Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts

Monday, November 14, 2016

Trump shapes White House, hires establishment figure, firebrand

 Mon Nov 14, 2016 | 1:34am EST

Reuters

By Susan Cornwell and Alana Wise | WASHINGTON

President-elect Donald Trump was weighing contenders for other top jobs in his administration after choosing Washington insider Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and firebrand outsider Stephen Bannon as senior counselor.

Less than a week after his upset win over Democrat Hillary Clinton in last Tuesday's presidential election, Trump's choice on Sunday of Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman and friend of House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, could help him repair his strained relations with members of the Republican Party establishment.

But Trump also named Bannon, the combative former head of the right-wing website Breitbart News, as his strategist and senior counselor. The statement said Bannon and Priebus would be "working as equal partners to transform the federal government."

Saturday, November 12, 2016

Is the White House already changing Donald Trump?


The Washington Post

By Kathleen Parker Opinion writer November 11 at 7:12 PM
Witnesses who tuned in to Donald Trump and Barack Obama’s post-election get-together can’t have missed the change in the president-elect’s demeanor and affect.

Quiet and reserved, he seemed almost chastened. Dare I say, humble and deferential to the man whose citizenship he challenged for years leading up to his candidacy.

The real estate tycoon best known for ego, insults and invective seemed almost sensitive and earnest, as well as appropriately respectful toward the president and the rare circumstances in which he found himself.

It was . . . odd.

Friday, November 11, 2016

Greece Establishes Independent Media Authority to Handle TV Licenses

Court had previously struck down ruling party’s auction of broadcast permits

The Wall Street Journal

By NEKTARIA STAMOULI
Nov. 10, 2016 2:41 p.m. ET
0 COMMENTS
ATHENS—Greece’s government and opposition late on Thursday broke an impasse toward the regulation of the country’s television sector, after they formed an independent media watchdog that will now take responsibility for organizing the new licensing procedure.

The presidents of the parliament reached a cross-party consent in the appointment of the nine-member body of the National Council for Radio and Television. The number of the licenses that will be auctioned will be decided by the new independent authority.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Trump promised Brexit ‘times five.’ He delivered.


The Washinhton Post

By Adam Taylor November 9 at 11:22 AM

As Donald Trump's campaign progressed, Britain's June 23 vote to leave the European Union was clearly on his mind.

“They will soon be calling me MR. BREXIT!” Trump tweeted in August, prompting a somewhat confused response. He soon upped the ante — telling supporters at rallies in October that the U.S. presidential election would be “Brexit plus” and “Brexit times five.”

It was certainly possible to see the similarities in the two campaigns. Both Trump fans and Brexiters tended to be people who scorned the status quo and held negative views about globalization, immigration and political correctness. Often they wanted to upend the system and evinced a desire to bring their respective countries back to greatness.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Dollar strengthens as election seen swinging toward Clinton

Mon Nov 7, 2016 | 3:10pm EST

Reuters

By Dion Rabouin | NEW YORK
The dollar rose on Monday after the FBI decided that U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will not face criminal charges, which was seen as a boost to her chances of winning Tuesday's contest with Republican rival Donald Trump.

The greenback gained 0.75 percent against a basket of currencies .DXY after getting hammered last week when FBI Director James Comey said the agency was looking at another large batch of Clinton emails, strengthening chances of a Trump victory, an outcome that was seen as likely to send shock waves through financial markets.

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

An economist who was in the middle of the storm recounts Greece’s financial crisis


The Boston Globe

By Jonathan Schlefer
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT  NOVEMBER 01, 2016
When economist George Papaconstantinou returned to Greece after working for a decade at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, he settled into a series of comfortable government and academic jobs. Then, to his surprise, PASOK, the social-democratic party, asked him to run for Parliament. He lost the first time but won in 2007. He also began advising the party leader, George Papandreou, on economic issues. Named PASOK’s press spokesman, he helped give the party a fresh, young image, contributing to its landslide election victory in 2009.

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Greece’s Syriza Defiant After Judges Annul Key Policy

Country’s supreme administrative court rules government acted unconstitutionally by licensing TV broadcasters itself

The Wall Street Journal

By MARCUS WALKER and  NEKTARIA STAMOULI
Updated Oct. 27, 2016 4:27 a.m. ET

ATHENS—Greece’s ruling Syriza party vowed on Thursday to continue fighting for its radical agenda after judges struck down its plan to revamp Greece’s media sector, the culmination of a weekslong power struggle that produced allegations of blackmail and “fascist” methods.

Greece’s supreme administrative court, the Council of State, ruled late Wednesday that the government, led by the left-wing Syriza party, acted unconstitutionally by licensing TV broadcasters itself, a power that the constitution reserves for an independent media regulator.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Greece awaits Obama trip amid tough bailout talks


The Washington Post

By Derek Gatopoulos | AP October 25 at 12:08 PM
ATHENS, Greece — Greece’s government says it was facing pressure from the International Monetary Fund to aggressively scale back union powers and employment rights, as the White House confirmed Tuesday that U.S. President Barack Obama will pay a post-election visit to Athens.

Obama’s Nov. 15 trip could boost efforts by the left-wing government in Athens to press for debt relief from European bailout lenders, as the country’s national debt approaches 180 percent of Greece’s stagnant gross domestic product. Obama will travel on to Germany after his Greek visit.

Monday, October 24, 2016

What is China’s plenum and why does it matter?

Oct 23rd 2016, 23:27 BY J.P. | BEIJING

The Economist

THE 200-odd highest-ranking members of China’s Communist Party—its central committee—meet only once a year. The closed-door gathering is called a plenum. This year’s starts today, October 24th, in Beijing and runs until the 27th. The agenda does not sound consequential. It will discuss, in the unlovely words of the official announcement, “the norms of political life within the party…and a revision to an intra-party supervision regulation.” So why does it matter?

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Greece’s Least Wanted Man Lives in Maryland


Andreas Georgiou fixed the country’s fake stats, now he faces criminal charges.
 Robert Schmidt
  Bloomberg Businessweek

For 21 years, Andreas Georgiou worked in relative obscurity as an economist at the International Monetary Fund in Washington. When the European debt crisis hit and his home country of Greece began teetering toward bankruptcy, Georgiou felt a patriotic urge to help. In early 2010 he applied online to run a newly created office designed to clean up Greece’s much maligned economic statistics. He got the job, and in August 2010 he moved to Greece for a five-year term as president of the Hellenic Statistical Authority.

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Greece’s Alexis Tsipras Seeks to Revive his Political Fortunes on Economic Promises


Europe’s most electorally successful populist has become nearly as unpopular as the Greek political establishment he ousted almost two years ago

The Wall Street Journal

By NEKTARIA STAMOULI and  MARCUS WALKER
Sept. 11, 2016 2:15 p.m. ET


THESSALONIKI, Greece—Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, languishing in polls, sought to reboot his premiership over the weekend. But his economically depressed country has largely given up hope on the imminent change he is promising.

Europe’s most electorally successful populist has become nearly as unpopular as the Greek political establishment he ousted almost two years ago. A recent survey showed only 19% of Greeks view him favorably and 85% are dissatisfied with his government.

Syriza Strains Greece’s Credibility


The country’s hard-left government continues to put politics before reform.

The Wall Street Journal

By YANNIS PALAIOLOGOS
Sept. 7, 2016 3:23 p.m. ET

Independent institutions remain anathema to the government in Greece. Two cases that have dominated the headlines in recent weeks demonstrate how the country’s populist government, led by the hard-left Syriza party, continues to put politics before reform and refuses to learn the right lessons from the country’s recent past.
The criminal case against economist Andreas Georgiou returned to the spotlight last month when it was reopened by the country’s Supreme Court. A longtime official with the International Monetary Fund, Mr. Georgiou had been appointed six years ago to head the independent Hellenistic Statistical Authority, or Elstat. The prime minister at the time, George Papandreou, created Elstat as a response to the discovery that the government under his predecessor, Costas Karamanlis, had underreported the country’s fiscal deficit.

Did Hillary Clinton just make her own ‘47 percent’ gaffe?


The Washington Post

By Aaron Blake September 10 at 2:11 PM

Update: Clinton has expressed "regret" for using the word "half." See her statement at the bottom of this post.

Hillary Clinton said Friday night in New York that half of Donald Trump's supporters are racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic and/or Islamophobic.

At an "LGBT for Hillary" fundraiser, where Barbra Streisand performed, Clinton expanded on previous comments about many Trump supporters falling into a "basket of deplorables" that includes the groups listed above.

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Mitsotakis' mission: Saving Greece from Tsipras

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the leader of the Greek conservative party Nea Dimokratia, says he wants to "liberate" Greece from left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. He tells DW how he intends to accomplish this.

Deutche Welle

If Greece were to hold elections tomorrow, the pro-European conservatives Nea Dimokratia (New Democracy, ND) would clearly win. According to polls, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who has headed his party since January, has gained popularity. Many believe he would be a better prime minister than Alexis Tsipras.
The pro-European and neoliberal Mitsotakis, a scion of a Greek political dynasty, holds degrees from Harvard and Stanford. He has worked in politics and investment banking. His father, Konstantinos Mitsotakis, is a former Greek prime minister and his older sister, Dora Bakoyannis, former mayor of Athens, also served as Greek foreign minister and culture minister.

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Five Things to Know About China’s ‘Two Sessions’

Charlie Campbell / Beijing @charliecamp6ell  1:29 AM ET

TIME

China's ruling elite gather for their yearly double shindig

China’s governing class descends on Beijing this week for the nation’s top two annual political meetings. The National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China’s top political advisory body, begins Thursday, with the main event, the National People’s Congress (NPC), the country’s anodyne legislature, kicking off on Saturday.

The “two sessions,” as they are colloquially known in China, are an important bellwether for assessing government policy in a one-party state where most decisions take place behind firmly closed doors. Around 3,000 provincial administrators, top businessmen and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) bigwigs are expected to attend.

Friday, January 16, 2015

Politics Risk Tripping Up Greece on Debt Relief

Greece’s debt looks fairly manageable. It’s politics that makes it problematic.

By STEPHEN FIDLER
Updated Jan. 15, 2015 5:26 p.m. ET
2 COMMENTS
Does Greece need debt relief? Alexis Tsipras, leader of the left-wing Syriza Party and the man who could be Greece’s next prime minister, says it does.

“There is no single sensible person in the whole of Europe who seriously thinks that Greece’s debt is sustainable and must be repaid in full,” he said in a speech on Tuesday.

Monday, December 29, 2014

Greek MPs' vote triggers snap poll

BBC 
29 December 2014 Last updated at 10:41 GMT


Greek MPs have rejected the presidential candidate nominated by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, triggering a snap general election.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

RPT-INSIGHT-Greek premier prepared European ground before vote gamble

Thu Dec 18, 2014 2:08am EST

* Early presidential vote surprised Greek establishment

* But Samaras discussed plans with Berlin, Brussels

* Government candidate falls short in first round

* Previous premier caused uproar with referendum plan

By Renee Maltezou and Lefteris Papadimas

ATHENS, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has bet on Greece's future with an early vote for the presidency. But in contrast to a recent predecessor, he made sure before dropping the bombshell that Berlin and Brussels wouldn't stand in the way.

Friday, December 12, 2014

Greece and the euro

Crisis revisited
The Economist

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21636036-euro-still-vulnerable-and-greece-not-only-problem-crisis-revisited
The euro is still vulnerable, and Greece is not the only problem
Dec 13th 2014

IT WAS almost exactly five years ago that the euro crisis erupted, starting in Greece. Investors who had complacently let all euro-zone countries borrow at uniformly low levels abruptly woke up to the riskiness of an incompetent government borrowing money in a currency which it could not depreciate. There is thus a dismal symmetry in seeing the euro crisis flare up again in the place where it began.

Greece and the euro

Crisis revisited
The Economist

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21636036-euro-still-vulnerable-and-greece-not-only-problem-crisis-revisited
The euro is still vulnerable, and Greece is not the only problem
Dec 13th 2014

IT WAS almost exactly five years ago that the euro crisis erupted, starting in Greece. Investors who had complacently let all euro-zone countries borrow at uniformly low levels abruptly woke up to the riskiness of an incompetent government borrowing money in a currency which it could not depreciate. There is thus a dismal symmetry in seeing the euro crisis flare up again in the place where it began.