Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
from MacroScope:
Frustrated Greeks
The Greek debt crisis appears to be entering a new phase, in which the country is no longer just waiting to get needed help but getting concerned that others -- including euro zone powerhouse Germany -- may actually be making it hard for them to recover.
First, there is Prime Minister George Papandreou (right in photo). His concern is that speculators are pushing the cost of borrowing so high that it is undermining the plans he has put in place for deficit reduction. Papandreou is known for being a mild-mannered sort, so any kind of irritability is worth noting.
But Theodoros Pangalos (left), the deputy prime minister and once foreign minister, has no such reputation to hold him back. He has launched an attack on Germany, saying that a) it is allowing its banks to mess around with Greek bonds and b) that it suits Berlin in any case to let the euro fall.
Pangalos is famous for his undiplomatic outbursts. He once referred to Germany as a giant with a child's brain. Another time he suggested that the then -French president was essentially belly-dancing in front of the Turks to get their business.
Tsunami of anger over financial crisis
Today’s European edition of the International Herald Tribune is fronted by a photo montage of the presidents of Senegal, Afghanistan, Bolivia, Argentina, France and Brazil.
They have two things in common – all are attending this week’s United Nations General Assembly in New York and all see a global threat from the financial crisis that began on Wall Street and, in the words of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines, has moved “like a terrible tsunami around the globe”.
