Monday, 7 November 2011

Leaders in Greece Agree to Form a New Government

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, left, and Antonis Samaras, the opposition leader, met with President Karolos Papoulias on Sunday.
After crisis talks on Sunday night, Prime Minister George Papandreou and the Greek opposition leader agreed to create a new unity government that will not be led by Mr. Papandreou, according to a statement released Sunday night by the Greek president, who mediated the talks. Mr. Papandreou and the opposition leader Antonis Samaras agreed to meet again on Monday to hammer out the details of the agreement. The name of the new prime minister is not expected until then.
Mr. Papandreou has faced mounting pressure to resign, including from his own Socilaist Party, so a new unity government can push the European Union’s debt agreement through Parliament, a step European leaders consider crucial to shoring up the euro.
Before the meeting with the president, Mr. Samaras had repeated that he would enter talks on a unity government only if Mr. Papandreou resigned. Mr. Papandreou himself has repeatedly said that he would be willing to step aside for the deal to go through.
But after meeting with his cabinet in the afternoon, Mr. Papandreou said Mr. Samaras would first have to agree to a seven-point plan of priorities that would essentially commit the new government to the terms of the debt deal. The priorities include securing the release of European rescue funds, meeting fiscal targets imposed by foreign creditors, and passing the 2012 budget by the end of the year.
Mr. Samaras’s party has in the past voted against many of the unpopular austerity measures Europe has demanded in exchange for its help, leaving the Socialist government to shoulder the political burden alone.
Mr. Papandreou also insisted that the composition of a unity government must be agreed to before he stepped down.
“It’s clear this government is prepared to hand over the baton, but it can’t hand it over into a vacuum,” he said, according to a transcript of the meeting released to the news media. “It will hand over to the next government, if we agree and decide on it.”
In one scenario being discussed in the Greek media on Sunday, Mr. Papandreou might resign to make way for a unity government of politicians from the Socialist and New Democracy parties be led by a non-political figure. One name being mentioned as a possible leader is Lukas Papademos, a former governor of the Bank of Greece.
But that might set the stage for a power battle between Mr. Papademos and Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, who has been reportedly trying to rally support for a government that he could lead.
Mr. Papandreou survived a crucial confidence vote in Parliament in the early hours of Saturday, a vote seen as an endorsement for the debt agreement with the European Union, but which was predicated on the expectation that he would immediately resign.
His failure to do so appeared to leave the government deadlocked, with the opposition calling for early elections and the government insisting that holding elections now would be too destabilizing.
European leaders want the Greek Parliament to pass the new debt deal worked out in Brussels on Oct. 26 and have urged Greek leaders to forge broader consensus, since the governing Socialist party did not seem to be able to pass the law on its own.
The deal would have banks write down 50 percent of the face value of some private Greek debt to help reduce the country’s public debt to 120 percent of gross domestic product by 2020. But it requires the approval of a series of deeply unpopular austerity measures the government has already committed to and imposes a permanent foreign monitoring presence, a development many Greeks see as a loss of sovereignty.
In an effort to allow Greeks to have their say, and to strongarm Mr. Samaras into backing the debt deal, Mr. Papandreou proposed a popular referendum on the agreement last week. After the plan drew the ire of European leaders and threw international markets into turmoil, Mr. Papandreou withdrew the idea.
The about-face may have looked like a defeat for Mr. Papandreou, but he had won support for the debt deal from the opposition.
Opinion polls published in Greek newspapers on Sunday drew different conclusions about whether Greeks preferred a national unity government or immediate elections.
A poll for the centrist weekly Proto Thema found that 52 percent of Greeks favored a unity government that would rule for several months and be chosen by Mr. Papandreou, while 36 percent preferred immediate elections to choose a new government, as proposed by the New Democracy party.
A poll carried for the center-left Ethnos newspaper found a narrower gap in support for the two scenarios, with 45 percent supporting a unity government and 42 percent backing snap elections.
Meanwhile a survey for the center-right Kathimerini found that 66 percent of Greeks supported early elections but in that poll the alternative respondents were asked to consider was a referendum, an option that only 14 percent supported.
Rachel Donadio and Niki Kitsantonis @'NY Times'

Vintage Illustrations from Classic Children’s Books

Langston Hughes, The First Book of Jazz, F. Watts, 1955. Illustrated by Cliff Roberts [Image via]

'I'm a bit macabre,' says Paul Koudounaris, who likes to photograph skulls. Photograph: Paul Koudounaris

California-based art historian Paul Koudou-naris admits he is "a bit macabre". He has spent three years touring ancient ossuaries, documenting seldom-seen artworks crafted from human bones.
His journey led him to Mount Athos in Greece. "Every Orthodox country has a monastery there," he says. "They paint the skulls to identify the bones of monks raised to sainthood. The Russian monks on Athos are the Rembrandts of skull-painting. I dearly wanted to photograph those skulls."
So Koudounaris asked if he could. "It was like going to see the Wizard of Oz. I was on my knees before this old abbot who looked like Rasputin." The answer was no: nothing personal, but he had to comply with God's wishes.
As he turned to leave, the abbot told him that another man had once come with the same request. His name? Vladimir Putin. "He visited the monastery, and even gave them $1m for repairs," says Koudounaris. "Putin asked if he might take some photos of the skulls, but they told him no." Then the abbot offered something more: "If it makes you feel better, frankly you are a much better photographer than Putin."
Rod Stanley @'The Guardian'

tmorello Tom Morello

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HERE
Via

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(Thanx André!)

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Carlos the Jackal stands trial for 1980s terror bombings

Notorious Venezuela-born militant Carlos the Jackal, one of the world’s most feared terror masterminds, goes on trial in Paris on Monday four deadly attacks carried out in France nearly three decades ago.
Carlos, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, has spent the last 17 years at the La Sante prison in southern Paris after he was sentenced to life in 1997 for the killing of two French security officers and an alleged Lebanese informant in 1975.
On Monday, 62-year-old Sanchez, once a figure of the far left, appears before special anti-terrorism magistrates at the Justice Palace in the French capital in connection with deadly bombings in 1982 and 1983, in which at least 11 people were killed and another 150 injured.
French prosecutors say the attacks were part of a private terror campaign waged by Carlos against France to secure the release of his jailed comrade Bruno Breguet and then-girlfriend Magdalena Kopp, who were arrested in Paris driving a car carrying explosives in February 1982.
The first explosion hit the express train Le Capitole running from Paris to the southern city of Toulouse in March 1982, in which five people were killed and dozens wounded. This attack was claimed by the "International Terrorist Friends of Carlos"
The bombing was followed by a second explosion in April 1982 outside the Paris offices of anti-Syrian newspaper Al-Watan Al-Arabi on the same day as Breguet and Kopp were convicted in a French court. One person was killed and scores were injured.
On New Year’s Eve 1983, two bombs exploded, one in a high-speed TGV train travelling from the southern French city of Marseille to Paris, killing three people, and the another at the Marseille train station, killing a further two passengers. The attacks were claimed by a group calling itself the “Organisation for the Arab Armed Struggle”.
Evidence from the East
French prosecutors say recently revealed evidence from East Germany, Romania and Hungary proves Carlos’s involvement in the attacks. They also allege that he wrote two letters in which he claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Three of his alleged accomplices - Palestinian Kamal al-Issawi, and the German nationals Christa-Margot Froehlich and Johannes Weinrich - will be tried in absentia.
Carlos denies the charges. His lawyer and third wife, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, whom he married in prison ten years ago, insists that the evidence from the former communist countries is unreliable...