Athens LIKE many Greeks caught in the maelstrom of the economic crisis, my wife and I live a day-to-day existence. Since the newspaper where I worked for 23 years (my wife for 17) went out of circulation in December of 2011, we have both been unemployed. Neither of us have received a paycheck in 18 months, as our newspaper stopped paying us five months before it closed. With unemployment for journalists at ...

This is part of a press release published in the 7th if February by the the Small Enterprises’ Institute of the Hellenic Confederation of Professionals, Craftsmen and Merchants (IME GSEVEE). The institute a non-profit organization that carries out studies and surveys, concerning the micro, small and medium-sized enterprises of the Greek economy. Although the approach of the study is strictly business-orient ...

In times of economical, social, political and existential crisis, when our rights and our very life are under attack, solidarity is a necessity for the survival of all those who suffer from the neoliberal barbarity. Resistance is the only option against the detrimental policies of both the troika and the governing coalition. Self-organization is the starting point for grassroots mobilization, participation ...

Amid another public sector strike in Greece there are concerns that austerity measures will deprive children with special needs. Doctors, nurses and hospital staff protested outside the health ministry on Thursday, joining transport workers in a 24 hour stoppage against pay cuts. A prominent state orphanage and school for children with special needs in the Athens suburbs is at risk of shutting down. It care ...

The green crowd used to feel pretty rosy about Greece. After former Prime Minister George Papandreou was elected in 2009, he set up a government ministry to study the environment, energy, and climate change, and he talked up initiatives on eco-tourism and renewable energy. But now, after six years of recession, the country has begun buying into several new environmentally damaging development schemes to gen ...

Why not make slaves out of unemployed people? Unpaid work by unemployed people is the suggestion of the ex finance deputy minister, Petros Doukas. Mr Doukas outlined on his personal webpage a number of suggestions in order for Greece to exit the crisis. One of his brilliant suggestions is that unemployed people should offer unpaid work wherever the State needs them to. Also enterprises could be asked whethe ...

Growers and shrinkers   The fastest growing and shrinking economies in 2013 MACAU will be the fastest growing economy this year, according to the latest estimates from our sister company, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). Growth is expected to return to a faster pace as new casino projects are resumed and Chinese visitors (with rising wages) continue to raise gambling revenues. Mongolia, in second ...

By Stephanie Bodoni, Elisa Martinuzzi & Gabi Thesing The European Central Bank will be allowed to keep private files showing how Greece used derivatives to hide its debt after defeating the first court challenge using the bloc’s freedom of information rules. “Disclosure of those documents would have undermined the protection of the public interest so far as concerns the economic policy of the European U ...

 The New York times LONDON — Last month, the European Commission’s top economic official in Brussels, Olli Rehn, received an intriguing e-mail. Greece, under pressure from its European creditors, wanted to retire some of its debt by buying back its bonds at a deep discount to their face value. A senior executive at Deutsche Bank proposed that Europe take a tough negotiating stance toward private hedge funds ...

"We are one big happy family" says the CEO of the largest Dutch supermarket-chain.   'Happy family' means that workers of the distribution centres are paid 10 euros per hour while he gets 300 per hour. It also means that 50% these workers are employed as flexworkers or via temporary work agencies. It also means that they have to work faster and more intensively every day. Finally, it means that their sickne ...