ATHENS, June 28 (Reuters) - Greece's bank rescue fund has hired Rothschild and Goldman Sachs as advisers on the sale of lenders Proton and Hellenic Postbank (TT), which are most likely to be bought by bigger Greek banks, officials told Reuters on Friday. ...

How is it that we label some acts of violence with the brush of global terrorism while others are relegated to the more mundane category of everyday violence? Tsarnaev brothers were instantly characterised as terrorists, and Muslim terrorists at that, with a national and social media frenzy dissecting their crimes boosted by the live spectacle of the "manhunt" in Boston. ...

(Reuters) - Throughout Europe's debt crisis, northern European leaders have often said they will not stand for taxpayers having to fork out for other countries' problems, and the notion of "taxpayer-funded bailouts" has taken root. Yet despite three-and-a-half years of debt and banking turmoil, with bailouts totaling more than 400 billion euros, northern euro zone taxpayers have not actually lost a cent. ...

Wage theft is fast becoming a top trend of the 21st-century labor market. April 25, 2013  | Editor's note: This article is part of an ongoing AlterNet series, "The Age of Fraud." Imagine you’ve just landed a job with a big-time retailer. Your task is to load and unload boxes from trucks and containers. It’s back-breaking work. You toil 12 to 16 hours a day, often without a lunch break. Sweat drenches your c ...

(Reuters) - The chairman of one of Greece's largest banks and his family took out loans totaling more than 100 million euros to finance an undisclosed stake in the bank, according to audit documents seen by Reuters. Offshore companies owned by Michael Sallas and his two children paid for shares in the Piraeus Bank, the country's fourth-biggest, by borrowing money from a rival bank. Together the shares make ...

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog, The Real Cyprus Template reveals the core-periphery Neocolonial-Financialization Model in all its predatory glory. Much has been said about "the Cyprus Template" (the so-called bail-in, where deposits are expropriated to recapitalize the insolvent banks), but virtually nothing has been written about the Real Cyprus Template. Longtime correspondent David P. ...

The Netherlands, Berlin's most important ally in pushing for greater budgetary discipline in Europe, has fallen into an economic crisis itself. The once exemplary economy is suffering from huge debts and a burst real estate bubble, which has stalled growth and endangered jobs. Graphic detailing the economic downturn in the Netherlands. By Christoph Schult and Anne Seith   Michel Scheepens is familiar w ...

Repost from  FT Alphaville Raise your hand if you didn’t first hear about the way in which the Dutch government took over ailing SNS Reaal on February 1st and think ‘oh, really now?’ along with an arched eyebrow. The mechanics of the takeover are interesting indeed, but given that two of the four largest Dutch banks have been nationalised, we have a bigger picture question: How much warning was there that S ...

TheRealNews Costas Lapavitsas: Cyprus should let the private banks fail and create a public bank that focuses on strengthening the real economy.     Latest News on Cyprus: Cyprus PM threats for resignation and Referendum [GR] http://thepaper.gr/%CE%B8%CF%81%CE%AF%CE%BB%CE%B5%CF%81-%CE%B3%CE%B9%CE%B1-%CE%B3%CE%B5%CF%81%CE%AC-%CE%BD%CE%B5%CF%8D%CF%81%CE%B1-%CF%84%CE%BF-%CE%BA%CF%85%CF%80%CF%81%CE%B9 ...

Precarious work in Morocco’s green beans production for Dutch supermarkets. Green beans sold in Dutch supermarkets often hail from Morocco, where they are picked and packed under poor labour conditions. Pay is less than a living wage, unions are not respected or tolerated, overwork is mandatory and occurs on a regular basis, and labourers are exposed to pesticides and fertilisers without protective equipmen ...