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Greece appealed for EU assistance Friday to battle wildfires raging on the outskirts of Athens and in the southern Peloponnese region that forced the evacuation of several villages. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said he had requested help to fight the fires and announced army and airforce units were being deployed to help douse the flames. "All firefighting forces, in addition to the army and the airforce, are on alert," Tsipras told reporters, blaming the outbreak on "emergency weather conditions". "We all need to stay calm," he said. Greece had asked for four aircraft from Europe, fire department spokesman Nikos Tsongas...

Greece wildly overcommits in spending on its welfare state, spending the country to the brink of collapse and then failing to live up to the terms of not one but two IMF bailouts, both of which were heavily financed by Germany I don’t even know what to do with this. If you ever help anyone with a problem, don’t expect to get credit for it from the Washington Post. Because it might be necessary for you to make the recipient of the help shed some bad habits, and if you do that . . . hey, remember how cruel Hitler...

The agreement followed violent clashes in the country’s capital last night as protesters hurled petrol bombs at riot police after surrounding the Athens parliament ahead of the final deadline for the country's €86 billion bailout deal. As flames erupted, police responded with tear gas against dozens of hooded anti-austerity demonstrators who set ablaze parts of Syntagma square.

Clashes have broken out at an anti-austerity rally by thousands of protesters outside Parliament in Athens. Riot police used pepper spray and tear gas Wednesday night to fight back youths in the crowd who were hurling Molotov cocktails and rocks at police. Police said about 12,500 people were at the rally at Syntagma Square. The clashes broke out just as lawmakers were starting to debate an austerity bill that includes consumer tax increases and pension reforms. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who has faced strident opposition to the bill from his own radical left Syriza party, says it's the best possible...

'The Left let itself become the enforcer of reactionary policies and mass unemployment because of the euro.' Greece has broken the spell It is long been fighting an expanding coaltion of free marketeers, parliamentary "souverainistes", anti-immigrant populists on the Right. Its has now lost its remaining emotional hold on the Left after the scorched-earth treatment of Greece over the past five months - culminating in the vindictive decision to impose yet harsher terms on this crushed nation just days after its cri de coeur in a landslide referendum. Greece news live This has been coming for a long time. We...

Anti-austerity protesters in Athens have clashed with police as MPs prepare to vote on a series of painful reforms aimed at saving their economy from collapse. Demonstrators threw petrol bombs at riot officers outside the Greek parliament as politicians discussed a key bill that has to pass in order to start negotiations with creditors on a third bailout. Police fired tear gas to try to push back groups of youths hurling Molotov cocktails from within the crowd. Thousands of anti-austerity demonstrators have marched through the centre of the city and civil servants also protested with a 24-hour strike that disrupted...

In June, Greece defaulted on a €1.73 billion payment to the International Monetary Fund. In a national referendum shortly thereafter, the Greeks strongly rejected European conditions for receiving yet another bailout. For the first time in the Eurozone’s history, the exit of one of its member countries became a very real possibility. [SNIP] While there are important differences between the U.S. and Greek economies, policy makers and the public should be concerned with the dismal U.S. fiscal outlook. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates in its alternative fiscal scenario that U.S. publicly held debt will grow to 180 percent (exceeding...

I love how events of the past few weeks have empowered the Obama policy team to proclaim to their mainstream media friends that Obama had his “Best Week Ever.” Sadly, our friends in Congress seem to be reading the White House press releases as well. As Congress engages for a few short weeks before the August “District Work Period,” it well behooves the Members and Senators to look beyond the ongoing media frenzy of last month’s Supreme Court rulings. Shift the discussion as they should point out to the President and his staff that the White House is idly standing...

Our situation is nowhere near as bad as Greece’s — but it’s bad enough. Last week, Keith Hall, director of the Congressional Budget Office, told Congress that the United States could be facing a Greek-style debt crisis down the road. “Unfortunately,” Hall testified, “there is no way to predict confidently whether or when such a fiscal crisis might occur in the United States. . . . But all else being equal, the larger a government’s debt, the greater the risk of a fiscal crisis.” That’s not exactly a ringing vote of confidence. Obviously there are big differences between the U.S....

Greece will need far bigger debt relief than eurozone partners have been prepared to envisage.Greece will need far bigger debt relief than eurozone partners have been prepared to envisage so far due to the devastation of its economy and banks in the last two weeks, a confidential study by the International Monetary Fund seen by Reuters shows. The updated debt sustainability analysis (DSA) was sent to eurozone governments late on Monday, hours after Athens and its 18 partners agreed in principle to open negotiations on a third bailout program of up to €86 billion in return for tougher austerity measures...

... Bokas also does installation and repair jobs — and half of those involve cash deals with no receipts for his labor. The result is that a job costing 250 euros ($275) goes for 125 euros because he doesn’t charge the client sales tax and Bokas doesn’t report the income for taxation. “I’ve got a receipt for everything I sell in my shop,” Bokas said. But tax officials “don’t know what my hands do.”

Capital controls have been in place in Greece since the start of the month to protect the banks from mass withdrawals by nervous Greeks. They have rightly been concerned about their savings, the collapse of the banking system and the loss of their savings in deposit confiscations or bail-ins.

In the end, Alexis Tsipras all but gave Germany naming rights to the Parthenon in order to secure a new bailout deal for Greece. After a caustic all-night negotiating session, the prime minister surrendered to nearly every demand from Europe's leaders in return for an agreement that, theoretically, will keep his country in the eurozone and stave off an immediate economic crisis.

"Sources" say this is how it all went down...

U.S. stock markets were tipped to open higher on Monday following news that Greece and its international creditors have reached a bailout agreement. European Council President Donald Tusk said early on Monday that euro zone leaders reached an unanimous agreement with Greece after all-night talks in Brussels to move forward with a bailout loan for Greece provided Athens implement tough reforms. "Markets have responded very positively to the news, which comes following months of uncertainty and increasing fears that Greece could suffer a messy exit from the euro zone," Craig Erlam, a senior market analyst at currency trading firm OANDA....

If I were negotiating this deal on behalf of the IMF and the EU, one term I would demand is the resignation of the socialist government It’s the third bailout of Greece in five years. Heck, even Chrysler must be appalled at a performance like that. And while we’re still waiting for the details, early reports indicate that Greece’s socialist government had to accept much more stringent terms than the ones they told Greek voters to reject just last week. It’s easy just telling everyone yes to whatever they want until you run out of stuff to give them. That’s...

The news from the IEA is not good. “World oil demand growth appears to have peaked in 1Q15 at 1.8 mb/d and will continue to ease throughout the rest of this year and into next as temporary support fades.” I don’t have great faith in forecasts but the data shows declining demand growth from late 2010 to the 2nd quarter of this year The weak global economy is the cause of low demand growth. The current debt crisis Greece and collapsing stock markets in China are the latest alarm signals.

Pope Francis acknowledged on Monday he had neglected problems of the middle class and said he was willing to have a dialogue with Americans who disagree with his criticism of capitalism. Francis, speaking to reporters on the papal plane returning from a grueling 8-day trip to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay, also said he hoped the Greek crisis could lead to more oversight so other countries would not experience the same problems. During the hour-long conversation with the Francis, who has made defense of the poor a major plank of his papacy, a reporter asked why he had hardly ever spoken...

The Hungarians have had it with the invaders known in the media as “migrants” and are doing something about it: Hungary has begun building a fence on the country’s southern border with Serbia, meant to stem the unprecedented flow of migrants, the government said Monday. Military personnel began working on a 150-meter (490-foot) “sample section” Monday morning on the outskirts of the town of Morahalom, where a bulldozer and other heavy machinery were preparing the ground for construction, according to a joint statement from the interior and defense ministries. “A daily average of 1,000 illegal border crossers are arriving in...

World financial markets should be somewhat relieved that Greece and its creditors reached a reforms-for-bailout deal, closing-followed market watcher Mohamed El-Erian said Monday. But the chief economic adviser at German financial giant Allianz warned that investors should be prepared for a difficult and messy implementation of the terms of the agreement. Euro zone leaders in Brussels agreed Monday on a third rescue for Greece. The deal includes a stipulation that a $55 billion fund be set up using Greek government assets for privatization. The two sides came together for "two negative reasons," because the alternative was worse and nobody wanted...