The plans of far-right Greek political party Golden Dawn to visit Australia have caused much consternation in the local Greek diaspora communities.
EPA/STR
Melbourne has long been known as one of the biggest cities for Greek diaspora in the world, and the “world’s most liveable city” is fast becoming the latest battleground for the swelling fascist movement…
Fair contest: should we tinker with the rules in a free market?
AAP
We all know the global economy is down the toilet. Even if we overlook the financial debacle in Greece, Spain, Iceland, Ireland – and that’s not easy – the big problem is Uncle Sam. Currently, the US Government…
Germany’s triple A rating has been given a negative outlook by ratings agency Moody’s, amid ongoing woes in Greece, Spain and Italy.
AAP
On 23 July, the rating agency Moody’s put the triple A debt of Germany, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg on a negative outlook. The day after, the outlook on the European Financial Stability Fund was also…
Will super Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, come to the Eurozone’s rescue?
AAP
By Harald Sander, Cologne University of Applied Sciences (CUAS)
Today Eurozone leaders will meet in Brussels. On the agenda is nothing less than the survival of the euro. Officially, it is about Spain: Spain’s economic and financial woes show the urgency. Moody’s drastically…
New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras has promised a “new salvation” for Greece.
EPA/Alexandros Vlachos
Greece is a land of high drama.
As fires ranged across the south of the country, stretching the emergency services to the limit; in the afterglow of their national soccer team’s astonishing win over Russia…
Greece’s New Democracy party leader Antonis Samaras has gained sufficient votes to form a coalition – but there is a long way to go for Greeks yet.
AAP
Greece’s New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras begins the task of building a coalition after emerging as the front runner to form a government.
Reports indicate New Democracy has narrowly beaten leftist…
In the aftermath of the Greek elections, there have been renewed calls to accompany austerity measures with pro-growth policies.
Having read that the outcome of the Greek elections points to a continuation of the push for fiscal austerity in that country, my heart sunk. Then I see that our own Prime Minister has been quoted as telling…
Greece’s citizens are faced with an unenviable choice.
EPA/Orestis Panagiotou
When two sides bargain, their interaction reflects a potential mutual benefit but also a measure of conflict. For instance, when a firm and its supplier reach a deal, there is often more than one price…
Worst hit by the Asian financial crisis in 1998, Indonesia’s economy has returned to pre-crisis growth rates. What lessons are there for Greece?
Flickr/Cillian Storm
European financial woes are mounting daily is what some have called the biggest economic challenge of our generation.
However, just over a decade ago an even larger financial crisis was unfolding in Australia…
Alexis Tsipras, leader of the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) party, has proposed the cancellation of Greece’s agreements with the European Union and the IMF.
AAP
All eyes are on Greece this weekend for the second legislative election in five weeks. This is no ordinary election: the global implications of the outcome might be significant.
Griffith University lecturer…
Alexis Tsipras will lead Syriza to the polls on June 17.
EPA/Orestis Panagiotou
To free the age from its captivity,
To create a brand new world,
The discordant, tangled days
Must be linked, as with a flute.
—Osip Mandelstam, The Age (1923)
There is an air of impending disaster…
Austerity’s political cheer squad: but is the game over? G8 countries have committed to growth by setting sights on employment.
The lingering commitment to austerity of leading Western politicians in the face of impending economic tragedy is beyond belief. The dismal science is a sobriquet often wrongly applied to economics, but…
Generation Nothing: Spanish protestors against austerity in Cadiz.
Aleksandra Hadzelek
This week marked the first anniversary of the 15-M movement, a precursor of Occupy movements worldwide.
15-M again mobilised its supporters for a 4-day long program of street protests culminating in a…
Euro group chairman Jean Claude Juncker: “This is nonsense; this is propaganda.”
“I don’t envisage, not even for one second, Greece leaving the euro area. This is nonsense; this is propaganda.”
That’s Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg, chairman of the Eurogroup, speaking…
Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras would like to seek Greece withdraw from the Eurozone.
EPA/Simela Pantzartzi
Ten days ago, the political landscape in Europe changed profoundly.
Greece voted in the main to elect parties from the far right and far left who are opposed to austerity, and France elected a socialist…
With Greek leaders still unable to form government more than five days after the election, the prospect of Greeks returning to the polls is strengthening.
The democratic executions of Nicolas Sarkozy in France and Lucas Papademos in Greece means the body count of European leaders guillotined by angry electorates has risen to 12.
Sarkozy and Papademos join…
Greek citizens took their frustration out on the ballot box this weekend.
EPA/Orestis Panagiotou
The answer, even though they see over and over again that austerity leads to collapse of the economy, the answer over and over [from politicians] is more austerity.
— Joseph Stiglitz, Asian Financial Forum…
In Ethiopia, the short food supply chain has enabled consumers and food growers to have a direct relationship with each other.
Benjamin Shepherd
Poverty is definitely not some bucolic ideal that we should romanticise. It is ugly, brutal and should be fought against. But there are lessons from the poor that we, in affluent (and frequently complacent…
Satyajit Das: “I think the democratic process and the politics of the world relies on a very fragile construct. One is trust. And trust relies on economic growth.”
Supplied
By Kevin Davis, Australian Centre for Financial Studies
Welcome to the latest in our In Conversation series, between risk analyst and author Satyajit Das and Kevin Davis, Research Director of the Australian Centre for Financial Studies.
Satyajit Das is an…
Not so funny…. Portugal is the next vulnerable Euro nation, but it doesn’t fit the German-favoured critique of a profligate country unwilling to undertake reforms.
AAP
By Harald Sander, Cologne University of Applied Sciences (CUAS)
Greece is rescued, for now…maybe. Perhaps it’s time to move on to the next basket case. So, which of the PIIGS is the next Greece?
For the moment, Portugal looks to be the front-runner. The country’s…
Protests rocked Athens as Greek legislators voted to accept a tough austerity package. So what now for the Greek people?
AAP
As Greek politicians approved a tough austerity package amid fierce protests, one question dominates: is an orderly exit from the Eurozone available for Greece? And just what might be the consequences…
The eurozone crisis is moving beyond “spendthrift” countries in need of rescue, to the rescuers themselves.
AAP
By Harald Sander, Cologne University of Applied Sciences (CUAS)
Early this week, sovereign bonds spreads for France and other Euro-core countries peaked.
Around noon on Tuesday the spreads on French and Austrian 10-year government bonds exceeded the German bund rate…
Former EU commissioner Mario Monti will form government in Italy as Silvio Berlusconi exits.
AAP
Is the Eurozone about to crash and burn, leaving Club Med in its wake? Not so fast.
Reports have suggested that French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have discussed a strategic…
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said he will resign after losing parliamentary support.
AAP
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi appears set to become the largest political casualty so far of the Eurozone’s continuing inability to resolve its massive sovereign debt problems.
Berlusconi…
The Greek Prime MInister is on the way out, but the new government has a lot of work still to do.
AFP/Aris Messinis
The Greek Prime Minister will resign in an effort to save the bailout deal agreed by the European Union to dig the country out of its debt crisis.
George Papandreou agreed to go following talks with the…
Greece’s tough austerity measures have been unpopular with citizens.
AAP
Greece’s cabinet has given unanimous backing to Prime Minister George Papandreou’s plan for a referendum on the government’s austerity program.
Papendreou emerged from talks with fellow EU leaders at…
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou will use the referendum to try to win a mandate for austerity measures.
AAP
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has taken the bold step of planning a referendum on the country’s EU-imposed austerity measures, in a bid to claim a mandate for his efforts to avoid a default on…
The first free elections borne from the Arab Spring were held in Tunisia. Over 90% of registered adults voted.
EPA/Zacarias Garcia
It has been a tumultuous week in the life and times of democracy in the Mediterranean. Seven days punctuated by joyous hope and its ugly opposite, sullen despair.
The promising news came from Tunisia…
The Occupy movement: different agendas, but united by the right to civil disobedience.
The “Occupy” movement has swept the world in the last five weeks, as seems appropriate in this year of demonstrations by people tired of a clapped-out status quo.
Of course, the Occupy movement is quite…
A 40% public hospital budget cut has restricted access to care.
AAP
Another round of violent protests erupted in Greece last week, following the latest austerity cuts to public service jobs and pay. Meanwhile, the creeping consequences of austerity measures are beginning…
If Greece’s economy collapses, it could easily lead to a breakdown of civil order.
AAP
Global markets look set for a rough week amid new concerns that Greece could default on its massive debt.
The Australian share market has spent most of the day down 3% after reports that Germany could…
Nicolas Sarkozy, Christine Lagarde and Angela Merkel share a joke at Thursday’s Greece bailout talks.
AAP
European leaders signed off on a second, 109 billion euro bailout for Greece overnight, while also establishing what has been described as an “infant monetary fund” to intervene if the bloc’s sovereign…
Thursday’s make-or-break EU finance ministers meeting looks set to be a highly charged affair.
AAP
As Margaret Thatcher’s trade minister in the 1980s, Norman Tebbit devoted much of his time to dealing with the European Community – the precursor to the European Union. Routinely, at meetings in Brussels…
Many Greeks are ashamed by what has happened to their country.
EPA/Orestis Panagiotou
Athens is no longer considered by scholars as the birthplace of democracy but all of a sudden it has become the epicentre of a powerful political earthquake rocking the foundations of every democracy in…
“Indignado” protests prove a headache for Spain’s politicians but won’t threaten a greater Europe.
AAP
As international markets react to the unrest in Greece amid fears of contagion, mass protests have also continued in fellow European Union member country, Spain.
This protest movement, called the “indignant…
Despite attempts at regulatory reform, ratings agencies still act with little threat of litigation.
AAP
Standard & Poor’s downgraded Greece’s sovereign debt rating by three notches on Monday, reflecting its view that it would be next to impossible to imagine a scenario where the country could restructure…
Greece would be better off defaulting on its debt than languishing under tough austerity measures.
AAP
A poll of international investors last month found that 85% expect Greece to default on its debt this year. As market expectations go, that is very high.
Moody’s has since downgraded Greece’s already…
