Free Republic

Either Greece’s banks will open on Monday and Christos Dranos’s butcher’s shop will still be in business. Or they won’t and his shop and the country’s ties to the Euro will be in serious peril.... Greece’s banks suffered a €4.2 billion ($5.8 billion) run last week ahead of an emergency European Union summit called for Monday in Brussels on the country’s deepening debt crisis and the continuing standoff between Athens and its foreign creditors.... A continuing rush for cash at ATM machines over the weekend suggests that panic has already set in. But beaches and coffee shops in Athens were...

US MARINES supported by tanks, attack helicopters and F18 jets were fighting Iraqi forces on the southern outskirts of Tikrit last night. American forces were targeted on the approach roads as a column of 300 armoured vehicles moved on the birthplace of Saddam Hussein and his tribal stronghold. Artillery exchanges and automatic gunfire erupted as the Marines approached the town. A reporter on the scene said that five Iraqi tanks had been destroyed when the Marines called in air support. Scores of Cobra attack helicopters and F18 jets were seen over Tikrit. The fighting followed an appeal by 15 tribal...