In the port of Piraeus, dozens of young men with shaven heads and black t-shirts packed a small room one evening to hear Golden Dawn's dream of a Greece purged of foreigners, its borders sealed with landmines. "We want all illegal immigrants out, we want to take their stench out of this place," said Frangiscos Porihis, an election candidate for the ultra-nationalist and highly secretive party. "They shouldn ...

Athens' fondness for weaponry, and willingness of Germany and France to feed it, under fire as Greece struggles with debt crisis. A few months before submarines became the talk of Athens, Yiannis Panagopoulos, who heads the Greek trade union confederation (GSEE), found himself sitting opposite Angela Merkel at a private meeting the German chancellor had called of European trade unionists in Berlin. When it ...

Here's the full transcript of our interview with Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who has been President of Iceland since 1996, and announced last month he would be running for a fifth term. Keep reading to hear his thoughts on Iceland's recovery, and how a large financial sector can ruin the world. How has life in Iceland changed since the meltdown? It’s very difficult to give a short description of how life has ch ...

The new French president will have to make a decision about a European treaty that would demand still greater austerity. The choice will affect the future of France, and of Europe. Will the French elect a different president, but leave unresolved all the issues raised in the election of 2007? The French would welcome a change of government: because, apart from President Sarkozy’s egregious shortcomings — hi ...

Alex Nunns reports from Athens on the human consequences of the austerity measures, and how they are being resisted. ‘Although Athens is not São Paulo, it is not any more a normal European capital,’ warns Yannis Almpanis, one of the organisers of a ‘solidarity mission’ of European social movements visiting Greece in late February. And he’s right. The consequences of the austerity programme can be felt on th ...

Hard Times Lift Greece’s Anti-Immigrant Fringe Nikos Michaloliakos, the leader of Golden Dawn, greeted voters this month in Megara, Greece. By RACHEL DONADIO and DIMITRIS BOUNIAS ATHENS — On a recent morning in the upper-middle-class neighborhood of Papagou here, members of the Greek ultranationalist group Golden Dawn stood at an outdoor vegetable market campaigning for the coming national elections. “This ...

On Thursday, 5th April 2012, Marios Lolos, a photojournalist, was hit on the head by a police truncheon while covering a peaceful protest in response to the recent suicide of a 77 year-old  man in protest to austerity measures. Marios Lolos sustained a brain injury and had to have surgery yesterday. We extend our best wishes to him and everyone else who has been injured and wish them the best for their reco ...

Public education is under attack around the world, and in response, student protests have recently been held in Britain, Canada, Chile, Taiwan and elsewhere. California is also a battleground. The Los Angeles Times reports on another chapter in the campaign to destroy what had been the greatest public higher education system in the world: "California State University officials announced plans to freeze enro ...

Trevor Evans outlines the basis for a progressive pan-European response to the euro crisis. The growth of private international financial institutions since the 1970s has seriously curtailed the ability of national governments to exercise democratic control over economic policy. This was vividly demonstrated early in the 1980s, when capital flight forced the French government to abandon its programme of pro ...

A plan to round up and detain irregular migrants and asylum-seekers in Greece, including those suspected of carrying infectious diseases such as HIV, has been called “deeply alarming” by Amnesty International. Those considered vulnerable to such diseases, based on their country of origin, poor living conditions, occupation as sex workers or their drug use, will be targeted. “These deeply alarming measures s ...