What’s Up in Greece on Jan 13/12? tagged: , , , , , ,

What’s Up in Greece on Jan 13/12?

Posted by in Very Mix

Friday the 13th? Things can only get better! The sun is shining, the snow weather is taking a break. The PSI talks are making some progress -or not-, ex PM George Papandreou is leaving the leadership of PASOK but the question is when. And German FM Guido Westerwelle will make a surprise 48-hour visit to Athens. Westerwelle follows an invitation by his Greek counterpart Stavros Dimas and he is going to hold meetings also with PM Lucas Papademos. Will Westerwelle convey a Merkel-message to Greeks? Or will he make a nice bargain “60 German Eurofighters” for “a pro-Greek PSI” and a “fat second bailout”? 

While Papandreou’s successors  and government ministers smite their plans on how to climb at the PASOK throne, the citizens stand line at tax offices to give up their car plates or pay the expensive  ’traffic fees’ and keep driving around. In the tax office of Pallini the queue reached almost 500 meters this morning. Why? because today the dealine expires. Typical Greek: always at the last minute or even later … Of course, one should consider that the motorists were just trying to get together their euros to pay the fees that went up like everything else here.

In Lamia, citizens plan to submitt their unpaid electricity bills containing the ‘emergency property tax’ to the local power company (DEH) office. In a statement the civic movement “Citizens of Lamia” justify their action saying that cutting the power off is against the constitution and a raw blackmailing.

The Children’s Sports Hall in Patras (Peloponnese) is without electricity as of Jan 12/12, at 1 pm. For debts over 5,000 euro to DEH.

The Economic Police Department of Greek police has started to open the bank accounts of 30 people who have set up NGOs after complaints about splurging state grants. One of the NGO top of the target list on the Greek police is the “International Centre for De-mining” that allegedly received 6,9 million EUR in recent years but showed no activity in removing the mines at the Evros border area between Greece and Turkey,

The statistics for unemployment in October 2011 were published on Thursday. In that month 50,000 people were fired and unemployment rose at 18.2%. That is: 1,666 people were losing their job every day.

763 enterprises did not pay the Christmas bonus to 10,750 employees. The total not-paid amount is 2,361,444 euro, an average of 230 EUR per employee. The lead on the list of  bad employers is taken by the media sector followed by the catering, advertisement and call centers sectors.

40 Greek women will have removed their breast implants free of charge after a decision by the Health Ministry. The women carry the suspect Poly Implant Prothese made with cheap industrial silicone instead of medical one. It has been unclear how many Greek women have the PIPs implanted, some Greek media reported that 250 pairs were imported and distributed to plastic surgeons. The PIP scandal has caused outrage and health concern around the world.

Three thousand tones of garbage lay on the streets of Patras (Peloponnese) as residents of Xerolakas area occupy the local landfill. there is plenty of trash and garbage around, not only in Patras – metaphorically speaking.

The weather will turn icy again on Saturday and temperatures in Northern Greece will reach -4 and even -9 degrees Celsius until the upcoming Tuesday. Snow and rain will be on the way again.

Winter Sales with discount offers up to 80% start on January 15th 2012 and will last until the end of February. Retailers see in the winter sales their last chance for survival, saying that in 2011 their revenues suffered a decrease of 25 to 30 percent.