Macedonian PM says Greece agrees to discuss proposed name

abcnews- Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said Saturday (May 19) he is ready to go ahead with a new name for his country in order to solve a centuries-long name dispute with Greece and pave the way for full integration of the small Balkan country into the European Union and NATO.

But Greek political leaders briefed by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras rejected the Macedonian proposal outright and the Greek government itself, in a response to Zaev's remarks, was evasive about the particular name proposal.

Zaev said that "Republic of Ilindenska Macedonia" is the compromise name acceptable to both sides. The adjective "Ilindenska," meaning, literally, "the day of the prophet Elijah" refers to a 1903 uprising against Turkish occupiers.

"With this possible solution, we preserve the dignity, we confirm and strengthen our Macedonian identity," Zaev said, but added that final say on the new name will be put to a referendum.

Zaev reiterated that Macedonia has no territorial claims to its southern neighbour and confirmed the inviolability of the borders. "Macedonia is ready to confirm this in all necessary ways," Zaev said.

Macedonia was a part of the former Yugoslavia and declared independence in 1991. Greece claims the country's name implies territorial designs on its northern province of Macedonia.

He also said that with the new name proposal "we make a complete distinction with the Macedonia region in Greece".

In Athens, premier Tsipras briefed Greece's president and opposition leaders. All the opposition leaders said the name "Ilinden Macedonia" was unacceptable because, as Communist Party leader Dimitris Koutsoumbas said, it is "neither a geographical nor a temporal" designation, as agreed in nearly two decades of talks mediated by the United Nations. Some opposition leaders called the proposal a provocation on Macedonia's part.

A statement released by the Greek government reflected its ambivalence about the name.

"We welcome the acceptance by (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) that a solution to the nomenclature cannot exist without the adoption of ... a name for all uses," the statement said, meaning that Macedonians could not simply call their country "Macedonia" domestically, while having another name for international use.

"However, we encourage our neighbours to continue working together to find a commonly accepted name with a geographical or temporal designation, just as the package of proposals tabled by the U.N Special Envoy, Matthew Nimetz, also provides," the Greek statement added.

Zaev did not have an easy time with his country's opposition leaders, either.

The leader of the main conservative opposition VMRO-DPMNE party Hristijan Mickoski said after meeting with Zaev that his party is against the name change. He reiterated that his party will not support a change of the constitution and of Macedonia's constitutional name "Republic of Macedonia".

Zaev has urged Macedonians to support the proposed name.

That was quick: Macedonia's main opposition party rejects proposal for new country name

Lost city under sea? Nah, bacteria built it

- When tourists snorkeling near the Greek isle of Zakynthos first spotted mysterious structures about 20 feet under the sea, they thought they might have stumbled upon a lost city. And who could blame them? The site features what appear to be clusters of cobblestones and symmetrical stone cylinders with Hellenic flair. It's easy to see the waterlogged structures and imagine a bustling square full of artists and philosophers.

A study published in the most recent Marine and Petroleum Geology confirms what archaeologists have suspected since the discovery of this "city": It isn't a city. But its real origin is just as cool, and perhaps even more surprising. These structures, which seem so obviously human-made to the untrained eye, were actually built by bacteria.

Archaeologists who dove down to see the site for themselves immediately noted a lack of coins, pottery fragments or other signs of life. So they got to work finding another explanation, analyzing the mineral content of the "pillars" and "streets." And it turns out that the structures have a perfectly natural origin story -- no humans required.

The structures contain a mineral called dolomite, a calcium byproduct produced by microbes that feed off methane. When bacteria huddle around a reliable source of the gas, their calcium excrement can react with methane to produce the cementlike substance.

"Essentially what you've got are bacteria that are fossilizing the plumbing system," study co-author Julian Andrews of the University of East Anglia told Smithsonian Magazine.

The lost city shows the remains not of an ancient people but of an ancient leak, as gas seeped in through subsurface faults. The tubular structures were likely formed as microbes piled up around focused jets of methane, while the slabs that built the city's "streets" may have been the result of large, sloppy spews of gas.

There's no natural methane leaking out of the area today, but there must have been when the structures formed during the Pliocene, an epoch 2.6 to 5.3 million years ago. The phenomenon isn't uncommon, but structures like these are generally found much deeper, where natural gas is more likely to seep into the water.

No, North Dakota is not the Greece of the U.S.

(inforum.com) 07/25/15  FARGO -- Fargo doesn’t look much like Athens, but a recent report calls North Dakota the American version of Greece, the debt-addled Mediterranean nation.

Out of all the U.S. states, North Dakota, according to a report from CNBC, is the worst leech on the federal government. From 2011 to 2014, it took in an annual average of $31.4 billion in federal spending while paying far less -- $6.4 billion -- in federal taxes.

The report says North Dakota receives 71 percent of its gross domestic product in federal dollars. The difference between the federal taxes paid versus federal spending, as a percentage of the state’s overall economic activity, was lower in North Dakota that in any other state.

Minnesota, on the other hand, pays more in federal taxes than it receives in federal spending. By the same metric of taxes minus spending as a percentage of GDP, only one state ranked higher than Minnesota.

In other words, North Dakota gets a high proportion of its economic activity from the feds. And Minnesota has one of the highest rates of contributing to federal coffers.

Thus, the comparison between North Dakota and Greece. The latter, in the midst of a debt crisis, is looking to the European Union for cash.

“Just as in Europe, some U.S. states end up taking more and some states end up giving more,” the CNBC report states.

But is the comparison fair?

No way, said David Flynn, director of the bureau of business and economic research at the University of North Dakota.

“I don’t understand the equating of federal government spending with the situation in Greece, which is a debt situation with their country. Their debts are too high,” Flynn said.

A spokesman for U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., also smacked down the report.

“Obviously, there’s no comparison between North Dakota and Greece,” Don Canton said in an email. “We have a budget surplus and have prudently set aside a rainy day fund.”

North Dakota, a state with a low population and a pricy military presence, does receive more in federal spending than it pays in federal taxes, Flynn said.

“But the notion that the federal government is spending more in North Dakota than they get in tax revenue, and that is automatically bad, is silly,” Flynn said. “It’s a specious claim.”

Check out the CNBC report here: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/21/if-greece-were-a-state-it-would-be.html

Greek Exit from Euro appears Imminent

(WND) June 28 2015 NEW YORK – Greece is on the verge of default having failed to reach a refinancing agreement with the EU in a series of EuroSummit negotiations last week that broke off Saturday without conclusion.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced banks and the stock exchange in Greece will be closed on Monday in a “bank holiday” that the governing council of ministers has recommended be extended through next week to calm down a panicked run of citizens who withdrew €1.3 billion in cash from ATMs over the weekend.

The European Central Bank decided over the weekend not to increase the €89 billion ($100 billion) in Emergency Liquidity Assistance the European Central Bank has reserved to provide Eurozone central banks, including the central bank in Greece, with the liquidity needed to keep ATMs and banks open during a financial crisis like that currently experienced in Greece.

Tsipras is pushing a national referendum on Friday, July 5, calling for a “yes” or “no” vote regarding whether to accept the new austerity measures demanded by the international creditors including the International Monetary Fund, but the vote could turn out to be moot with the European Union threatening to withdraw the current refinancing deal and cut off emergency funds on Tuesday, June 30, if Greece defaults, as appears likely, on a €1.3 billion payment to the IMF scheduled due that day.

“I’m making an appeal for calm,” Tsipras said in an appeal to the nation on Sunday. “Your bank deposits are safe.”

Meanwhile, financial markets around the world are preparing for the likelihood of what in Europe is being called a “Grexit,” the exit of Greece from the euro, given that without a refinancing agreement from the international creditors including the European Union Central Bank and the IMF, Greece has no prospect of meeting the interest and principal payments scheduled on the nation’s huge €300 billion euro debt.

Solutions to Greek debt crisis have stalemated as EU bankers have grown tired of lending Greece the money needed to make scheduled interest payments on the outstanding debt, realizing that promises by Greek politicians to raise additional government funds by raising taxes and cutting pensions are unlikely to work in a nation where additional austerity measures are likely only to depress further an already depressed Greek economy.

The “elephant in the room” turns out to be Deutsche Bank with a $75 trillion exposure in derivatives, an amount 20 times the gross domestic product, GDP, of Germany, that could go south should the bank’s complex bets on the Greek debt crisis collapse, causing a failure reminiscent of the derivatives collapse that caused Lehman Brothers to collapse in bankruptcy in 2008, as the bank’s highly leveraged derivative position in the collateralized mortgage market.

On Sunday, Citigroup economist Ebrahim Rahbari, the economist who coined the term “Grexit” in February 2012, advised clients in a research note that he expects the Greek referendum July 5 will result in a comfortable majority for the “yes” camp, eliminating the chance Greece will withdraw from the euro this ear and reducing the likelihood of a Grexit in subsequent years.

Bloomberg reported Sunday that a majority of Greeks support retaining the euro, although in a country with a 25 percent unemployment rate and an economy that has contracted by a quarter since 2010, there is not a majority to support the further tax increases and government spending cuts EU creditors may demand

A decision by Greece to exit the euro would not necessarily mean a decision by Greece to exit the European Union.

Still, the financial disruption a Greek exit from the euro would cause throughout the EU is likely to be sufficient to cause European stock markets to decline precipitously after opening on Monday morning, with the prospect of an EU stock-market collapse causing jitters worldwide.

Read more at HERE.

Greeks Find Cause Of All Their Woes; The Jews.

As Greece’s economy teeters on the brink, virulent anti-Semitism is making an alarming comeback -

- At the start of Greece’s economic meltdown around 2009, Greek Jews already thought their country was in a bad way politically when the extreme right-wing Popular Orthodox Party (LAOS) came out of virtually nowhere to win seven percent of the national vote. Back in 2001, LAOS leader and MP Georgios Karatzaferis had raised the question of Jewish complicity in the 9/11 attacks in Parliament, stating that “the Jews have no right to provoke, because they have filled the world with crimes.”

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Greece's Purge On Illegal Immigrants: Thousands Are Rounded Up Ready To Be Deported.

Apparently (Israel) Is Not The Only One Deporting Illegal Immigrants Or Facing An Illegal Immigrant Problem. . .

(UKDailyMail) - The Greek authorities are rounding up thousands of suspected illegal immigrants in a large-scale deportation drive.

Up to 6,000 were detained over the weekend in Athens and more than 1,600 are to be deported in the next few days.

Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias said Greece could not afford an ‘invasion of immigrants’.

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