Athens' main square, battling non-violently and actually succeeding in
making the police retreat to the government building where the austerity
vote is being decided. It was amazing and I may send it tomorrow.
Meanwhile, here's some great background. -Ed
From: rad-green- On Behalf Of Sid Shniad
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2011 3:21 PM
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filipino/world/06/28/11/greece-gripped-gen
eral-strike
Greece gripped by general strike
by Roddy Thomson
Agence France-Presse: 06/28/2011
ATHENS, Greece - Greece ground to a halt Tuesday as angry workers
launched a 48-hour general strike against an austerity drive ordered by its
bankruptcy-threatened government in exchange for a European bailout.
Crowds converged early on Syntagma Square, where parliament will vote on
sweeping spending cuts as planes, ships and most public transport came to a
halt.
Europe's economic tsar Olli Rehn in Brussels warned that Greece faced "a
critical juncture" and the austerity programme was the "only way to avoid
immediate default."
But that view was not shared by protestors, determined to block passage of
the package.
"We don't want your money Europe," Iamando, 36, told AFP on the square where
police were already out in force at 11:00 am (0800 GMT). "Leave us alone --
please, please, please."
The number of police in the centre of the capital rose to 4,000, according
to the authorities, with traffic unable to circulate in central Athens.
Public transport was halted in Athens for the fourth general strike called
this year by the country's two biggest unions, with the exception of the
metro whose drivers decided not to strike so as to allow Athenians to swell
protest numbers.
In the port of Pireus, near Athens, which links most Greek islands with the
mainland as the peak tourist season gets under way, around 200 militant
unionists staged a picket to prevent ferries from leaving the port.
Banks, too, were closed and even hospitals were operating on reduced
staffing while at airports action by air traffic controllers saw domestic
flights cancelled by Greek airlines Olympic Air and Aegean and international
departures delayed.
A string of rallies got under way, led by a 4,000-strong Communist march to
the parliament square -- a magnet for tens of thousands of protesters and an
'indignants' camp where some of thousands involved said they have clocked up
38 straight days.
"We're like the donkey -- the more you hit it, the more determined it gets,"
one of those who keeps coming back to the square, Omiros (Homer), 29, told
AFP.
An employee of the soon-to-be privatized electricity company, he spoke for a
generation of Greeks educated abroad -- Bath, England, in his case.
"If they sold the power company in the UK, it wouldn't be for pennies, and
they wouldn't hit you with 300 percent price rises," he added of the other
principal gripe among a generation of Greeks earning just hundreds of euros
per month.
Prime Minister George Papandreou begged lawmakers Monday night to back his
plans to slice 28.6 billion euros from government spending by 2015, and sell
off the national silver to meet EU and IMF demands for reform.
In Brussels, EU economic affairs chief Rehn urged the Greek parliament to
adopt the austerity programme.
"Both the future of the country and financial stability in Europe are at
stake," Rehn said in a statement. "The only way to avoid immediate default
is for parliament to endorse the revised economic programme."
In a rare criticism of the government, the governor of the Bank of Greece,
Giorgos Provopoulos told Tuesday's Kathimerini daily that "piling more taxes
on taxpayers has reached its limit."
He said the new plan "does not place enough emphasis on the containment of
spending."
Approval of the austerity measures by lawmakers would unblock 12 billion
euros of emergency loans from last year's 110-billion-euro bailout and free
eurozone finance ministers to start drawing up a second bailout for as much
again at talks Sunday in Brussels.
But even a former IMF board member, economist Miranda Xafa of Geneva-based
investment managers IJ Partners, says the plan is deeply flawed.
"In the last year, 250,000 people lost their jobs in the private sector --
and none in the public sector," she told AFP.
"Now the country is bankrupt so it has no choice," she said.
She was sceptical about a plan announced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy
to persuade private sector creditors to extend their exposure to Greek
public debt for the next 30 years, another condition for more eurozone
government aid.
She said it would almost certainly be seen by the key international rating
agencies as a "selective" default.
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