Daily Archives: September 1, 2015

Η Αυστραλία δεν έχει μέχρι στιγμής απαντήσει επισήμως στο αίτημα των ΗΠΑ

Μέσω Τουρκίας αναμένεται αυστραλιανά πολεμικά αεροσκάφη να πετούν πάνω από τον εναέριο χώρο της Συρίας και να βομβαρδίζουν στόχους του Ισλαμικού Κράτους.

Μέχρι στιγμής, πάντως, επισήμως η Αυστραλία δεν έχει απαντήσει σε σχετικό αίτημα των ΗΠΑ.

Χθες τουρκικά πολεμικά αεροσκάφη συμμετείχαν, για πρώτη φορά, σε αεροπορικές επιδρομές που διενήργησε ο υπό την ηγεσία των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών Αμερικής συνασπισμός εναντίον της οργάνωσης Ισλαμικό Κράτος στη Συρία, ανακοίνωσε το τουρκικό υπουργείο Εξωτερικών.

«Τα αεροσκάφη μας άρχισαν να διενεργούν αεροπορικές επιχειρήσεις μαζί με τις δυνάμεις του συνασπισμού εναντίον στόχων του ΙΚ στη Συρία που αποτελούν απειλή και για τη δική μας ασφάλεια» αναφέρει ανακοίνωση που εκδόθηκε σήμερα.

Η επιχείρηση ακολουθεί την τεχνική συμφωνία που επιτεύχθηκε με τις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες στις 24 Αυγούστου σχετικά με τον ρόλο της Τουρκίας στην εκστρατεία εναντίον των σουνιτών ισλαμιστών που ελέγχουν μεγάλα τμήματα του εδάφους της Συρίας και του Ιράκ.

Τον περασμένο μήνα η Τουρκία συμφώνησε να ανοίξει τις στρατηγικά σημαντικές αεροπορικές βάσεις της στον συνασπισμό, όμως δείχνει απρόθυμη να διαδραματίσει ηγετικό ρόλο στη μάχη κατά του Ισλαμικού Κράτους, φοβούμενη μια βίαιη αντίδραση.

Η συμφωνία αυτή επιτρέπει και στην Αυστραλία να κάνει χρήση τουρκικών αεροδρομίων για να συμμετάσχει σε βομβαρδιστικές επιχειρήσεις στη Συρία.

Στις 24 Ιουλίου, αεροπλάνα της τουρκικής Πολεμικής Αεροπορίας επιτέθηκαν σε στόχους του Ισλαμικού Κράτους στη Συρία, αλλά όχι στο πλαίσιο της επιχείρησης του συνασπισμού.

Πηγή: Νέος Κόσμος

Greece’s Alternate Minister for Immigration Policy, Tasia Christodoulopoulou.

Greek minister appeals to western countries to do their bit

Greece’s Alternate Minister for Immigration Policy, Tasia Christodoulopoulou, says the United States, Australia and other western countries should take some of the refugees that are flooding Greece and other Mediterranean countries.

Mrs Christodoulopoulou says intervention by the west in African and Arab countries has created the massive exit of refugees and that the nations involved in the interventions have an obligation to assist.

As the Union of Greek Municipalities (KEDE) called on the Greek government to take action to deal with an unprecedented wave of mass migration through Greece, Christodoulopoulou accused municipal and regional authorities of not doing their share.

KEDE chief Giorgos Patoulis said the government had failed to present a comprehensive plan for managing the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees, mainly from the Middle East, and warned that delays in implementing European Union measures may lead to hefty fines.

“There is no magic wand that will create the infrastructure or make the migrants disappear,” Christodoulopoulou told a meeting of KEDE on Wednesday.

The minister added that with the exception of the municipalities of Athens and Lesvos, no other regional or municipal authorities have offered facilities for processing and housing arrivals.

The outgoing minister defended the government’s lack of progress, saying that she is expecting €30 million in EU funding to be released next week, which will go toward building reception centres on Kos, Leros and Lesvos.

Her comments came after an earlier statement by European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud, who said that the commission is waiting for Greece to establish an agency to manage the funds.

source:neos kosmos

European Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos is expected to visit Kos at the end of the week as pressure grows on Greece’s eastern Aegean islands due to the constant flow of migrants and refugees from the Turkish coast.

Despite the Eleftherios Venizelos passenger ferry carrying some 2,500 refugees at a time to Piraeus almost around the clock, thousands of people remain stuck on the Greek islands, often in squalid or dangerous conditions. Authorities on Lesvos estimate that there are 12,000 refugees on the island, which has a total population of around 85,000.

The problem is being compounded, though, by the continuous surge of people crossing the Aegean in rubber dinghies given to them by people traffickers. The Greek coast guard said on Monday that it had rescued some 2,500 people in the previous three days. On Monday morning, the crew of an air force helicopter rescued a man just off Chios.

On Saturday, though, a 17-year-old man lost his life when the coast guard tried to stop smugglers off Symi. It appears that the teenager, a migrant, was hit by a bullet fired by the coast guard as it attempted to stop the boat. Two Turkish smugglers were arrested.

Around 4,000 refugees arrived on Lesvos on Saturday alone, heightening concern about whether the island has the resources to support them.

Giorgos Saxonis, a baker who has been officially enlisted to help authorities by providing three meals a day for refugees, says he has yet to be paid and is running out of ways to continue supplying the aid.

“We have run up debts with everyone and we have not been paid yet,” he told Kathimerini. “I only get a small amount anyway; 5.87 euros per person for the three meals per day. When it was only 100 or 200 people, it was manageable. But the other day I handed out 8,644 portions of food. The whole island is full of [refugees’] tents.”

Samos Mayor Michalis Angelopoulous told Kathimerini that the government does not have a plan to tackle the situation and that the municipality would shortly put forward its ideas on dealing with the refugees.

“You could, for example, employ the Syrian doctors on some remote [Greek] islands,” he said.

source:ekathimerini.com

The attack comes after Treasurer Joe Hockey also accused the media of undermining the government and labelled cabinet colleagues who have been leaking against him as “fringe whingers”.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has accused Fairfax Media of trying to “bring the government down” for publishing stories about division in its most senior ranks.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott declared “full confidence” in his Treasurer on Monday after two cabinet ministers told Fairfax Media he was being urged to dump Mr Hockey if the Canning byelection delivered a bad result for the Liberal Party.

In an interview with the ABC’s AM program on Tuesday, Mr Dutton blamed media organisations when asked what the government could do to steer itself back on course and communicate its message to voters.

“I think it would be helpful if some of the commentators in the area, in this space of politics, started reporting on the incidents, as opposed to being players themselves,” he said.

“I think there’s a huge move by Fairfax at the moment to try and bring the government down, that’s fair enough.

“They aren’t supposed to be political players, they’re supposed to be objective reporters of the news and I think many of them have morphed into frustrated politicians themselves.”

Mr Dutton later told Sky News: “The reality is that there is a bit of a jihad being conducted by Fairfax at the moment.”

Mr Dutton’s swipe is similar to criticism made by former prime minister Julia Gillard of News Corp publications during the turbulent Rudd-Gillard era.

The Immigration Minister also said Fairfax was not acting alone and was being helped by the ABC.

“You ask me what I think of the current political environment, I think that’s part of the problem. I think regardless of what Tony Abbott does, Fairfax will say it’s bad. I think regardless of what Joe Hockey or the Abbott government does, Fairfax will say it’s bad,” he said.

“They’re being helped by the ABC as well, there’s no question about that, some elements of the ABC.”

In 2013, then opposition leader Mr Abbott said it was up to governments to “take the rough with the smooth”.

Speaking about the then Labor government at a media conference in 2013, Mr Abbott said: “fundamentally, if you want good coverage, you have got to perform well”.

“If you want better coverage, be a better government.”

Social Services Minister Scott Morrison told a separate interview with the ABC’s AM on Tuesday morning that talk Mr Hockey would be removed was “speculative nonsense”.

“It is becoming commonplace for politics to be reported on like it’s reality television,” he said.

“We as a government take it more seriously than that and they’re the issues we’re focused on – jobs, growth, community safety.

“I’m not going to feed the frenzy you’re seeking to whip up.”

Making the case for the continuation of the royal commission into union corruption, Employment Minister Eric Abetz on Tuesday praised Fairfax Media for its work exposing serious claims of misconduct in the trade union movement.

Fairfax Media and the ABC declined to comment.

Fairfax Media is the publisher of this website.
source:smh.com.au

The upcoming Greek election may reopen the can of worms that the country’s recent 86 billion euro bailout deal with its creditors was supposed to close. Given that no party is likely to emerge from the Sept. 20 vote with a majority, it may be hard to form a strong government that can implement the program. There’s even a risk that there will be yet more elections, tipping Greece back into crisis.

When Alexis Tsipras triggered the election by resigning as prime minister, he probably thought he would win fairly easily. After all, July’s opinion polls showed him head and shoulders above his opponents. Tsipras’ idea was to get rid of the parliamentarians in his left-wing SYRIZA party who opposed his deal with the euro zone and secure a new mandate to implement the program.

But new opinion polls that came out last week paint a different picture. In all, SYRIZA is still the leading party. But its gap over the centre-right New Democracy party has narrowed sharply.

What’s more, Tsipras’ own approval rating, which used to be sky high, has come down to earth. In a poll by the University of Macedonia, only 30 percent of those asked had a positive view of him, down from 70 percent in March.

In the past, Tsipras seemed like a Teflon prime minister, who remained popular despite terrible decisions that took the country to the edge of an economic abyss. But now it looks the mud is beginning to stick.

The civil war inside SYRIZA is also taking its toll. One hard-left faction, which wants to bring back the drachma and is furious that Tsipras agreed a deal with the euro zone despite previously saying he wouldn’t, has already created a new party.

The election campaign has barely started and opinion polls during the August holiday season are not considered particularly reliable. Despite those caveats, it doesn’t look likely that any party will emerge with a majority in the 300-seat parliament even after taking account of the fact that the one with the most votes gets an extra 50 members of parliament.

This presents a problem. True, the vast majority of MPs elected next month are likely to belong to parties that are committed at least in theory to the bailout. The snag is that Tsipras has said he won’t be prime minister of a government including New Democracy or two smaller centrist and centre-left parties. What’s more, it is touch and go whether his favourite coalition partner, the far-right Independent Greeks, will secure any MPs at all.

If Tsipras can’t form a government, there may have to be yet more elections, the third this year. This could cause further economic mayhem because Athens would fall seriously behind in implementing its bailout deal. People might even speculate again that Greece could leave the euro.

The Greek people might well punish Tsipras if he forced a third election. They already seem unhappy that a second ballot has been called – not to mention that Tsipras held a referendum in July on an earlier version of the bailout program. Given that, Tsipras might yet form a coalition with the centre and centre-left parties he has pledged not to deal with. The former prime minister does, after all, have a track record of going back on his word.

Such an outcome might lead to an effective implementation of the bailout. But there is a risk that Tsipras won’t get rid of all the rebels from his party because he is afraid of swelling the ranks of the new splinter group. In that case, he could find his government starts with a majority, but that its unity melts away when it has to take tough decisions, again triggering elections.

This scenario might be avoided if any party invited to join a Tsipras-led coalition insisted on all the other centrist parties being in the government too. This would probably give it a big enough majority to withstand future defections. Any putative coalition partner should also insist that Tsipras appoints serious ministers including some technocrats to his cabinet. His first government was plagued with incompetence.

Another idea is that Tsipras could support some form of national unity government but not as its prime minister. He could propose another SYRIZA politician or some technocrat for the post. But this would raise the concern that Tsipras wants to wash his hands of the program he previously signed up to, which in turn would make it hard to implement.

All these calculations would, of course, change if New Democracy wins the election. It would find it easier to form a coalition because it has promised to work with any democratic party after the vote. It has even said it would work with SYRIZA in what would be a national unity government. While that, indeed, might be the best outcome for Greece, Tsipras is most unlikely to agree to it. Even if the worst scenarios are avoided, the risk is that amid the political fighting, what’s most beneficial for the Greek people does not end up driving events forward.

source:ekathimerini.com