Europe
The IMF’s howler: Millions in poverty To the millions of pauperised citizens of Europe, there has been an unprecedented admission of guilt by the International Monetary Fund (IMF): we got it wrong. In a New Year report entitled “Growth Forecast Errors and Fiscal Multipliers”, the IMF admitted that it had plunged nations of the Euro-zone…
Eurozone finance ministers did a deal earlier this week to make a partial reduction in Greece’s debt and permit an 11th-hour, 34bn euro bailout. But the deal, presented as a win-win for Greece and its creditors, depends on Athens borrowing a further 14bn euros to finance a bond buyback scheme that the Greek finance sector…
The Australian Government’s planned royal commission into church abuse of children already has a blueprint for action provided by the Republic of Ireland on the other side on the world. The Irish Government’s report handed down in November 2009 conveniently offers an insight into the church’s concealment and denial of decades of sexual abuse and…
Europe waits nervously for the latest deadline in the Greek crisis. The coalition government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has only days to meet the EU Troika’s draconian $13.5 billion package of cuts, after three months of talks have failed to bring agreement. The stumbling block within the coalition appears to be a newly-imposed demand…
SO NOW it’s London, Glasgow and Belfast. There were massive demonstrations on Saturday against the Cameron government’s austerity measures – 100,000 people took to the streets in the capital alone. Called by the Trade Union Congress (TUC), the day was a significant show of strength. At the rally, though there were signs that the TUC…
Austerity doesn’t work – it’s official. An American bankers’ think tank, the Institute of International Finance, has just come out with a report which concludes the bleeding obvious: that the all-out pursuit of debt reduction at the expense of economic stimulus has made the Greek situation worse. The Institute’s chairman Charles Dallara, who worked for…
The Paris-based International Herald-Tribune carried a front-page banner headline the other day saying: “A hunt for culprits in Euro crisis.” The seasoned foreign correspondent Jack Ewing wrote from Frankfurt: “The debate about how to distribute the cost of preserving the euro zone often revolves around a fundamental question that is unspoken but implicit: Who caused…
Greece’s summer break is coming to a close, with its place in the Euro-zone still on a knife-edge. Those Greeks still with jobs are returning to work with a deep sense of insecurity. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras spent the whole of last week in shuttle diplomacy with European leaders pleading for more time to implement…
ECUADOR has shown an example to the world by standing up to the US and Britain and granting Julian Assange asylum. The threat by the British government to invade its embassy in London and seize Assange is an outrage. It’s an unprecedented violation of the laws of diplomacy and an act of post-imperial bullying against…
In just four days in Athens we’ve visited the Benaki Museum, the magnificent ruins and museum at Delphi, climbed to the Acropolis and inspected the Parthenon, and been to the Acropolis Museum and the breathtaking National Archaeological Museum in central Athens. In the days ahead we have a schedule of further trips and tours to…
