Is that any way to end Valentine's Day?
"Germany scolds Greece on debt talk; Says blackmail to win relief won’t work" by Nicholas Paphitis and Frank Jordans, Associated Press January 31, 2015
ATHENS — Greece and its European bailout creditors were in open dispute Friday, with Germany bluntly rejecting suggestions that the heavily indebted country should be forgiven part of its rescue loans and warning against ‘‘blackmail’’ from Athens.
Greece’s five-day-old radical left government insists it will honor preelection promises to seek a cut on most of the country’s rescue debt and scrap painful budget measures that were demanded in exchange for the loans.
What's good for Greece could mean the end of the Euro.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, however, warned Athens against strong-arm negotiating tactics in its effort to win debt relief. Rules need to be kept, and trust and reliability were the basis for further solidarity, the dpa news agency reported him saying.
Yes, bankers must be paid before all else.
‘‘There’s no arguing with us about this, and what’s more we are difficult to blackmail,’’ Schaeuble was quoted saying in Berlin.
‘‘We are prepared to offer all cooperation and solidarity,’’ he said, but only if Greece abides by its agreements, under which it received $270 billion in rescue loans.
Without the loans from its fellow eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund, Greece would struggle to service its debts and avoid bankruptcy.
The loans are what got them in trouble in the first place; that and Goldman Sachs deals.
‘‘The discussion about a debt cut or a debt conference is divorced from reality,’’ Martin Jaeger, a German finance ministry spokesman, said in Berlin earlier.
Greece’s Parliamentary Budget Office, which makes quarterly recommendations to lawmakers, warned that the country faces default unless a deal with creditors is reached soon. Greece’s next government debt obligations are due in March.
Shares on the Athens Stock Exchange closed down 1.6 percent Friday, capping total losses of 13 percent for the week, while the interest rate on three-year bonds — a gauge of short term risk of default — rocketed to 19.3 percent.
In Athens, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutchman who chairs eurozone finance ministers’ meetings, met with top officials to sound out the new government. Dijsselbloem acknowledged Greeks have gone through much in recent years to reform their economy, and warned that rash actions by the government would not help.
I'm getting angry reading this bankerspeak.
‘‘Taking unilateral steps or ignoring previous agreements is not the way forward,’’ he told reporters in statements after his meeting with Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government, voted in last Sunday, has already said it will cancel several planned privatization projects and considerably scale down planned budget surpluses required to pay down Greece’s massive national debt.
Tsipras will launch a small tour of other eurozone countries next week, flying to Cyprus, Italy, and France on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, respectively.
Greece’s bailout, which began in May 2010, runs out on Feb. 28 after an initial two-month extension was granted for completion of frozen negotiations with the so-called ‘‘troika’’ — the European Commission, European Central Bank, and IMF.
Greece and the troika hold talks regularly to make sure Athens keeps up its reforms and qualifies for the next installment of loans. Because the latest talks have yet to be concluded, Greece still has to receive the last $8.13 billion batch of its loans from the eurozone.
Dijsselbloem said the eurozone countries would decide before Feb. 28 what to do about financing Greece. He also rejected Greece’s request to hold a conference to discuss restructuring its debt, saying the eurozone’s monthly finance meetings would serve the purpose.
But Greek State Minister Nikos Pappas said Athens is no longer bound by the deadline.
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"Merkel says she doesn’t foresee ‘a further debt haircut’ for Greece" Associated Press February 01, 2015
BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel has underlined the refusal of Greece’s European creditors to consider forgiving part of the debt-ridden country’s rescue loans, though she stressed in an interview published Saturday that Berlin’s aim is to keep Greece in the eurozone.
Because if they do it for one, they have to do it for all.
Greece’s new government insists it will honor preelection promises to seek a cut on the country’s rescue debt, and scrap budget measures demanded in exchange for the loans.
Merkel said in an interview with the daily Berliner Morgenpost that Europe will continue showing solidarity with Greece and other nations hit by Europe’s debt crisis ‘‘if these countries undertake their own reform and saving efforts,’’ and fended off a question about the new Greek government’s moves to reverse reforms and rehire suspended workers.
‘‘We — Germany and the other European partners — will now wait and see what concept the new Greek government comes to us with,’’ she was quoted as saying. She was clear, however, about prospects of a debt cut.
Athens already was forgiven billions of euros by private creditors, Merkel said. ‘‘I don’t see a further debt haircut.’’
As for demands that have surfaced in Greece for Germany to pay more compensation for Nazi crimes during World War II, Merkel said that ‘‘this question doesn’t arise.’’
They are never going to live that down, huh?
Merkel said she wants Greece to be successful and acknowledged that ‘‘many people there have hard times behind them.’’
‘‘The aim of our policies was and is for Greece to remain a part of the euro community permanently,’’ she said.
They would be better off leaving like everyone else. Go back to the drachma.
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At least Greece is not angry at Germany:
"Facing tough debt talks, Greek leader is upbeat; EU leaders caution deal is still far off" Associated Press February 05, 2015
PARIS — European Union leaders cautioned Wednesday that talks with Greece over its demands to ease its bailout loans will be tough, though the country’s new prime minister was upbeat about a resolution.
With Europe waiting to see how Greece proposes to renegotiate its massive bailout loans, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his finance minister are on a whirlwind tour to discuss possible solutions. Tsipras wants easier terms of repayment on the $271 billion in bailout loans and to relax austerity measures the country has been required to adopt.
Tsipras was welcomed at the European Commission, one of three institutions overseeing Greece’s finances, by President Jean-Claude Juncker. Making light of the tension, the men clasped hands and marched off swinging their arms, avoiding reporters. The talks are expected to be tough, however. Juncker has said the EU would show flexibility but ruled out wholesale policy changes. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said it was too early to speculate on a deal as Greece had not made suggestions on how to reduce its debt load.
Germany has long been Europe’s toughest enforcer of debt-reduction policies, particularly in countries like Greece that got rescue loans.
Tsipras then headed to Paris to meet with France’s Socialist president, Francois Hollande, regarded as a potential ally.
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Related:
"France’s Socialist government offered support Sunday for Greece’s effort to renegotiate debt, amid renewed fears about Europe’s economic stability. The backing was a victory for Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who is seeking new conditions on debt from creditors who rescued Greece’s economy to help save the multination euro currency. Some worry that Greece’s new far-left government might not pay its debts. Varoufakis is also visiting London and Rome. In a sign his government may be trying to avoid conflict with key creditors, he said Sunday that he would visit Berlin and Frankfurt, too. The German government has bluntly rejected suggestions that part of Greece’s rescue loans should be forgiven. Varoufakis insisted Greece wants to repay the money but with new terms and new negotiating partners, arguing that it is not worth discussing the issue with technocrats from the so-called troika of creditors who set the strict terms for Greece’s rescue — the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission, and the European Central Bank. France’s Socialist leadership presented itself as a possible link between Greece and creditors. Finance Minister Michel Sapin said France will not support canceling Greece’s debt, but offered backing for a new time frame or terms. Greece’s new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, sought to calm worries Saturday after increasingly heated discussions and said he, too, is heading to European capitals for talks in coming days....
With pressure growing for Greece to reach a deal with its creditors and end fears it will default on its debt, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Sunday said his government won’t seek to extend a stringent bailout plan but will carry out his campaign pledges to roll back austerity programs.
He just caved.
Addressing Parliament, Tsipras sought to satisfy supporters that his government will honor the anti-austerity promises that brought it to power last month. He also tried to reassure creditors that his leftist administration is prepared to move toward a compromise that keeps the economy afloat.
He just sunk his government then.
Greece’s creditors — the European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund — want the new government to seek an extension beyond Feb. 28 of the European portion of the country’s $270 billion bailout. The government has said it’s not interested because of the onerous conditions.
Then he told the troika off?
It wants permission to raise short-term funding by issuing treasury bills. On Friday, the leader of the eurozone finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, rejected Greece’s call for a so-called bridge program. And approval for issuing treasury bills must come from the European Central Bank, which no longer accepts Greek bonds as collateral."
Time to get out of the E.U. then.
"Greek leader voices optimism on bailout talks" by Derek Gatopoulos and Nicholas Paphitis, Associated Press February 10, 2015
ATHENS — Greece put a brave face on its fraught negotiations with European bailout creditors, with the new prime minister voicing confidence Monday that a compromise can be reached at high-stakes meetings in coming days.
Alexis Tsipras’s comments came as Greek stocks and bonds took a drubbing after the radical left-led government renewed a pledge to seek bailout debt forgiveness and dubbed the country’s rescue package — with its conditions of strict austerity — a ‘‘toxic fantasy.’’
Looks like the Greek people didn't react well to the back$lide.
‘‘I don’t believe there is a serious reason for there not to be an agreement . . . with our partners — just political reasons,’’ Tsipras said after a meeting in Vienna with Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann.
‘‘If we are brought to an impasse due to such political reasons, then I think that would be a decision to torpedo our common European future,’’ Tsipras added. ‘‘And I think nobody harbors such intentions.’’
Tsipras’s government won Jan. 25 elections by promising relief for Greeks who have suffered through six years of recession and a dramatic drop in living standards. It’s under intense pressure to work out a deal with bailout creditors in coming weeks or days, which would unlock funds and secure cheap financing for Greek banks — five of which suffered a one-notch downgrade on Monday by Moody’s, the ratings agency.
Why would anyone put any faith in Moody's opinions after the MBS scandal?
In the radical left Syriza party’s first week in power, Greece has suffered a ratings downgrade and a decision by the European Central Bank not to accept its bonds as collateral for credit to Greek lenders. A flurry of visits to key European partners earned Tsipras’s government little more than expressions of sympathy.
Are you sensing a theme from my propaganda pre$$ regarding the new Greek government?
Greece faces a grilling at an emergency meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels on Wednesday, with fears returning that there will be a chaotic exit by Greece from the euro currency union.
Since the idea is being brought up by the propaganda pre$$ it must be a serious option!
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said Monday that Berlin wants Greece to stay in the eurozone, but any agreement must be based on existing commitments.
‘‘I think what counts is what Greece will put on the table at [Wednesday’s] meeting or perhaps a few days later,’’ she said after talks in Washington with President Obama. ‘‘I’ve always said I would wait for Greece to come with a sustainable proposal and then we’ll talk about this.’’
I didn't know she was over here!
Tsipras’s government, which ousted the less-confrontational conservatives, argues that Greece’s 320 billion euro ($360 billion) debt will be increasingly unsustainable unless it receives generous repayment relief that would allow its battered economy to recover.
Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis dismissed the 240 billion euro ($270 billion) bailout packages crafted by Greece’s lenders after the country nearly went bust in 2010 as a ‘‘toxic fantasy’’ that had always been doomed to fail.
‘‘The time has come to say what officials admit when the microphones are turned off and say out in the open . . . At some point someone has to say no, and that role has fallen to us, little Greece,’’ he told Parliament.
Varoufakis said Athens wants a ‘‘bridge agreement’’ that would involve rewriting a third of the country’s reform and austerity commitments, and modest primary surplus targets of 1.5 percent.
A finance ministry official said Athens would seek permission to raise more funds through treasury bill issues, and the European Central Bank to hand over 1.9 billion euros in profits from Greek bond holdings — a provision of the bailout deal.
The official added that Greece would stick by its electoral pledges on reducing the debt and taking immediate relief action for citizens worst-hit by the crisis.
Must be why they are "radical."
Amid wider European losses, Greek stocks closed down 4.75 percent, continuing a negative run. Borrowing rates were back up, a sign investors are more worried about a sovereign default. The yield on Greece’s three-year-bonds spiked above 18 percent.
Markets were hit after Tsipras in his inaugural speech Sunday called his election pledge to seek debt restructuring ‘‘irrevocable.’’
Tsipras “gave a few hints that the reality shock after a week of European meetings has started to reach Athens,’’ said Christian Schulz, an economist at Berenberg Bank. ‘‘But the policy program presented still reads more like a unilateral tearing up of the conditions under which Athens received” aid.
Greece’s Parliament is scheduled to give Tsipras’s coalition a vote of confidence Tuesday.
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"Greece, EU look at easing bailout" by Pan Pylas, Associated Press February 13, 2015
BRUSSELS — Greece and its creditors in the 19-country eurozone made a breakthrough Thursday, agreeing to launch technical discussions on Athens’ demands to lighten the load of its bailout after weeks of acrimony.
Both sides made conciliatory moves at the summit of European Union leaders in Brussels, encouraging investors’ hopes that a deal would be reached to avoid Greece’s exit from the euro. Greece’s main stock market closed about 5.5 percent higher.
Look at that stock market being jerked around so bankers get what they want!
‘‘Europe always has been geared towards finding compromises,’’ German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. ‘‘Compromises are agreed when the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.’’
See Ukraine.
Related(?): Deepening Ties Between Greece and Russia Sow Concerns in West
So the big winner is.... Putin?
Merkel has faced criticism in Greece for being the key cheerleader of the austerity policies that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece wants to consign to history. He came to power last month on a promise to scrap the country’s bailout in favor of a new, lighter program.
For his part, Tsipras also seemed in a mood for compromise.
‘‘We will need to find a solution that respects the positions of all parties, so this agreement will have to be based on the core values of Europe, democracy, and the vote of the people, but also on the necessity to respect the European rules,’’ he said.
Despite the tensions surrounding their meeting, the two leaders exchanged warm greetings, holding each other by their elbows, and chatting amiably, if briefly.
The improved mood appeared to yield a breakthrough. Following a meeting with Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the head of the eurogroup of finance ministers, Tsipras has agreed to allow representatives from his government to meet Friday with those from the European Commission, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund.
Simone Boitelle, spokeswoman for Dijsselbloem, said the purpose of the talks is to see whether common ground exists between Greece’s bailout program and the government’s proposals. The findings will inform Monday’s meeting of eurozone finance ministers, the last scheduled one before Greece’s bailout program expires after Feb. 28.
Tsipras and his radical-left Syriza party blame the current policies of budget austerity for choking Greece’s economy.
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I think they should just do what the Boston Globe tells them:
"Berlin should heed Greek message on austerity" January 31, 2015
GREEKS HAVE made their anger and anguish plain: By electing the ardently left-wing Syriza party to power this week, voters have rejected the harsh austerity measures — demanded by Germany and other wealthy European Union creditors as a condition of Greece’s 2010 bailout — that have thrown many Greeks into poverty, raised youth unemployment to around 50 percent, and carved government programs to the bone. It’s time for Berlin to heed the message before the confrontation throws the eurozone’s future into doubt.
For now, though, the Germans aren’t budging. “The Greeks have the right to elect whomever they want,’’ says Hans-Peter Friedrich, a senior official in German leader Angela Merkel’s right-centrist governing coalition. “We have the right to no longer finance Greek debt.’’ Each side appears to be waiting for the other to blink as deadlines loom for more bailout aid that Greece needs to pay its bills.
But the austerity program is undercutting Greece’s chances. Newly elected Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras warns that his country is on the verge of a “humanitarian catastrophe’’ as the result of cuts that have slashed the overall economy by a quarter, thrown many Greeks out of work, and killed spending on public schools, infrastructure, medical care, and other fundamentals.
All so thieving bankers who wrote bad deals can get paid.
More flexibility is needed from the so-called troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, which must consider ways to give Greece desperately needed breathing room by reducing interest rates and extending the deadlines of maturing loans. It seems unlikely that Greece’s creditors will write off any part of Greece’s debt, as Syriza leaders have urged. But there’s room for restructuring some eurozone loans, representing 60 percent of Greece’s overall debt, that would give Greece a better chance to escape from its morass.
Up to this point, the troika has wrongly insisted that Greece put total emphasis on paying off its debt rather than on stimulating growth — an austerity concept pushed by Merkel but falling out of favor elsewhere in the eurozone.
Still, while the troika needs to compromise, the situation also requires more politesse from Greece’s new firebrand leadership. One dangerous temptation is to skip out on some of roughly $363 billion it owes Europe and other creditors. That would perhaps win cheers from Syriza’s populist base, but also spur capital flight, result in bank failures, and otherwise do devastating harm to the country.
That is what the we$tern banking $y$tem has to offer? No wonder people are rejecting it.
Tsipras insisted this week that Greece will not default on loans, but will somehow exact a “moratorium’’ on debt payments. The distinction isn’t clear, and markets are nervous. Another risky step would be a Greek exit from the currency union. This would be hazardous for Greece while destabilizing Europe’s sputtering overall economy.
Except in the long run it would be good for Greece.
Tsipras also needs to adopt a more conciliatory public approach.
To who?
In the view of many Germans, they’ve been subsidizing spendthrift Greek governments for years only to be vilified.
They have been funding Israel all these years only to be vilified in their pre$$, but that seems to be okay.
Merkel faces intensifying political heat at home for committing billions of euros toward Greece’s bailout, and more antagonism from Syriza won’t help.
Greece’s new leaders should ponder bolder ways to reform the country — still plagued by corruption, bureaucratic ineptitude, and rampant tax evasion — without reneging on debt or bailing from the eurozone. The rest of the European Union, led by Germany, should be ready to make some concessions of their own to ease the hardships that caused Greeks to turn to Syriza in the first place.
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Also see: Greece’s gamble
They folded.
Also angry at Germany:
"German Jews upset about government group on anti-Semitism" Associated Press February 11, 2015
Christ, what else is f***ing new?
BERLIN — Leading Jewish groups on Tuesday criticized the German government for creating a new commission on anti-Semitism without including any Jews.
Julius Schoeps of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies called it ‘‘a unique scandal’’ that the Interior Ministry didn’t include any Jewish scientists or community leaders on the commission it created to fight anti-Semitism and support Jewish life in Germany.
Schoeps said his center, in cooperation with the American Jewish Committee and the Amadeu Antonio Foundation against anti-Semitism and racism, would create an alternative commission that would stress the Jewish perspective and include both Jewish and non-Jewish experts.
We already get enough of that through the ejewkhazional $y$tem and the jew$papers.
Anetta Kahane of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation said, ‘‘Nobody would even think of creating a conference on hatred of Islam without Muslims or a roundtable on the discrimination of women without women.’’
A spokeswoman for Germany’s Interior Ministry said that the question of religious affiliation of the experts on the commission was not a criterion in the selection process.
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I'm sick of the damn whining. I mean, really!
Oh, yeah, about that anti-Semitism:
"Muslims wary as anti-immigrant movement grows across Germany" by Anthony Faiola, Washington Post February 08, 2015
DRESDEN, Germany — Ahmed, a 36-year-old Moroccan, hoped to find a better life in Europe’s economic powerhouse, Germany. But these days in Dresden, he said, he is afraid to walk the streets.
This urban phoenix rebuilt from ashes after World War II is the center of a movement against immigrants — Muslims in particular — that has shocked much of the rest of Germany even as anti-immigration marches have spread to 10 cities nationwide.
How was Dresden turned into ashes?
Downtown Dresden, Ahmed and other immigrants here say, has become a no-go zone for them on Monday nights, when Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West — or Pegida, in German — stages its weekly rallies.
Where were they when Zionism was taking over?
Since the movement was founded here last October, refugee advocates say the number of aggressive acts against foreigners has sharply increased. After one Pegida rally just before Christmas, for instance, demonstrators chased a group of young refugees, leaving a 15-year-old girl battered and bruised.
“When I go out, I put on a hat and wear it low over my face,” said Ahmed, a resident in a shelter for asylum seekers who was too frightened to give his last name. “I don’t want them to see I’m not from here.”
Devastated in a firestorm caused by Allied bombing in 1945, Dresden is a symbol of perseverance, emerging in the years after German reunification as a beacon for tourists drawn to its museums and beautifully reconstructed city center.
Yes, Dresden is widely considered to be a war crime committed by the "good guys" -- and thus the propaganda pre$$ doesn't look too closely.
But especially after the attacks in France staged by Islamist extremists last month, this city also now stands as a bellwether of the friction between local communities and the fastest-growing religion in Europe: Islam.
That hoax not funny.
Last year, Pegida was born amid a Europe-wide surge of asylum seekers, many of them arriving from war-torn Muslim countries including Syria and Libya. Germany alone received 200,000 new asylum applications in 2014 — a 60 percent jump from a year earlier.
You can THANK OBUMMER for them!
Anti-immigrant nationalists have been soaring in polls from Britain to Hungary, France to Greece. But until the rise of Pegida, such voices had been largely drowned out in Germany — Western Europe’s most populous nation and a place where memories still run deep about what happened the last time the far right held sway in Europe.
Compared with other Western European countries, Germany has adopted a relatively more positive official stance toward immigration, and witnessed less grass-roots opposition.
As the movement has grown, tens of thousands of Germans also have risen up to condemn Pegida, taking to the streets in counterdemonstrations that have often been far larger than the rallies they are opposing.
Yet the Pegida movement has seemed to tap into a hidden vein of German angst.
The implication being they are Nazis!
Some here are worried not only about the new asylum seekers, but also about the growing numbers of other migrants entering Europe’s largest and strongest economy.
Senior German politicians — led by Chancellor Angela Merkel — have blasted Pegida supporters as intolerant extremists for whom there is no place in modern German society. “Every exclusion of Muslims in Germany, every general suspicion is out of the question,” Merkel said in the days after the Paris attacks. “We will not let ourselves be divided.”
Other politicians, however, have seemed to suggest subtly that Pegida may have a point. Thomas Strobl, an influential parliamentarian from the center right, called for Germany to quickly deport refugees who are without legitimate asylum claims.
The race and Nazi card no longer raising guilt feelings?
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Kind of hit a wall, readers.
"Hundreds feared lost in Mediterranean migrant disaster" New York Times February 12, 2015
ROME — Survivors rescued off the Libyan coast by the Italian coast guard gave harrowing accounts of four small boats packed with migrants that were overwhelmed by waves that washed scores of people overboard to their deaths in the Mediterranean over the weekend, humanitarian groups said Wednesday.
The groups said more than 300 people might already have died by the time coast guard vessels reached them. Another 29 who were rescued alive died of hypothermia before the rescue vessels reached port.
According to survivors’ accounts, four inflatable boats filled with migrants from Africa departed from a port near Tripoli, Libya, on Saturday, bound for Italy.
But only one boat was located by the coast guard. A merchant ship rescued nine survivors from two of the other boats, but it was not clear what had become of those vessels. Nothing was known about the fourth. Survivors said there were more than 100 people aboard each boat.
Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, said the migrants “were all sub-Saharan Africans, the human cargoes of the smugglers.”
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Who was the captain of the ship, and who is in charge over there?
"Sergio Mattarella, a Constitutional Court justice widely considered to be above the political fray, was elected Saturday as Italy’s president in the third day of balloting by lawmakers. He quickly established as priorities efforts to revive his country’s moribund economy and to encourage unity in Europe’s fight against a “new season of terror.” Mattarella’s election as head of state was clinched when he amassed 505 votes — a simple majority. The 73-year-old former minister with center-left political roots went on to garner a total of 665 votes from the 1,009 eligible electors (AP)."
"Italy’s new leader calls Mafia a cancer" Associated Press February 04, 2015
ROME — Italy’s new president assumed office Tuesday with a ringing call to the nation to root out organized crime and corruption that is devouring public resources, saying it would help solve a protracted economic crisis depriving young people of their future.
Sergio Mattarella, whose elder brother, Piersanti, was slain in 1980 by the Mafia while governor of Sicily, denounced the spread of the Mafia from its southern base to northern cities.
The 73-year-old head of state likened organized crime to ‘‘a pervasive cancer that destroys hopes . . . and tramples rights.’’ Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s government has appointed an anticorruption fighter.
Corruption is blamed for discouraging business startups and foreign investment. Italy’s economy has been mired in economic crisis since 2008. Mattarella said the prolonged slump ‘‘has wounded the social fabric of our country,’’ created new poverty, and ‘‘robbed the future from our young women and men.’’
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Also see: Globe Gets After Organized Crime
"Ten of thousands of supporters of Podemos, the left-wing party that is threatening to overhaul Spain’s bipartisan party system, marched in downtown Madrid on Saturday in a show of force at the beginning of a busy year of elections. Podemos emerged last May when it won almost 8 percent of the Spanish vote in elections for the European Parliament (New York Times)."
They must be a "radical" left.
"Alert ends over toxic cloud in Spain" Associated Press February 14, 2015
MADRID — Spanish authorities early Friday lifted all restrictions for 60,000 people urged to stay indoors after a chemical explosion a day earlier at a warehouse sent a large, toxic orange cloud floating above six towns.
Catalonia’s regional civil protection department ended the alert about 15 hours after the accident in northeastern Igualada, when products being delivered to a warehouse were somehow mixed and exploded.
Six people received light injuries but only one remained hospitalized Friday with leg burns. The blast prompted authorities to order 60,000 people in Igualada and five surrounding towns to stay inside, and roads were closed leading into Igualada, about 40 miles northwest of Barcelona.
Those restrictions were lifted for most people a few hours after the cloud emerged.
Igualada Mayor Marc Castells said human error apparently caused the accident at the warehouse of the chemical plant.
The chemicals included nitric acid and ferric chloride.
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I thought the coverage of Spain stunk.
NDU:
"The case, which includes allegations of a sex ring and a cover-up involving as many as 10 priests — accusations supported by one other plaintiff as well as by several witnesses — has become one of the most serious sexual abuse scandals to emerge under Pope Francis."
FURTHER UPDATE:
"10 dead, 21 hurt in crash of F-16 jet at Spanish base" Associated Press January 27, 2015
MADRID — A Greek F-16 jet crashed into other aircraft on the ground during NATO training in southeastern Spain on Monday, killing at least 10 people, Spain’s Defense Ministry said.
Another 21 people were injured in the accident at the Los Llanos base, which sent flames and a plume of black smoke billowing into the air, the ministry said in a statement. Five people with severe burns were taken to a Madrid hospital for treatment and the rest were undergoing treatment in the city of Albacete near the base.
Most victims were not believed to be Spaniards but military personnel from other NATO member countries participating in the program.
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