How the world sees Greece
The Greek economy has grown at a faster rate than the UK, Germany and the US in the three months to June - despite suffering months of bailout talks and the prospect of going bankrupt. Official data revealed the the debt troubled country's economy grew by ...
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AN IDYLLIC island in Greece has become “like hell” with 2000 people locked in a stadium in 45C heat without access to food, water or toilets.
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Fighting among themselves to board sweltering, standing room-only carriages at Gevgelija train station on the Macedonian-Greek desperate families clamber on to the train.
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President of the Hellenic Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos had a telephone conversation with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Thursday, in which they discussed Friday’s Eurogroup. Pavlopoulos discussed the same issue on Wednesday with French President Francois Hollande and European Central Bank (ECB) head Mario Draghi. The Greek Parliament is due to meet on Thursday and vote
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As Greece’s brilliant 300 lawmakers cross swords –and humongous lies– in parliament over the voting of the new bailout agreement draft, Greek media try to outdo one another in telling Greek people how terrible and destructive the new required measures and reforms are. If we, the Greek people, believe that all these austerity measures and reforms those
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Greek main opposition New Democracy will vote in favor of the agreement signed between Greece and its creditors, the party’s parliamentary group concluded after a seven-hour meeting on Thursday. “All lawmakers decided that New Democracy, as a party representing responsibility and consistency, will support the country’s European path,” the party said in a statement. “The main conclusion
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Greece needs serious debt relief, not token measures: it is about time lenders accepted that piecemeal measures are pointless when debt ratios reach 200%The good news for the International Monetary Fund, which has been saying for ages that Greece’s debts are unsustainable, is that European lenders now seem to agree.There are “serious concerns” about the sustainability of the country’s debts, the three European institutions negotiating the latest bailout said on Thursday. They think Greece’s debts will peak at 201% of GDP in 2016, which is roughly what the IMF said a month ago when it projected a high “close to 200% of GDP in the next two years”. Continue reading...
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Greece will submit its own growth plan to its partners in March 2016, according to Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos’ statements to parliament committees currently discussing the draft bill of the new agreement. Regarding debt restructuring, he said that it depends on the result of the first evaluation of the economic program expected to take place in October. Tsakalotos
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The Greek government defended the country’s new rescue program on Thursday, commenting on the decision of SYRIZA Left Platform leader Panagiotis Lafazanis to announce the “social and political formation” of a “unitary movement” against the Memorandum. According to government sources, “Panagiotis Lafazanis’ decision to announce the formation of a new Greek political entity today, finalizes his decision to choose a separate path
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“Today I got a mandate to approve the third package for Greece,” Finnish Finance Minister Alexander Stubb told reporters on Thursday, revealing the Finnish government’s intention to finally participate in Greece’s new rescue loan deal. The decision, which was made by the Finnish Parliamentary Grand Committee, was announced by Stubb, who hastened to comment: “There are 47 preconditions
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Ukip MEP Steven Woolfe said: “The developing situation on the Greek islands has shown up another dangerous gaping migration hole on the EU's ...
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Based on details of the talks leaked to the press, critics said the deal would control the Greek government so completely that it amounted to a takeover ...
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A group of co-workers and I went to Greek Isles every Wednesday for about 10 years for the roast chicken special: quarter chicken, two sides, bread ...
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More than half of Germans are opposed to a planned third bailout for Greece and the vast majority do not believe the Greek government will implement economic reforms, a survey by Forsa for newspaper H...
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Nicosia, August 13, 2015/ Independent Balkan News Agency By Kyriacos Kyriacou Security forces in the occupied north insist on building an alternative route for a crossing point in Dherynia because a Greek Cypriot protester had been killed in the area and it would be used for propaganda, a Turkish Cypriot newspaper reported on Thursday. Daily […]
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Greece’s parliament has held an emergency session on new austerity measures to secure a third bailout, as unexpected positive news came in the form of 0.8 per cent growth in the second quarter of the year.
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LESBOS, Greece -- Crammed in a rubber dinghy with dozens of other Syrians, Mohamed steered away from the Turkish shoreline toward the idyllic Greek island of Lesbos just on the horizon. The island's ancient castle sat on a hilltop before them, seemingly ...
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Coca-Cola has seen 'positive momentum' in Greece despite challenging conditions, but remains cautious about the remainder of 2015. Meanwhile ...
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oil sector Dow futures today (Thursday) forecast a 53-point gain as European markets rallied more than 1% as investors eyed the progress of Greece's ...
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Germany feeling isolated
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Defying expectations, Greece's economy grew at a surprisingly rapid pace in the second quarter, according to new numbers published today. Yes, that ...
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European institutions voiced “serious concerns” about Greece's ability to repay its debt as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras prepared for a renewed ...
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ATHENS—A bleak debt forecast for Greece is raising pressure on Europe to grant the country softer loan terms, exacerbating tensions among its creditors as they try to seal a new Greek rescue deal within days. But in rare good news from Athens, data ...
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The Greek government has chartered a cruise ship to help process the mass of refugees who are arriving at the resort island of Kos. Local authorities are struggling to cope with a big increase in the number of arrivals, most of whom have fled conflict in Syria. The Greek minister of state, Alekos Flabouraris, said the ship would dock at the island's main port and be converted into a reception centre to process the refugees.
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Turkish efforts to stop traffickers from sending large "ghost ships" crammed with migrants towards Italy has sparked the surge in arrivals in Greece, the International Organization for Migration said Thursday.
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After months of negotiations, the fund’s managing director hopes its stance on debt relief will be implemented
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This summer, it’s raining unicorns — tech startups valued at more than $1 billion — and as a result the Israeli tech scene is going absolutely crazy. Business Insider just spent a week in Israel meeting with over a dozen tech companies, and VCs. They all told us: Everyone is dreaming of becoming the next unicorn. Instead of selling their startups for $1 million to $30 million, founders are turning down multi-million acquisition offers wanting to build big companies. 2015 is a record-breaker for VC funding. For the first half in 2015, 342 companies have attracted $2.1 billion, up from 334 companies nabbing $1.6 billion in the first half of 2014. The private equity bankers have arrived in droves, including Blackstone, SilverLake, KKR, Apax Partners, TPG, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, and they're writing writing huge checks. Chinese investors are swarming the country, joining Israeli VC funds as limited partners as well as doing a lot of huge, direct investments into startups, too."If we're going to do $4 billion in venture in 2015, the estimate I heard is that at least $500 million of that will be Chinese money, and that’s direct investment not including the LP stuff," Israeli powerhouse VC Jon Medved told Business Insider. "And I think that’s probably underestimated.” Medved, founder of investment startup OurCrowd and is widely known as one of the fathers of Israel’s tech startup scene. Chinese investors are “at all the parties” a startup founder told us.The joke here is that Israeli border control needs to open up a special customs line “just for Chinese investors with bags of money that they can just get in the country for free,” Medved quipped. This hot economy has led to ... Big well-funded Israeli companies starting to acquire other Israeli companies for big sums of money, too. The first crop of Israeli serial entrepreneurs, such as Avigdor Willens, who sold Annapurna to Amazon earlier this year for a reported $350 to $375 million. Willens sold his first company, Galileo, for $2.7 billion in stock back in 2000 to Marvell Technologies. It started when Google dropped a billion on Waze When Google bought Waze for $1 billion in 2013, it was a milestone event for the country, says Medved. “Billion-dollar companies are now all over the place. Waze was the first and most important,” he told us. Waze co-founder Uri Levine explained to Business Insider, “This was the first time a billion-dollar app, and a consumer app, came out of Israel,” and it set “a new beacon for Israel” telling entrepreneurs to aim higher than a quick exit. The next year, Japan's Rakuten (the eBay of Japan) acquired Israeli messaging app Viber for $900 million and unicorn fever in the country began. Over and over, startup founders told us they had no interest in selling their successful companies, some of which were doing millions of dollars in revenue, some of which were doing hundreds of millions in revenue. They wanted to grow their companies past $1 billion to many billions. “Israel entrepreneurs are obsessed with building unicorns,” Hillel Fuld, CMO of Israeli startup Zula told us. Billion dollar startups include … Taboola (who raised $117 million in February, $157 million total) IronSource (who raised $105 million in two rounds from private equity funds run by JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley), Outbrain (who filed confidential SEC documents for an IPO at a reported $1 billion valuation) Conduit, who said it was the first Israeli internet unicorn, in 2012 There’s also a new crop of public tech companies worth $1 billion: MobileEye: IPO’d in 2014, with $12 billion market cap today CyberArk, also IPO’d in 2014, market cap of about $2 billion Wix, IPO’d in 2013, market cap of about $900 million And there's some half-unicorns, like Varonis Systems, which IPO’d in 2014 and has a market cap of nearly $600 million, nothing to sneeze at. Asian money everywhere "The Asia stuff is very dramatic, very real and very new," says Medved. "China is the big story. But Japan for example — there had never been a visit of a Japanese Prime Minister to Israel before. In all the years of Israel’s existence, what did they have to come here for? This year, the Japanese Prime Minister shows up for four days, all tech.” Meanwhile, Korea’s Samsung Ventures has now made "8 investments here over the last year," says Medved. Plus, "there are now Israeli companies going to list on the Singapore exchange." Israel will also be hosting the Indian Prime Minister for the first time. In February, Indian company Infosys (now run by SAP’s former US CTO Vishal Sikka) bought Israeli company Panaya for $200 million. India has plans to build an R&D center here. Still China overshadows them all. Investment are pouring in from Baidu, Fosun, Alibaba, Tencent, RenRen and others. Famous Chinese angel investor (and billionaire) Li Ka Shing and his Horizon Ventures fund are all over the country. Horizon was an early investor in Waze. And he’s invested in about 29 Israeli startups, including Waze founder Levine’s latest baby, FeeX, (raised $9 million). If there's a downside to all of this, its that Israel is starting to experience a severe talent shortage. They are now poaching each other's employees and trying to keep employees from leaving by offering better and better Valley-like perks. IronSource, for example, flies its 550 employees to one exotic offsite meeting every year. The whole company just got back from Greece. "Once a year, we party," CEO Tomer Bar Zeev told us. "That builds culture. It's one of the best investments we can make, investing in the company." If that fails, Chinese billionaire Li Ka Shing has an answer. He also donated $130 million to Israel’s Technion, the Israeli Institute of Technology (like the MIT of Israel), one of the largest ever donations received by an Israeli university.SEE ALSO: How Fitness22 is making 'millions of dollars a year' selling iPhone apps with no marketing Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: An Israeli Company Just Solved Solar Energy's Single Most Mystifying Problem
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Pharmacists and bakers are among businessses worried that the OECD Greece rescue deal, while pushing competition, will harm community enterprises Christos Vouldis doesn’t see why international institutions like the European Central Bank should tell him how to run his bakery. Nikolleta Stefanidi, meanwhile, is worried for the elderly people who come to her Greek neighbourhood pharmacy for their medicine. Continue reading...
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#politics
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Greece's ruling Syriza party edged toward a formal split on Thursday, hours before rebel leftist lawmakers promised to vote against a new bailout deal to keep the country afloat.
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Greece's privatization fund announced on Thursday deadlines for the submission of binding offers for tenders concerning the privatization of Piraeus and Thessaloniki ports and the state railways TRAINOSE-ROSCO.
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Tirana, 13 August 2015/Independent Balkan News Agency Textile businesses in Albania are becoming the first enterprises which are officially declaring the serious effects of the Greek crisis. The textile business is the first one to feel the effects of the Greek crisis in Albania. This is confirmed by the head of the Albanian Chamber of […]
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The protest marked the start of a crowdfunding campaign that Greenpeace hopes will draw attention to a natural resource that Greece possesses in ...
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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s Syriza party looked set to split after the leader of its far-left faction called for a new movement to fight a bailout deal that MPs will vote on later on Thursday. Days after striking an agreement with foreign ...
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Economic uncertainty in Greece also weighed on TUI's performance at the end of June and in the first half of July, but the company said it has seen an ...
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The Greek government has defended its new bailout programme in tumultuous parliamentary sessions, as it faced a rebellion in the governing Syriza party ahead of a vote on the deal. The draft bill for the three-year rescue package worth about 85 billion ...
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Greece's economy expanded 0.8 percent in the second quarter, a forecast-busting figure that defied all expectations. But it won't last, according to ...
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When Google GOOG 0.25 % announced this week that it was creating a parent company called Alphabet, tech and business observers were left ...
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BERLIN -- Germany's government withheld approval of the draft bailout plan for Greece, saying a bridge loan remains an option if a full aid program ...
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Greece's economy expanded by 0.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2015, the national statistics agency estimated today, with the country also escaping recession in the first quarter. According to the new figures, the Greek economy posted zero growth in ...
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Eurozone finance ministers meeting Aug. 14 to discuss a third bailout for Greece will also have on the table a second bridge loan just in case. The post Greece May Need 2nd Bridge Loan appeared first on The National Herald.
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Greece's creditors have voiced "serious concerns" about the sustainability of the country's debt ahead of a vote on a third bail-out deal in Athens that is likely to cement a split within the government. Analysis prepared by the country's European lenders ...
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The holiday atmosphere in the Greek capital belies the tension brewing in Parliament. MPs are set to vote on a multi-billion euro bailout deal. With…
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Pressure on Berlin to ease Greek debt burden and back new bailout
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By Michelle MartinBERLIN (Reuters) - While Chancellor Angela Merkel's focus on careful spending as a cure for the euro zone's debt problems has made her popular at home, German consumers are borrowing more to finance everything from furniture to cars.Germans, traditionally a nation of debt-averse savers, took out an average of 8,700 euros ($9,650) in loans last year - a rise of around 10 percent compared with 2013, according to Schufa, Germany's main credit bureau.With borrowing expected rise again this year, that marks a significant shift in a country where the thrifty southwestern 'Swabian housewife' has been held up as a model and a strong dislike of borrowing is rooted in the language. 'Schuld', the word for debt, also means guilt.During the euro zone crisis, Merkel and her government have extolled the virtues of budget discipline over loading up on debt to finance stimulus, with her Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble currently playing hardball over Greece's attempts to secure a third bailout in exchange for economic reforms.That stance that has scored points with voters at home but raised hackles in other euro zone states, whose governments have throughout the crisis urged the citizens of Europe's richest country to help kick-start the region's recovery by spending more freely.Emboldened by the strong jobs market, rising wages and a more robust economic backdrop, German consumers are starting to do just that by buying more on credit as rock-bottom interest rates make it cheaper to borrow and reduce the incentive to save."The economy is stable, steady incomes are giving people planning security and there are plenty of tempting offers at a time when people are very consumption-oriented and interest rates are low," said Michael-Burkhard Piorkowsky, professor of household and consumption economics at the University of Bonn."All this means that taking on debt is in vogue."While the number of new loans dropped slightly last year, the average amount people borrowed rose. For the first time, new installment loans worth more than 10,000 euros overtook those worth less than 1,000 euros, Schufa data showed.Germans still have far less outstanding consumer credit per head than peers in Norway, Denmark and the United Kingdom, but they have far more left to pay off than the Italians, Spanish and Portuguese, a study by French bank Credit Agricole found.'SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE'Hans-Werner Scherer, head of financial services firm EOS Group, said installment loans, the overdraft facility on credit cards and current accounts, had become "socially acceptable"."Nowadays Germans differentiate between 'good' and 'bad' debt," he said. "Taking out debt to pay for cosmetic surgery, new clothes or jewelry is still frowned upon but taking out a loan to buy a house or pay for health treatment is accepted."Germans are most likely to borrow money to pay for high-value items like property or cars but less keen on using credit for leisure activities like holidays and games consoles, Scherer said.Market research group GfK's consumer credit index expects consumers to take out even more debt this year, mainly to pay for renovations, furniture, kitchens and used cars.Germans have a strong payment record, with 97.5 percent paying back their debt, according to Schufa. But some evidence suggests attitudes are changing among younger Germans.An increasing number of the Federal Association of German Debt Collection Companies' (BDIU) member firms are reporting that 18- to 24-year-olds are worse at paying bills than those above 25. Online retailers and mail-order firms are young Germans' most common creditors."This trend is slowly gaining traction and it's really bad when young people start out with a debt pile which builds up to the extent that they could get so overwhelmed they end up insolvent," said BDIU head Wolfgang Spitz.The 62-year-old said attitudes had changed since his childhood: "Back in the day ... you saved up money you got from your grandmother and others and at some point you could buy a bike but that's no longer so common."If he had his way, schools would give lessons on dealing with money and debt and put piggy banks in classrooms.(Reporting by Michelle Martin; editing by John Stonestreet)Join the conversation about this story »
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As the government tried to speed up the evacuation of Syrians and other migrants from the island of Kos, some migrants said they had been locked in a stadium.
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Britain's economy is going through a renaissance – we are living through one of the best times ever. We have the highest employment rate in four decades, we're earning more money than before, and we're buying homes at an earlier age. We've completely and utterly stuck two fingers up at the recession in just seven years. At the beginning of this month, both the Office for National Statistics (ONS)and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the respective UK and US statistical agencies, made GDP revisions. The US has been revised down and the UK has been revised up. The comparative results are astounding – Britain's economic recovery just caught up with the US. The latest data from the ONS shows that the UK economy was 2.6% larger in the second quarter (April to June) in 2015, compared to the same quarter a year ago. Quarter-on-quarter growth was still at 0.4%. This is huge. It's easy to forget what a massive feat this has been for Britain because of today's success. But just look how horrific it was for Britain back in 2008 when the credit crisis unfurled. And we've conquered this in under eight years. Jobs for everyone Only a few months after the start of Britain's recession in 2008, the country had around 1.6 million people out of work. By the time Conservative party-led coalition came to power in 2010, the jobless rate was at a 8%. A year later unemployment peaked at its highest level in 17 years at around 2.7 million. Now look at it – it hit a record high. The unemployment rate is now at a low of 5.6%, as of the April to June data. A year ago that was at 6.3%. And it's not just people grabbing part time shifts wherever they can. Out of the 31.03 million people in work, 22.76 million people are working full-time, 352,000 more than for a year earlier. Both men and women alike are finding more work. ONS figures show that men working full-time increased by 153,000 to reach 14.36 million and women working full-time increased by 198,000 to reach 8.40 million. We're making more money Between 2012 and 2013, wages stagnated. It wasn't long before that unemployment hit a 17 year high (2011) and pretty much everyone was just focusing on getting and retaining a job. However, salaries have started to pick up, and with inflation so low, real wages are now genuinely accelerating. Comparing April to June 2015 with a year earlier, wages for employees in Britain increased by 2.4% including bonuses and by 2.8% excluding bonuses. That's over a period in which there was zero consumer price inflation — so wages are rising while the prices of ordinary goods people buy aren't. Looking at longer term movements since comparable records began in 2000, average total pay for employees in Great Britain in nominal terms (that is, not adjusted for consumer price inflation) increased from £311 a week in January 2000 to £488 a week in June 2015; an increase of 56.6%. Average total pay is now around £488 a week as of June 2015. More people are able to own their own home Britain is still under pressure to build more homes and prices in London are going insane. We are in an era of super-high housing prices. According to the latest house price data from the ONS, released in July this year, the average price for a property in Britain is £274,000 ($427,633) while in London is stands at a huge £503,000 ($785,089). Excluding London, the average house price is £210,000 ($327,802). While high property prices are changing the dynamics of the housing market in the UK, more and more people are actually getting on the housing ladder. More people being in work and earning more means greater prospects on the housing ladder. On top of that, the landscape is pretty fertile for people to get on the property ladder and to stop funnelling money into the rental market. The government launched the Help to Buy scheme in October 2013. This meant that first time buyers would be able to snag a home with only a 5% deposit. The government would provide the remaining 15%. This has meant the average age for a first time buyer has fallen to the average age of 31 – a whole six years off the previous number. So, sure, there are lots of other elements to the economy that need to be finessed and stimulated. Our industrial production could improve, our dependence on imports to be weakened but one thing is for certain, it isn't all that bad. We are have jobs, we have more money than before, and we're able to make sure we have invested in the future with the purchase of a roof over our heads. That sounds pretty good to me.Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 6 mind-blowing facts about Greece's economy
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By Lefteris Karagiannopoulos KOS, Greece (Reuters) - Michel Allatuain waited beneath the 14th century fortress at the port of this Greek island on Thursday, desperate for a ferry ticket to the European mainland and a better life. The 30-year-old pharmaceutical firm employee from Aleppo, Syria, has been sleeping rough in Kos since he paid 2,000 euros to cross from the Turkish coastal city of Bodrum last week. One example: traffickers in Turkey are getting help shepherding growing numbers of Syrians to Greece, thanks to Syrian accomplices, migrants say.
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Greek MPs face another day-long marathon vote to pass another of raft of legislation needed for the country to secure a recently-agreed third €85 billion bailout deal criticised by the German finance ministry as being “not sufficient” in key areas of ...
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