Akashma Online News

Posted on February 12, 2012 by Marivel Guzman

Greece Paralyzed

The country Semi Paralyzed

While the Parliament was debating the austerity bill, to apace the creditors, the people in the streets have rallied mass protests for months, the ongoing strikes taking place, have sent strong signal to parliament.  the massive strikes that paralyzed the country brought the attention from the government but this did not stop the bill from being approved it.  Greek Strikes  The goal of strikes is to cause maximum inconvenience and pressure government officials or corporate executives, so strikes in Greece as in most countries are rarely announced more than a week in advance, can happen spontaneously and change hourly

Protests have spread in central Athens, amid anger over austerity measures being debated by parliament.

Protesters threw stones and petrol bombs, and police fired tear gas. A number of people were injured and at least 10 buildings were set on fire.

MPs are discussing a bill to introduce the measures, which are being demanded in return for a 130bn-euro ($170bn; £110bn) bailout to avoid default.

PM Lucas Papademos warned that failure to pass it would be “disastrous”. But for the regular Greek these measures are disastrous for them, decreased in the minimum wage in a already strangled economy means, that millions of Greeks will not meet their basic necessities. If you think about it, what does it mean for a regular farmer that a big bank that used its money to make bad foreign investments, does not get “time Out” from the IMF.. Parliament insist in playing hard ball with the people.

More than 50% of Greek industry is located in the Greater Athens area, the main economic sectors being agriculture, tourism, construction and shipping, so when and how local farmers, local restaurants, fishermen, and the ordinary Greek citizen got the advantages of 73 billions Euros that the Government took from the IMF and the European Union?

The BBC’s Mark Lowen in Athens says the violent protests, which have been common in recent months, are surprisingly large.

Syntagma Square – in the heart of Athens – is cloaked in a hail of tear gas, our correspondent adds.

Greece is one of the cradles of European civilization, whose ancient scholars made great advances in philosophy, medicine, mathematics and astronomy. Their city-states were pioneers in developing democratic forms of government.

Running battles with police are still continuing in parts of the capital.

Earlier, tens of thousands of people voiced their anger over the proposed bill outside the parliament building, in what was the second consecutive day of mass protests.

Some reports say as many as 80,000 people, (100, 000 Fox)  joined the demonstration in Athens, with another 20,000 protesting in Thessaloniki.

Greece in Flames

Greek citizens has taken to the streets to protest their disapproval to the austerity measure, and like any other place of the world, angry people always show their discontent in different way,  some don’t not stop at the chanting, or the marching, but also I don’t discount that paid thugs are mixed in the crowd to created violence and give excuses to the police to staged mass arrests and send the signal of fear to the promoters of the strikes and protests.

Several historic buildings, including cafes and cinemas, were in flames.

Analysts say the bill should still have enough support in parliament, with a vote expected within hours.

Investors cheered the bill – which aims to cut spending and raise taxes by ¤28 billion ($40 billion) and raise ¤50 billion ($71 billion) in privatizations over five years – but, in Athens, the mood was dark. In a haze of tear gas, protesters hurled anything they could find at riot police and tried to blockade the Parliament building.

Lawmakers are also due to vote on a separate deal with private banks which could see 100bn euros of Greek debt written off.

Sacrificed at the altar of continued eurozone membership, Greece’s youth are paying the highest price for the politicians’ inability to implement virtually any of the reforms stipulated in the first bailout memorandum, If you are 25 and under your salary will decrease in a 32 % vs the regular 20 % of the rest of the population. Fair? Why will the people has to pay for the corruption of the leaders and the greed of the bankers and why Greece spend money in Defense, money that does not had, and now is forcing the population to bail out the government mistakes. Is Turkey to be blame for Greece economical problems?..all the money invested in Military equipment was in response to Turkey invasion of the Isle of Cyprus?..did all started in 1974? … Defense become more important than people’s welfare?…

If the measures are not approved, other euro zone nations and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) say Greece will get no money from them and will face bankruptcy in March.

Athens has to repay nearly 14.5bn euros in maturing debt on 20 March.

If Greece does not have money now to cover the basic interest of a suffocating debt, what make them believe that they will have in 40 days 14.5 Bn Euros to paid a whole part of the debt? Greece of course does not have the money to run the bare necessities of the country, how is that raising taxes will fix the problem of their society? or lowering the salary. The bone that supports  Greece economy is its touristic industry and agriculture, they made together for more than 50 % of the country GDP (Gross Domestic Product), which in a small country as Greece would be enough to support the population. The imports were less than the exports which is great but greed takes place and policies were implemented that rigged the balance.
Achieving a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) valued at US$357.6 billion, Greece was the world’s 27th richest country in 2008. So what happen to the people’s money?……

‘Ground Zero’ warning

The debate began in the early afternoon on Sunday, with the vote not expected until midnight (22:00 GMT).

Pasok, the largest party, and its coalition ally New Democracy – which have both backed the bill – account for more than 230 deputies out of a total of 300.

In a TV address on Saturday, Mr Papademos warned that Greece was “just a breath away from Ground Zero”.

“The social cost of this programme is limited in comparison with the economic and social catastrophe that would follow if we didn’t adopt it,” he said.

Savings would be lost, the government would be unable to pay wages or salaries, and imports of fuel, medicine and machinery would be disrupted, he added.

The austerity measures include:

15,000 public-sector job cuts

liberalisation of labour laws

lowering the minimum wage by 20% from 751 euros a month to 600 euros

negotiating a debt write-off with banks.

They were presented to eurozone ministers in Brussels on Thursday evening.

The Greek cabinet has approved the measures but five government ministers resigned.

A Greek default would threaten the viability of the euro, the EU’s common currency, and send shock waves through global markets similar to those that kicked off the global financial meltdown after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

The eurozone bloc wants a further 325m euros in savings for this year and also insists that Greek leaders give “strong political assurances” on the implementation of the packages. 

Greece cannot service its huge debt, and there are fears that a default could endanger Europe’s financial stability and even lead to a break-up of the eurozone.

We wonder why the ‘Bankerst’ went into a shopping spreed with the people’s money, the Global Meltdown was engineered by the same banks that are now demanding cuts in the Greek economy, it happen in the US, and in every country of the world, that play around with people’s money.

But many Greeks feel they are already squeezed almost to breaking point and cannot take any more cuts, our correspondent says.

Some are even saying Greece should leave the eurozone to be able to devalue its former currency, the drachma, and ease the debt stranglehold.

The best the government can do to apace its citizens will be to declared moratorium on its debt, and to leave the the Euro Zone and the European Union as well, this has only brought bad mouth taste to the regular Greek citizens. So what they lose, the Free Zone Travel but, what it is this without money to move. Maybe I m too extreme, but I have become allergic to the World Global, since there has been a pressure on the leaders to be part of Blocks the situation for the regular citizen have deteriorated. All these Unions, North American Union, European Union, African Union created in an effort to have more control of the countries political and economical affairs, by the biggest Mob the world has known, “The International Monetary Fund”..they control from what you eat, how much you should make, what we should import, what we should plant in our own lands, how to manage our domestic finances and some other more bizarre “others” things that they mange and control and behalf of the country that they Force to Take money as a Loan.

The current global food system, designed by U.S.-based agribusiness conglomerates like Cargill, Monsanto and ADM and forced into place by the U.S. government and its allies at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, has planted the seeds of disaster by pressuring farmers here and abroad to produce cash crops for export and alternative fuels rather than grow healthy food for local consumption and regional stability. Monsanto more dangerous than War

Could they be threaten by NATO If they do not comply with their International Monetary Obligations, after all Greece is one of the Oldest NATO MEMBERS.

Greece celebrate 50 years of NATO membership

“It has been half a century of strong solidarity with the entire Atlantic community, and determined contribution to Euro-Atlantic security“, stressed NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson, in a statement on the 50th anniversary of Greece  in NATO. Greece signed the North Atlantic Treaty on 18 February 1952 and have been “key contributors” in promoting the security of the Euro-Atlantic area, and more specifically, NATO’s Southern Flank.

As we move more and more into the Global Arena, the Elitists that have pushed for the Globalization of our world, are also impoverished our world, and the only ones that seems to enjoy a benefit of this NWO enterprise is the Banking, War, and Oil industry and its investors, the rest of the world have been deepened in the worse economic crisis of this century.
Greece’s serious financial troubles are going to affect their military spending. The highest in the European Union and second in NATO only to the United States.
The Greeks spend 2.8 % of their GDP on Defense, compared to an average 1.7 in other European NATO countries. Defense personal account for 2.9 % of the active population against an average 1.1 in other NATO member states.

So we as a regular citizens wonder, where the money come from to give his annual contribution to NATO, the money that goes to NATO comes directly from the Defense Budget of the country.  Greece contributions to NATO Civil Budget .8000, Military Budget .8000, NSIP 1.1.029 bn Euros.