How the world sees Greece
The Greek stock market will reopen on Wednesday or Thursday after a month-long shutdown but with restrictions on trading by local investors at the request of the European Central Bank, the Greek securities regulator chairman told Reuters this evening.
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Greece's negotiations with its creditors provide lessons on eurozone creditor reaction functions, which will inform the market's pricing of risk. The jury is ...
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The most influential works of art are those that connect people on a personal level. An artistic expression with powerful social or political symbolism can unite us by resonating with the thoughts, ideas, and emotions of our society. It is because of this resonance that art and politics have often been intertwined. A well-crafted message has the power to incite or quell riots. Similarly, the art of comedy, which dates back to ancient Greek theatre, brings us together with one of the most innate human reactions: laughter. Robert Provine, a psychology professor at the University of Maryland, observed that laughter is often not just about something being funny, but more likely an unconscious social communication of our acceptance or rejection of a person or idea. In the English Literature classic Gulliver's Travels, writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift used satire to inspire society to challenge the politicians and academics of the eighteenth century. This novel became wildly popular due, in part, to its ability to surreptitiously identify with readers who saw a part of themselves in Swift's sardonic depiction of society. Today, the art of comedy continues to provide a unique avenue for artists to convey an honest reflection of the daily toils of humanity. During the holy month of Ramadan, Arabs produce a plethora of television shows employing comedy and drama to entertain families who have been fasting all day. In some way, these shows often reflect the current events and realities faced by their targeted audience. This year, I discovered one such comedy that I believe illuminates an important message to the Arabic people, and, dare I say, to the entire world. There is perhaps no place in greater need of laughter and insight right now than Syria. Western media portrays this Arabic country, whose ongoing civil war has claimed over 200,000 lives in nearly four years, as little more than a war-torn battlefield. However, the comedy series Dunia 2015 paints a much more accurate picture of the state of the Syrian people. Created by the show's lead actress and writer Amal Arafa, this is the second season of a series that originally aired in 1999-2000. Her character is Dunia, a Syrian maid with a penchant for getting fired from the various homes she works in. The series entertains viewers with the wacky misadventures of the maid and her best friend, a cook named Turfa, played by Palestinian-Syrian actress Shukran Murtaja. More importantly, though, it provides a rare look at what it's like to be a citizen stuck in the middle of a volatile struggle for control. I had the opportunity to interview Arafa, and she elaborated on why the show's characters embody the plight of Syrians today. "People connect with Dunia because she represents the reality of many who are watching their country fall apart," she said. "Her determination to remain in her warn-torn homeland is a symbol of resistance that most Syrians can relate to." While the characters' daily life certainly relates to those still living in Syria, it also exposes a side of the country that news outlets have ignored since the civil conflict began four years ago. It is true that some areas have been ravaged by the battles between the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and those who wish to overthrow it, but other areas have remained relatively safe, such as the city of Damascus where the series is filmed. Arafa insisted on filming in Syria to show the world that her country was much more than just a battleground. The series shows us a place where people still celebrate birthdays, get married, and continue to live a life of relative normalcy. In Damascus, little has changed besides the appearance of well-armed checkpoints. Despite the distant sound of artillery fire, marketplaces are still bustling, businesses are still running, and everyone still goes on about their daily activities. "We are adapting to the situation we find ourselves in. Since the fighting began, we have had little electricity, less access to water, and no guarantees of safety," Arafa said. "But we are managing. We are determined to live and to see the day that our lives are once again free from the shackles of warfare." She explained to me how during the filming, there were bombs that fell close to their set. She continued, "We would thank God for surviving it, and continue on with our work." The show uses humor to confront many of the issues that are faced by Syrians today. Dunia wound up in Damascus after being forced out of her village by a group of militants that she refers to only as "they." Her anguish from being displaced is a recurring theme in the show-- a painful reality felt by more than 9 million Syrians who have been displaced since the civil war began in 2011. Arafa pleads, "I hope these militants leave our country so that our people can return to their homes." The characters are regularly challenged by the rising prices of essential goods like food and fuel, which reflects the deterioration of the Syrian pound since the conflict began. Arafa portrays the protagonist as a simple, honest, and caring individual who loves her country more than anything. She despises the war that has been tearing Syria apart, and the vocalization of her disdain serves as a powerful message to those affected by the civil hostility. "May God have no mercy on those who caused the war - those who funded it, those who paid money to arm people to kill each other," Dunia says in the series. "The solution to the plight of a nation is not through bloodshed, but by opening dialogue and making reformations in a positive way." Arafa made it clear that she is supportive of all people of Syria, whether they were with or against the Assad regime. She believes that extreme foreign influence is primarily to blame for the war, and hopes that the series can serve as a symbol to help bring her people together. "Dunia 2015 is art, and art always has a human message. I wanted to give positive energy, to stress the importance of unity rather than division," Arafa said. "We should realize that making our country a better place is not accomplished by shedding one another's blood." "The cause of the war is extremism, from both sides. Extremism is what was funded by those interested in starting a war to pursue their own interests. And this is where it got us." The media has generally blamed the Assad regime for the Syrian crisis. Many outlets have suggested that before the conflict, Syrians were governed by an oppressive and tyrannical regime with no regard for basic human rights. Arafa rejects this concept, and uses the series to contrast life in Syria before the hostility - a time when citizens owned the homes they lived in and received the social, medical, and educational benefits that many advanced countries still struggle to provide to its citizens. "Before the war, nobody went to bed hungry," Arafa said. "It is true that certain things saw some degree of corruption, but we will not fix anything with extremism and terrorism. It is all about moderation. Extremism, on both sides, has caused as much destruction as terrorists have been doing." While many people find the episodes entertaining, the series has touched some people's lives more profoundly. "I received messages from all over the world, telling me how much people had enjoyed the show," Arafa said. "But the most powerful responses I got were from Syrians who told me I had helped them in some way. I was told by those on each side of the conflict that they had sat together and watched the show in cafes, and it made them feel united." Messages like that capture the potential of Dunia 2015, and comedy in general, to have a profound influence on those who experience it. Laughing together is part of being human, and reminds us that we are all in this life together. In an article published in November of last year, Dr. Bente Scheller, the director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation's Middle East office in Beirut, explored in depth the decision those still living in Syria face: whether to risk their lives to stay and help their hurting community or to leave everything they know behind in search of a safe haven. Scheller concluded that the escalating violence and lack of promising attempts to end the conflict will likely force nearly all Syrians to at least consider the possibility of starting a new existence somewhere else. In the final episode of the series, it is fitting that Dunia is forced to choose whether or not to flee the country and become a refugee with Turfa's family. She eventually gives in to her best friend's pleas, and they board a bus that will take them to a boat headed to Europe, with Sweden as their final destination. In the real world, Sweden does indeed have a program that grants permanent residence to Syrian refugees. The series accurately depicts what it is like for refugees to escape Syria, risking their lives and relying on shady agencies to illegally transport them to safety. Often, those who escape have no place to go, as the surrounding countries have been mostly reluctant to welcome refugees. In the final moments of the show, we see the characters board the boat that will separate them from their homeland. But as the boat leaves the shore, Dunia realizes that she loves her country too much to abandon it during its time of need and leaps into the water -- a dramatic conclusion that stays true to her character as the epitome of perseverance. Arafa, like Dunia, loves Syria so much that she is unable to leave it. She made her show with the aspiration that it would inspire the Syrian people to hold on to the hope that the conflict will be resolved soon and that peace will allow them to return to a life without war. She still holds on to that hope and imagines Syria as it was before 2011, with room for reform but in a more civilized way. With a sigh of pain, Arafa said, "I hope the international community [including the U.S. Congress] stops counting refugees, and becomes more proactive in opening a dialogue between both those for and those against the Assad regime to reach a solution. War is a business; peace is a process that only begins when we bring all Syrians to the same table of dialogue. I am a supporter of a government, not a regime. I am a supporter of my people, whatever their political stand is. This is the true meaning of democracy." "It pains me that my two daughters have to grow up watching their country collapse under the pressures of war," Arafa said. "I worry about them, but I have to be optimistic that one day Syria will be like it was before the conflict, or better." "I cannot give up on my country." Arafa invited me to join her for dinner in Damascus the next time I am in the Middle East-- an offer I am all too happy to accept. As a Palestinian-born refugee, Syria was one of the very few countries in the world that allowed me to visit and live there without a visa (although the place I knew then is much different from the Syria of today). This is why it hurts me to see the country of peace break down into pieces. "My wish is that Dunia 2020 be filmed in all different parts of Syria," Arafa told me. "And that Dunia and Turfa will be able to return to their homes and live their lives free from the oppression of war." -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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July 28 is World Hepatitis Day, a sorely-needed awareness campaign for diseases that affect more than 400 million people alive today. In the U.S., more people die from hepatitis C than they do from HIV/AIDS. And despite being preventable with vaccine, hepatitis B causes an estimated 1 million deaths every year and is the leading cause of liver cancer worldwide. Despite these shocking numbers, the virus is little understood and discussed, and that’s got to change, according to Dr. H. Nina Kim, director of the Madison HIV/Hepatitis Coinfection Clinic in Washington. “In some ways, the HIV epidemic is tied really closely with the gay movement and very vocal patient advocacy arose from this demographic,” said Kim. “A lot of my patients have a sort of shame about hepatitis C; there are a lot of similarities with both chronic viral infections, but there isn’t the same kind of patient advocacy.” Hepatitis types A through E get their names from the devastating effect on the liver (hēpar means “liver” in Greek), but the viruses aren’t related to each other, except when B occasionally leads to D. Perhaps what’s most frightening about these diseases is that despite their serious long-term consequences, many of those infected have no idea because they may not have symptoms. “It’s a silent condition,” said Kim. “People aren’t really showing up very sick with this and so we miss it." To acknowledge World Hepatitis Day, here are just a few of the numbers that shed light on a group of viruses that affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Scroll to the bottom for information about the different types. 3 Million The number of people who have hepatitis C in the U.S. — an epidemic level, according to Kim. It's the most common type of hepatitis in the U.S., as well as the top reason for liver transplants in the U.S. Hepatitis A and B are vaccine-preventable and hepatitis E is mostly a problem in impoverished parts of in East and South Asia. 3 in 4 The number of people with hepatitis C who don’t even know they have the virus. 75 percent The number of people with hepatitis C who were born between 1945 to 1965. Boomers are five times more likely to have the virus because this generation had higher rates of intravenous drug use during a time we didn’t know or understand very much about blood borne diseases. Another reason is that we didn’t start screening our blood supply for hepatitis C until 1989. Because of this, boomers should get tested for hepatitis C, says the Centers for Disease Control. “A lot of people are getting older with their untreated hepatitis C infection... and a lot of people have cirrhosis,” said Kim. “If we continue not treating a lot of patients with this, we’re going to see a big wave of people showing up with more liver disease." 17,000 The number of estimated new hepatitis C cases in the U.S. every year. At this point, the most common way to get the virus is through sharing needles with injection drug users. Health care workers and babies born to moms with hepatitis C are also at risk, as are the sexual partners of people who have the virus. “We’re still seeing lots of new infection, particularly in young injected drug users,” said Kim. “If you’ve been injecting drugs and not being careful about not sharing, you’re very likely to get a hepatitis C infection." 15 to 25 percent The number of people who will “clear” hepatitis C from their systems without treatment, and without the risk of it coming back. What’s more likely, explains the CDC, is that the patient goes on to develop long-term hepatitis C, which can lead to liver disease, cirrhosis and liver cancer. $100,000 The cost of a single round of treatment for Hepatitis C. The pills have to be taken for an average of 12 weeks, and each pill costs about $1,000. The cost for this newer, better generation of drugs (one has an effectiveness rate of over 95 percent), is wreaking havoc on the publicly-funded healthcare systems Medicare and Medicaid, causing the latter to restrict the treatment only to those who have advanced liver damage. Of course, the longer one goes without hepatitis C treatment, the higher the risks are for cirrhosis, which can develop into liver cancer, Kim says. “From a medical standpoint, anyone who can get treatment should get treatment, but we’re dealing with the fact that we have this very costly medication," Kim said. “The only way you can get your insurance to pay for it is if you have [cirrhosis] or kidney failure.” 15,000 The number of people who will die of a hepatitis C-related disease in the U.S. In contrast, an estimated 13,713 people died of an AIDS-related illness in 2012. The two are often compared because their modes of transmission are very similar. To protect yourself against hepatitis, make sure that you're properly vaccinated against hepatitis A and B. Everyone who was born between 1945 and 1965 should get tested for hepatitis C. Finally, to reduce the risk of contracting hepatitis C, never share needles with anybody, and protect yourself during sex. Here are all the types of hepatitis While hepatitis C is the most common type in the U.S., the numbers are very different worldwide. Hepatitis E, for instance is most common in developing countries where people have poor access to clean water and sanitation services, or places like refugee camps and areas that have been hit with natural disasters. Hepatitis B, while vaccine-preventable, is high in sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia. Learn more about the different types of hepatitis in the chart below: Type Global Case Numbers Vaccine Cure Transmission Symptoms Long-term Risks A 1.4 million cases annually. Yes. None, but most manage to clear the infection on their own. Contaminated food or water, some sex acts. Jaundice (yellow eyes and dark urine), abdominal pain, nausea, fever, and diarrhea. Usually there are none, but 10 to 15 percent will have recurring symptoms. A rare few will need a liver transplant. B 240 million chronic cases, 4 million acute cases and 1 million deaths annually. Yes. None. While some medications can suppress the virus, they can't eradicate it. Mainly occurs from mother to infants at birth, contact with contaminated (like injection drug use), and unprotected sex. Headache, lack of appetite, muscle aches, joint pain and skin rash. But most with chronic Hepatitis B don't have any symptoms. Patients with chronic infections can develop cirrhosis, liver failure and liver cancer if untreated. C 130 to 150 million chronic infections and 500,000 deaths annually. None. Yes, with cure rates of more than 95 percent. However, the cost of one round of treatment is almost $100,000. Contact with contaminated blood, mostly through blood transfusions before 1992 and injection drug use. Sexual transmission is rare. Itchy skin joint pain, abdominal pain, sore muscles, jaundice. Cirrhosis, liver failure and liver cancer if untreated. D This affects about 5 percent of people with Hepatitis B. Yes (the Hepatitis B vaccine). None. While some medications can suppress the virus, they can't eradicate it. Contact with infected body fluid. It only occurs in those who already have Hepatitis B. Jaundice, joint pain, abdominal pain, lack of appetite. Cirrhosis, liver failure, liver cancer. E 20 million infections, 3 million symptomatic cases and 56,600 deaths annually. Yes, but it's not widely available. None, but most manage to clear the infection on their own. Contaminated food or water, and a possibility of transmission from pork, boar and deer. Clay-colored stool, fever, lack of appetite, nausea, vomiting, jaundice, joint pain. While most recover completely, the virus is extremely dangerous for pregnant women or those with existing liver disease. Sources: WHO, WebMD, Healthline, Cleveland Clinic, CDC. CORRECTION: Only Medicaid is restricting access to hepatitis drugs, not Medicare. Also on HuffPost: -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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For Oaktree Capital Group LLC, its time to shine is getting closer as China, commodities, Greece and Puerto Rico threaten to crack markets. “Relative ...
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Remarkably, Greece's creditors seem unable to appreciate this sound financial principle. Where Greek debt is concerned, a clear pattern has emerged ...
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Greece's course in Euro non-negotiable says Pavlopoulos
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Greece is insolvent. It has lost much of its sovereignty. When Varoufakis and others complain about the encroachments into Greek sovereignty, ...
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Greece's former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis confirmed July 27 the existence of a secret plan for a parallel payments system that would've ...
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Parliament approved a package of financial and judicial changes to keep negotiations on track for the bailout of about $94 billion.
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… committee Four parliamentarians from Greece's New Democracy … these parallel payment plans Kathimerini reports. 13.30 Troika … According to legal circles, the Greek judicial system cannot automatically … ;s Greek mission has yet to arrive in Greece; there …
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… from the ministry of finance. Greece is slowly returning back to … - will convene in the Greek capital after mid-ranking officials started …
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The Greek school system does not provide substantial education for teens, so students must supplement their morning lessons with afternoon tutoring ...
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However, the only culture to this day that has legitimate "worry beads," is the Greek culture. Worry beads evolved from the Greek word for prayer rope.
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panousis1--2-thumb-large Greek Deputy Citizen Protection Minister Yiannis Panousis said that the secret plans former Finance Minister Yanis ...
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The eurozone’s economy will fall further behind that of the U.S. without a concerted effort to boost demand through increased government spending and lower taxes, make labor markets more flexible, and rid banks of bad loans, the International Monetary ...
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panousis1--2-thumb-large Greek Deputy Citizen Protection Minister Yiannis Panousis said that the secret plans former Finance Minister Yanis ...
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The latest talks will focus on changes to the Greek pension system, labor market, fiscal policy, and market regulation, the Finance Ministry said on ...
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On Sunday, the right-wing Greek daily Kathimerini released a partial transcript of a teleconference of hedge fund managers that former Greek Finance ...
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Thanks to the lifting of some capital controls, Greek companies are now able to make foreign payments, which means they can start importing raw ...
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Greek Finance Minister Yianis Varoufakis briefs the media after his meeting with Swiss Deputy Minister for International Financial Affairs Jacques de ...
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While the Greek people continue to endure Great Depression-level suffering, the months-long standoff between the government of Greece and ...
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One sweltering night last August, in a village in the Messinian Peninsula, southern Greece, I witnessed a scene that exemplified the frustrations of Greeks suffering the effects of harsh austerity measures. It was on a bustling tourist strip, where a ...
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The Greek Prime Minister has been holding urgent talks with his Syriza Party, ahead of the start of new bailout talks with creditors on Tuesday.
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By Caroline Copley BERLIN (Reuters) - The German government's panel of independent economic advisers favours creating an insolvency mechanism for euro zone states and says countries should be able to leave the single currency as a last resort. In a report published on Tuesday, the council of five experts, known as the "wise men", said the Greek crisis showed further reforms were needed, such as an insolvency procedures, to make the euro zone more stable.
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Greece's Mega TV reports that monitors from the Troika are being accompanied by heavy security as they start their work in Athens this week.
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Greece has started talks on a new rescue loan despite the government coming under pressure over claims it had a top-secret plan to prepare for a euro exit that involved accessing citizens' personal tax data. Representatives from Greece's international ...
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The eurozone’s economy will fall further behind that of the U.S. without a concerted effort to boost demand through increased government spending and lower taxes, make labor markets more flexible, and rid banks of bad loans, the International Monetary ...
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Since the start of the Greek debt crisis, commentators have struggled to find the right metaphor for Greece’s relationship to Europe. Is it a bad marriage in need of a “big, fat Greek divorce”? An “economic experiment” in “Europe’s laboratory”? Or is Greece a 21st century “debt colony,” which Europe is subjecting to a new incarnation of “gunboat diplomacy”? But what if, instead of those high-minded analogies, the eurozone were a nightclub with a German DJ, and Greece a dancer struggling to keep up? That is what British comedian Marcus Brigstocke proposed in an August 2014 standup routine, and though the comparison is not perfect, it is insightful enough to be hilarious. Brigstocke describes Greece as a country that got into the eurozone club under the bouncer’s nose by concealing the extent of its debts. Goldman Sachs hid their sovereign debt, gave them a fake ID, changed their shoes, and snuck Greece in the back door of the club. The Greeks are in now and they are excited. ... Brilliant! They are on the inside. Once inside the eurozone “club” though, Greece finds that Germany is the DJ, and the German electro music is too fast to keep up with. Greece soon regrets going in: And that’s when they realize the club has a German DJ. And that’s when shit started to get scary for Greece when they heard, "Ja das ist my euro house. Turn it up a little more! Dance faster little Greece!" By this stage, the Greeks were desperately trying to keep up. … The Greeks are slumped in the corner, "I should never have been in here." And yet, much like the eurozone itself, the eurozone club is virtually impossible to leave. They can’t get out, because the Germans have locked the door. And the Germans dictate how fast the music goes and because they are German that is very fast indeed. Brigstocke’s comic analysis tracks closely with the actual story of Greece’s admission into the eurozone and subsequent challenges in the currency union. Technically, Greece did not, as Brigstocke suggests, use Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms in order to get into the eurozone. But once Greece was a member, it relied on help from Goldman Sachs and other finance firms to conceal its debts, thereby continuing to meet eurozone requirements. And until the 2008 financial crisis, German and French banks were more than happy to play along, making loans to Greece that they knew were risky. Then, just as Brigstocke describes, a short time after joining, Greece discovered that Germany, as Europe’s wealthiest nation, was calling the shots. In short, Germany is the eurozone’s proverbial DJ. And Germany’s agenda, or “music,” is often not in the interests of Greece and other weaker European countries. This has been especially apparent in Germany’s response to the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent fallout. In 2010 and 2012, Germany led bailouts of Greece’s government that were aimed at saving German and French banks, which held the bulk of Greece’s debt. As a condition of the needed bailout loans, Germany imposed austerity policies that served its political and ideological agenda, but have devastated the Greek economy, reducing the country's GDP by nearly one-third and pushing unemployment over 25 percent. Now, the International Monetary Fund has said that Greece’s latest bailout package, which it needs to pay debts from the previous bailouts, is unworkable without major debt relief, but Germany refuses to budge. While some in Greece want to leave the eurozone “club,” as Brigstocke notes, they are more likely to just want better terms from Germany. But even negotiating a better deal is very difficult, since the German-led eurozone has made the cost of bargaining very high. The European Central Bank, for example, has withheld emergency support for Greek banks at key points during negotiations, eventually forcing bank closures that brought Greece to its knees. Greece’s current left-populist government, elected to stand up to German-imposed austerity, ultimately preferred to accept Greece’s most onerous bailout terms yet rather than undergo the financial shock that might accompany a collapse of its banking system and departure from the euro. And indeed, even if Greece wanted to plan a smooth departure from the eurozone as a contingency, Germany and other European leaders have “locked the door” to the eurozone club by making it very hard to leave. It came to light on Sunday that former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis had led a group planning for a Greek exit. Since Greece’s creditors had access to Greek Finance Ministry software, Varoufakis had a friend hack into the software in order to copy people’s tax information for the creation of a parallel payment system. Varoufakis claims that leaving the eurozone was always a last resort, if Greece was forced out of the currency during negotiations. But even planning for this contingency was condemned by European leaders as a sign of how “unpredictable” Varoufakis was as a negotiating partner. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaüble suffered no similar condemnation for openly threatening Greece with a forced exit from the euro. Also on HuffPost: -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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ATHENS/BRUSSELS, July 28 (Reuters) - Conflicting statements and denials flew between Athens and Brussels on Tuesday in a war of nerves highlighting the depth of mutual mistrust over a new round of negotiations on an 86 billion euro bailout that started this week. Any hope of a fresh start in fraught relations between Greece's leftist government, purged of its most radical members, and the institutions representing its creditors, appeared to be dashed by the flurry of assertions and rebuttals. Differences included the pace and conduct of bailout talks, whether or not Greece needs to enact further laws before a deal, the reopening of the Athens stock exchange, and the activities of former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who continues to heap abuse on the creditors in his blog. The two sides couldn't even agree on when the talks began. A Greek Finance Ministry official said the heads of the European Commission and International Monetary Fund delegations would arrive on Wednesday for talks on a third bailout program to keep Greece afloat in the euro zone. Technical negotiations would be wrapped up by Friday, with "follow up" discussions over the weekend under exceptional circumstances, he added. "Both sides aim to reach a deal as soon as possible," the official said. European Commission officials dismissed that timetable, saying European mission chiefs were already on the ground and talks had begun on Monday. But they made clear the creditors would not be stampeded into a rushed agreement without detailed reform commitments in writing. Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said there was "no fixed deadline" for the conclusion of a Memorandum of Understanding, and if all parties kept to commitments made at a July 13 euro summit, "an agreement by the second fortnight of August is possible." Greek officials were at pains to play down what they see as the humiliating and intrusive aspects of the talks - access to ministries, the right to examine accounts and question civil servants, and the visible presence of the negotiators in Athens. The finance ministry official said there had been no organizational issues and all discussions were taking place at the institutions' residence. When required, creditors' representatives had met with Greek officials at the Bank of Greece and the State General Accounting Office. EU officials said security and logistical issues had delayed the start of the talks, originally planned for last Friday. MORE REFORMS The Greek official said suggestions that Greece needed to pass further reform legislation before a bailout deal were not justified by the euro summit statement or subsequent exchanges. However, euro zone officials made clear that Athens must enact measures to curb early retirement and close tax loopholes for farmers before any new aid is disbursed. Greece needs more finance by Aug. 20, when it owes a 3.5 billion euro payment to the European Central Bank. When Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' radical leftist Syriza movement won power in January, it initially sought to scrap the previous bailout, reverse austerity measures demanded by the creditors and exclude the IMF from any future talks. When negotiations on further aid eventually began, they were moved to Brussels, with no access to Greek ministries. Tsipras kept trying to escalate the talks to a political level to avoid detailed technical documents setting out reform obligations. Hanging over the new talks is the legacy of Varoufakis, whom Tsipras sidelined in the final phase of the talks before accepting even more stringent bailout terms this month. The Marxist academic resigned after Tsipras rejected his proposals for radical steps to create a parallel payment system to get around the closure of Greek banks and the imposition of capital controls on June 28. But he continues to create problems for the premier by denouncing the bailout agreement and accusing the creditors of having treated Greece like a colony. EU Commission spokeswoman Andreeva denied as "false and unfounded" allegations by Varoufakis that the creditors had taken control of the finance ministry's general secretariat for public revenue. He made the charge in explaining why he had devised a covert system for hacking into citizens' tax codes. "The Commission and the IMF only provide technical assistance to the tax administration, but certainly do not control the secretary general for public revenues," Andreeva said. "Alleging that the troika would be controlling the secretary general for public revenues is simply not true." A Greek government official stressed that Varoufakis' plan had never been carried out, and no laws had been broken. Also on HuffPost: -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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BUDAPEST -- Since the beginning of 2015, the global refugee crisis started to have a dramatic effect on Hungary. The migration route through the Balkans to Europe became more popular because of the many shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, while the protracted conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq and the civil war in Libya led to a staggering increase in the amount of people who are seeking protection in the European Union. Because of Hungary's geographic position at the periphery of the Union's Schengen Zone, an area supposedly devoid of border controls, it has seen about 80,000 new arrivals this year. The surge in immigration coincided with a decline in the popularity of the ruling nationalist-conservative party, Fidesz, due mostly to escalating poverty and corruption scandals. Fidesz' current position in the political landscape is an important determinant for Hungary's immigration policy. Since the far-right nationalist party Jobbik has emerged as its single most unified opposition, the political climate has progressively gotten harsher. Not only does Jobbik function as a benchmark for Fidesz -- it also controls several municipalities across the country. This has resulted in tacit support for affiliated violent far-right groups in self-appointed roles as guardians of the Hungarian nation, which currently means that they are allowed to monitor the border to catch refugees. During its first term, Fidesz had a supermajority in parliament. As a result, it could singlehandedly amend the constitution. The changes Fidesz made guarantee its firm grip on all the pillars of government, plus institutions like the press and central bank, despite having lost voters in the 2014 parliamentary elections. While Fidesz' first term saw a turn to autocracy, its second is characterized by the creation of an underclass in Hungarian society and the establishment of an "illiberal" democracy in which personal freedoms come second to what the government considers the national interest. The steady criminalization of poverty manifests itself in no-go zones for homeless people -- a brutal public work program that blatantly distorts unemployment statistics and forced evictions of Roma settlements. Hungary's immigration policies are perfectly in line with the general scapegoating of oppressed groups in order to "keep Hungary Hungarian." Fidesz leader Viktor Orbán unabatedly bases his campaigns on a fierce anti-EU rhetoric. It is therefore unsurprising that, for his party, the "permissive" immigration policies of the EU are the root cause of the problem. After the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, Orbán started diverting the electorate's attention from internal politics to immigration by holding a "national consultation on terrorism and immigration." The sham questionnaire -- with the goal of gaining legitimacy for exclusionary politics -- was heavily criticized by the rest of the EU and by Hungarian social scientists. It cost double the amount that Hungary spends on refugee protection per year. But this did not stop the government from following up with an even more expensive billboard campaign that features slogans like "If you come to Hungary, you cannot take the jobs of Hungarians," a campaign reminiscent of the racist van in the U.K. Fidesz is predisposed to floating radical ideas and turning them into policy if they don't meet resistance. After visiting Hungary's biggest refugee camp in Debrecen, Orbán promptly announced that the government was considering shutting it down. This was met with little opposition, so an official announcement that all urban camps would be closed, with refugees moved to tent encampments in the suburbs and on the Hungarian pusta -- "so that local people would not be disturbed by the masses of refugees" -- followed only a few weeks later. "Orbán's national consultation on terrorism and immigration cost double the amount that Hungary spends on refugee protection per year." In late June, the foreign minister made a surprise announcement that Hungary would suspend its responsibilities under the Dublin Directive, which obliges the country of first entry into the EU to process asylum requests. The government backed down after fierce criticism, but this bluff did secure additional EU funds for Hungary's collapsing asylum system -- already almost exclusively financed by the European Refugee Fund -- and excused Hungary from participating in the EU's resettlement and relocation plans. The vast majority of people who are apprehended at the Serbo-Hungarian border quickly leave, but this doesn't stop the Hungarian government from introducing one extreme measure after the other to prevent immigrants from "taking over." Recently, Fidesz officials announced plans to make illegal border crossing a criminal offense (rather than a misdemeanor) and to set up work camps for refugees. The asylum law has already been changed so that people can be deported back to non-EU countries with failing asylum systems. At the same time, the government is not making any attempts to provide adequate shelter, with existing refugee camps taking in double the capacity they were built for without getting extra support. Given its history behind the Iron Curtain, Hungary should know better than to erect a fence on the Serbo-Hungarian border. It is expected to be completed by the end of November and will be three meters high and 175 kilometers long. The materials are being prepared by prisoners, while the actual building will be done by the Hungarian army. The fence itself is a truly Hungarian undertaking, but the ramifications are international. "It is unlikely that this fence will be the last." As we have seen elsewhere, trying to secure the country does not stem the flow of migrants: people have and will continue to move across borders. It will not solve the issue: the fence will direct refugees toward Romania and Croatia, and they will still make their way toward Western Europe from these countries. The relation between Orbán and the EU is one of mutual dependence: Orbán is reconstructing and renovating half of his country with EU funds, while the EU needs Hungary as a buffer country to trap refugees on their way to the West. This careful balance is negotiated in the EU's response to the Hungarian immigration policy. If the EU were to acknowledge that the Hungarian asylum system is dysfunctional, which the European Court of Human Rights did with Greece in 2011, it would put another nail in the coffin of the Dublin Regulation. To do so now, the EU would have to radically change its policies in reaction to this unprecedented refugee crisis. Considering that securitization is not just a Hungarian, but an EU-wide approach, this is unlikely to happen, and it is equally unlikely that this fence will be the last. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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The system would be "euro-denominated but at the drop of a hat it could be converted into a new drachma," the former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, said
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• ECB warned to pump more money to save eurozone as Varoufakis denies hacking • AEP: Varoufakis awaits treason charges • Explosive parallel currency plot prompts investigation claims • Europe braces itself for a revolutionary Leftist backlash after ...
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A man passes a store front of souvenir shop in the Plaka tourist district of Athens, Tuesday, July 28, 2015. Emissaries from Greece's international ...
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This post is in response to an article published on the Washington Post by Jacob Bogage on July 21, 2015, titled "Study: Pepco is the country's worst utility at connecting solar power." Although it is no secret that Puerto Rico's deep economic crisis extends far beyond anything the island has seen in its modern history, few opinion makers and pundits discuss in detail how high energy costs and the Commonwealth's monopoly over utilities constitute one of the main roadblocks for economic recovery and competitiveness. With a total of $72 billion debt outstanding, Puerto Rico's debt equals 70 percent of its economic output, far more than any U.S state. The island's public debt as a percent of 2013 personal income has reached 87.5 percent. That compares with the average of all 50 states of 3.1 percent. However, Puerto Rico's debt is hardly a monolithic credit. A recent study prepared by Anne Krueger, a Professor of International Economics at the John Hopkins University and former Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), confirms that the central government and its three large government owned corporations -- the water and sewerage utility (Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority, or PRASA), the state electricity company (Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA), and the highway authority (Highways and Transportation Authority, or HTA) -- have been responsible for most of the increase in public debt. Since neither Puerto Rico nor its government-owned corporations can file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, Puerto Rico's government owned-corporations need to undergo significant structural changes in order to pay back their obligations. Whether amending Chapter 9 to allow a Detroit-styled bankruptcy procedure for Puerto Rico is a good or bad deal, maximizing efficiency, cutting red tape and modernizing obsolete operational systems in government owned corporations must be a priority in any debt-restructuring plan. According to Anne Krueger in "Puerto Rico: A Way Forward": The drive for competitiveness must include a cut in high energy costs, which cascade down to the rest of the economy. The silver lining in PREPA's financial difficulties is that it has forced the public enterprise to confront its problems of over-staffing and inefficiency. The specifics of upcoming reforms, and the associated debt relief to make it viable, are still being worked out by PREPA and its creditors. Whatever the details, they should build to a solution where PREPA focuses on transmission and distribution, while electricity generation is opened up to competition from newer and more efficient suppliers. On June 1, 2015, PREPA published PREPA's "Transformation: A Path to Sustainability," a detailed report prepared by AlixPartners, a global business advisory firm hired by PREPA after bondholders raised concerns over the lack of a structured and organized debt negotiation framework. The report cites several internal challenges faced by PREPA, such as high dependence on fuel oil, inability to diversify fuel mix and rising energy costs due to an antiquated rate structure that fails to effectively capture costs, among others. AlixPartner's report on PREPA's troubles is very emphatic on the use of renewables, such as solar energy, to cut the reliance on heavy fuel oils and move to greater reliance on cleaner natural energy. Modernizing PREPA's facilities to reduce electricity rate is a key to lure private investment in Puerto Rico. More often than not, commercial consumers cite the high cost of energy as one of the main factors asphyxiating Puerto Rico's economy. Puerto Rico manufacturers have emphasized the need for energy-cost reduction to remain competitive vis-à-vis other jurisdictions. According to Carlos Rivera Vélez, President of the Puerto Rico Manufacturers Association (PRMA): To compete effectively in global markets, Puerto Rico must reduce its energy costs significantly... on the issue of cheap energy, we have a significant competitive disadvantage. The U.S is competing with prices ranging between 8 cents and 10 cents per kilowatt hour. Meanwhile, residential consumers also face an uphill battle with PREPA if they opt for renewable energy as a way to cut their monthly bill on electricity. A recent article published by the Washington Post, cites Pepco, the power provider for parts of Maryland and Washington, D.C, as the country's worst utility at interconnecting solar power. According to the Washington Post: The industry standard for interconnection, the process that allows customers to operate their solar systems, is 25 days, according EQ Research, which conducted the study on behalf of several solar energy providers and the trade group Solar Energy Industries Association. But in Maryland, Pepco takes on average 76 days to interconnect solar users with the power grid, according to the report. In the District, Pepco takes an average of 51 days. The average wait time for a residential unit to interconnect solar panels to PREPA's grid is an astonishing 142 days. This is close to 6 times the average industry standard for interconnection in the U.S, which is 25 days, and almost twice Pepco's interconnection timeline for Maryland's solar customers, which is 72 days. It's PREPA, not Pepco, that is the country's worst utility company at connecting solar power. Although certainly alarming, this should come at no surprise since Act 57 of 2014, dubbed the Act for the Transformation and Energy Relief of Puerto Rico, was signed into Law on May 2014. For the first time in Puerto Rico's history, the Government established a clear compliance policy for PREPA to ensure that at least 60 percent of the electricity generated in Puerto Rico from fossil fuels is generated in a highly efficient manner, as defined by the Puerto Rico Energy Commission (PREC), an independent regulatory body also created by the Act. According to Act 57, PREPA has a 3-year deadline to meet the 60 percent threshold, but PREPA's fight to retain its monopoly still wages on. Among its wide-reaching powers, the PREC has jurisdiction to revise and approve minimum technical requirements and additional technical requirements for the interconnection of distributed generators and oversee compliance with the same. A good alternative to solve the interconnection problem is filing a formal complaint before PREC, since no ruling has been issued on this matter and PREPA continues to lag behind. As evidenced above, Puerto Rico's economic crisis is nothing to laugh about. Drawing comparisons to Greece and Detroit could be illustrative, but the context of Puerto Rico's case is far different. Neither Detroit nor Greece has a state monopoly over energy responsible for a significant portion of their debt. Puerto Rico's challenges are nothing short of unprecedented, but they can be overcome. As unprecedented as they are, they also require unprecedented solutions that will be uncomfortable for many -- including bondholders and several of Puerto Rico's government-owned enterprises. As for PREPA, the costs of inefficient business practices, political meddling and outdated energy policies has led to a total debt of $9 billion outstanding that must be paid someway or another. Although it is yet to be seen if bondholders will demand specific structural reforms to give PREPA a haircut in their debt, it seems clear as day that PREPA must abandon its dependency on heavy oil for clean and renewable energy. PREPA's evolution to renewable sources of energy is not only a matter of self-sufficiency, but also a necessary step in the right direction to jumpstart Puerto Rico's once almighty economy. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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The start of new bailout talks between the Greek government and its international creditors has been overshadowed by revelations that Greece's maverick ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis was secretly planning for a parallel system of liquidity.
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There is definitive proof, for anyone willing to look, that Greece is not solely or even primarily responsible for its own financial crisis. The proof is not ...
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ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Greece pushed ahead with talks on a new rescue ... So far, Greece has received about 240 billion euros from the European ...
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ATHENS—Talks to complete a bailout program between Greece and its creditors will start Tuesday, almost a week later than planned, raising pressure on Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras as he struggles to keep his party from falling apart. A delegation ...
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#economy
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As talks continue between the Greek government and its creditors over a further €86bn (£61bn; $95bn) bailout, Stathis Kouvelakis, a member of ...
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Emissaries from Greece's international creditors are holding preparatory talks with Greek officials as the aim is to thrash out the terms of the deal ...
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Hellenic Capital Market Commission to decide Wednesday
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It seems ironic that Wall Street today loves the words “innovation” and “disruptor”, but fears innovation and disruptive technologies within their own industry. The flow statistics certainly show that investors have generally embraced the use of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), but there remains considerable fear mongering regarding ETFs and, more specifically, ETFs based on illiquid assets. We don’t believe such fears are justified. They might reflect a misunderstanding of ETF trading or perhaps are defensive tactics associated with the new competition of a disruptive technology. The empirical evidence, as opposed to supposition about “what if” situations, has not confirmed the often cited criticisms of ETFs holding illiquid securities. Recent and significant examples demonstrate that ETFs based on illiquid assets not only withstood a volatility storm, but their trading became more liquid and efficient both on an absolute basis and relative to that of the illiquid underlying securities. The empirical data does raise important questions about the illiquidity premiums that investors currently pay to managers who invest in illiquid asset classes. ETFs now offer liquid access to illiquid securities, which means that managers of illiquid assets will need to better justify fees and conditions related to clients’ access to funds. Investors no longer have to tolerate lock-ups and gates, which restrict investors’ access to their own funds, to get exposure to illiquid asset classes. There are, of course, a select group of managers who produce so much “alpha” that investors are well-compensated for the lack of access to their money. However, with the advent of ETFs in illiquid asset classes that offer both asset class returns and daily liquidity, a long-term multi-manager investment strategy should progressively focus on ETF selection and ETF allocation rather than on selecting among the majority of managers of illiquid securities who restrict investor liquidity while generally producing minimal or no alpha. Understanding ETF Trading ETF trading has two aspects: the creation and redemption of an ETF’s shares outstanding and the trading of those ETF shares. Most concerns about ETFs of illiquid securities seem to concentrate on the former and ignore the latter. The creation and redemption of ETF shares is based on a basket of the ETF’s underlying assets. For example, shares of an ETF based on a stock index would be created or redeemed based on the constituents of the index. Shares of some ETFs are created or redeemed based on a representative sample of the underlying index because full replication is impossible. That is generally the case when the underlying stocks or bonds are relatively illiquid. Shares can be created or redeemed when the net asset value of an ETF diverges significantly enough from an ETF’s price to justify the increase or decrease in the number of shares and when the underlying security prices have not yet adjusted. When the trading value of an ETF is too high relative to the net asset value, more shares will tend to be created to push the trading value down to the net asset value. When the trading value of the ETF is too low relative to the net asset value, then shares will tend to be redeemed to increase the trading value. The second piece to ETF trading is the actual trading of the existing ETF shares. ETF shares trade on exchanges with price discovery based on bid/ask spreads and market making as do other listed securities. It is critical to understand ETFs trade independently of the trading of the underlying securities. For example, shares in global equity ETFs listed in the United States trade during US trading hours while non-US markets are closed because of time zone differences. ETFs can sell at significant premiums or discounts to net asset value if the creation/redemption process and market trading aren’t efficient. However, there are many investments that can sell at premiums or discounts and some, such as closed-end funds, can do so for long periods of time. Some critics of ETFs of illiquid securities might not fully understand ETFs’ two trading considerations. They often comment on the potential inability to create and redeem shares if an illiquid market had a disruption. However, they ignore the fact that the ETF, which trades in a listed and much more liquid market, can trade independently of the underlying assets. This is a fundamental aspect of ETFs. ETFs’ trading represents the trading in baskets of securities already held and does not represent the trading in the actual underlying market. An ETF investor can exit the investment regardless of whether the underlying market is active. It makes no difference whether an ETF is based on stocks in countries in which markets are closed for time difference or holiday or whether an ETF is based on illiquid assets in a market that has stopped functioning because of panic or fundamental problems. As with any market listed investment, there is no guarantee of selling price, but an ETF based on illiquid assets is more likely to provide immediate liquidity relative to that offered in the underlying illiquid assets’ primary market. A well-respected money manager was quoted in The Wall Street Journal on July 21 as saying, “No investment vehicle should promise more liquidity than is afforded by its underlying assets.” This statement seems to ignore that virtually all financial assets are more liquid than the underlying asset that they represent. An investor can transact more easily in the equity of a company than they can in the underlying assets on the balance sheet. Commodity futures are more liquid than the underlying commodities (I don’t want to physically sell live cattle or pork bellies, do you?). REITs are more liquid investments than the underlying real estate. A fear that ETFs might be more liquid than their underlying assets seems to ignore the long list of financial assets that are more liquid than their underlying assets. There are recent examples of significant market disruptions that demonstrate the importance of both parts of ETF trading. In these instances, ETFs continued to trade despite total or partial market closure. A prolonged closure of a market clearly represents an extreme case of asset illiquidity. Chinese equities Chinese equities have experienced considerable volatility during 2015. Chart 2 shows the CSI 300 index over the past five years, and its extreme volatility over the past year or so. Chinese authorities have tried to curtail the recent bear market by adding liquidity, preventing new issues from coming to market which might add to the over-supply of shares, and by halting trading in many securities. The Wall Street Journal on July 21 commented that only about 3% of Chinese listed companies in mid-July could trade normally because of suspended trading or trading limits (See Chart 1). One cannot find a more illiquid market than one that basically doesn’t trade! Chart 3 shows that the discontinuity of trading in many of the underlying issues did not hurt the liquidity of the Deutsche X-trackers Chinese A-Shares ETF (ticker: ASHR). In fact, the bottom panel of Chart 3 demonstrates that the value traded of the ETF soared as the underlying market became increasingly illiquid. The liquidity of the ETF increased as the turmoil in the Chinese stock market increased and as the underlying securities became less liquid. Chart 4 demonstrates that the relationship between the ETF’s value and the net asset value (NAV) 4 of the underlying securities becomes more suspect as the underlying securities stop trading. This might be a problem for short-term traders, and these disparities reflect both emotion and the total inability (because of closed markets and regulation) to arbitrage the differences between the two. We view the disparities as being relatively normal. Two things to consider when examining the spread between the ETF price and the NAV: The wider disparity between the ETF price and the NAV occurred largely because the underlying securities were not pricing. When this happens, pricing models rather than market quotes are sometimes used to estimate NAV. However, this is exactly our point. The ETF continued trading despite that the underlying market stopped trading. Longer-term investors should probably not worry about shortterm disparities between an ETF’s price and the underlying NAV because the two tend to roughly equate over time. Even traditional stocks’ prices differ from the underlying NAV, but stocks’ prices and NAVs tend to converge. Value investors typically attempt to take advantage of such stock mispricing by going long stocks whose prices understate NAV and by shorting those whose prices overstate NAV. The point being that it is not unusual to see such disparities in financial markets Greek Equities Greece’s debt problems and the resulting financial market uncertainty caused the Greek stock market to close as of June 26. Similar to the China example above, the Global X FTSE Greece 20 ETF (GREK) traded with increased, not decreased, liquidity despite that the underlying market became totally illiquid -- it has been closed for an extended period of time! (See Chart 5) Chart 6 points out that the disparity increased between the ETF and the underlying NAV. Again, our thesis is not that the markets will efficiently value the underlying securities when an underlying market closes. Rather, it is that the fears associated with ETFs of illiquid securities seem unfounded. In such instances when a market became extremely illiquid (i.e., the market closed or trading was halted in the underlying securities), the liquidity of the associated ETF increased, and investors could more easily exit the asset class via trading the ETF than by trading the underlying securities. Some have suggested that illiquid asset ETFs’ Achilles heel is the creation and redemption process. They argue that in a crisis there could be so many redemptions in such a short period of time that the underlying illiquid market will not be able to fulfill the sell orders and redemption will be impossible. The example of Greece seems to argue that this fear is also unfounded. Chart 7 shows the shares outstanding of GREK. The shares outstanding represent the creation/redemption process. Because the Greek stock market completely closed, the creation and redemption process stopped. No ETF shares could be created or redeemed (note that shares outstanding are unchanged for the month of July 2015). Despite the abrupt stop to the creation/redemption process for GREK because of the closure of the underlying market, the ETF itself continued to trade and did so with tight bid/ask spreads and increased dollar-valued traded. The fear mongers have suggested that a scenario in which the underlying market can’t trade should result in a failure of the ETF construct. However, the abrupt ceasing of the create/redeem process for GREK seemed to support, not detract from, the robustness of the ETF structure. ETFs as “liquidity benchmarks” ETF naysayers’ assumptions seem to be wrong. ETFs holding securities that have become totally illiquid have so far experienced more liquidity, not less, during market disruptions, and investors have been more able, not less able, to execute trades in those ETFs. In the examples of China and Greece, the underlying assets became totally illiquid. The market closed or trading was halted, and one could not transact in the underlying securities at any price. Yet, in both cases, liquidity of the related ETFs increased. ETFs holding illiquid assets may serve another purpose. Managers of illiquid securities have historically been paid a premium for managing illiquid portfolios. It seems as though those premium fees are now obsolete. ETFs now serve as viable “liquidity benchmarks” to which managers of illiquid assets must now compare themselves. Managers should be able to charge a liquidity premium fee only if they can buy or liquidate assets in their portfolios faster and more efficiently than an investor could enter or exit an asset class via an ETF. ETFs of illiquid securities provide investors with access to illiquid markets’ index returns with no lockup or gates and provide serious competition for the average manager of illiquid assets. To reiterate, there are a select group of managers whose performance alpha is so large that it more than compensates investors for a lack of access to their own money. However, it is impossible that all managers can provide such large alphas to justify lockups and gates. To paraphrase Garrison Keillor, are all asset managers above average? Asset allocation remains more important than manager selection It has long been our view that asset allocation ultimately drives the majority of investment returns. Investing with a good manager in the wrong asset class is likely to underperform a bad manager in a good asset class. It is the asset class and not the individual manager that generally drives the majority of a portfolio’s returns. The continued broadening of ETF offerings gives investors the opportunity to access asset classes that previously were off limits, and to typically do so with daily liquidity. RBA’s role as asset allocators of clients’ funds has been enriched by these new ETFs, and we fully embrace them in our tactical portfolios.Join the conversation about this story »
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ATHENS, July 28 (Reuters) - The Greek stock market will reopen on Wednesday or Thursday after a month-long shutdown but with restrictions on trading by local investors at the request of the European Central Bank, the Greek securities regulator chairman ...
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The former Mayor of Thessaloniki, convicted of stealing 17 million euros, has gotten a get out of jail card because of health problems. The post Corrupt Greek Mayor Out of Jail appeared first on The National Herald.
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Greece sent its first proposal to the ECB last week in an effort to reopen its stock market as soon as possible. The bourse risked its place in the global ...
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With its illustrious roll call of photographers and models, from Kate Moss to Annie Leibovitz, Pirelli’s triumph is a masterclass in image managementIt is an assignment that Kate Moss, who has appeared on the cover of British Vogue 36 times, described as “the best job ever”. Clive Arrowsmith, who has taken portraits of everyone from Michael Caine to the Dalai Lama, likened it to “a knighthood of photography”. Carine Roitfeld, the former editor of French Vogue, and Steven Meisel, who has shot all but one Italian Vogue cover in two decades, recently called their involvement with the title “an honour”. Karl Lagerfeld, who was commissioned to shoot his “dear friend” Julianne Moore as the Greek goddess Hera, commented that “nobody believes in these gods any more, but [these] girls ... are the goddesses of today”. Continue reading...
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Police officers stood outside the headquarters of ruling party Syriza, during a party political committee meeting in Athens, July 27, 2015. Greece's ...
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