What's happening in Greece right now

[Jan Klimkowski]

Tsipras.

turncoat  [turn-koht]

Definition: traitor

Synonyms: Benedict Arnold, Judas, apostate, back-stabber, betrayer, conspirator, deceiver, defector, deserter, double-crosser, fink, informer, quisling, rat, rebel, renegade, snake*, sneak*, snitch, spy, squealer, stool pigeon, tattletale, tergiversator, treasonist, two-timer,

[Magda Hassan]

Tsipras.

turncoat  [turn-koht]

Definition: traitor

Synonyms: Benedict Arnold, Judas, apostate, back-stabber, betrayer, conspirator, deceiver, defector, deserter, double-crosser, fink, informer, quisling, rat, rebel, renegade, snake*, sneak*, snitch, spy, squealer, stool pigeon, tattletale, tergiversator, treasonist, two-timer,

Looks that way. Or maybe he has had an offer he can't refuse....

[Keith Millea]

Don't pay them wages for 6 months and then shoot them...Wonderful

Published on Thursday, April 18, 2013 by Common Dreams

Migrant Workers Gunned Down in Greece


Incident indicative of 'hell-hole with slavery labor conditions' for migrants in Greece

- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

Twenty-eight migrant workers were gunned down in Greece on Wednesday after demanding back pay owed to them on a farm they had worked on for several months.


Unidentified migrant workers receive first aid at the Medical Center of Varda, in Greece. Wednesday, April 17, 2013 (AP Photo/Eurokinissi)

Up to 28 out of a total of 200 mostly Bangladeshi immigrant workers who came under fire were hospitalized following the incident, although no one was killed. Seven of the workers remained hospitalized on Thursday.


Three Greek nationals, said to be the workers' supervisors, were involved in the shooting, which took place on a strawberry farm in Nea Manolada, though many details of the case are still unclear.


"Before the shootings, there was an altercation between the foreign workers and the three foremen over six months' outstanding wages," police spokesman Christos Parthenis said. "After that the three fugitives left the spot, and returned shortly later holding two shotguns and a handgun, and opened fire on the crowd."


The three shooters are still at large. However, the owner of the strawberry farm where the shooting occurred was arrested on Thursday as the "moral instigator" of the shootings. Another was arrested for sheltering two of the three presumed perpetrators overnight, police said.


"They keep telling us that we will get paid in a month, and this has been going on for more than a year," one of the workers involved in the protests told Greek Skai. "We don't talk about it because we are afraid that we will be killed or kicked out."


Manolada has become known as an area prone to violence against migrant workers, The Greek Reporter reports:

Last year, two Greek men were arrested for beating a 30-year-old Egyptian, jamming his head in the window of a car door and dragging him for around one kilometer.
In 2008, migrants working on farms in New Manolada, known for its strawberries, went on a four-day strike to protest poverty wages and squalid living conditions. Several activists have called on consumers at home and abroad to boycott Manolada strawberries. A social media campaign was launched on Twitter under #bloodstrawberries.

[URL="http://news.yahoo.com/greece-pledges-swift-punishment-over-farm-shooting-151854865.html;_ylt=AwrNUbBcH3BRu0MAr0jQtDMD"]
According to Associated Press[/URL], political parties and trade unions expressed shock across Greece and about 100 people took part in a protest by labor groups outside the Labor Ministry in Athens.
"The injuries suffered by protesting farm workers in Manolada are being condemned in the most absolute manner by the entirety of Greek society," government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou said in a statement.

The national PAME union stated that the incident was only the latest in a long history of abuse of migrant workers in Greece:

Growers and landowners have operated with cover from the government and justice for years, creating a hell-hole with slavery labor conditions
Modern slaves in Manolada work in stifling conditions, pay rent to their exploiters and are lodged in sheds without water and electricity.

The country's main labor union, GSEE, also described conditions at Manolada as a modern form of slavery:

The criminal act in Manolada ... shows the tragic results of labor exploitation, combined with a lack of control [by the government labor inspectorate]
In Manolada, and particularly in the strawberry plantations, a sort of state within a state has been created.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Don't pay them wages for 6 months and then shoot them...Wonderful

Video of the aftermath of the strawberry fields shooting, and more detail, can be seen here.

The level of political awareness of the accompanying article is unclear, but the headline states that the shot workers will be deported......

:plane:

[Magda Hassan]

Greece back in crisis mode on state TV shutdown, downgrade

By Harry Papachristou and Lefteris Papadimas

ATHENS | Wed Jun 12, 2013 7:36am EDT

(Reuters) - Greece's fragile government faced an internal revolt and fierce public protest on Wednesday over the sudden closure of state broadcaster ERT, hours after the humiliation of seeing its bourse downgraded to emerging market status.
The twin setbacks, coupled with the derailing of a troubled privatization program, blew a hole in rising investor confidence that had prompted Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to declare the risk of a "Grexit" from the euro was dead and a "Greekovery" was under way.
Yields on Greece's 10-year benchmark bond crept back above 10 percent after Athens failed to sell state gas firm DEPA on Monday, leaving it short of cash to meet its international bailout targets.
The stock market traded at two-month lows after Greece became the first developed nation ever to be lowered to emerging market by equity index provider MSCI.
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's government declined comment on the market reclassification as it tried to fend off a growing media backlash against ERT's dramatic closure.
The public broadcaster was yanked off air just hours after the shutdown was announced in what the government said was a temporary measure to staunch an "incredible waste" of taxpayers' money prior to relaunching a slimmed-down station.
Labor unions called a 24-hour national work stoppage for Thursday and journalists went on an open-ended strike, forcing a news blackout on privately owned television and newspapers.
"The strike will only end when the government takes back this coup d'etat which gags information," the journalists' union said.
Some ERT journalists were occupying the broadcaster's building in defiance of police orders and broadcasting over the Internet. Hundreds of employees and protesters gathered outside.
WORRYING
MSCI said the Athens bourse did not reflect improved practices in developed markets for securities borrowing, lending facilities, short selling and transferability of shares. It had not met the developed market criteria for size for two years.
Still, brokers said more money may ended up invested in Greek stocks over the medium term due to the country's weighting in emerging market indices, since its exposure in developed markets global indices was marginal.
"The debt crisis in the last three years hit all triggers, prompting developed market funds to reduce their exposure," said Theodore Krintas, head of wealth management at Attica Bank.
"Emerging market funds could not enter since Greece was classified as developed market, now it will be on their radar."
Analysts said the outcry over the state broadcaster posed a more immediate threat to the government, even though ERT's three statewide channels have a combined audience share of barely 13 percent. About 2,000 of its 2,600 employees are non-journalists.
The government promised to relaunch a slimmed-down version of ERT within weeks, saying it only took ERT off air so suddenly due to fears that workers would damage state equipment.
"We didn't shut down ERT, we temporarily suspended its operations to fix it and make it work on a healthy basis," government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou told Reuters.
The shutdown was decided six weeks ago and was unrelated to the failure to sell DEPA or to an ongoing inspection visit by EU and IMF lenders in Athens, he said. Greece is under pressure to cut the public sector workforce and sack some civil servants.
The European Commission said it did not seek ERT's closure under the bailout program but did not question the decision either. [ID:nB5N0DH014] France's Socialist government voiced outright condemnation.
"This is obviously very worrying and regrettable. One can only deplore this decision by the Greek authorities," Culture and Communications Minister Aurelie Filipetti said.
"Austerity must not strike at pluralism of information and of television. Public broadcasting services are necessary in a democracy so I deeply regret this decision."
INDEFINITE STRIKE
Many Greeks have little love for ERT journalists and the state broadcaster is often cited as an example of inefficiency, overspending and jobs given in return for political favors.
But the speed and suddenness of the shutdown - ERT screens abruptly went black just before midnight - stunned Greeks long used to the slow pace of public sector restructuring.
"This government's ways are dictatorial: they decide and they order," said 45-year old Panagiotis, who declined to give his full name for fear of losing his own public sector job.
"It was a wrong move. Yes, the public sector needs to be downsized and we all knew that ERT was being used for political favors but they did not need to fire them all."
The closure opened cracks in Samaras's fragile three-party coalition. Samaras's two junior partners, the Socialist PASOK and the Democratic Left said they would oppose the decision.
Both parties said they had not been consulted but stopped short of saying the row could bring the government down.
However, political analyst Theodore Couloumbis of the ELIAMEP think-tank said it might trigger an early election.
"It could be highly destabilizing if it moves to a confrontation in parliament where the two smaller political parties have to humble themselves to avoid a next election or stick to it and force a next election," he said.
"It's anyone's guess what would happen in elections now and what impact it would have on the economy at a time when a so-called Greekovery is visible on the distant horizon."
The decision was taken by ministerial decree, meaning that it can be implemented without immediate reference to parliament. But the communist opposition said it would put a legislative amendment to parliament on Wednesday to annul the decision.
Opposition leader Alexis Tsipras was to meet State President Karolos Papoulias to protest against the decision. On Tuesday, he called the closure "a coup, not only against ERT workers but against the Greek people", and accused the government of the "historic responsibility of gagging state TV". ($1 = 0.7533 euros)
(Additional reporting by Renee Maltezou, Karolina Tagaris and Tatiana Fragou, writing by Deepa Babington; Editing by Paul Taylor)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/1...ZN20130612

[Peter Lemkin]

I sense the first real People's Revolution in the Eurozone will SOON come out of Greece...... As there is also a concurrent rise in neo-fascism, it will be an ugly one....needless to say. Closing the Public Broadcasting without more than a few hours notice was a dirty trick and will light the huge pile of 'tinder', i think.

[Magda Hassan]

I wonder if the people of Greece andTurkey can join up and over throw their respective governments? They have more in common with each other than their lamentable leaders.

[Jan Klimkowski]

The immediate closure of the Greek public service TV and radio networks is a crime against the Greek people.

It's not enough for the military-mulinational-intelligence network to have mockingbirds and Murdoch-owned broadcasting networks. Now they quite literally want TV and radio silence.

I imagine that the Shock Therapy dial will now be turned even higher in Greece, with noone to provide a voice for the victims of this economic coup d'etat.

[Jan Klimkowski]

National strike against Shock Therapy in Greece.

"In a systematic and autocratic way, the government has abolished the rights of workers and citizens one by one," said the public sector union ADEDY, which is organising the walkout with its private sector sister union GSEE.

"We call on every worker and every citizen to fight to overthrow the government's catastrophic plans," ADEDY said.

Greeks strike in protest at closure of state broadcaster ERT

Greece's two biggest labour unions stage 24-hour walkout against prime minister's 'coup-like move'


Reuters in Athens
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 13 June 2013 08.51 BST

Workers at the windows of ERT headquarters in Athens, which they have occupied in protest at its sudden closure. Photograph: Milos Bicanski/Getty Images

Buses and subway trains have stopped running in Athens as Greek workers begin a nationwide strike in protest against the "sudden death" of state broadcaster ERT, switched off in the middle of the night by the government.

Greece's two biggest labour unions plan to bring much of the near-bankrupt country to a standstill during the 24-hour strike against Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's decision to close down ERT, which they describe as a "coup-like move … to gag unbiased information".

The government described its decision to shut the 75-year-old broadcaster as a temporary measure before its relaunch in a slimmed-down form.

But the move infuriated the coalition partners keeping Samaras in power, recreating an atmosphere of crisis in a country that had seemed to be emerging from the political drama accompanying one of the worst peacetime economic collapses in history.

Iron shutters blocked the entrance to the state-run Athens subway stations early on Thursday and city buses did not run.

Several marches were expected to culminate in demonstrations outside ERT's headquarters, where workers have gathered since the closure was announced.

But there was little sign of private businesses joining the strike. City streets were full with commuters and car traffic, supermarkets were open and cafes were serving customers as usual.

"The lowest ERT employee is making in a day what I'm making in a week, so why should I strike for them?" said vegetable vendor Yannis Papailias as he sorted out his wares.

"Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs. Who protested for them?" said waitress Maria Skylakou.

Representing about 2.5 million workers, the unions have gone on strike repeatedly since Europe's debt crisis erupted in late 2009, although action has been less frequent and more muted lately than last year when marches often turned violent. The last nationwide strike was in February.

"In a systematic and autocratic way, the government has abolished the rights of workers and citizens one by one," said the public sector union ADEDY, which is organising the walkout with its private sector sister union GSEE.

"We call on every worker and every citizen to fight to overthrow the government's catastrophic plans," ADEDY said.

Separately, a union representing journalists in Athens has called an indefinite strike of members, preventing some newspapers from appearing and forcing commercial broadcasters to air reruns of sitcoms and soap operas instead of the news.
Tearful ERT worker, Athens 12/6/13 An employee in the ERT control room wipes tears as she works with colleagues to broadcast a web TV signal on Wednesday. Photograph: Yorgos Karahalis/Reuters

The Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) has shed viewers under pressure from commercial television, and its three statewide channels had a combined audience share of only 13%. Many Greeks regard it as a wasteful source of patronage jobs for political parties. But the abruptness with which it was shut with newscasters cut off in mid-sentence was a shock.

Samaras said he would press ahead with plans to reform ERT and relaunch it as a leaner and more efficient organisation, dismissing the broadcaster's defenders as hypocrites who would block needed reforms.

Shutting the broadcaster was proof of the political will needed to transform Greece from "a real Jurassic Park, the only place on earth where dinosaurs survived", he said.

The opposition's rhetoric was no less heated. Leftwing leader Alexis Tsipras, addressing protesting ERT workers in Greece's second biggest city, Thessaloniki, called on Greeks to defend democracy.

"What we experienced yesterday was unprecedented, not only for Greece but for all of Europe," Tsipras said. "Public television goes dark only in two circumstances: when a country is occupied by foreign forces or when there is a coup."

Most public sector activity is expected to come to a halt during Thursday's strike, with train and bus employees and bankers among various groups joining the walkout.

Unemployment has climbed to almost 27% in Greece with more than 850,000 jobs, mostly in the private sector, wiped out since the beginning of Greece's six-year recession.

About 2,600 ERT employees are to lose their jobs. Some of them are to be rehired by the new broadcaster, which is expected to employee about 1,200 people.

[Peter Lemkin]

The government described its decision to shut the 75-year-old broadcaster as a temporary measure before its relaunch in a slimmed-down form.

Calling Mr. Murdoch!!!!!.....:phone: or his Greek equivalent.