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Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Thursday Russia would consider extending financial aid to debt-strapped Greece if Athens were to make a request. “Well, we can imagine any situation, so if such petition is submitted to the Russian government, we will definitely consider it, but will take into account all the factors of our bilateral relationships between Russia and Greece,” he told CNBC. Speculation has grown in recent days that new Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ government is at odds with the rest of Europe over sanctions on Russia, and may move closer to Moscow as it seeks to...

Now that Greece has elected a new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, he’s announced his first order of business: receive the money owed to them from Germany in part of unpaid World War II reparations, reported The Washington Post. Tsipras is part of the Greek left-wing Syriza party, and, according to the Post, the Syriza party has been “outspoken about the need for Germany to atone for its past in Greece.” In a move symbolic of that sentiment, Tsipras visited the Kaisariani rifle range to honor 200 Greek activists who were murdered by Nazi soldiers in 1944. A two-year-old study estimated...

Greece's government will not cooperate with the EU and IMF mission bankrolling the country and will not seek an extension to the bailout program, its finance minister said on Friday. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the euro zone finance ministers' group who is in Athens for talks with the new government, said the two sides would decide what would happen next before the program ends on Feb. 28.

Greece's new nationalist defense minister prompted Greece's perennial rival Turkey to scramble jets on Friday, just days after he took office, by flying over uninhabited islets off the Turkish coast that nearly triggered a war in 1996. Turkish fighter jets entered Greek airspace and were intercepted by Greek jets as Defence Minister Panos Kammenos and military chiefs flew by helicopter to the islet of Imia to drop wreaths in memory of three Greek officers killed nearby in a helicopter crash 19 years ago, the Greek Defence Ministry said. Kammenos heads the small, right-wing, Eurosceptical Independent Greeks party, and the episode...

A Greek politician who claimed that Jews “don’t pay taxes” has been elected as Defense Minister, Greek media reported Thursday night, amid already-high concerns over rising anti-Semitism in the country that is only expected to worsen following recent elections. Panos Kammenos of the Syriza party made the comments during an interview with Greek Ant-1 TV, according to New Greek TV, on December 18—just days after the drive-by shooting at the Israeli Embassy in Athens. Local Jewish leaders were outraged at the comments. “It is a disgrace that a leader of a party in Parliament does not know that Greek Jews...

France must repay the EU €1.07 billion ($1.2 billion) in agricultural aid paid to farmers due to fraud and mistakes over a four-year period, the European Commission said on Tuesday. The money, about 2 percent of the €40 billion that France has received from Brussels between 2008 and 2012 under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, must be repaid in three installments up to 2017, a European source said. France was penalized for failing to check farmers’ claims for subsidies, especially on environmental issues and calculating the area of arable land. …

The BBC has been accused of “race-baiting” for inviting radical anti-Israel MP George Galloway to appear at a high-profile show hosted in Finchley and Golders Green, which is home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the UK. “Question Time” sees commentators and political figures take part in a panel discussion on hot political topics, as well as fielding questions from members of the audience. Each episode is filmed in different locations around the country to allow different communities to take part. But the decision to invite Galloway of all people to the upcoming showing—which will be based in...

Left-wing victor of Greece's election, Syriza's Alexis Tsipras, says: "Today the Greek people wrote history" http://t.co/OKEjqZ2FKe — BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) January 25, 2015 Who is Alexis Tsipras – Greece's 'Harry Potter' or the man steering the EU towards an iceberg? http://t.co/vD4I4oVntV pic.twitter.com/ne4pj32aER — The Independent (@Independent) January 26, 2015 First act as PM, #Tsipras visits Kaisariani rifle range where Nazis executed 200 Greeks on 1 May 1944 v/@dgatopoulospic.twitter.com/a4CeNgsw66 — Damian Mac Con Uladh (@damomac) January 26, 2015 Syriza’s Tsipras sworn in after Greek government formed with rightwingers New PM takes oath after radical leftists agree to share power with...

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz told CNBC on Monday that the euro zone should stay together but if it breaks apart, it would be better for Germany to leave than for Greece. "While it was an experiment to bring them together, nothing has divided Europe as much as the euro," Stiglitz said in a " Squawk Box " interview. The risk of a sovereign default in Greece has increased after the anti-austerity party Syriza won Sunday's snap elections, raising concerns over the possibility of a Greek exit from the euro zone. Greece is not the only economy struggling under the...

Syriza, the neo-communist party led by Alexis Tsipras, has won the elections in Greece. The party is a collection of Marxists, Socialists, Maoists, Trotskyites and Greenies. In other words, Syriza is the party of the moochers. They oppose the austerity measures that the troika of the EU, European Central Bank and the IMF imposed on them in exchange for loans. The Greeks, who cheated their way into the EU, are fed up with the austerity measures. They remind me of someone who maxed out his credit card and had to depend on his relatives to save him from bankruptcy. As...

A top German body has called for a clear mechanism to force Greece out of the euro if the left-wing Syriza government repudiates the terms of the country’s €245bn rescue. “Financial support must be cut off if Greece does not comply with its reform commitments,” said the Institute of German Economic Research (IW). "If Greece is going to take a tough line, then Europe will take a tough line as well." IW is the second German institute in two days to issue a blunt warning to the new Greek premier, Alexis Tsipras, who has vowed to halt debt payments and...

The real Greek tragedy is not that Alexis Tsipras from the radical left-wing Syriza party won that country's recent election, becoming prime minister in the cradle of democracy. Voters can reverse that mistake when they realize that his policies are doing more harm than good. The real tragedy is that Greek voters, like other Europeans who are embracing far-right or far-left parties, cast their ballots in response to draconian austerity measures, imposed by the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), that they equate with free-market capitalism and globalization. The consequences of this ideological travesty will last much longer...

The Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice is the continuation of a Greek fraternity founded in 1498 The story began in 1498, a few decades after the fall of Constantinople, when the Greeks in Venice — la nazione greca (or the Greek nation) — gained permission from the Serene Republic to create a fraternity. Merchants and simple migrants from Western Greece, refugees from Constantinople, artists and others from Venetian-ruled Crete — all were Orthodox Christians who spoke Greek. The Most Serene Republic of Venice — the Serenissima — which ruled the Eastern Mediterranean, willingly offered them asylum; first,...

It looks like not all European governments signed off on yesterday’s joint statement encouraging new sanctions on Russia. The Wall Street Journal reports: Greece’s new government, though, jumped into an early diplomatic spat with Brussels over the statement, which it said it hadn’t approved. The statement “was circulated without having followed the correct procedure for ensuring the consent of member states and, in particular, without ensuring Greece’s consent,” said Dimitrios Tzanakopolous, a senior aide to new Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The disagreement suggests the election victory of Mr. Tsipras’s left-wing Syriza party on Sunday could deepen divides within the...

The German government stuck to its view on Monday that a third haircut, or debt restructuring, for Greece was out of the question but opened the door to a possible extension of Greece's current bailout programme.

he new far-left government in Greece dropped a bombshell on its first day in office by abjuring an EU statement on Russia. It said in a press communique on Tuesday (27 January): “the aforementioned statement was released without the prescribed procedure to obtain consent by the member states and particularly without ensuring the consent of Greece”. “In this context, it is underlined that Greece does not consent to this statement”. It added that its new PM, Alexis Tsipras, expressed “discontent” in a phone call to EU foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini. The EU statement on Russia, published on Tuesday morning,...

credit the world’s various political leftists for being brilliant at one thing. They have managed to assemble a coalition of interest groups whose vested interests should probably cause them to chase each other around in the street armed with shotguns. Nowhere is that awesome class divide among the left on greater display than in Europe where the Parlor Pinks infest Davos and the Street Marxians have taken electoral power in Greece. If you were to ask both Jeffrey Greene and newly-minted Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras whether they felt society should be unfettered by larger government or directed for its...

Greece's new radical Prime Minister has declared war on the country's all-inclusive holiday resorts and vowed to limit them. All-you-can-eat breakfast buffets and unlimited cocktails and ouzo by the pool could become a thing of the past in Greece despite the all-inclusive travel industry, that brings in £1.5billion for the country. Alexis Tsipras, leader of the triumphant anti-bailout party Syriza, believes such deals 'alienate tourists from the local economy' by keeping them behind resort gates and away from local businesses and attractions. He has warned that contracts with large resort chains will be reviewed and deals to sell public land...

The new Greece of Alexis Tsipras will run out of money by early March. It will then face a series of escalating crunch points that will end in default and a return to the drachma unless it can reach a deal with EU creditors. Greece must repay €3.4bn to the International Monetary Fund in February and March. Tax revenues have collapsed as Greeks preempt what they hope will be a repeal of austerity taxes. “There is only €1.9bn left in the cash kitty, and the government has spending costs of $2.5bn coming up. Somebody needs to lend the country money...