NEWS, 29.05.2012.

Greek Socialist leader slams IMF chief’s tax comments

 Greece's socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos accused the IMF chief Christine Lagarde on Sunday of trying to humiliate the country. His comments come after Lagarde had urged Greece to "help themselves" by "paying their taxes". 

Greece's Socialist party leader accused IMF chief Christine Lagarde of trying to "humiliate" the crisis-hit country by saying Greeks dodge taxes as he campaigned Sunday for crucial June elections."Nobody can humiliate the Greek people during the crisis, and I say this today addressing specifically Ms. Lagarde... who with her stance insulted the Greek people," Evangelos Venizelos told an election rally.Lagarde told Britain's Guardian newspaper in an interview published Friday that Greeks must "help themselves collectively" by all paying their taxes, saying she was more concerned about sub-Saharan Africans in poverty than Greeks hit by the economic crisis.Her comments came as Venizelos's Pasok and other Greek parties squared off for a June 17 election that could determine whether it continues to receive IMF funds and stays in the eurozone.Lagarde's remarks drew thousands of comments on her Facebook page, many from annoyed Greeks.On Saturday the IMF chief responded: "I am very sympathetic to the Greek people and the challenges they are facing. That's why the IMF is supporting Greece in its endeavour to overcome the current crisis.""An important part of this effort is that everyone should carry their fair share of the burden, especially the most privileged and especially in terms of paying their taxes."Venizelos told a news conference on Sunday, the morning after his campaign rally: "Ms. Lagarde had to revise her comments. I am glad she did it because that means she takes into account a proud nation."Greece made a deal in 2010 to receive hundreds of billions of euros (dollars) from the IMF and the EFSF, a European Union bailout fund, to rescue it from financial collapse.The country will head to the polls for a second time in six weeks on June 17 since political parties failed to form a coalition after an inconclusive election on May 6.In that election, voters fed up with salary and pension cuts demanded by the bailout terms handed second place to radical left-wing party Syriza, which has threatened to renege on the bailout accords.Former prime minister Lucas Papademos warned on May 11 that Greece may run out of money by the end of June if international bailout funds are cut off following the election, To Vima newspaper reported Sunday.That could lead Greece to default on its debt and leave the eurozone."From late June onwards, the ability of the government to fund its obligations fully depends on the approval of the subsequent instalments of loans from the EFSF and the IMF," To Vima quoted Papademos as saying in a leaked memo."The available funds in the Greek government will be reduced gradually from about 3.8 billion euros on May 11 to about 700 million euros on June 18 and from June 20 will enter negative territory at the level of around one billion euros."Ahead of the June 17 election, Syriza has led at times in the opinion polls, but a series of polls published Sunday indicated conservative party New Democracy had taken the lead.Campaigning on Saturday, New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras said a victory for Syriza would cause "catastrophe" and drag Greece out of the euro.The new surveys by five separate polling groups forecast a New Democracy victory ranging between 23.3 percent and 25.8 percent, a result that would still require the party to join up with allies to form a viable government.Syriza polled in second place ahead of Pasok, which like New Democracy defends the bailout agreement while proposing to amend it.Venizelos said he wants to extend the loan repayments."The country needs a government that will unite the people and revise the loan agreement, but assure we stay in the euro," he said Sunday.One survey by pollster Marc, carried out on 1,075 households on May 22-24, showed that 82.4 percent of Greeks wished to stay in the eurozone.

IMF chief tells Greeks to ‘pay their taxes’

 IMF chief Christine Lagarde told Greeks on Friday to pay their dues and help drag their country out the crippling economic crisis. Lagarde said Greeks could "help themselves" by "all paying their taxes". 

The head of the International Monetary Fund on Friday urged Greeks to pay their taxes, saying she is more concerned about sub-Saharan Africans in poverty than Greeks hit by the economic crisis.Christine Lagarde told the Guardian newspaper in an interview published online Friday, "As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax."The IMF managing director said Greeks should "help themselves collectively" by "all paying their tax", adding that she thought "equally" about those deprived of public services by the crisis and those involved in tax avoidance.Caught in a fifth straight year of recession, Greece is struggling to apply a tough austerity overhaul in return for EU-IMF loans, but has already made drastic cuts to public services.On children affected by the cuts, Lagarde said their parents needed to take responsibility."Parents have to pay their tax," she was quoted as saying."I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education," she added."I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens."Asked whether it was "payback time" for Greece and other debt-ridden eurozone economies, she responded, "That's right", the newspaper said.Greece in 2010 committed itself to a reform programme in return for hundreds of billions of euros (dollars) in bailout funds from the EU and the International Monetary Fund to prevent a default.Many of the reforms are currently in limbo, however, as Greece awaits a new general election on June 17 after an inconclusive vote on May 6.The IMF, along with European leaders, has said it will not bend on tough conditions attached to its loans to Greece, with fears rising that the debt crisis could culminate in a Greek exit from the eurozone.

NEWS,22.03.2012.

Gunman dies in hail of bullets as French siege ends

A 23-year-old gunman who said al Qaeda inspired him to kill seven people in France died in a hail of bullets as he scrambled out of a ground-floor window during a gun battle with elite police commandos. Mohamed Merah, a Frenchman of Algerian origin, died from gunshot wounds at the end of a 30-hour standoff with police yesterday at his apartment in southern France and after confessing to killing three soldiers, three Jewish children and a rabbi.He was firing at police as he jumped out of the window, Interior Minister Claude Gueant told reporters near the five-storey building, in a suburb of the southern city of Toulouse. Two police commandos were injured in the operation - a dramatic climax to a siege which riveted the world after the killings shook France a month before a presidential election.” At the moment when a video probe was sent into the bathroom, the killer came out of the bathroom, firing with extreme violence," Gueant said. "In the end, Mohamed Merah jumped from the window with his gun in his hand, continuing to fire. He was found dead on the ground.”

 Elite RAID commandos had been locked in a tense standoff since the early hours of Thursday with Merah, periodically firing shots or deploying small explosives until mid-morning on Thursday to try and tire out the gunman so he could be captured. Surrounded by some 300 police, Merah had been silent and motionless for 12 hours when the commandos opted to go inside. Initially, he had fired through his front door at police when they swooped on his ground-floor flat on Thursday morning, but later he negotiated with police, promising to give himself up and saying he did not want to die. He told negotiators he was trained by al Qaeda in Pakistan and killed three soldiers last week and four people at a Jewish school on Tuesday to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and because of French army involvement in Afghanistan. President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is running for re-election next month called Merah's killings terrorist attacks and announced a crackdown on people following extremist websites.” From now on, any person who habitually consults websites that advocate terrorism or that call for hate and violence will be punished," he said in a statement. "France will not tolerate ideological indoctrination on its soil.” His handling of the crisis could well impact an election race where for months he has lagged behind Socialist challenger Francois Hollande in opinion polls. Early on Thursday, the first opinion poll since the school shooting showed Sarkozy two points ahead of Hollande in the first-round vote on April 22, although Hollande still led by eight points for a May 6 runoff. Three years of economic gloom, and a personal style many see as brash and impulsive, have made Sarkozy highly unpopular in France, but his proven strong hand in a crisis gives him an edge over a rival who has no ministerial experience.Sarkozy vowed on Wednesday that justice would be done and urged people not to seek revenge.Merah had been under intelligence surveillance and the MEMRI Middle East think tank said he appeared to belong to a French al Qaeda branch called Fursan Al-Izza, ideologically aligned with a movement to Islamise Western states by implementing sharia law. He boasted to police negotiators that he had brought France to its knees, and that his only regret was not having been able to carry out more killings. French commandos had detonated three explosions just before midnight on Wednesday, flattening the main door of the building and blowing a hole in the wall, after it became clear Merah did not mean to keep a promise to turn himself in. They continued to fire shots roughly every hour, and stepped up the pace from dawn with flash grenades.” These were moves to intimidate the gunman who seems to have changed his mind and does not want to surrender," said interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet.He was tracked down after a no-holds-barred manhunt in France, during which presidential candidates suspended their campaigning. Immigration and Islam have been major campaign themes after Sarkozy tried to win over supporters of Le Pen, who accused the government of underestimating the threat from fundamentalism. Leaders of the Jewish and Muslim communities have called for calm, pointing out the gunman was a lone extremist. On Thursday, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen accused Sarkozy's government of surrendering swathes of often impoverished suburban districts to Islamic fanatics, demanding that the last month of pre-election debate put the focus back on failing security.

NEWS,19.03.2012.

Gunman kills three children, teacher outside school

A teacher and his two sons are among four dead after a gunman opened fire outside a school in France. The 30-year-old Jewish teacher and his 3-year-old and six-year-old sons were killed outside a Jewish school in the city of Toulouse just before school started. Another child between 8-10 years old was also killed. Toulouse prosecutor Michel Valet said a 17-year-old was wounded. The gunman escaped on a motorbike.” The attacker was shooting people outside the school, and then pursued children into the school, before fleeing on a heavy motorbike," Valet told reporters. The attack's being linked with two similar shootings by a motorcycle gunman in the region last week, in which three French paratroopers of Arab extraction was killed in the same area of southwest France.” I saw two people dead in front of the school, an adult and a child ... Inside, it was a vision of horror, the bodies of two small children," one father, searching for his son at the Ozar Hatorah school among crowds of distraught parents and children, told RTL radio. The soldiers, one of Caribbean and two of Muslim origin, also been killed in drive-by shootings and prosecutors opened an anti-terrorism investigation into all three attacks although it was not clear whether the motive was political or purely racist. The prosecutor confirmed that the same calibre firearm was used in the attack as in the killing of the three soldiers in two separate attacks by a man who escaped on a scooter. He could not say if it was exactly the same weapon. President Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande, the Socialist opposing him in his uphill bid for re-election in May, both rushed to the scene.Sarkozy said he was struck by the similarities between the three attacks.” We don't know who this killer is and what is the exact link is to the drama that has hit the military community," Sarkozy said after arriving in Toulouse. "Everything must be done so that the killer is stopped and has to pay for his crimes.” Our schools must keep functioning, our compatriots that want to worship at synagogues, mosques and churches must be able to continue to do so. We should not give ground to terror.” Police cordoned off the school and a spokesman for the interior ministry said security was being tightened at all other Jewish schools in the country. France's 600,000-strong Jewish community is Europe's largest. There was mayhem around the small school in a leafy upscale neighbourhood of Toulouse, a booming industrial town. "All the children at this school were my children," one tearful mother told LCI television. The father looking for his son expressed disbelief: "How can they attack something as sacred as a school, attack children only 60 centimetres (two feet) tall?" he told RTL radio. As messages of condolence poured in from across Europe, representatives of France's Jewish community voiced their solidarity.” The whole Jewish community is in mourning," said Rabbi Moshe Lewin, a spokesman for France's great rabbi. "In the face of such a drama, such a horror, one cannot but go there.” Public prosecutor Valet said investigators were studying video evidence from the school shooting and the attack on Thursday in the nearby town of Montauban that killed two soldiers and left a third seriously injured. The three men, aged between 24 and 28, were shot while in uniform as they tried to withdraw money from a cash machine close to the barracks of the 17th parachute regiment. A third soldier, aged 30, was killed the previous weekend in Toulouse. Investigators said the same weapon had been used in both incidents. The shootings could thrust security back to the top of the agenda in a bitter electoral campaign that has been dominated by issues of taxation and immigration. Political analyst Stefane Rozes, head of CAP political consultancy, said the shooting was unlikely to have a decisive impact on France's election campaign as all candidates were strongly condemning the violence.