A new letter was sent today signed by more than 20 organizations that belong to the European Water Movement to Commissioner Olli Rehn and the European Commission after the very late response of his directorate (over a year!) on their first letter. Our concerns are shamelessly confirmed since in this text, it is clearly stated that the Commission policy is indeed to impose the privatization of water services ...

Athens (Reuters) - The governor of the Bank of Greece was given a severance payment of 3.4 million euros when he left his former employer, a major bank that he now regulates, documents seen by Reuters show. George Provopoulos was awarded the sum when he stepped down as vice-chairman of Piraeus Bank to become governor of Greece's central bank and a member of the board of the European Central Bank in 2008. Th ...

Instead of an analysis of what kind of "austerity measures" and in whose favor, the troika and its vassals in the Greek government have been preparing, I'll just show you a table of taxes before and after the new tax system, a part of the latest austerity package, is implemented, by income category. This is income tax only, it does not include social security taxes... The really fun part is at the bottom of ...

No wonder the protesters are back. They are angry at the backdoor rewriting of the social contract Ha-Joon Chang   Rioters beat a policeman during a rally against government austerity measures in Athens. Photograph: John Kolesidis/REUTERS Throughout the 1980s and 90s, when many developing countries were in crisis and borrowing money from the International Monetary Fund, waves of protests in those count ...

Yesterday, Portugal saw the biggest mobilization since the 1974 revolution. Hundreds’s of thousands of people came to the streets to protest the new package of austerity measures being imposed by the troika. 3 People have been arrested for separate incidents. One of those arrested was caught in possession of explosives in front of the IMF offices in Lisbon. There is an uncertain number of injuries due to an ...

On the 24th August 2012 Samsung was ordered by a court in San Jose, California to pay Apple just over $1 billion in damages for patent infringement. Apple is now seeking to ban the sale of certain Samsung products in the USA and a hearing is scheduled for 20th September for that claim. This long-running dispute between these technology giants over infringement of smart phone patents shines a spotlight on th ...

Most    politicians and pundits have a vested interest in promising better times ahead, provided their policy advice is followed. The current worldwide economic difficulties have provided no exception to this behavior. Whether the discussion focuses on unemployment in the United States or the escalating costs of state borrowing in Europe or the suddenly declining rates of growth in China, India, and Brazil, ...

By LIZ ALDERMAN ATHENS — Anastasia Kastaniotou, a struggling mother of three, stood near the Greek Parliament building on Wednesday and threw up her hands as she contemplated an €11.5 billion austerity package that her country’s government was trying to tie up this week to keep Greece in the euro.   Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has been scrambling to seal a deal with his coalition government for fres ...

A leaked email sent to the Greek Ministries of Finance and Labor from the Troika says Greek private sector workers should work six days a week and longer hours. The letter, which was published on August 31, shows that the Troika expects the Labor Ministry to implement a number of other new measures. They include reducing the notice period before firing a worker, and cutting certain severance packages by 50 ...

While the eurozone teeters on the brink, construction work is underway in Frankfurt’s financial district on new headquarters for the European Central Bank (ECB). Due for completion in 2014, the 185 metre tall, futuristically designed skyscraper will have double the office space of the ECB’s current residence, the Eurotower. It embodies the expectations for the future of the single currency from the one inst ...