Greece approved more austerity measures needed to avert default next month, in a vote Wednesday that calmed markets but triggered a second day of riots that left dozens injured and the capital blanketed with tear gas.
The passage of the bill was a decisive step for the country to get the next batch of bailout loans from international creditors and was met with a huge sigh of relief in markets and by Greece’s partners in the eurozone. A Greek default could potentially trigger a banking crisis, particularly in Europe, and turmoil in global markets.
Another bill has to be passed Thursday for the government to secure the money.
The bill to cut spending and raise taxes by euro28 billion ($40 billion) over five years, and raise euro50 billion ($71 billion) in privatizations over the same period of time, has provoked widespread outrage, coming after a year of deep cuts that have seen public sector salaries and pensions cut and unemployment rise to above 16 percent.
While deputies voted, stun grenades echoed across the square outside the Parliament building and acrid clouds of tear gas hung in the streets. The violence continued sporadically after the vote and smoke was billowing from beneath the Finance Ministry.
Authorities and emergency services said 31 police and 15 protesters were injured and transferred to hospitals, while 30 people were detained, and 11 arrested.
Volunteer doctors said they had treated about 40 people, most with facial injuries and breathing problems, at a makeshift treatment site at a metro station next to parliament. Protesters were seen leaving the site with bandaged heads.
Head medical volunteer Flegas Stagos said more seriously wounded protesters were put onto the metro with volunteers so they could receive treatment away from the tear gas.
The European Union and International Monetary Fund have demanded both bills pass before it releases a euro12 billion installment of the country’s euro110 billion ($157 billion) bailout fund. Without it, Greece was facing defaulting on its debts by the middle of next month.
Even with the installment, Greece is still in financial trouble and has been in talks with its international creditors for a second bailout, which Prime Minister George Papandreou has said will be roughly the same size as the first.
“We must avoid the country’s collapse with every effort,” Papandreou said before the vote. “Outside, many are protesting. Some are truly suffering, others are losing they privileges. It is their democratic right. But they and no one else must never suffer the consequences and for their families of a collapse. We must do everything so that there is no freeze in payments.”
The Greek vote was greeted positively in Europe’s capitals, which have been fretting about the impact of a potential Greek default both on their banking systems and on the future of the euro currency itself.
“That’s really good news,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said when told of the outcome of the vote on her way out of an economic forum in Berlin. Germany is Greece’s biggest creditor.
EU leaders hailed the vote as an act of “national responsibility” and urged Greek lawmakers to follow up with another positive vote Thursday payday loans.
In a joint statement, the heads of the EU commission and council, Jose Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy, said Greece had taken “a vital step back _ from the very grave scenario of default” and urged a second positive vote on Thursday to allow the next batch of money to be disbursed.
“It would also allow for work to proceed rapidly on a second package of financial assistance, enabling the country to move forward and restoring hope to the Greek people,” they said.
Equally, relief was the main response in markets. Soon after the vote, the euro was trading at a fairly elevated level around the $1.44 mark while stock markets around the world were posting big gains. In Greece, the main Athens stock market closed up 0.5 percent at 1,264, while the country’s borrowing costs eased some 80 basis points from a morning high, with the yield on 10-year bonds settling at the still high 16.55 percent.
“The fact that the Greek parliament has passed the government’s medium-term fiscal plan clearly reduces the chances of a near-term disaster,” said Ben May, European economist at Capital Economics.
Even if Greece gets more bailout funds, many economists think the country will end up defaulting on its debts in some form or another. Implementing the measures is not going to be made any easier if the widespread opposition continues.
“This is bad, the country will be sold for a piece of bread,” said Dimitris Kostopoulos, a 48-year-old insurer. “There were many other more appropriate alternatives to this. Parliament has once again betrayed us.”
In the run-up to the vote, violence engulfed the square outside for the second day, while services across the country ground to a halt in the last day of a 48-hour general strike. Riot police fired volleys of tear gas at swarms of young men hurling rocks and other debris as well as setting fire to trash containers.
Protesters threw flares and orange and green smoke bombs, and a few sprayed fire extinguishers at police, who picked up rocks and tossed them back. Heavy clouds of tear gas wafted over the chaotic scene.
The unpopular package of spending cuts and tax hikes passed by 155 votes to 138, with five opposition deputies voted “present” _ a ballot which backs neither side.
A sole deputy from the governing socialists, Panayotis Kouroublis, dissented over government plans to sell a further stake in Greece’s state electricity company and was quickly expelled from the parliamentary group by Papandreou.
In a dramatic vote, socialist deputy Alexandros Athanassiadis, who had previously vowed to vote against the bill, overturned his decision at the last minute and backed the package, saying he had been swayed by the prime minister’s comments in parliament.
A conservative deputy broke ranks with her party’s line to also vote in favor, bolstering the government’s majority of five seats in the 300-member parliament.
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Christopher Torchia, Demetris Nellas and Menelaos Hadjicostis in Athens and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed.
A group of 11 top executives have released a statement backing the merger of the operator of the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: X) for the London Stock Exchange Group.
The group, including former TSX chief executive Rowland Fleming, says the merger protects Canadian regulatory sovereignty, champions Canadian executive management, and maintains competition and a level playing field.
The group also includes Caldwell Securities chairman and chief executive Thomas Caldwell, CI Financial (TSX: CIX) executive chairman Bill Holland and Raymond James chairman and chief executive Paul Allison.
The executives say the bid by the Maple consortium of some of Canada
There hasn’t been a good reason to own a money market mutual fund for four years. These days, most funds are yielding under 0.1 percent. You can receive 1 percent in an online bank savings account, and get FDIC insurance to boot.
Nonetheless, the funds are still holding $2.7 trillion in investors’ money. That speaks to their reputation as a liquid, very-low-risk place to park cash while waiting for something better to come along.
Now it seems they may not be as safe as we thought. The problem is Greece.
Fitch Ratings reported last week that American money funds have half their money invested in European banks. European bankers, meanwhile, are very nervous about what might happen if the Greek government stiffs its creditors.
To understand why, imagine today’s financial system as a big house of cards. A card or two might tip over without any damage. But if the wrong ones slip, especially while a breeze is blowing, the chain reaction can bring the house down in a heap.
Back in 2008, the Treasury Department thought it could let Lehman Brothers fall without much danger. We saw what happened instead.
All this explains why the rich nations of Europe are resigned to bailing out the profligate, rioting Greeks
ST. LOUIS
The owner of Japan’s tsunami-damaged nuclear plant will pay an estimated $1 billion (88 billion yen) to thousands of residents who evacuated homes near the radiation-leaking plant and don’t yet know when they can return.
Compensation Tokyo Electric Power Co. ultimately may pay for the world’s second-worst nuclear disaster is expected to be trillions of yen.
Japan’s Cabinet last week approved a bill to help TEPCO meet the massive costs, and parliamentary approval is pending. It would establish a fund from public money and contributions from utilities and special government bonds.
The estimate TEPCO released Wednesday is in addition to 50 billion yen paid in preliminary compensation to 50,000 households in late May.
TEPCO said it is preparing to distribute the latest compensation to about 150,000 people forced to evacuate areas around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, which has leaked radiation since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami destroyed its power and crucial cooling systems.
The estimate is based on criteria adopted by a government panel this week _ up to 120,000 yen ($1,500) per month to each family for the first six months, a reduced 50,000 yen ($625) per month each for another six months.
TEPCO is also preparing to pay separate compensation to fishermen, farmers and agriculture cooperatives, and others who have suffered because of disaster. Those figures are not available yet.
On Wednesday, the Iitate village office moved into the prefectural, or state, government office in Fukushima City after more than 6,000 residents evacuated the village, which was designated as high-risk for long-term radiation exposure easy payday loans.
“I hope we can all return to our homes as soon as possible,” village chief Norio Kanno told reporters.
At the Fukushima plant, workers are struggling to get a crucial water treatment system fully operational. Fresh water being pumped into the reactors to keep them cool becomes contaminated with radiation, and 110,000 tons of radiation-tainted water have pooled across the plant.
It could overflow within 10 days if action is not taken. The treatment system that went fully operational Friday was halted because a cartridge to absorb radioactive particles reached its limit within five hours, not several weeks as expected.
After cleaning and adjustment, the water treatment system is being tested again and has processed 1,700 tons of water, TEPCO spokesman Junichi Matsumoto said.
The contaminated water has hampered work to install a sustainable cooling system at each reactor that incorporates the water treatment system. Unit 1 is close to that stage, but the other two reactors have fallen behind due to high radiation or debris.
TEPCO has reduced water put into the reactors, so that less water accumulates, but there is a risk. Matsumoto acknowledged the temperature at Unit 3 has slightly risen and requires careful monitoring.
TEPCO hopes to bring the reactors to a stable cold shutdown state by early January, _ a goal some experts have questioned as too ambitious.
OTTAWA—The Harper government will bring in back-to-work legislation Monday to end the postal strike and get mail moving again.
Declaring that the two sides have had “ample amount of time” to reach a settlement, Labour Minister Lisa Raitt said she would force an end to the Canada Post labour dispute if necessary.
The government was preparing to introduce the legislation Monday afternoon though it could take several days to become law.
The move sparked an angry reaction from New Democrats who accused the Conservatives of meddling in collective bargaining instant credit report.
It’s possible NDP MPs could delay a legislated end to the dispute.
Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae accused the Conservatives of doing little to safeguard defined benefit pensions, one of the issues at the heart of the Canada Post dispute.
Eurozone finance ministers say Greece could get a key next installment on its bailout loans by mid-July only if it passes key laws on spending and privatization.
The ministers met Sunday over Greece’s debt crisis but did not announce a final deal on the euro12 billion loan installment, needed to avoid an imminent default.
They also said they would welcome “informal, voluntary” renewals of bond holdings as a contribution by private investors. But any measure must not lead to Greece being ruled in default.
Greece got a euro110 billion in bailout loans last year, but is still struggling. The government admits it will need another bailout of about the same size. No deal on that was announced.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
LUXEMBOURG (AP) _ A European official says that finance ministers from the Group of Seven rich countries were discussing Greece’s debt crisis on a conference call early Monday loans for people with bad credit.
The official said that the call was designed to update the finance ministers of United States, Canada, Japan and the U.K. on discussions taking place in parallel among the eurozone’s top financial officials.
The official said the ministers _ who were joined in Luxembourg by the heads of the IMF and the European Central Bank _ were also working on a statement on Greece. He was speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions were still ongoing.
The two-day meeting is key to signing off on a vital loan installment for debt-stricken Greece and discussing the terms of a second bailout for the country.
As companies like Sony and Citibank identify the causes of recent security breaches and try to remedy network weaknesses, area businesses are well aware of potential threats.
Yet, improving security is more than beefing up firewalls or installing better encryption technology. The weakest link remains the individual employee, who may be using less secure email services or carelessly leaves sensitive data unsecured, analysts say.
Boeing experienced this first-hand when, in 2006, an employee’s unattended laptop was stolen. Though password-protected, the laptop contained Social Security numbers, home addresses and other personal information on 382,000 workers and retirees.
The theft spurred the Chicago-based aircraft maker to implement better plans to safeguard such data.
Diane McClain, operations manager of the cyber security division at the Newberry Group, stressed the importance of employee training to ensure that information can be seen by only those who need to see it, protecting it from “the bad guys.”
Newberry Group, which began with contracts to the federal government to staff data centers, expanded from information technology to cyber security in 2005. This element of its business has been growing ever since. The company, based in St. Charles, now investigates breaches, examining hacks with digital forensics and turning evidence over to law enforcement.
McClain’s focus has remained consulting with companies to find and repair holes in their networks. She said it was balancing security measures with availability
Credit card issuers promise that you won
Builders broke ground on more new homes in May, but most of the gains were in the volatile apartment sector.
The Commerce Department says new-home construction rose 3.5 percent from April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 560,000 units per year.
Economists say the pace of construction is far below the 1.2 million new homes per year that must be built to sustain a healthy housing market. Many credit-strapped builders are struggling to compete with comparatively cheap foreclosures saving account pay day loan.
Housing permits, a gauge of future construction, rose 8.7 percent last month, to the highest level since December.
Fewer new homes mean fewer jobs. Each home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
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