Italy Election Impasse Negative for Credit Rating, Moody’s Says

By Kevin Buckland - Feb 27, 2013 7:03 AM GMT+0200

Bloomberg

Italy’s inconclusive elections raise the chance for prolonged political uncertainty, putting the country’s sovereign credit rating at risk for a downgrade, Moody’s Investors Service said.

Italy Renews Market Concerns as Voters Reject Monti

By Andrew Frye - Feb 26, 2013 9:24 AM GMT+0200

Bloomberg

Italy’s inconclusive election triggered renewed market convulsions over Europe’s debt crisis as recession-scarred voters repudiated budget rigor and established former comedian Beppe Grillo as a political force.

Austerity, Italian Style

The New York Times

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: February 24, 2013

Two months ago, when Mario Monti stepped down as Italy’s prime minister, The Economist opined that “The coming election campaign will be, above all, a test of the maturity and realism of Italian voters.” The mature, realistic action, presumably, would have been to return Mr. Monti — who was essentially imposed on Italy by its creditors — to office, this time with an actual democratic mandate.

Greece Gradually Emerging From Crisis, ECB’s Provopoulos Says

By Christos Ziotis and Marcus Bensasson on February 25, 201

Greece is gradually exiting from its crisis, with confidence building and deposits returning, even as it faces another difficult year in 2013, Bank of Greece Governor George Provopoulos said.

UPDATE 2-Greece's betting monopoly sees plunge in profit

Fri Feb 22, 2013 9:41am EST

* OPAP sees 2013 net profit down by more than two thirds

* Estimate lower than analyst forecasts

* Greece seeking to sell 33 percent stake in OPAP

* Shares down 4 pct (Updates with analyst quote, background, shares)

By Angeliki Koutantou

Qatar Said to Discuss Purchase of Resort From Greek State

By Sharon Smyth on February 21, 2013

Bloomberg business week

Greece has held talks with Qatar over the sale of the Astir Palace in a deal that would mark the first outright sale of a property in the country through the government’s 50 billion-euro ($67 billion) asset disposal program, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

Euro-Area Debt Pooling Abandoned by EU Parliament in Budget Law

By Jonathan Stearns - Feb 20, 2013 11:20 AM GMT+0200

Bloomberg

European Parliament negotiators abandoned a demand for a fast-track move toward debt pooling by euro governments at the insistence of a German-led group of nations opposed to such an anti-crisis step.

Bank of Greece, The : Balance of payments: December 2012

02/19/2013| 04:55am US/Eastern

http://www.4-traders.com/BANK-OF-GREECE-THE-1408793/news/Bank-of-Greece-The-Balance-of-payments-December-2012-16164655/

Current account balance

In December 2012, the current account balance showed a deficit of €534 million, down by 1.6 billion year-on-year.

The trade deficit narrowed by €984 million, as a result of a €627 million decrease in the trade deficit excluding oil and ships, as well as declines of €214 million and €143 million in the net oil import bill and net payments for purchases of ships, respectively. The trade deficit excluding oil and ships shrank due to the reduced import bill by €418 million or 18.9% and the rise in export receipts by €209 million or 19.3%.

UPDATE 2-Greek current account gap shrinks -only one new Ferrari

Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:53am EST

* Greek 2012 current account gap shrinks by more than

two-thirds

    * Deficit at 2.9 percent of GDP, lowest since euro adoption

    * Drop reflects falling imports and debt payments

    * Greece needs more exports to balance its payments in the

long term

    By Harry Papachristou

Hollande to Play Up Euro Recovery Prospects in First Greek Visit

By Mark Deen - Feb 19, 2013 1:01 AM GMT+0200

Bloomberg

Francois Hollande plans to emphasize the prospects of a return to growth in the first visit of a French president to Athens since Greece triggered the European sovereign debt crisis more than three years ago.

Hollande, a Socialist who won last May’s election emphasizing growth over austerity, will repeat his commitment to keeping Greece in the 17-nation euro area and press Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to forge ahead on the revamp of his nation’s economy, said a French government official who briefed reporters.

Greek Heiress Sues as Swiss Chalet's Picassos, Monets Vanish

By Catherine Hickley on February 17, 2013

BloombergBusinessweek

A Greek heiress is fighting a legal battle in Switzerland to find out what has become of a collection of Picasso, Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Cezanne and Degas art that she says should be part of her inheritance.

Saxo Bank CEO Says Euro Doomed as Single Currency Woes Resurface

By Mahmoud Kassem - Feb 17, 2013 10:39 AM GMT+0200

Wal-Mart Executives Sweat Slow February Start in E-MailsQ

Saxo Bank CEO Says Euro Doomed as Single Currency Woes Resurface

By Mahmoud Kassem - Feb 17, 2013 10:39 AM GMT+0200

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-17/saxo-bank-ceo-says-euro-doomed-as-single-currency-woes-resurface.html

Bloomberg

Lars Seier Christensen, co-chief executive officer of Danish bank Saxo Bank A/S, said the euro’s recent rally is illusory and the shared currency is set to fail because the continent hasn’t supported it with a fiscal union.

Victor Davis Hanson: Shrinking wealth is real enemy

Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013 | 12:00 AM

Why do once-successful societies ossify and decline?

http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/02/16/3177493/victor-davis-hanson-shrinking.html

Hundreds of reasons have been adduced for the fall of Rome and the end of the Old Regime in 18th-century France. Reasons run from inflation and excessive spending to resource depletion and enemy invasion, as historians attempt to understand the sudden collapse of the Mycenaeans, the Aztecs and, apparently, the modern Greeks. In literature from Catullus to Edward Gibbon, wealth and leisure -- and who gets the most of both -- more often than poverty and exhaustion implode civilization.

Technology whizz kid tackles Greek tax evasion

By Harry Papachristou

ATHENS | Fri Feb 15, 2013 4:18am EST

(Reuters) - Greece is pinning its hopes of boosting revenue from an antiquated tax system beset by massive evasion on Harry Theoharis, a boyish-looking 42-year-old who describes himself as an "I.T. monkey".

Coca Cola Hellenic Reports Fourth-Quarter Loss

February 14, 2013, 2:42 a.m. ET

The Wall Street Journal

ATHENS--Greece's Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Co.(CCH) Thursday reported a net loss of 45.8 million euros ($61.6 million) in the fourth quarter, as restructuring costs and weak sales in many of its markets weighed on earnings, and it warned that economic conditions in 2013 remain challenging.

UPDATE 1-Greek Q4 GDP shrinks 6.0 pct y/y, unemployment hits record

Thu Feb 14, 2013 6:19am EST

* Q4 2012 GDP shrinks 6.0 pct - flash estimates

    * Unemployment hits 27 pct, youth jobless rate at 61.7 pct

    ATHENS, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Greece's economy shrank 6.0 percent in the last quarter of 2012 from the same period a year earlier and the jobless rate hit a record high of 27 percent, data from Eurostat and Greek statistics service ELSTAT showed on Thursday.

UPDATE 1-No debt restructuring for Cyprus, EU's Rehn says

Tue Feb 12, 2013 8:47am EST

* Cyprus awaiting a bailout equal to its entire economy

* Wary of fallout, Commission rule out losses for depositors

By Jan Strupczewski and Leigh Thomas

BRUSSELS, Feb 12 (Reuters) - The European Commission is not working on a debt restructuring for Cyprus that would force heavy losses on investors, the EU's top economic official said on Tuesday, backing the island's finance minister who is firmly opposed to such a move.

Wrestling Dropped From Olympics

LAUSANNE, Switzerland—Leaders of the International Olympic Committee dropped wrestling from the Olympic program on Tuesday, a surprise decision that removes one of the oldest Olympic sports from the 2020 Games.

Associated Press

The IOC executive board decided to retain modern pentathlon—the event considered most at risk—and remove wrestling instead from its list of 25 "core sports."

Landsat 8 to the rescue

NASA prepares to launch satellite that will continue historic record of global change.

NATURE

Jeff Tollefson

06 February 2013

When Landsat 5 fell silent on 6 January, scientists across the globe mourned its passing but gave thanks for its fortitude. The satellite had lasted a record-breaking 28 years, snapping images of the changing planet from melting glaciers to burning rainforests, while its successors faltered. Landsat 6 failed during launch and Landsat 7, at 13 years old, is partially blind and has limited fuel. With the passing of Landsat 5, the future of the world’s longest-running — and perhaps most influential — set of data on global change rests with Landsat 8, which is scheduled to launch next week from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The Last Time a Pope Resigned, Dante Put Him in Hell

By Peter Coy on February 11, 2013

Business Week

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to resign the papacy for health reasons. The last time a pope resigned voluntarily was 1294. The great poet Dante Alighieri was so angry about it that he put the abdicating pope, Celestine V, into the antechamber of his Inferno. In the more than seven centuries since, no pope has taken the name Celestine.