Greece demands IMF explanation over leaked debt transcript

Sun Apr 3, 2016 8:28am EDT Related: GREECE, IMF
ATHENS | BY LEFTERIS PAPADIMAS

Reuters

Greece demanded an explanation from the International Monetary Fund after an apparent leaked transcript suggested the IMF may threaten to pull out of the country's bailout as a tactic to force European lenders to offer more debt relief.

EU/IMF lenders will resume talks on Greece's fiscal and reform progress in Athens on Monday, aiming to conclude a bailout review that will unlock further loans and pave the way for negotiations on long-desired debt restructuring.

The review has been adjourned twice since January due to a rift among the lenders over the estimated size of Greece's fiscal gap by 2018, as well as disagreements with Athens on pension reforms and the management of bad loans.

Greece Grapples With Unrest Ahead of Migrant Transfers to Turkey

First transfers under agreement between EU, Turkey set to take place Monday

The Wall Street Journal

By NEKTARIA STAMOULI in Athens and AYLA ALBAYRAK in Izmir, Turkey
April 3, 2016 11:27 a.m. ET


Greece is due to start sending Syrian refugees and other migrants back across the Aegean Sea to Turkey on Monday, putting into practice a controversial deal between the European Union and Turkey aimed at stemming the migration flow into Europe.

Returns are scheduled to take place from the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios and will be carried out by EU border agency Frontex. Government and police officials are bracing themselves for resistance from migrants.

Protests Against Migrants' Presence in Greece and Turkey

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSAPRIL 2, 2016, 12:30 P.M. E.D.T.

The New York Times

IDOMENI, Greece — 'Anti-migrants protesters staged demonstrations in Turkey and Greece against the plan to send back migrants from Greece to Turkey is set to be implemented starting Monday.

At the same time, migrants stranded at a makeshift camp in this small town on Greece's border with Macedonia staged a protest demanding that the border be opened and that they be allowed to continue their journeys to central and northern Europe.

Several dozen people living in the Idomeni camp staged a protest Saturday morning, blocking a local road for about an hour to demand the evacuation of more than 11,000 stranded migrants to "transit centers" across the Greek mainland.

After WikiLeaks Revelation, Greece Asks I.M.F. to Clarify Bailout Plan

By LIZ ALDERMANAPRIL 2, 2016

The New York Times

Greece called on the International Monetary Fund on Saturday to explain whether it was seeking to usher Athens toward bankruptcy ahead of a pivotal referendum in June on Britain’s membership in Europe. Greece’s comments came after I.M.F. officials raised questions in a private discussion published by WikiLeaks about what it would take to get Greece’s creditors to agree to debt relief.

The transcript, which captures what WikiLeaks said was a teleconference conversation in March between Poul Thomsen, the head of the I.M.F.’s European operations, and the I.M.F.’s Greek bailout monitor, underscored a widening rift between the I.M.F. and Greece’s European creditors that could jeopardize Greece’s new 86 billion euro bailout. It also exposed the fraught behind-the-scenes political machinations that have led to a deadlock on how to deal with a country still regarded as Europe’s weakest link.

A Syrian Refugee’s Message to the European Union

We fled war to find safety with our families. Why is the E.U. making our lives more miserable?
By LAILA
MARCH 31, 2016

The New York Times

IDOMENI, Greece — WHEN we first got here we had money to buy a little food. Now it’s gone. We stand in line for hours for a sandwich. My husband told a journalist recently: “People are fed up. Maybe tomorrow they will break down the gate and flood across the border.” The journalist said, “How many weapons do you have?” If we knew how to carry weapons or wanted to carry weapons we would not have fled Syria. We want peace. We are sick of killing.

We fled a war, and now the European Union is making war against us, a psychological war. When we hear rumors that we’ll be let into Europe, we celebrate. These leaders give us new hope, then they extinguish it. Why did you open the door to refugees? Why did you welcome people? If they had stopped it before, we would not have come. We would not have risked death, me and my children, and thousands of others, to make the crossing.

Greece, Turkey take legal short-cuts in race to return migrants

Thu Mar 31, 2016 12:40pm EDT Related: WORLD, UNITED NATIONS, TURKEY, GREECEBRUSSELS/ATHENS | BY GABRIELA BACZYNSKA AND KAROLINA TAGARIS
Reuters
Greece and Turkey are rushing through changes to their asylum rules in a race to implement a EU-Turkey agreement on the return of refugees and migrants from Greek islands to Turkey from next Monday, EU officials and diplomats said.

Both Athens and Ankara must amend their legislation to permit the start of a scheme - denounced by the U.N. refugee agency and rights groups - to send back all migrants who crossed to Greece after March 20.

The policy is meant to end the uncontrolled influx of refugees and other migrants in which more than a million people crossed into Europe last year.

Like the US, China wants a national electricity grid. Unlike the US, China’s just building it.

Vox
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/30/11332900/china-long-distance-transmission
Updated by David Roberts on March 30, 2016, 3:00 p.m. ET

Wind and sunlight are often concentrated in sparsely populated, remote areas. Getting wind and solar power to the population centers where it's needed involves building long-distance power lines. Lots of them.

Earlier this week I wrote about a new long-distance power line in the US and the long, slow path it took to win approval. It was proposed in 2009; construction is expected to begin next year and finish in 2020. Like everything involving electricity in the US, it had to navigate a skein of overlapping jurisdictions, multiple state and local authorities, and federal rules. Every landowner and stakeholder had their say.

So I chuckled when I ran across this Reuters headline yesterday: "China pushes for mandatory integration of renewable power." That's the other way to do it!

Migrant arrivals to Greece rise sharply despite EU-Turkey deal

Wed Mar 30, 2016 4:12pm EDT

ATHENS | BY KAROLINA TAGARIS AND LEFTERIS KARAGIANNOPOULOS

Migrant and refugee arrivals to Greece from Turkey rose sharply on Wednesday, just over a week after the European Union and Turkey struck an agreement intended to cut off the flow and as hundreds marched through central Athens to protest that deal.

The demonstrators included human rights activists, students and migrants from among the thousands stranded in Greece by recent border closures across the Balkans.

Greek authorities recorded 766 new arrivals between Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning, up from 192 the previous day. Most entered the country via the northeastern Aegean island of Lesbos.

Italy reported an even larger jump on Tuesday, when officials there said 1,350 people - mostly from Africa - were rescued from small boats taking a longer migration route across the Mediterranean as the weather warmed up.

Migrants in Greece, Ready to Go Anywhere in Europe, Scramble to Enter E.U. Relocation Program

By LIZ ALDERMANMARCH 26, 2016
Dimitris Bounias contributed reporting.

The New York Times

ATHENS — Under the glare of a naked light bulb, in the tiny one-room apartment where he has taken shelter with three other young Syrian refugees, Ismail Haki clutched the folded white card on which he has pinned all his hopes.

“It’s our only chance,” said Mr. Haki, as he and his companions displayed the cards that showed they have applied for asylum in Europe. “If this works, we don’t know what country we’ll end up in. But at least we’d be in Europe.”

The four men arrived in Greece last month after making a perilous trek from Aleppo, the war-torn Syrian city, to find a hoped-for path to Germany closed. After languishing in a military camp for two weeks, they turned in desperation to a final option and entered a European Union relocation program that might, if they are lucky, place them almost anywhere in Europe but Germany.

A Quandary for Europe: Fighting a War on ISIS Within Its Borders

By STEVEN ERLANGERMARCH 23, 2016
Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

The New York Times

LONDON — When the United States declared war on Al Qaeda after the Sept. 11 attacks, American leaders took the fight to the militant group’s hide-outs in Afghanistan, a faraway and failing state, with an invasion and occupation.

But for Europe’s leaders, who now consider themselves at war with the Islamic State after large-scale terrorist attacks at home, the challenge is more complicated: The enemy’s hide-outs are ghettoized parts of Paris, Brussels and other European cities that amount to mini failed states inside their own borders.

Greece Lags in Implementing Economic Reforms, Says Schäuble

Athens has yet to agree with creditors on what measures should be adopted
The Wall  Street Journal

By ANDREA THOMAS
Updated March 23, 2016 10:40 a.m. ET


BERLIN--German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said Wednesday Greece is still lagging behind in implementing economic overhauls promised last summer to its creditors in exchange for bailout money, expressing however optimism that a solution will be found.

Greek creditors—the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund—and Athens have yet to reach an agreement on the reforms that Greece must adopt.

Without such a deal, creditors cannot complete a review of its up-to-€86 billion ($96 billion) bailout program.

Brussels attacks are hurting refugees in Greece

By Nasos Koukakis, special to CNBC.com
18 Hours Ago
CNBC

The terrorist attacks in Brussels is making it more difficult for the Greek government to manage the refugee crisis, as more and more EU countries become reluctant to allow the arrival of refugees into their territories.

On Wednesday, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had a telephone conversation with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to complain about the poor results of NATO's operation in the Aegean Sea, initiated last month to discourage the influx of refugees and immigrants in the Greek islands.

NATO has been tasked to do reconnaissance and surveillance and to collect information and share this information in real time with the Turkish coast guard, the Greek coast guard and with Frontex to help manage the migrant and refugee crisis and cut the lines of illegal trafficking and smugglers.

Belgium Warned of Attacks. It Wasn't Enough.

1268 MAR 22, 2016 9:17 AM EDT
By Josh Rogin
Bloomberg
Only days ago in Brussels, as Western leaders celebrated the arrest of a key terrorist suspect, Belgian officials warned that there were dozens more jihadists at large in the city and that more attacks were being planned. They couldn’t have known how right they were.

I traveled to Brussels on March 16, to attend the German Marshall Fund's Brussels Forum, a meeting of U.S. and European officials, foreign policy experts and journalists, where the fight against terrorism was at the top of the agenda. Two U.S. senators and several Obama administration officials who attended had just passed through the main terminal of the Brussels airport. On Tuesday morning, it was hit by what Belgian authorities described as a suicide attack. At least 26 were killed and many more wounded at the airport, and in a parallel attack on the city's subway system.

Stocks fall, gold and govt bonds rise after Brussels explosions

Tue Mar 22, 2016 5:54am EDT
LONDON | BY JAMIE MCGEEVER

Reuters

European stocks fell and investors rushed for the safety of gold and government bonds on Tuesday, after two explosions at Brussels airport killed several people and blasts at metro stations in the Belgian capital.

Travel sector stocks including airlines and hotels fell the most, pulling the broader indices down from multi-week highs as reports on the scale of the carnage in the de facto capital of the European Union unfolded.

Belgian media reported that at least 11 people had been killed and that one of the blasts at the airport was a suicide bomber. This came four days after the arrest in Brussels of a suspected participant in November militant attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.

"The initial reaction in financial markets has been airline stocks all lower, and safe-haven capital flow with gold, German government bonds and the Japanese yen in demand," said Brenda Kelly, head analyst at London Capital Group.

"The news has certainly overshadowed much of the euro zone economic data this morning," she said.

At 0915 GMT the FTSEuroFirst 300 index of leading shares was down 1 percent at 1,326 points .FTEU3. Germany's DAX was also down 1 percent and Belgian stocks were down 0.8 percent .BEL20. These indices had earlier been down twice as much.

The STOXX Europe 600 Travel & Leisure index .SXTP was the top sectoral faller, down 2.2 percent. Shares in major European airlines like easyJet (EZJ.L) and Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA) were down as much as 4 percent (LHAG.DE), and hotel company Accor (ACCP.PA) also fell 4 percent.

Gold rose 1 percent to $1,255 an ounce XAU=, and the yield on benchmark German government bonds fell to a two-week low of 0.18 percent EU10YT=RR. U.S. Treasury yields fell 2 basis points across the curve US2YT=RR US10YT=RR.

In currency markets the Japanese yen, often considered a something of a safe-haven asset, rose across the board, notably against the euro. The euro was last down 0.6 percent at 125.10 yen EURJPY= and the dollar was down 0.3 percent at 111.60 yen JPY=.

The single currency fell a third of a percent against the dollar to $1.1205 EUR=.

BLASTS OVERSHADOW DATA

For financial markets, the events in Brussels came in a week where liquidity was starting to dry up ahead of the Easter holiday and investors were beginning to think about cashing in on a steep rally in stocks over the last few weeks.

"Coming up to the Easter holiday, people are going to be very reluctant to put more money into these (stock) markets. If anything, they will be more likely to take money out," said Michael Hewson, chief market strategist at CMC Markets in London.

"Anything like the events we're seeing in Brussels this morning is going to weigh on risk sentiment and risk appetite," he said.

U.S. stock futures pointed to a fall of around a third of one percent on Wall Street ESc1.

Investors paid little attention to the economic data released on Tuesday which showed a slight pick up in German business morale and euro zone business activity in March

Earlier, Asian stocks seesawed as hawkish comments from U.S. Federal Reserve officials clouded the monetary policy outlook less than a week after Fed Chair Janet Yellen had set out a more cautious path to interest rate increases this year.

The dollar got a mild boost from the suggestion that interest rate hikes could be on the way sooner rather than later.

Japan's Nikkei stock index .N225 added 1.9 percent, closing at a one-week high, after markets in Tokyo reopened after a public holiday on Monday. A weaker yen, before the Brussels-related rebound, gave a tailwind to local shares.

Elsewhere, sterling was one of the biggest losers among the major currencies after ratings agency Moody's said Britain's credit rating will be put under pressure by a marked slowdown in fiscal consolidation unveiled in last week's budget.

The warning came amid concerns about Prime Minister David Cameron's ability to keep Britain in the European Union after leading 'Out' campaigner Iain Duncan Smith resigned from the cabinet late on Friday.

Sterling was last down 0.6 percent at $1.4281 GBP=, more than two cents off Friday's one-month high of $1.4514.

It was a rare day of stability in oil markets, with U.S. crude futures unchanged at $41.53 a barrel CLc1 and Brent crude LCOc1 also flat on the day at $41.60.

(Reporting by Jamie McGeever; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Brussels Rocked by Deadly Attacks With Blasts at Airport, Subway

Bloomberg
By James G Neuger and  Jonathan Stearns

Explosions ripped through the Brussels airport departure hall and a downtown subway station on Tuesday morning, causing deaths and injuries and spurring fears of imminent follow-up attacks in the capital of the European Union.
Belgium’s military sent reinforcements to Brussels after two bombs went off in rapid succession at the airport around 8 a.m., the peak check-in hour for morning flights within Europe. RTL news reported as many as 13 dead and 25 injured. An hour later, an explosion hit a subway station a short walk from EU headquarters, with conflicting reports of casualties.

Deal Appears to Curb Migrant Flow, but Greece Still Faces ‘Uphill Effort’

By JIM YARDLEY and LIZ ALDERMANMARCH 21, 2016

The New York Times

MYTILENE, Greece — Standing on the southern coastline of the island of Lesbos, Molhim Zreiki peered through binoculars across the narrow strait of the Aegean Sea dividing Greece from Turkey. During the past nine months, hundreds of thousands of refugees had crossed these waters on smuggler rafts to reach Europe.

But how many rafts reached Lesbos on Monday morning?

“None,” said Mr. Zreiki, one of the volunteers who have patrolled the beaches for months to help refugees as they came ashore.

The Greek Coast Guard did pick up two rafts near Lesbos early Monday and brought the 56 people aboard to the island, according to the local police. By comparison, in October an average of 4,400 refugees landed on the island every day.

European Union Grapples With Plan to Return Migrants From Greece to Turkey

By JAMES KANTERMARCH 17, 2016
Continue reading the main storyShare

The New York Times

BRUSSELS — European leaders edged closer early on Friday to a deal to return asylum seekers from Greece to Turkey despite a host of legal, political and moral issues raised by their latest effort to quell the migrant crisis.

The common stance agreed by the European Union’s 28 national leaders still needs the approval of Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. He flew here late Thursday for face-to-face talks on Friday.

Those negotiations will revolve around what incentives to grant Turkey, which is not a European Union member, in return for Turkey’s taking on the job of housing more of the migrants while they wait for word on whether they qualify for resettlement in Western Europe.

“We need to put all our efforts into achieving an agreement with Turkey,” Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, told an early morning news conference. “These will be negotiations that will certainly be anything but easy,” she warned.

Life Inside The Horrid Camp On Greece’s Border

Many of the 14,000 people living in the Idomeni transit camp want to enter Macedonia and continue onto other European countries. But the borders are shut.
 03/17/2016 05:20 pm ET

The Huffington Post

Images taken inside a transit camp near the Greece-Macedonia border show the impact of Europe’s inaction in addressing the spiraling migrant and refugee crisis.

Up to 14,000 people live in the makeshift tent city located near the town of Idomeni, on the Greek side of the border, equipped to house about 2,000 people.

Many of the migrants and refugees in the camp arrived there after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to the Greek islands, and hope to enter Macedonia and continue across Balkan countries — like Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia — toward more prosperous European countries like Germany. But that has recently become impossible as the Balkan countries recently shut their borders or tightened frontier policies to people without valid travel documents.

On Monday, hundreds of people stormed out of the Idomeni camp toward Macedonia, hiking for hours and wading through a rain-swollen river, only for many of them to be detained by Macedonian authorities who made them return to Greece.

What Donald Trump Gets Pretty Much Right, and Completely Wrong, About China

Neil Irwin  @Neil_Irwin MARCH 17, 201

The New York Times

If there is one thing Donald Trump seems sure about, it is that the United States is getting a raw deal from China.

To people who spend time studying the United States’ economic relationship with China, Mr. Trump’s accounting of its dysfunctions contains both legitimate, accurate complaints and elements that completely misstate how things work between the world’s largest and second-largest economies.

“They’re killing us,” Mr. Trump has said in many debates, rallies and television appearances. He has threatened to put a 45 percent tax on Chinese imports “if they don’t behave.”

If you take Mr. Trump’s comments at face value, as president he would try to renegotiate a complex set of ties that has pulled hundreds of millions of Chinese out of dire poverty, made a wide range of goods available to American consumers at more affordable prices and contributed to the decline of American manufacturing.

Refugee crisis: Migrants arriving on Greek islands to be sent back to Turkey within days if deal goes through.

Angela Merkel says deal 'gives the EU a chance to get a sustainable, pan-European solution to the refugee issue'

Caroline Mortimer

The Independent

Refugees landing on Greek islands will be deported within days under a "decisive" draft deal with Turkey.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, said the deal “gives [the EU] a chance to get a sustainable, pan-European solution to the refugee issue".

She was speaking on the eve of a summit to sign the deal which will fast rack Turkey’s application to join the EU in exchange for readmitting refugees who have already crossed the Aegean Sea to Greece.