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, 12.05.2012.

Greek president to urge unity government

Greece's president was set on Saturday to call last-ditch talks in a bid to forge an emergency unity government and avoid fresh elections, after the main parties failed to form a working coalition.Highly-indebted Greece is deeply torn over the tough austerity measures imposed as conditions for its IMF-EU bailouts, and the crisis has raised the threat it could default and leave the 17-member eurozone.Legislative elections last Sunday saw voters punish the mainstream parties and left a fractured political landscape that has raised the spectre of new elections within weeks, amid intense EU pressure over Greek finances.Socialist Pasok leader Evangelos Venizelos said Friday he had failed in the latest bid to form a government, after radical leftist party Syriza refused to join a pro-austerity coalition with the socialists and conservatives.The latest twist in the tortuous political drama came as EU paymaster Germany threatened to cut off the country's loan lifeline and hinted that the crisis-ridden eurozone could get along without Greece.Venizelos was the third party leader who tried and failed to cobble together a government after the inconclusive elections."I am going to inform the president of the republic (Saturday) and I hope that during the meeting with Carolos Papoulias, each party will assume its responsibilities," Venizelos told reporters in Athens.The head of state is then expected to urge party leaders to form a government of national salvation. If the parties cannot agree a compromise by next Thursday, new elections will have to be called.Venizelos had been hoping to win the support of Syriza, a party deeply opposed to the terms of the $311bn EU-IMF bailout and which surged to second place in Sunday's vote.Earlier, another possible ally, the small Democratic Left party, said it would not join a government made up of only Pasok and the conservative New Democracy party that did not include Syriza.Earlier this week both Syriza and the New Democracy party failed in their own attempts to assemble a coalition government.German leaders warned Friday that Athens could expect no more money without reforms and also suggested that the eurozone would cope if the cash-strapped country left the 17-member currency union.

Syria refuses to submit torture report

Syria's authorities have refused to submit a report on torture in the country to a United Nations committee scheduled to discuss the situation there next week, its secretary said on Friday.The Committee Against Torture monitors the implementation of the UN's anti-torture convention by state parties and is currently meeting in Geneva."There is no assurance that a delegation [from Syria] will come but we have been informed that no report would be submitted," committee secretary Joao Nataf told AFP in an email.He added that the meeting would take place on Wednesday as scheduled.The Committee Against Torture is holding its 48th session from 7 May to 1 June when it will focus on a number of countries including Canada, Cuba and Syria.All states party to the convention are required to submit regular reports to the panel of 10 independent experts which then makes recommendations.In November last year chairperson Claudio Grossman wrote to the Syrian authorities highlighting the committee's concern over reports of the spread of torture in the country where a bloody crackdown on protesters was unleashed in March 2011.Grossman asked Damascus to provide a special report stating the measures being taken to ensure its obligations under the Convention Against Torture were being fulfilled.Since the crackdown observers estimate more than 12 000 people have died, including more than 900 since an 12 April truce went into effect.On Tuesday UN-Arab League envoy and broker of the peace plan Kofi Annan told the UN Security Council of his fears that torture, mass arrests and other human rights violations were intensifying in Syria.

NEWS,11.05.2012.

Greek parties scramble to avert new election

 

The leaders of Greece's once-dominant political parties make their final effort today to form a coalition and avert a new election, which a poll showed would all but wipe them out and give victory to a radical leftist who rejects an EU bailout.The overwhelming majority of Greeks want to stay in the euro zone but voted last Sunday for parties that reject the severe terms of a bailout negotiated last year.European leaders say Greece will be ejected from the common currency if it turns its back on the package of tax hikes and wage cuts.Socialist PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos, whose party once towered over Greek politics but placed a distant third in the election, will be the last politician given a chance to form a Government.He was due to meet conservative rival Antonis Samaras, whose New Democracy party came first in the election, but who has already failed to form a coalition.If Venizelos fails as well, all parties will have one last chance to try before a new election must be held in the coming three to four weeks.PASOK and New Democracy jointly negotiated the 130 billion euro EU/IMF bailout in a reluctant coalition last year and now are the only parties in Parliament that support it.Enraged voters punished them by reducing their combined share of the vote from 77 % to 32 % at last Sunday's election, leaving them two seats short of forming a coalition Government.Samaras and Venizelos may be hoping Greeks, frightened by the prospect of hasty ejection from the euro, will return to the two traditional mainstream parties if the election is re-run next month.But a new poll showed the main beneficiary of a new vote would be the hardline Left Coalition SYRIZA, whose leader Alexis Tsipras rejects the bailout and has demanded it be torn up.The first opinion poll to be published since the election showed SYRIZA would win with 27.7% of the vote, almost 11 points up on their election result, consolidating votes that had been split among smaller anti-bailout groups.Under a rule designed to make it easier to form a Government, the party that places first gets 50 bonus seats in the 300 seat Parliament.Those seats went to New Democracy on Sunday. If SYRIZA were to win them in a new election, the marginalisation of the once-mighty parties would be complete and it would be impossible to form a Government supporting the bailout.Venizelos's hope of reaching a last-ditch deal have rested with the Democratic Left party, a small moderate splinter group.But its leader, Fotis Kouvelis, insisted on Friday he would not join a coalition with the pro-bailout parties unless anti-bailout parties were also included and the new government pulled out of the loan deal."Our proposal for an ecumenical government seeks to ensure the participation of all those forces that can serve two aims: the gradual disengagement from the loan agreement and staying in the euro zone", Kouvelis told Skai TV.One socialist party official said on Thursday there was a "very slim" chance for a coalition if Kouvelis agreed, "but his party is split right down the middle."The political deadlock has prompted warnings by European leaders that Greece could be thrown out of the euro if it does not stick to the spending cuts and economic reforms required by the bailout.German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Europe and the IMF were still determined to help Greece, but the country could not be helped if it did not help itself.The EU and IMF say they will not give Greece any more money under the bailout until it has a government in place that renews its commitment to the terms agreed last year. Greece could run out of money as soon as the end of June if the loans stop."We do not have an infinite amount of time. Time is flying because there are financing needs, but the first steps have to be taken now from the Greek side," European Central Bank governing council member Ewald Nowotny said in Vienna.A senior SYRIZA party official said European leaders were bluffing by threatening to eject Greece from the euro to force it to stick to the bailout terms."Not only can't Greece be kicked out of the euro, they will be begging us to take the money," because if Greece were kicked out the crisis would spread to other European countries and the euro would collapse, said Dimitris Stratoulis.The prospect that Greece might declare bankruptcy and be pushed out of the euro caused panic across the single currency zone last year. But since then, European banks have written off the value of most of their Greek debt, which makes them less susceptible to shock if Greece should default.

Hollande worth $1.9 million

 

Francois Hollande, the Socialist 'Mr Normal' who will be sworn in as French president next week, says he is worth almost $1.9 million, considerably less than his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy.Hollande, who campaigned on a promise to ditch the showbiz style that won Sarkozy the nickname of 'President Bling Bling', says in a declaration published on Friday that his principal asset is a house on France's southern Riviera coast.The declaration shows that Hollande, who rents his apartment in Paris but could now move into the presidential Elysee Palace, has declared assets of 1.17 million euros, primarily the house of 130 square metres in the chic Riviera village of Mougins.Other assets declared are bank accounts worth 8,200 euros, a life insurance contract worth 3,550 euros and 15,000 euros of furniture, said the declaration.The man who used to travel to work by scooter, and described himself as 'Mr Normal' during campaigning, does not own a car, the declaration says.Sarkozy, who hands the reins over to Hollande on May 15 and may go back to work as a lawyer, said in an official declaration in March he was worth about 2.7 million euros, up from 2.1 million when he took power in 2007.Most of that is in life insurance products but Sarkozy also declared a collection of autographs, watches and statuettes worth 100,000 euros, and a joint bank account of 57,000 euros he shares with his wife, the singer and former model Carla Bruni.Hollande's wealth falls just below the threshold that would make him liable to pay wealth tax in France.His French Riviera residence was bought in 1986 for just over half its current declared value and is the place where he spent summer breaks with former partner Segolene Royal, with whom he had four children in a quarter of a century together.He now lives with Valerie Trierweiler, a journalist who says she wants to remain working mother to pay the way for three sons she had before meeting Hollande.Hollande, whose doctor father Georges dabbled in property investment, said in his declaration he had part ownership of two apartments in Cannes that are worth 370,000 euros in all.Among the first measures he says he will implement after he takes over is a 30 percent cut in the presidential salary of more than 19,000 euros a month.