Greece: From dire to diabolical

If you want to see how bad things are in Greece - and it almost certain to be contagious in and for Europe - read this piece from The Age below......

"When you hit hard times, it is time to pawn or part with the family silver, and an unprecedented clearout is now under way in Athens.

Greece has announced it will sell anything it can do without - and in the case of the debt-choked nation that means letting go of islands, royal palaces, prime real estate, marinas, airports, roads, the state-owned gas company, lottery and post office. Indeed anything, really, that can be sold.

The downsizing now also includes diplomatic residences abroad. ''There is a decision to lease and sell properties that for various reasons are not being used,'' said Foreign Ministry spokesman Gregory Delavekouras. He said the ministry's finance department was hard at work evaluating ''market conditions''.

The sell-off emerged on Wednesday, a day after Athens' finance minister revealed what most Greeks feared but had never been officially told: with national income projected to fall 25 per cent by 2014, their economy is slipping inexorably into a 1930s-style depression. Officials are now working frantically to get a fire sale off the ground."

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Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

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The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

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#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas stopped him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed behind his back into their patrol car, where they say he shot himself in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story, says in an interview that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?

Mahler's Prodigal Son

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