Cheap Cigarettes Are Burning Greece's Finances

By Nikos Chrysoloras

February 8, 2016 — 2:01 AM EET

On an unremarkable morning on Stournari street in downtown Athens, just a few blocks away from the epicenter of every riot the city has seen during its recent crisis years, two men of Asian origin politely and openly hawk cigarettes to passersby.

The illegal packs of R.G.D.-branded smokes cost 1.50 euros ($1.70) each, less than half the price of 20 Marlboros or Prince at one of Greece’s ubiquitous street kiosks.

As Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras walks another tightrope between creditor demands for additional belt tightening and a social backlash, the scene exposes an unhealthy truth: Greeks could smoke, drink and gamble their way out of their next financial hole, if only they were taxed on all of it.

Exclusive: Iran wants euro payment for new and outstanding oil sales - source

Fri Feb 5, 2016 5:15pm EST

NEW DELHI | BY NIDHI VERMA

Reuters

Iran wants to recover tens of billions of dollars it is owed by India and other buyers of its oil in euros and is billing new crude sales in euros, too, looking to reduce its dependence on the U.S. dollar following last month's sanctions relief.

A source at state-owned National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) told Reuters that Iran will charge in euros for its recently signed oil contracts with firms including French oil and gas major Total, Spanish refiner Cepsa and Litasco, the trading arm of Russia's Lukoil.

Greek Pensions Reform Sparks Clashes in Test for Tsipras

 Marcus Bensasson

 Eleni Chrepa

Bloomberg

February 4, 2016 — 3:02 AM EET Updated on February 4, 2016 — 7:07 PM EET

The 38-year-old Greek banking and commercial lawyer is part of a month-old bar-association boycott of the country’s courts, in protest against the government’s pension-reform plans. He says they cripple small businesses and the self-employed, raising the tax and social insurance for a young lawyer with annual income of 20,000 euros ($21,900) by 27 percent to 13,800 euros.

“A reform is supposed to be a new scheme that helps you improve an existing situation,” said Vrysopoulos, who started his own law firm in 2011. “This is not a reform at all. It’s a way to get more money to repay your loans as a country.”

Don't Let Greek Pensions Threaten the Euro

4 FEB 2, 2016 2:00 AM EST

By Editorial Board

Bloomberg

Greece is a small country, but for much of 2015 its problems were big enough to threaten the survival of the euro system. A year after Alexis Tsipras took charge as prime minister, the government seems committed to meeting the obligations demanded by its creditors in return for further aid. Neither side should allow the remaining sticking point -- pension reform -- to jeopardize the euro again.

The Greek economy is still in intensive care, and the unemployment rate is stubbornly high, but the situation is improving. The economy is expected to shrink by only 0.7 percent this year, and 2017 could see growth of 1.9 percent. The nation’s credit rating has been upgraded.

Anti-austerity protests are paralyzing Greece

 Reuters

Renee Maltezou and Lefteris Papadimas, Reuters

Feb. 4, 2016, 10:07 AM          3,123  3

ATHENS — Scuffles broke out and the police used teargas during a mass rally in Athens on Thursday as Greeks railed against government pension reforms needed to meet demands of international creditors.

Demanding an end to austerity, about 50,000 Greeks marched on Parliament in central Athens. Breaking away from the main block of demonstrators, black-clad youths hurled stones and petrol bombs at police officers, who responded with rounds of teargas and stun grenades, Reuters witnesses said.

Greece's Economy Is Getting Crushed Between Austerity And The Refugee Crisis

The most common arrival point for refugees entering Europe is a country in dire economic straits.

 02/03/2016 05:46 pm ET | Updated 21 hours ago

The refugee crisis is testing the limits of Greece’s flagging economy, jeopardizing its ability to handle a flow of refugees that shows no signs of slowing.

Added to the existing strains of austerity, the renewed economic pressure from the crisis is stoking fears within the Greek government that a new wave of anti-refugee xenophobia could take hold unless the European Union and Turkey significantly step up to help manage the crisis.

A report by Yannis Stournaras, the governor of the Bank of Greece, confirms as much. The report, presented to the European Central Bank’s general council on Dec. 17, compiles existing research on the economic effects of the refugee flows to demonstrate the risks the crisis poses for Greece.

REFUGEE CRISIS: EUROPE SLAMS GREECE'S BORDER 'NEGLECT'

BY JOSH LOWE ON 2/3/16 AT 12:36 PM

Newsweek

Brussels has accused Greece of “seriously neglecting” its obligation to protect the EU’s external border and urged the country to step up measures to control migration.

The European Commission on Tuesday endorsed a damning report into Greece’s border controls that concluded: “ Greece is seriously neglecting its obligations and there are serious deficiencies in the carrying out of external border controls that must be overcome and dealt with by the Greek authorities.”

Europe’s refugee story has hardly begun

Paul Mason

Monday 1 February 2016 18.45 GMT

The Guardian

With a million new refugees expected in Europe this year, Greece faces a diplomatic onslaught and an existential crisis

he refugee story has hardly begun. There will be, on conservative estimates, another million arriving via Turkey this year – and maybe more. The distribution quotas proposed by Germany, and resisted by many states in eastern Europe, are already a fiction and will fade into insignificance as the next wave comes.

Germany itself will face critical choices: if you’re suddenly running a budget deficit to meet the needs of asylum seekers, how do you justify not spending on the infrastructure that’s supposed to serve German citizens, which has crumbled through underinvestment in the Angela Merkel era?

40 percent of Germans demand Merkel's resignation over refugee policy, poll says

Unhappy with her government's refugee policy, four out of 10 Germans want Chancellor Merkel to resign, a new poll has shown. The news came just after the ruling grand coalition unveiled its new asylum package.

Deutsche Welle

2-2-2016

While 39.9 percent of Germans surveyed by the pollster Insa for "Focus" magazine said Chancellor Angela Merkel's refugee policy is grounds for her to step down, 45.2 percent of the more than 2,000 people polled said they did not believe she should leave office. The remaining 15 percent did not state an opinion.

Merkel has long enjoyed high popularity ratings among Germans but that support has dwindled in recent months, particularly as the numbers of asylum seekers entering Germany from the Middle East and North Africa has increased.

BofA: The Oil Crash Is Kicking Off One of the Largest Wealth Transfers In Human History

A $3 trillion shift year from oil producers to global consumers.

 Joe Weisenthal

 TheStalwart

February 1, 2016 — 4:49 AM EET

Bloomberg

Economists are still hotly debating whether the oil crash has been a net positive for advanced economies.

Optimists argue that cheap oil is a good thing for consumers and commodity-sensitive businesses, while pessimists point to the hit to energy-related investment and possible spillover into the financial system.

A new note from Francisco Blanch at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, however, puts the oil move into a much bigger perspective, arguing that a sustained price plunge "will push back $3 trillion a year from oil producers to global consumers, setting the stage for one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history."

Blanch and his team already see evidence that the fall in the price of crude is having a positive impact on demand, and say that it could accelerate even further if prices don't pick up.

U.S. Warship Enters Waters Claimed by China Without Approval

  Alan Bjerga

January 30, 2016 — 5:53 PM EET Updated on January 31, 2016 — 8:58 AM EET

Bloomberg

The Pentagon confirmed it sent a ship into waters claimed by China, calling it a “freedom of navigation” operation meant to challenge attempts by that country and others to restrict navigation in the area.

The USS Curtis Wilbur got to within 12 nautical miles (22 km) of Triton Island in the South China Sea, Defense Department spokesman Mark Wright said by e-mail Saturday.

The island, administered by China, is part of the Paracel islands chain in the South China Sea also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou ignored a rebuke from the U.S. and visited an island in the contested area earlier this week, reiterating claims to the disputed waterway.

U.S. Broadens Fight Against ISIS With Attacks in Afghanistan

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and ERIC SCHMITTJAN. 31, 2016

WASHINGTON — The United States has carried out at least a dozen operations — including commando raids and airstrikes — in the past three weeks against militants in Afghanistan aligned with the Islamic State, expanding the Obama administration’s military campaign against the terrorist group beyond Iraq and Syria.

The operations followed President Obama’s decision last month to broaden the authority of American commanders to attack the Islamic State’s new branch in Afghanistan. The administration — which has been accused by Republicans of not having a strategy to defeat the group — is revamping plans for how it fights the terrorist organization in regions where it has developed affiliates.

Economists to Cameron: refugee crisis response 'morally unacceptable'

In open letter to PM, more than 120 leading economists including former UN and World Bank officials say UK can do far more

The Guardian

More than 120 leading economists, among them former government, UN and World Bank officials, have lambasted the UK government’s response to the refugee crisis, calling it seriously inadequate, morally unacceptable and economically wrong.

In an open letter to David Cameron, the economists argue that as the world’s fifth-largest economy, the UK “can do far more” and are calling on the government to take a “fair and proportionate share of refugees, both those already within the EU and those still outside it”.

Greece Resists Its Role as European Union’s Gatekeeper

By LIZ ALDERMANJAN. 30, 2016

The New York Times

IDOMENI, Greece — On a recent weekday, 40 buses jammed into the parking lot of a gas station near the Macedonian border, carrying thousands of refugees who had survived a perilous crossing on wintry seas from Turkey.

Now they were approaching ground zero in the intensifying debate over how to curb the unceasing stream of men, women and children from war-ravaged and poor nations in the Middle East and Africa heading to the safety and prosperity of Europe.

Greece vs austerity

Greece’s far-left Syriza government is tottering

The Economist

A year after Alexis Tsipras’s sweeping victory, economic woes and scandals threaten to bring him down

Jan 29th 2016 | Europe

ON JANUARY 24th Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s prime minister, gave a rousing speech to his supporters in a stadium in Athens, marking the first year in power of his far-left, anti-austerity Syriza party. He vowed to come down hard on his party’s enemies, and blamed the Greek people’s continuing misery on the opposition. Meanwhile Greece’s public broadcaster, ERT, aired a six-minute retrospective on Syriza’s first year, featuring gauzy shots of Mr Tsipras and a voice-over proclaiming that his government had battled elites, delivered social justice, fixed the economy and made Greece an international symbol of dignity. Even leftists rolled their eyes at the heavy-handed propaganda. But if Mr Tsipras’s speech and video were intended to boost morale, they backfired.

A Russian journalist explains why there is no corruption in Russia

The Washington Post

By Adam Taylor January 28 at 2:33 PM

In the West, many think of modern Russia as near synonymous with corruption. We know all about the oligarchs, the mafia and the "Wild East" capitalism of the 1990s. One recent poll found that Russia was considered one of the more corrupt countries in the world, placing 119 out of 168 on Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (where a lower ranking indicates a higher perceived level of corruption).

In Greece’s Populism, Precious Lessons for Europe

The New  York Times

Nikos Konstandaras JAN. 28, 201

Athens — It may just be coincidence, but in the year since a radical left movement and an extreme right-wing party joined forces to govern Greece, the resilience of the European Union has been tested. But it may be also that the forces released in Greece have emerged in many other countries, poisoning relations among member states.

The glue that holds Greece’s paradoxical coalition together, and which we see across Europe, is populism. Not some coherent ideology that puts the people’s interests first, but a policy based on opportunism, on cultivating a grandiose sense of national identity and then presenting that identity as being threatened by domestic and foreign enemies. It uses current problems to undermine efforts at solutions, and conjures past and future utopias rather than trying to keep up with dizzying change.

Europe Raises Pressure on Greece to Tighten Its Borders

By JAMES KANTERJAN. 27, 2016

 The New York Times

BRUSSELS — The European Union authorities on Wednesday raised pressure on Greece to step up its efforts to slow the flow of migrants and tighten control of the bloc’s external borders, the first step in a process that would allow some countries to its north to extend their border controls for up to two years.

Valdis Dombrovskis, a vice president of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, said that Greece was “seriously neglecting its obligations” by failing to properly register and fingerprint migrants. That conclusion led the commission to file a report to member states detailing “persistent and serious deficiencies” by Greece at controlling its borders.

Refugee trail: Postcards from the mud, misery, anger and hope

By Rachel Clarke, CNN

Updated 0437 GMT (1237 HKT) January 28, 2016

(CNN)Refugees are still striving to reach Europe. Young men, families, the elderly are trekking through snow, seeking shelter and local aid or perhaps beginning to think of a new, brighter future.

But the Europe so many have reached is now fractured in its reaction -- some as open and welcoming as at the height of compassion last year in the wake of the drowning of Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi, but many not. With migrants blamed for New Year's Eve harassment and rape and even now a killing, some communities and governments are taking a tougher line.

This week, CNN met locals and migrants across the continent and beyond. Here are snapshots of what we found.

Opinion: Greece - a lost year

The victory of the radical left-wing Syriza party in Greece exactly one year ago was a political earthquake for Europe. Spiros Moskovou takes a very critical look at the past 12 months with Alexis Tsipras.

Deutche Welle

After his surprisingly clear election victory, the people's tribune Alexis Tsipras formed a new government in record time with the right-wing populist Anel party. Back then, Tsipras was promising an end to austerity policies and the decisive renegotiation of the bailout package with Greece's international creditors.