ATHENS (Commodity Online): Athens is in turmoil with almost all public service staff going on strike to protest the new taxes imposed by the government to tide over deficit.

Riot police were deployed in Athens this week as a second general strike in a month over government austerity measures brought the city to a halt.

This is set to impact the global markets and air traffic. Greece is one of the most sought after tourist destinations of the world.

All flights, ferries, public transit and schools were closed and hospitals were operating with skeleton staff.

Garbage piles were growing in the streets as a result of landfill workers’ strike, currently in its sixth day. Police were asked to disperse some 150 former employees of the national Olympic Air carrier who have barricaded the national accounting office for the past week, the report said.

The strike is in response to socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou’s imposition of pay and pension cuts to bring down the country’s unprecedented deficit and return to European Union limits on debt. The Greek deficit is 12.7 per cent of gross domestic product, more than four times the EU limit.

Papandreou has been seeking help from other EU members and the United States -- not for a bail-out, but for monetary reforms to prevent speculators from driving up the country’s borrowing costs.
(EUNewsNet.com and OfficialWire)

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