Daily Archives: September 26, 2014

Shocking report shows 6.3 million people in Greece affectedThree in every five Greeks, or some 6.3 million people, were living in poverty or under the threat of poverty in 2013 due to material deprivation and unemployment, a report by Parliament’s State Budget Office showed on Thursday.

Using data on household incomes and living conditions, the report – titled “Minimum Income Policies in the European Union and Greece: A Comparative Analysis” – found that “some 2.5 million people are below the threshold of relative poverty, which is set at 60 percent of the average household income.” It added that “3.8 million people are facing the threat of poverty due to material deprivation and unemployment,” resulting in a total of 6.3 million people.

The State Budget Office’s economists who drafted the report argued that in contrast with other European countries “which implement programs to handle social inequalities, Greece, which faces huge phenomena of extreme poverty and social exclusion, is acting slowly.” They added that there is high demand for social assistance, while its supply by the state is “fragmented and full of administrative malfunctions.”

In that context “the social safety net is inefficient, while there is no prospect for the recovery of income losses resulting from the economic recession in the near future,” the report noted, reminding readers that the measure of the minimum guaranteed income “arrived in Greece belatedly.”

According to Eurostat Greece ranks top among the 28 European Union countries in terms of poverty risk and also has the highest poverty share in the population (23.1 percent). Greece also ranks fourth among EU states in poverty disparity, after Spain, Romania and Bulgaria.

Relative poverty is defined by the percentage of households earning less than 60 percent of an average household’s income in 2013 (for one person that amounted to 432 euros per month and for a four-member family to 908 euros).

source: ekathimerini.com

Cypriot officials say the boat had most likely set sail from Syria

 Almost 350 people, thought to be Syrian refugees, have been rescued by a cruise ship off Cyprus after their boat ran into trouble in rough seas.

They were taken aboard the ship, Salamis Filoxenia, Limassol port master Girgos Pouros said. All are said to be in good health.

The Cypriot defence ministry said 52 children were on the small fishing boat that had sent a distress signal.

They were spotted 55 nautical miles (100km) south of the town of Paphos.

The defence ministry said all 345 people on board the fishing boat had been rescued.

“It was quite a difficult operation,” Kikis Vasiliou, director of Salamis Cruises that owns the cruise ship, was quoted as saying by the Cyprus Mail website.

“All the passengers are safe.”

The vessel was expected to dock in Limassol later on Thursday.

Cypriot authorities earlier said they picked up a radio distress signal as the boat was caught in rough seas.

This year has seen a dramatic increase in the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean in overcrowded boats – particularly people fleeing the conflict in Syria. The majority have headed for Italy and Malta.

Libya, racked by unrest and lawlessness, has become a major people-trafficking hub. However, Cyprus lies closer to Syria.

The Cyprus defence ministry released photos of the boat

source:bbc.com

It would usually happen during essay writing class. In an effort to provoke debate among the students, the teacher would raise the issues of democracy, freedom, multiculturalism or racism. These were the hot topics that would bring the problem to the fore.

There would always be one student who would stand up to voice his objections about the state of contemporary democracy, defending his beliefs regarding the superiority of the ancient Greeks and his contempt for “criminal” immigrants, even supposed mudslinging against Nazi Germany. “It was not done on purpose, or in a conscious manner, but gradually topics like these were withdrawn from the syllabus. No one really wanted conversations like that in the classroom.”

It was not easy being a middle school teacher. A number of students, often the schools’ most popular, adopted the rhetoric of Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party and disrupted teaching. Sometimes teachers would even receive veiled threats along the lines of “My parents know someone in Golden Dawn.”

That was until last September, when the murder of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas in Keratsini, western Piraeus, set a sequence of events into motion and order was restored. “After the murder the incidents decreased,” a public school teacher told Kathimerini. “We also had our share of young Golden Dawn followers. We would see the meander logo scratched on the desks, but as of last September, particularly after the crackdown on Golden Dawn, the phenomenon abated. These people had been taken down from their pedestals in the eyes of the children,” she said. “After all, they appealed mostly to the strong, athletic types who liked power. When they saw their heroes handcuffed, they stopped airing their views, at least in the classroom,” she said.

Things were not much different in private schools. “There are still students who are drawn to Golden Dawn, but they’re not organized in groups like they used to be,” said a math teacher at a big private school. “In the past we would have big problems as pro-GD students would gang up and bully their classmates or even teachers,” he continued. One of these groups, he added, had even come up with a special symbol that they would draw everywhere like the students in the German film “Die Welle” (The Wave), a cautionary tale about the roots of fascism.

In that case the teachers’ council put on a united front. “We maintained our stance and the problem seemed to go away, at least inside the school campus,” he said. “No one really knows what happens inside the children’s homes, but nobody talks about Golden Dawn at school anymore. It seems to have gone out of fashion,” he added.

That does not mean that schools commemorated the anniversary of Fyssas’s killing on Thursday. Despite requests by parents’ and teachers’ groups across Athens that a moment of silence be held in memory of the murdered musician, only a small number of schools did so. “Nobody talks about Fyssas anymore,” the private school teacher said. “It’s just like what happened with Alexis [Grigoropoulos, killed by a police officer during the Athens riots of 2008]. It’s like we went from memory to forgetfulness very fast,” he said.

source: ekathimerini.com

Greece’s first domestically built submarine, a Type 214 diesel-electric vessel named Pipinos, will be ready for launch on October 6, the Hellenic Navy said on Thursday.

Pipinos is the first of three vessels commissioned by the navy to be built by Hellenic Shipyards at Skaramangas, west of Athens, and is expected to join the fleet within the first half of 2015.

Also by end-October, Hellenic Shipyards is expected to complete upgrades on the Type 209 Okeanos. Matrozos, another Type 214, is slated to be launched by the end of the year. The three vessels will bring the Hellenic Navy’s Type 214 submarine fleet to four, following the delivery in 2010 of Papanikolis, built by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft GmbH (HDW) in Kiel, Germany.

The cost of constructing the two watercraft and the upgrade of the third has been set at 75 million euros.

source: ekathimerini.com

Πέρασαν τρεις ημέρες από την επίσκεψη του πρωθυπουργού στο Βερολίνο, μα… πριν αλέκτωρα φωνήσαι τρις, ο εκπρόσωπος του Διεθνούς Νομισματικού Ταμείου, Τζέρι Ράις, έβαλε φρένο στη σεναριολογία περί αποχώρησης της Τρόικας από την Ελλάδα, τουλάχιστον μέχρι… νεωτέρας.

Δημοσιογράφοι, επικαλούμενοι τις δηλώσεις Σαμαρά-Βενιζέλου περί απεμπλοκής από την Τρόικα και απόρριψης νέου πακέτου βοήθειας, ζήτησαν το σχόλιο του Τζέρι Ράις. Ο ίδιος ξεκαθάρισε ότι δεν υπήρξε αίτημα από την πλευρά της ελληνικής κυβέρνησης για πρόωρη ολοκλήρωση του προγράμματος του ΔΝΤ.

Όπως είπε ο εκπρόσωπος του Οργανισμού, το ζήτημα δεν θα συζητηθεί στη διαπραγμάτευση που ξεκινά στις 30 Σεπτεμβρίου και προανήγγειλε νέα, πλήρη αποστολή της τρόικας στην Αθήνα αργότερα το φθινόπωρο. Σημειώνεται ότι χθες εκπρόσωποι του οικονομικού επιτελείου διευκρίνισαν ότι η τρόικα θα φύγει για να επιστρέψει μετά από το Eurogroup της 13ης Οκτωβρίου.

Ο κ. Ράις πρόσθεσε ότι το πρόγραμμα του ΔΝΤ είναι σχεδιασμένο να διαρκέσει έως το Μάρτιο του 2016, επισημαίνοντας ότι είναι στη διακριτική ευχέρεια των κυβερνήσεων να ζητούν από το Ταμείο διακοπή τέτοιου είδους προγραμμάτων, εφόσον αυτές κρίνουν πως δεν είναι πλέον απαραίτητα.

Διευκρίνισε ότι στο τραπέζι των διαπραγματεύσεων που ξεκινούν από την Τρίτη θα τεθούν επί τάπητος ο προϋπολογισμός, τα κόκκινα δάνεια, αλλά και οι κεφαλαιακές ανάγκες των ελληνικών τραπεζών λαμβάνοντας υπόψιν και τον αναβαλλόμενο φόρο.

Σε ερώτηση αν θα συμμετάσχει στην αποστολή και ο Πολ Τόμσεν, ο κ. Ράις υπενθύμισε ότι έχει αναλάβει καθήκοντα διευθυντού του ευρωπαϊκού τμήματος του ΔΝΤ και στα σχέδιά του δεν συμπεριλαμβάνεται ταξίδι στην Αθήνα, σημειώνοντας ότι είναι έτοιμος να βοηθήσει «όποτε χρειαστεί».

Πηγή: zougla.gr

(Φωτογραφία: Reuters

Μακάβρια υπόθεση ερευνούν από το απόγευμα οι αστυνομικές αρχές στη Θεσσαλονίκη, όπου σύμφωνα με καταγγελίες έθαψαν ζωντανή 45χρονη στο νεκροταφείο της Περαίας.

Όπως υποστηρίζουν συγγενείς της η άτυχη γυναίκα ξύπνησε από το κώμα που είχε περιέλθει, αλλά πέθανε από ασφυξία μέσα στο φέρετρο, λίγη ώρα μετά την κηδεία της.

Πηγή:ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ