he is sworn in as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, leader of Greece's Syriza party, signs a book as ...

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Former blogger now Greek finance minister

Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis ready to remodel harsh fiscal landscape imposed by bail-out

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Greek bank shares hit as deposits flee

Lenders set to tap emergency central bank lending facility

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Greek official: Stop 'vicious cycle'

Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis says the new government will look to "end the vicious cycle" of bailout and borrowing.

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Greek PM Tsipras names anti-austerity cabinet, port sale halted

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras named a cabinet of anti-austerity veterans and halted privatisation of Greece's biggest port on Tuesday, signalling he aims to stick to election pledges despite warning shots from the euro zone and financial markets. Greek markets endured a second day of turmoil, with bank shares diving and investors fearing the anti-bailout government might be set on a ...

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Greek finance minister: 'End the vicious cycle'

Greece's new Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis says the government will look to "end the vicious cycle" of bailout and borrowing.

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British PM Phones Tsipras, Congratulates Him on Victory

British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday spoke on the phone and congratulated his new Greek counterpart, Alexis Tsipras. Cameron welcomed Tsipras’ intention to fight corruption and stressed the need for joint cooperation to combat terrorism. According to an announcement by the British embassy in Athens, Greece, the British Premier’s office spokesperson said: “Prime Minister Tsipras thanked the [British] Prime Minister for the call and set out the immediate issues that his government would be focusing on, in particular in tackling Greece’s economic challenges. The Prime Minister welcomed Prime Minister Tsipras’ intention to tackle corruption and increase tax transparency across Greece and said that as a key advocate of these issues, the UK was keen to work closely with the Greek government. They also discussed foreign affairs, agreeing on the need to work together to tackle terrorism, in particular the threat of foreign fighters. They concluded that they looked forward to meeting at next month’s European Council in Brussels when they could continue discussions on these issues.” (source: ana-mpa)

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Greek market spirals as clash with creditors looms

LONDON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Greek markets endured a second day of turmoil on Tuesday, after weekend elections resulted in an anti-bailout ...

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Alexandroupolis Metropolitan in Favor of Religious Oath Abolition

Abolition of the religious oath in courts and inaugurations of elected officials, and its replacement by a civil oath, is proposed by Metropolitan Anthimos of Alexandroupolis in northern Greece. A day after new Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras refused to take a religious oath and took a political oath instead, the Alexandroupolis Metropolitan spoke to the Press about his proposal. “I feel guilty when I force state deputies, governors and mayors to swear to the Holy Bible,” Anthimos said. He also stressed that the religious oath is a very important matter for those who believe in God and a great parody to those who don’t. Referring to the origin of the religious oath, Anthimos explained that after Greece was liberated from the Ottoman occupation, the newly built Greek state needed to find a way to turn the uneducated rebels to citizens. The religious oath was “borrowed” from the Greek Church to add importance to official procedures. The swearing-in ceremony was established for state officials and public sector employees. Also, the religious oath was put in use in courts. Although the Bible prohibits the use of the oath, the Greek Church deemed it necessary for the establishment of the new Greek state. The Metropolitan of Alexandroupolis suggested the replacement of the religious oath by a civil oath. “We should swear to our honor and our conscience; we either have them or we don’t,” he said. “Many people believe that the religious oath should be abolished. People in swearing-in ceremonies surely perjure most of the time… For us Christians, the invocation of the Holy Trinity is very serious business,” he said. “In courts, people put their hand on the Holy Bible with such ease of conscience. The oath is a terrible thing for those who believe. For those who do not believe is a travesty. What worries me is the sin that burdens the one who swears.” Metropolitan Ambrosios of Kalavyta and Aigialeias decries Alexis Tsipras for refusing religious oath Meanwhile, Metropolitan Ambrosios of Kalavryta and Aigialeias decried the new Greek PM’s choice. “Greece used to be a Christian state and now its Christian identity is eliminated,” Ambrosios wrote in his personal blog. The Metropolitan also added, “Greeks voted Mr. Alexis Tsipras for Prime Minister of Greece, ie a public official, who a) lives with a “companion,” as they say in mass media, and not a wife, i.e. with a woman he is not married to in church, b) has not baptized his children in a Christian baptism ceremony and c) as Prime Minister, with great arrogance, refuses to take a religious oath! It is the first time this is happening in the history of Greece!”

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Greece’s New Govt Sworn-in With Both Religious and Civil Ceremonies

The members of the new Greek cabinet were sworn-in earlier today in the presence of the President of the Hellenic Republic, Karolos Papoulias, at the Presidential Palace in downtown Athens, Greece . The new cabinet consists of 40 Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Vice Ministers, five of whom originate from the governmental partner, Independent Greeks (ANEL). It should be noted that after the new Prime Minister’s, Alexis Tsipras, civil oath yesterday, for the first time today, the majority of cabinet members were sworn-in with a civil ceremony, while only eight – mostly the ones from ANEL – in a religious one. In addition, four cabinet members were not sworn-in today as they were not in Athens. Among them is Justice, Transparency and Human Rights Minister Nikos Paraskevopoulos. Earlier today, the cabinet announcement was preceded by extended negotiations between the Prime Minister’s associates and those candidate for the Ministerial seats. Tsipras’ intention was to achieve balance and power relationships within the newly formed government but also send a clear message to Greek society regarding the change in the country’s central political scene. One of the five ANEL members that was considered “locked” for a cabinet seat was Nikos Nikolopoulos but his candidacy was turned down by numerous SYRIZA members, most likely due to his homophobic attack against Luxembourg’s Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, last August when he was an independent MP. ANEL’s Panagiotis Sgouridis was the one chosen to replace Nikolopoulos. He was appointed as Production Reconstruction, Environment and Energy Vice Minister. Moreover, negotiations regarding the Justice, Transparency and Human Rights Ministry lasted until a few minutes before the cabinet’s announcement. Giannis Panousis, Panagiotis Nikoloudis and DIMAR leader Fotis Kouvelis were the main candidates for the Ministerial seat. Finally, Nikos Paraskevopoulos was appointed as Justice Minister.

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The Dollar Is Getting Smoked (USD, EUR, CAD, AUD, GBP)

The US dollar is having a terrible day.  On Tuesday, US stocks are selling off following a rash of bad news Tuesday morning ranging from negative corporate earnings reports to worse-than-expected economic data.  And now, the dollar, which has been a major outperformer over the last several months, is getting crushed.  The euro rose to as high as 1.1418 against the dollar after falling to as low as 1.11 on Sunday night, following the Greek elections.  The dollar was also down to 117.42 against the yen.    And after a huge rally against the Canadian dollar last week, the dollar was giving up some of these gains on the loonie.  And here's the huge rally the dollar has seen over the last six months, breaking out of a 30-year downtrend. While consensus is that the dollar is going higher still, a risk-off day in the market like Tuesday is seeing this rally take a bit of a pause.    NOW WATCH: Use This Magic Formula In Excel To Eliminate A Bunch Of Unnecessary Steps OO.ready(function() { OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer', 'E4OWZ3cjqibHTalALWHLAS72hGWOZzof'); });Please enable Javascript to watch this video  Join the conversation about this story »

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Athens stock market continues slump

Greek shares fell sharply for a second consecutive day on Tuesday, with bank stocks slumping after weekend elections resulted in an anti-bailout government that looks set on a collision course with the country's creditors. Greece's benchmark Athex General Composite Share ...

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The Collapse of Europe? The European Union May Be on the Verge of Regime Collapse

The EU needs more than pretty rhetoric and good intentions to stay glued together. (Image via Shutterstock)Europe won the Cold War. Not long after the Berlin Wall fell a quarter of a century ago, the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States squandered its peace dividend in an attempt to maintain global dominance, and Europe quietly became more prosperous, more integrated, and more of a player in international affairs. Between 1989 and 2014, the European Union (EU) practically doubled its membership and catapulted into third place in population behind China and India. It currently boasts the world’s largest economy and also heads the list of global trading powers. In 2012, the EU won the Nobel Peace Prize for transforming Europe “from a continent of war to a continent of peace.” In the competition for “world’s true superpower,” China loses points for still having so many impoverished peasants in its rural hinterlands and a corrupt, illiberal bureaucracy in its cities; the United States, for its crumbling infrastructure and a hypertrophied military-industrial complex that threatens to bankrupt the economy. As the only equitably prosperous, politically sound, and rule-of-law-respecting superpower, Europe comes out on top, even if -- or perhaps because -- it doesn’t have the military muscle to play global policeman. And yet, for all this success, the European project is currently teetering on the edge of failure. Growth is anemic at best and socio-economic inequality is on the rise. The countries of Eastern and Central Europe, even relatively successful Poland, have failed to bridge the income gap with the richer half of the continent. And the highly indebted periphery is in revolt. Politically, the center may not hold and things seem to be falling apart. From the left, parties like Syriza in Greece are challenging the EU’s prescriptions of austerity. From the right, Euroskeptic parties are taking aim at the entire quasi-federal model. Racism and xenophobia are gaining ever more adherents, even in previously placid regions like Scandinavia. Perhaps the primary social challenge facing Europe at the moment, however, is the surging popularity of Islamophobia, the latest “socialism of fools.” From the killings at the Munich Olympics in 1972 to the recent attacks at Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris, wars in the Middle East have long inspired proxy battles in Europe. Today, however, the continent finds itself ever more divided between a handful of would-be combatants who claim the mantle of true Islam and an ever-growing contingent who believe Islam -- all of Islam -- has no place in Europe. The fracturing European Union of 2015 is not the Europe that political scientist Frances Fukuyama imagined when, in 1989, he so famously predicted “the end of history,” as well as the ultimate triumph of liberal democracy and the bureaucracy in Brussels, the EU’s headquarters, that now oversees continental affairs. Nor is it the Europe that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher imagined when, in the 1980s, she spoke of the global triumph of TINA (“there is no alternative”) and of her brand of market liberalism. Instead, today’s Europe increasingly harkens back to the period between the two world wars when politicians of the far right and left polarized public debate, economies went into a financial tailspin, anti-Semitism surged out of the sewer, and storm clouds gathered on the horizon. Another continent-wide war may not be in the offing, but Europe does face the potential for regime collapse: that is, the end of the Eurozone and the unraveling of regional integration. Its possible dystopian future can be glimpsed in what has happened in its eastern borderlands. There, federal structures binding together culturally diverse people have had a lousy track record over the last quarter-century. After all, the Soviet Union imploded in 1991; Czechoslovakia divorced in 1993; and Yugoslavia was torn asunder in a series of wars later in the 1990s. If its economic, political, and social structures succumb to fractiousness, the European Union could well follow the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia into the waste bin of failed federalisms. Europe as a continent will remain, its nation-states will continue to enjoy varying degrees of prosperity, but Europe as an idea will be over. Worse yet, if, in the end, the EU snatches defeat from the jaws of its Cold War victory, it will have no one to blame but itself. The Rise and Fall of TINA The Cold War was an era of alternatives. The United States offered its version of freewheeling capitalism, while the Soviet Union peddled its brand of centralized planning. In the middle, continental Europe offered the compromise of a social market: capitalism with a touch of planning and a deepening concern for the welfare of all members of society. Cooperation, not competition, was the byword of the European alternative. Americans could have their dog-eat-dog, frontier capitalism. Europeans would instead stress greater coordination between labor and management, and the European Community (the precursor to the EU) would put genuine effort into bringing its new members up to the economic and political level of its core countries. Then, at a point in the 1980s when the Soviet model had ceased to exert any influence at all globally, along came TINA. At the time, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and American President Ronald Reagan were ramping up their campaigns to shrink government, while what later became known as globalization -- knocking down trade walls and opening up new opportunities for the financial sector -- began to be felt everywhere. Thatcher summed up this brave new world with her TINA acronym: the planet no longer had any alternative to globalized market democracy. Not surprisingly, then, in the post-Cold War era, European integration shifted its focus toward removing barriers to the flow of capital. As a result, the expansion of Europe no longer came with an implied guarantee of eventual equality. The deals that Ireland (1973) and Portugal (1986) had received on accession were now, like the post-World War II Marshall Plan, artifacts of another era. The sheer number of potential new members knocking on Europe’s door put a strain on the EU’s coffers, particularly since the economic performance of countries like Romania and Bulgaria was so far below the European average. But even if the EU had been overflowing with funds, it might not have mattered, since the new “neoliberal” spirit of capitalism now animated its headquarters in Brussels where the order of the day had become: cut government, unleash the market. At the heart of Europe, as well as of this new orthodoxy, lies Germany, the exemplar of continental fiscal rectitude. Yet in the 1990s, that newly reunified nation engaged in enormous deficit spending, even if packaged under a different name, to bring the former East Germany up to the level of the rest of the country. It did not, however, care to apply this “reunification exception” to other former members of the Soviet bloc. Acting as the effective central bank for the European Union, Germany instead demanded balanced budgets and austerity from all newcomers (and some old timers as well) as the only effective answer to debt and fears of a future depression. The rest of the old Warsaw Pact has had access to some EU funds for infrastructure development, but nothing on the order of the East German deal. As such, they remain in a kind of economic halfway house. The standard of living in Hungary, 25 years after the fall of Communism, remains approximately half that of neighboring Austria. Similarly, it took Romania 14 years just to regain the gross national product (GDP) it had in 1989 and it remains stuck at the bottom of the European Union. People who visit only the capital cities of Eastern and Central Europe come away with a distorted view of the economic situation there, since Warsaw and Bratislava are wealthier than Vienna, and Budapest nearly on a par with it, even though Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary all remain economically far behind Austria. What those countries experienced after 1989 -- one course of “shock therapy” after another -- became the medicine of choice for all EU members at risk of default following the financial crisis of 2007 and then the sovereign debt crisis of 2009. Forget deficit spending to enable countries to grow their way out of economic crisis. Forget debt renegotiation. The unemployment rate in Greece and Spain now hovers around 25%, with youth unemployment over 50%, and all the EU members subjected to heavy doses of austerity have witnessed a steep rise in the number of people living below the poverty line. The recent European Central Bank announcement of "quantitative easing" -- a monetary sleight-of-hand to pump money into the Eurozone -- is too little, too late. The major principle of European integration has been reversed. Instead of Eastern and Central Europe catching up to the rest of the EU, pockets of the “west” have begun to fall behind the “east.” The GDP per capita of Greece, for example, has slipped below that of Slovenia and, when measured in terms of purchasing power, even Slovakia, both former Communist countries. The Axis of Illiberalism Europeans are beginning to realize that Margaret Thatcher was wrong and there are alternatives -- to liberalism and European integration. The most notorious example of this new illiberalism is Hungary. On July 26, 2014, in a speech to his party faithful, Prime Minister Viktor Orban confided that he intended a thorough reorganization of the country. The reform model Orban had in mind, however, had nothing to do with the United States, Britain, or France. Rather, he aspired to create what he bluntly called an “illiberal state” in the very heart of Europe, one strong on Christian values and light on the libertine ways of the West. More precisely, what he wanted was to turn Hungary into a mini-Russia or mini-China. “Societies founded upon the principle of the liberal way,” Orban intoned, “will not be able to sustain their world-competitiveness in the following years, and more likely they will suffer a setback, unless they will be able to substantially reform themselves.” He was also eager to reorient to the east, relying ever less on Brussels and ever more on potentially lucrative markets in and investments from Russia, China, and the Middle East. That July speech represented a truly Oedipal moment, for Orban was eager to drive a stake right through the heart of the ideology that had fathered him. As a young man more than 25 years earlier, he had led the Alliance of Young Democrats -- Fidesz -- one of the region’s most promising liberal parties. In the intervening years, sensing political opportunity elsewhere on the political spectrum, he had guided Fidesz out of the Liberal International and into the European People’s Party, alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats. Now, however, he was on the move again and his new role model wasn’t Merkel, but Russian President Vladimir Putin and his iron-fisted style of politics. Given the disappointing performance of liberal economic reforms and the stinginess of the EU, it was hardly surprising that Orban had decided to hedge his bets by looking east. The European Union has responded by harshly criticizing Orban’s government for pushing through a raft of constitutional changes that restrict the media and compromise the independence of the judiciary. Racism and xenophobia are on the uptick in Hungary, particularly anti-Roma sentiment and anti-Semitism. And the state has taken steps to reassert control over the economy and impose controls on foreign investment. For some, the relationship between Hungary and the rest of Europe is reminiscent of the moment in the 1960s when Albania fled the Soviet bloc and, in an act of transcontinental audacity, aligned itself with Communist China. But Albania was then a marginal player and China still a poor peasant country. Hungary is an important EU member and China’s illiberal development model, which has vaulted it to the top of the global economy, now has increasing international influence. This, in other words, is no Albanian mouse that roared. A new illiberal axis connecting Budapest to Beijing and Moscow would have far-reaching implications. The Hungarian prime minister, after all, has many European allies in his Euroskeptical project. Far right parties are climbing in the polls across the continent. With 25% of the votes, Marine Le Pen’s National Front, for instance, topped the French elections for the European parliament last May. In local elections in 2014, it also seized 12 mayoralties, and polls show that Le Pen would win the 2017 presidential race if it were held today. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings, the National Front has been pushing a range of policies from reinstating the death penalty to closing borders that would deliberately challenge the whole European project. In Denmark, the far-right People’s Party also won the most votes in the European parliamentary elections. In November, it topped opinion polls for the first time. The People’s Party has called for Denmark to slam shut its open-door policy toward refugees and re-introduce border controls. Much as the Green Party did in Germany in the 1970s, groupings like Great Britain’s Independence Party, the Finns Party, and even Sweden’s Democrats are shattering the comfortable conservative-social democratic duopoly that has rotated in power throughout Europe during the Cold War and in its aftermath. The Islamophobia that has surged in the wake of the murders in France provides an even more potent arrow in the quiver of these parties as they take on the mainstream. The sentiment currently expressed against Islam -- at rallies, in the media, and in the occasional criminal act -- recalls a Europe of long ago, when armed pilgrims set out on a multiple crusades against Muslim powers, when early nation-states mobilized against the Ottoman Empire, and when European unity was forged not out of economic interest or political agreement but as a “civilizational” response to the infidel. The Europe of today is, of course, a far more multicultural place and regional integration depends on “unity in diversity,” as the EU’s motto puts it. As a result, rising anti-Islamic sentiment challenges the inclusive nature of the European project. If the EU cannot accommodate Islam, the complex balancing act among all its different ethnic, religious, and cultural groups will be thrown into question. Euroskepticism doesn’t only come from the right side of the political spectrum. In Greece, the Syriza party has challenged liberalism from the left, as it leads protests against EU and International Monetary Fund austerity programs that have plunged the population into recession and revolt. As elsewhere in Europe, the far right might have taken advantage of this economic crisis, too, had the government not arrested the Golden Dawn leadership on murder and other charges. In parliamentary elections on Sunday, Syriza won an overwhelming victory, coming only a couple seats short of an absolute majority. In a sign of the ongoing realignment of European politics, that party then formed a new government not with the center-left, but with the right-wing Independent Greeks, which is similarly anti-austerity but also skeptical of the EU and in favor of a crackdown on illegal immigration. European integration continues to be a bipartisan project for the parties that straddle the middle of the political spectrum, but the Euroskeptics are now winning votes with their anti-federalist rhetoric. Though they tend to moderate their more apocalyptic rhetoric about “despotic Brussels” as they get closer to power, by pulling on a loose thread here and another there, they could very well unravel the European tapestry. When the Virtuous Turn Vicious For decades, European integration created a virtuous circle -- prosperity generating political support for further integration that, in turn, grew the European economy. It was a winning formula in a competitive world. However, as the European model has become associated with austerity, not prosperity, that virtuous circle has turned vicious. A challenge to the Eurozone in one country, a repeal of open borders in another, the reinstitution of the death penalty in a third -- it, too, is a process that could feed on itself, potentially sending the EU into a death spiral, even if, at first, no member states take the fateful step of withdrawing. In Eastern and Central Europe, the growing crew who distrust the EU complain that Brussels has simply taken the place of Moscow in the post-Soviet era. (The Euroskeptics in the former Yugoslavia prefer to cite Belgrade.) Brussels, they insist, establishes the parameters of economic policy that its member states ignore at their peril, while Eurozone members find themselves with ever less control over their finances. Even if the edicts coming from Brussels are construed as economically sensible and possessed of a modicum of democratic legitimacy, to the Euroskeptics they still represent a devastating loss of sovereignty. In this way, the same resentments that ate away at the Soviet and Yugoslav federations have begun to erode popular support for the European Union. Aside from Poland and Germany, where enthusiasm remains strong, sentiment toward the EU remains lukewarm at best across much of the rest of the continent, despite a post-euro crisis rebound. Its popularity now hovers at around 50% in many member states and below that in places like Italy and Greece. The European Union has without question been a remarkable achievement of modern statecraft. It turned a continent that seemed destined to wallow in “ancestral hatreds” into one of the most harmonious regions on the planet. But as with the portmanteau states of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, the complex federal project of the EU has proven fragile in the absence of a strong external threat like the one that the Cold War provided. Another economic shock or a coordinated political challenge could tip it over the edge. Unity in diversity may be an appealing concept, but the EU needs more than pretty rhetoric and good intentions to stay glued together. If it doesn’t come up with a better recipe for dealing with economic inequality, political extremism, and social intolerance, its opponents will soon have the power to hit the rewind button on European integration. The ensuing regime collapse would not only be a tragedy for Europe, but for all those who hope to overcome the dangerous rivalries of the past and provide shelter from the murderous conflicts of the present.

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Africa Cup of Nations: Senegal v Algeria and South Africa v Ghana – live!

All the latest action from the final two matches in Group C Senegal, Algeria, South Africa and Ghana can all still qualifyEmail ian.mccourt@guardian.com or tweet @ianmccourt 6.07pm GMT More goalkeeper chat:@jonawils S Africa doing the 3-keepers-in-tournament trick last done by, er, Tahiti. (France 78, Belgium, Czech 82, Greece 94 at WC). 6.06pm GMT That was an absolute shocker of a miss from Feghouli. It was like he panicked and missed when scoring seemed to be the easiest option. He also threw himself on the floor afterwards, pretending to be injured. Think it might have been his pride, rather than anything physical. 6.04pm GMT Senegal have been dominating the early possession but it is Algeria who have the first opportunity. Senegal fumble around the back and Algeria close them down quickly and gain possession just outside the box. Feghouli is through on goal and only has Coundoul to beat but he dallies on the ball and tries to go around the keeper but Coundoul dives at his feet and recovers the ball. 6.00pm GMT Peeeeeeep go the whistles and it is off we go. Just in case you are wondering, we will not be covering one game exclusively but we will be doing our best to cover the main events from both. 5.57pm GMT The four teams are out on the pitch and ready to belt out their respective anthems. Hands are raised to hearts, eyes are deadened and the words are whispered quietly. No John Hayes style crying over there. 5.49pm GMT Elsewhere in Africa, countries will vote overwhelmingly for Sepp Blatter in this year’s Fifa presidential election, senior officials said on Tuesday. Sigh.“Africa is solidly behind Blatter. You will find he is very popular on the continent,” said Kwesi Nyantakyi, the president of the Ghana FA and a Confederation of African Football (Caf) executive committee member.Blatter faces four challengers in his bid for re-election on 29 May, when he seeks a fifth term as president, which would take him past his 80th birthday. 5.36pm GMT We finally have some team news from Senegal v Algeria courtesy of the nice people on ITV: 5.23pm GMT If you, like me, thought that South Africa playing three different keepers in the one tournament was unusual, then the Knowledge is on hand to expose your ignorance. Still waiting on some team news from the Senegal and Algeria camps by the way. Will get that to you as soon as it lands. 5.16pm GMT South Africa: Khuzwayo, Ngcongca, Matlaba, Coetzee, Mathoho, Furman, Jali, Masango, Phala, Rantie, Ndulula.Ghana: Braimah, Afful, Rahman, Amartey, Mensah, Acquah, Wakaso, A. Ayew, Atsu, Gyan, J. Ayew. 5.10pm GMT From our man on the scene: Press-box rammed; stands pretty empty with an hour till kick-off in Senegal v Algeria. Hot and humid, despite a ferocious storm overnight.A one-man Algerian pitch-invader dances round the training cones with a flag. It'll probably turn out he was advertising headphones. 5.00pm GMT Hello and welcome to this evening’s coverage of the Africa Cup of Nations and the final games in group C. Let’s start by getting the permutations out of the way.As it stands, Senegal top the group on four points; Ghana have three; Algeria also have three; and South Africa are lagging behind in last with just one point. Senegal only need a draw from their match with Algeria to be assured of their place in the last eight. Of course, a sharing of the spoils would be good enough for Algeria too, should Ghana slip up against South Africa. And of course, should Algeria lose to Senegal and Ghana do one over South Africa, it will be the Black Stars that keep on shining. Heck, even South Africa could go through should they win and Senegal win or in the case of an Algeria win once South Africa can overturn their goal difference deficit to Senegal. But to be quiet frank that seems about as likely as your uncle Liam calling around to your house to say that he has always felt trapped in his man’s body and that he is off to Vegas for the requisite surgery and then he is going to work in a casino as a cocktail server where he can fulfil his ambitions to sing and dance and make people happy. Continue reading...

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Greeks rebuff EU call for more Russia sanctions

Fears growing that new ruling coalition in Athens is seeking closer ties with Moscow

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Greek Ship Owners Fear Syriza Tax Plan

LONDON—Several owners in Greece’s important shipping sector say they fear the new government led by radical-left party Syriza will levy higher taxes that the industry can’t afford. If the industry is unable to reach a compromise with the government ...

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As it happened: Syriza wins in Greece

Analysts say the eurozone is set for a new bout of volatility, according to AFP. "A period of uncertainty and heightened market nervousness now seems likely," says Jonathan Loynes of Capital Economics. Unicredit chief economist Erik Nielsen said Greece was ...

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New Greek government sworn in

MEP Georgios Katrougalos becomes deputy minister of administrative reform in Alexis Tsipras's coalition government.

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The History Of Syriza: How A Small Party Came To Power

To understand the historic magnitude of the victory of Syriza, the far-left party that won Greece's election on Sunday, take a look at their slogan: “For the first time, the Left in government.” This slogan is emblematic of the tremendous difficulties Syriza overcame in order to achieve its current political prominence, rooted in the turbulent history of the Greek left. The history of the left in Greece can be understood as a cycle of creation and destruction. It is common practice among older generations to talk about the “curse of the left,” because even though it has shown that it can be victorious when united, it has often been plagued with infighting. MILESTONES A common breeding ground for many leftist parties was the Communist Party -- the oldest party in the Greek parliament -- which was founded in 1918. After the fall of the Greek military junta, a military dictatorship that ruled the country for seven years, in 1974, the Communist Party participated in the first post-junta elections together with two other leftist parties: the United Democratic Left and the Communist Party of Greece Interior, though the newly formed conservative New Democracy party won the majority of seats. In the years to follow, "change" was the Communist Party's main slogan. That same slogan later played a role in the campaigns of the large political force that would come to the fore in subsequent elections, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK). In 1981, PASOK became the first left-of-center party to win a majority in the Hellenic Parliament. ORIGINS, DIVISIONS AND THE FINAL SPLIT The Coalition of the Left and Progress was founded in 1989. It was an alliance between the Communist Party and the Greek Left, which had spawned from the Communist Party of the Interior and other smaller parties from the same ideological territory. Divisions emerged within the ranks of the Coalition over political dilemmas such as participating in a government with Greece’s center-right New Democracy party. The divisions were further fueled by the dissolution of the USSR, which left the Communist elements of the Coalition weakened and internally divided. Attempts to unite the Coalition into a cohesive party failed. The Communist Party eventually left the Coalition and today is one of the most vocal critics of Syriza. THE COALITION, THE MAIN PARTICIPANT IN SYRIZA Even though the Coalition struggled to navigate the fall of the USSR and decades of ideological infighting, it survived and became the main participant in Syriza, which was created in 2004 as an alliance between leftist political forces. Today, the leader of the united party is Alexis Tsipras, and the symbol of the party is the five-pointed star, a symbol of unity, along with three flags: a red one for the classic left, a Greek one for the ecological movement and a purple one that represents other social movements that Syriza embraces, such as feminism, migrant rights and gay rights. The founding declaration of Syriza contains references to Greece's agreement with its creditors -- the “troika” of the IMF, European Commission and the European Central Bank -- as well as harsh austerity measures and the humanitarian crisis resulting from a catastrophic unemployment rate. The party's objective is described as: “Always struggling for unity among the Left, the now united Syriza asserts a government of the Left with a new, broad and strong social majority that will allow for the people's interests to be served. The chants that the people shouted on the streets and in the squares, ‘Man over profits’ and ‘Another world is possible,’ are turned into a political and strategic goal through Syriza.” This piece originally appeared in HuffPost Greece and was translated into English.

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Greek Elections: An Impressive Albeit Pyrrhic Victory for SYRIZA If It Can't Garner Broader EU Support

The outcome of Sunday's Greek general election is a clear victory of SYRIZA's young leader, Mr. Tsipras, over conservative PM Mr. Samaras and his coalition partner, Mr. Venizelos. At the same time it is the electorate's strong reaction to Greece still being used as "the canary in the coal mine" of the prevailing policies of the northern EU countries. Greeks didn't turn left overnight. They just got fed up. From a local politics standpoint, yesterday's vote has two main interpretations: First, it seems a goodbye/back-off vote to a political and media system that has bred corruption over decades, at the expense of much-needed, long-overdue reform. A few examples of this are the cover-up of the infamous Siemens 2-percent party and other unaccounted-for political kickbacks, German submarine- and armaments-procurement scandals, the legislative cover-up of over €250 billion in unsecured loans to political parties while constitutional statutes of limitation for government ministers remained in force. Mr. Tsipras was convincing, since his position on this was clear and has remained steady since 2009. Second, the vote is considered a frail opportunity for a "new guy" to provide Greeks with hope -- hope sought desperately, particularly after the continuous and ineffective measures and austerity beating that Greeks have experienced over the past six years, measures that, instead of addressing the causes of Greece's mischief, keep on addressing just the symptoms. For instance, still over 20 percent of the state income is allocated to payment of "early pensions." Austerity has led to 26-percent unemployment, massive brain drain, a 25-percent drop in GDP, skyrocketing public debt and other effects. Ineffective and secondary reform accelerated the disintegration of social cohesion and failed to restore the confidence of international investors. Since the old mix didn't seem to work, Greeks chose to try the only alternative available. From an EU policy standpoint SYRIZA's victory, unless supported by other EU member states, may end as an impressive albeit Pyrrhic victory. The new Greek PM seems to seek a renegotiation within a reformed Europe. This is also the target of the outgoing UK government. Still, to date, Mr. Tsipras' strongest EU allies seem to be the Italian PM and the Spanish "Podemos" movement. The Greek electorate has demonstrated an impressive endurance through a six-year-long, unreasonable, and ineffective tax and austerity onslaught. Both of the mainstream political parties overlooked the electorate's disgust of impunity, party cronyism and slow, ineffective reform. EU citizens, at the same time, are witnessing the ailing of Europe, as described by the EU forefathers, mainly due to shortsighted, politically driven EU leaders and the inefficiency of EU institutions. Greece's and Europe's long-term best interests require the kind of reform that Greek governments have failed to pursue. And neither Mr. Tsipras nor any other individual leader or single country can be expected to contribute to such a policy shift without quick, clear and strong EU and social alliances.

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New Greek government complains about EU Ukraine statement

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras complained to European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini on Tuesday, saying it had not been consulted about a statement on the growing crisis in Ukraine. Tsipras was sworn in as Greek Prime Minister on ...

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