One its face, it would seem to be a mismatch. Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), two huge global firms which have been notoriously unsuccessful in the smartphone market up against the two companies that the market believes have already won the business-Apple (NASDAQ; AAPL) and Research-in-Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM).
Microsoft has tried for a decade to make a success of it mobile Windows product. It has, by most estimates no more than 6% of the worldwide market. Its licensing costs are high and its programmer base is small. Nokia has also tried to get a foothold in the smartphone market, but its success has been in mid-tier and cheap handsets. That has left it mostly out of the most profitable segment of the industry although its sells over a third of the one billion plus cellphones shipped each year.
Nokia and Microsoft have finally launched the Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile software on the handset company’s modest line of smartphones that includes its E72 and E52 models. The software is free at the Nokia online applications store.
The big money will be on RIM and Apple. They are deeply entrenched and the number of units each sells is growing rapidly by the quarter. There is no appetite for Nokia high-end phones it would seem. It is left to fight with LG and Samsung for market shares but not smartphones.
But, Nokia has huge leverage in the handset market. It does a great deal of business in developing nations where Apple and RIM only have a modest presence. The Microsoft software also has many features. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, “The Communicator software is the core of a suite that is expected to include document sharing, live meetings and video conferencing capabilities for smartphones analogous to those on corporate desktop PCs but adapted for mobile use.” Many of these feature are not available on the iPhone or Blackberry.
And, the two huge companies do not have to take the US market by storm to be winners. The EU market is huge as are markets in China, India, and the Third World. Nokia has deep relationships in these regions. The Microsoft product is free. and Apple and RIM rely on the US and not most of the rest of the world for the great majority of their sales.
Douglas A. McIntyre
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Syria gave advanced M-600 missiles to Hezbollah, defense officials claim
Syria has delivered advanced M600 rockets to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon within the past year, Israeli defense officials said on Wednesday.
The M600, a Syrian copy of the Iranian Fateh-110, has a range of 300km and carries a half-ton warhead. If fired from southern Lebanon it would be capable of hitting Tel Aviv. Latest claims of arms transfers to Lebanon follow recent accusations by President Shimon Peres that Syria Hezbollah gave long-range Scud missiles, capable of inflicting heavy damage on Israel's cities. Other government figures, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have since avoided repeating the claims and it is unclear whether Damascus could have delivered the 44-foot liquid-fueled missiles, handling which requires complex logistics, undetected. Yet doubts over the Scuds have not masked growing fear in the Israeli defense establishment over Hezbollah's rapidly expanding arsenal. On Tuesday the army's head of intelligence research, Brigadier General Yossi Baidatz, told the Knesset that the Scud transfer was the "tip of the iceberg". "Even today Hezbollah has missiles of all ranges types, including solid-fueled rockets that have a longer range are extremely accurate," Baidatz told the Knesset's foreign affairs and security committee. Baidatz warned that arms transfers were not sporadic but reflected long-term policy in Tehran and Damascus "Syria and Iran carry out weapons transfers on a constant and structured basis in way that can't be described as simple smuggling – the transfers are official and well-organized," he said. He added: "Hezbollah's long-range rockets allow them to position launchers deep within Lebanese territory and cover ranges far greater than we aware of in the past. The militant group was far stronger today than in 2006, when it fought a war with Israel, Baidatz said. "Hezbollah in 2010 is very different to Hezbollah in 2006 in terms of military capability, which has advanced a great deal," he said. "Hezbollah is now regarded by the Syrians as a component of their defense establishment." But despite strong backing for Hezbollah, Syria remained keen to strike a peace deal with Israel, Baidatz said. "A political settlement with Israel is high on Syria's list of priorities and intelligence shows a will to reach an agreement – but on their terms, meaning a return of the Golan Heights and American involvement" he said. Baidatz said that Syria's President Assad was willing to embrace sweeping changes – but did not trust the administration of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "Military intelligence believes Syria could radically alter its role – but Assad feels that political progress with the current Israel government is impossible and has therefore avoided confidence-building measures." Print Page Send to a friend Comments Share Text Size +|- Follow us on Twitter Become a Haaretz.com Facebook friend This story is by:
Jonathan Lis Amos Harel
The M600, a Syrian copy of the Iranian Fateh-110, has a range of 300km and carries a half-ton warhead. If fired from southern Lebanon it would be capable of hitting Tel Aviv. Latest claims of arms transfers to Lebanon follow recent accusations by President Shimon Peres that Syria Hezbollah gave long-range Scud missiles, capable of inflicting heavy damage on Israel's cities. Other government figures, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have since avoided repeating the claims and it is unclear whether Damascus could have delivered the 44-foot liquid-fueled missiles, handling which requires complex logistics, undetected. Yet doubts over the Scuds have not masked growing fear in the Israeli defense establishment over Hezbollah's rapidly expanding arsenal. On Tuesday the army's head of intelligence research, Brigadier General Yossi Baidatz, told the Knesset that the Scud transfer was the "tip of the iceberg". "Even today Hezbollah has missiles of all ranges types, including solid-fueled rockets that have a longer range are extremely accurate," Baidatz told the Knesset's foreign affairs and security committee. Baidatz warned that arms transfers were not sporadic but reflected long-term policy in Tehran and Damascus "Syria and Iran carry out weapons transfers on a constant and structured basis in way that can't be described as simple smuggling – the transfers are official and well-organized," he said. He added: "Hezbollah's long-range rockets allow them to position launchers deep within Lebanese territory and cover ranges far greater than we aware of in the past. The militant group was far stronger today than in 2006, when it fought a war with Israel, Baidatz said. "Hezbollah in 2010 is very different to Hezbollah in 2006 in terms of military capability, which has advanced a great deal," he said. "Hezbollah is now regarded by the Syrians as a component of their defense establishment." But despite strong backing for Hezbollah, Syria remained keen to strike a peace deal with Israel, Baidatz said. "A political settlement with Israel is high on Syria's list of priorities and intelligence shows a will to reach an agreement – but on their terms, meaning a return of the Golan Heights and American involvement" he said. Baidatz said that Syria's President Assad was willing to embrace sweeping changes – but did not trust the administration of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "Military intelligence believes Syria could radically alter its role – but Assad feels that political progress with the current Israel government is impossible and has therefore avoided confidence-building measures." Print Page Send to a friend Comments Share Text Size +|- Follow us on Twitter Become a Haaretz.com Facebook friend This story is by:
Jonathan Lis Amos Harel
Iran has new anti-cruise missile weapon, Cobra-type helicopter
The development of the "Mesbah 1" (Lantern), a new air defence system for countering aircraft, cruise missiles, choppers and other low-altitude threats, was announced by Iran's defence minister Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi Wednesday, May 5. It will go into operation in the near future. debkafile's military sources say that if Iran has indeed designed a weapon of this type and quality, it has come up with a powerful answer to US and Israeli cruise missiles, which pose the biggest threat to Iran's nuclear facilities in a military strike.
Vahidi boasted that the Mesbah can fire 4,000 shots a minute, is very precise and can be operated by a smaller crew than similar artillery systems. He claimed it was also effective in tracing and shooting down unmanned aerial vehicles - drones.
The Iranian Air force is also reported to have received 10 new "Toofan" (Storm) attack helicopters based on the Bell AH-1K Sea Cobra design. After studying photographs, Western military sources reported the Iranian version has been heavily upgraded compared with the original. It has a narrower airframe for greater flexibility and is armed with M197 3-barrelled 20-mm "Gatling-type" cannon in the A/A49E turret. Its wing-stub stations carry a pair of 19-tube 70-mm rocket launchers. The rear section has a Vulcan-type 20-mm automatic cannon, and two clusters of 38 anti-tank 70-mm missiles.
Bullet-proof glass protects the pilot's cockpit and weapons officer station, internal avionics have been revamped with the addition of a GPS and receiver in the nose, and a warning radar attached to the rear, with four antennae providing 360 degrees coverage and all electronics systems integrated.
debkafile's intelligence sources note that the Iranian Air Force's Badr Base for light aircraft and helicopters in Esfahan, central Iran, accommodates 1,000 aerial military vehicles of different types, and is the biggest air base of its kind in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.
Vahidi boasted that the Mesbah can fire 4,000 shots a minute, is very precise and can be operated by a smaller crew than similar artillery systems. He claimed it was also effective in tracing and shooting down unmanned aerial vehicles - drones.
The Iranian Air force is also reported to have received 10 new "Toofan" (Storm) attack helicopters based on the Bell AH-1K Sea Cobra design. After studying photographs, Western military sources reported the Iranian version has been heavily upgraded compared with the original. It has a narrower airframe for greater flexibility and is armed with M197 3-barrelled 20-mm "Gatling-type" cannon in the A/A49E turret. Its wing-stub stations carry a pair of 19-tube 70-mm rocket launchers. The rear section has a Vulcan-type 20-mm automatic cannon, and two clusters of 38 anti-tank 70-mm missiles.
Bullet-proof glass protects the pilot's cockpit and weapons officer station, internal avionics have been revamped with the addition of a GPS and receiver in the nose, and a warning radar attached to the rear, with four antennae providing 360 degrees coverage and all electronics systems integrated.
debkafile's intelligence sources note that the Iranian Air Force's Badr Base for light aircraft and helicopters in Esfahan, central Iran, accommodates 1,000 aerial military vehicles of different types, and is the biggest air base of its kind in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.
General strike hits Greece as people protest austerity plan
FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) -- Greeks walked off the job on Wednesday in a nationwide strike against the government's austerity measures, as Germany's chancellor said that Europe's future depended on helping Greece emerge from its debt crisis.
No planes, trains or ferries operated in Greece, as hospitals, schools and public offices were also shut, according to media reports. The nation's two leading unions, representing the public and the private sectors, have called the strike to protest what they see as unfair and harsh measures aimed at lowering the soaring Greek deficit.
Wednesday's strike is the latest in a series of strikes to hit Greece in recent weeks.
/conga/story/misc/international.html 74626 Prime Minister George Papandreou's government agreed over the weekend to implement even more austerity measures, totalling 11% of gross domestic product, in exchange for a 110 billion-euro aid package from other euro-zone members and the International Monetary Fund.
This year's measures include cutting public-sector wages and pension outlays, which together account for 75% of total public spending in Greece, according to the IMF. The public sector in Greece is very large compared to that of its peers in the euro zone.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Europe was at a crossroads.
Speaking to the Bundestag lower house of parliament, Merkel said that the financial aid for Greece must be approved in order to secure the stability of the euro and avoid contagion to other member states, according to media reports.
The chancellor also said that euro-zone rules need to be changed to make sure countries that breach them get properly punished. For extreme cases, Merkel said, a procedure must be developed for the orderly insolvency of a member state.
The parliament in Berlin is scheduled to vote on Friday on the Greek aid bailout package, as German public opinion remains firmly opposed to helping Greece.
Germany's share of the Greek bailout package is about 22.4 billion euros.
Meanwhile, a new poll showed that support Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and its Christian Social Union sister party has dropped by two points to 34%.
Backing for the chancellor herself fell by six points to 48%, according to the same poll conducted for Stern magazine and RTL Television.
The decline in support comes ahead of a key election in North Rhine Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, on Sunday.
No planes, trains or ferries operated in Greece, as hospitals, schools and public offices were also shut, according to media reports. The nation's two leading unions, representing the public and the private sectors, have called the strike to protest what they see as unfair and harsh measures aimed at lowering the soaring Greek deficit.
Wednesday's strike is the latest in a series of strikes to hit Greece in recent weeks.
/conga/story/misc/international.html 74626 Prime Minister George Papandreou's government agreed over the weekend to implement even more austerity measures, totalling 11% of gross domestic product, in exchange for a 110 billion-euro aid package from other euro-zone members and the International Monetary Fund.
This year's measures include cutting public-sector wages and pension outlays, which together account for 75% of total public spending in Greece, according to the IMF. The public sector in Greece is very large compared to that of its peers in the euro zone.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Europe was at a crossroads.
Speaking to the Bundestag lower house of parliament, Merkel said that the financial aid for Greece must be approved in order to secure the stability of the euro and avoid contagion to other member states, according to media reports.
The chancellor also said that euro-zone rules need to be changed to make sure countries that breach them get properly punished. For extreme cases, Merkel said, a procedure must be developed for the orderly insolvency of a member state.
The parliament in Berlin is scheduled to vote on Friday on the Greek aid bailout package, as German public opinion remains firmly opposed to helping Greece.
Germany's share of the Greek bailout package is about 22.4 billion euros.
Meanwhile, a new poll showed that support Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and its Christian Social Union sister party has dropped by two points to 34%.
Backing for the chancellor herself fell by six points to 48%, according to the same poll conducted for Stern magazine and RTL Television.
The decline in support comes ahead of a key election in North Rhine Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, on Sunday.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Greece erupts as men from IMF prepare to wield axe
MAY DAY protests in Greece turned violent yesterday as youths in gas masks and hoods set fire to vehicles, smashed shop fronts and threw molotov cocktails and rocks at police in an explosion of fury over austerity measures they claim will hurt only the poor.
Tourists were cut off from their hotels as thousands of communists, civil servants and private-sector workers converged on a main square in Athens to vent their rage at the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“No to the IMF’s junta,” they chanted as a youth in a black hood produced a hammer to try to smash windows of the luxury Grande Bretagne hotel.
Another painted anti-capitalist slogans on the facade, and demonstrators intervened to prevent him from spraying an Australian woman with paint as she tried to get back into the hotel. Japanese tourists stood taking photographs of the mayhem with mobile phones before being forced to retreat, coughing and sneezing, under a cloud of tear gas.
Related Links
Spain downgrade sparks European sell-off
Cost of covering Greek debt heads higher
The violence came as negotiations were concluding between the socialist government of George Papandreou, the IMF and the EU over a multi-billion-euro rescue package for Greece.
Anger has grown against the EU for insisting on tough austerity measures in return for a bailout worth an estimated €45 billion (£39 billion) this year alone, and up to €120 billion (£104 billion) over three years.
Some young Greeks prefer to blame their elders for the mountain of debt that has resulted in Greece, like a wayward child, being placed under the tutelage of the men from the IMF.
“I cannot help but blame my parents a little for what’s happened,” said Achilles Zacharoulis, a 36-year-old cardiologist. “They were here all that time,” he added, referring to the past three decades of mismanagement and fiscal insanity. “But what did they do to stop it?”
Vaggelis Gettos, 24, is just as alarmed at the burden being heaped on the young by austerity measures expected to be announced today, and has pledged to resist them in more protests this week against what he sees as a plot to impoverish Greece.
“We will live much worse than our parents,” he said. “Why should we be made to pay for their mistakes?”
The question of who was to blame and who should pay for the greatest crisis to afflict the single currency was a subject of heated debate, particularly after a leading credit rating agency put the cradle of civilisation in the same category as Azerbaijan by reducing its government bonds to “junk” status.
Economists regard the bloated civil service with its jobs for life and generous pensions as a cancer consuming the country’s resources. The older generation, the experts grimly concur, turned the state into a giant cash machine to be plundered at will.
Today the party is over, however, and that makes some experts optimistic: Greece now has no choice but to implement much-needed reforms that will bring swift results. “It’s like a dentist putting a child in braces,” said one observer. “It’s not nice, but necessary for growth in the right direction.”
Even before it was announced, the rescue package had provoked angry outbursts. On Thursday, Gettos and friends tried to break through a police cordon outside the finance ministry only to be forced back by tear gas.
They were in the thick of things again yesterday when police used tear gas to prevent protesters from marching on the American embassy.
Even greater social unrest is expected as resentment simmers among poorer families at being told to tighten their belts when wealthy Greeks can protect their fortunes by moving their money abroad, some of it into property bargains in London.
“It’s always the poor people who pay,” complained Katerina Ioannou, 20, in the cafeteria of the Athens University law faculty, a hotbed of student activism. “If I get a job as a trainee lawyer I’ll only earn €300 [£260] a month,” said Thanos Petrou, 21. “How can anyone survive on that?”
Some are already referring to a “lost generation” who will never find jobs or security, but the students, proud of their university’s reputation for being at the forefront of the uprising against the military dictatorship in 1973, are not the only ones planning resistance.
Mikis Theodorakis, the 84-year-old musician who composed the score for the film Zorba the Greek, calls for revolt against what he sees as an American plot to turn Greece into a “protectorate”. Bureaucrats will raise their fists at the barricades in a general strike and protests on Wednesday to protect their considerable perks from the IMF.
They and other public sector workers are virtually unsackable, can retire as early as 45 and get bonuses for using a computer, speaking a foreign language and arriving at work on time.
Some of them get as many as four extra months’ salary a year, compared with the 14 months that are paid to other Greek workers. One of the most generous bonuses is paid to unmarried daughters of dead employees in state-controlled banks: they can inherit their parents’ pensions.
Stefanos, 49, seems to embody the Greek good life. He retired as an army captain last year on a full pension and says he is quite happy planting his garden. He worries, though, about how to protect his savings from the crisis. “What about banks in Germany?” he asked friends around a dinner table in Athens.
“There’s an awful lot of fat to cut from the system,” says Yannis Stournaras, a former government financial adviser, in what sounded like understatement. He is considered one of the architects of Greece’s entry into the euro zone in 2001 but dismisses as “utter nonsense” allegations that Greece fudged its figures in order to be admitted.
Today the country’s budget deficit is 13.6% of GDP and the overall debt stands at €300 billion (£260 billion). Unemployment among 16- to 24-year-olds has risen to 30%, according to government figures. Crime, too, is increasing in Athens.
“I feel like a prisoner here,” says Ilias Iliopoulos, head of the powerful civil servants’ union, gesturing to new bars on his windows after two recent burglaries of his office.
“People are stealing so they can live, so they can eat,” he said. “And it will only get worse. These [IMF] measures will drag hundreds of thousands of Greek citizens into a life of poverty.”
Resentment among Greeks at being singled out as lazy and corrupt has hardened into outrage at Germany, whose leaders complain that the Mediterranean country should never have been allowed into Europe. Greeks were particularly hurt by German suggestions that they sell their islands to pay off the debt.
Yannis Criticos, who works for an international ferry operator, said that one of his secretaries had written an angry letter to a German tour operator client to complain about “bloody Germans” being jealous of Greece’s sun-drenched Mediterranean lifestyle.
“He was very upset about it,” said Criticos, who was attending the launch of a tourism fair in Athens last week. “It took a while for him to calm down.”
Vitriol is also being heaped on Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, by Giorgos Trangas, a popular radio talk show host.
“She looks like an apple strudel that’s been squashed by a Wehrmacht lorry,” he said on his programme.
In an evocation of Greece’s wartime suffering, Trangas has taken to introducing the show with a rendition of Deutschland Uber Alles and the sound of goose-stepping soldiers. This is to highlight what he describes as “another German occupation”.
As if in the path of an advancing army, Greeks are hiding their money. In the end, Stefanos, the retired captain, opted like his friends for a safety deposit box. The super rich, for their part, have shifted an estimated €11 billion to Cyprus and other havens since the start of the year, according to Konstantinos Michalos, president of the Athens chamber of commerce.
“I try to be optimistic,” he sighed. But things had got to “a tragic level”.
There was hope, he believed, if the government lifted numerous restrictions on business. It costs more to transport a sack of potatoes from northern Greece to Athens than from Athens to Dusseldorf, because haulage, like many other sectors of the Greek economy, is an impenetrable cartel.
When Michalos started a commodities trading business in London in the 1980s, the paperwork took him 48 hours, he said. In Greece’s “Soviet-style” economy he had to go through 117 bureaucratic procedures to get the right government permits. A wealthy friend of his had taken 10 years to win permission to put up a hotel.
“It would have taken him another 10 years or a large payment under the table if he wasn’t a friend of very important politicians,” said Michalos. Stournaras, an Oxford-educated economist, who believes that lifting these restrictions and trimming fat from the public sector will have an extraordinary effect on the Greek economy.
“I’m sorry because poor people will suffer, but this could get us back on our feet within three to five years,” he predicted.
Others believe the country is in for a much longer haul.
Zacharoulis, the cardiologist, is far from being alone in thinking that it may be time to leave in search of a more secure future, perhaps in America or Britain. Gettos, the radical, would also like to get out.
“I’ve always wanted to see the world,” he said. “But you need money for that and I don’t have any.”
That is likely to become a Greek chorus.
Tourists were cut off from their hotels as thousands of communists, civil servants and private-sector workers converged on a main square in Athens to vent their rage at the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“No to the IMF’s junta,” they chanted as a youth in a black hood produced a hammer to try to smash windows of the luxury Grande Bretagne hotel.
Another painted anti-capitalist slogans on the facade, and demonstrators intervened to prevent him from spraying an Australian woman with paint as she tried to get back into the hotel. Japanese tourists stood taking photographs of the mayhem with mobile phones before being forced to retreat, coughing and sneezing, under a cloud of tear gas.
Related Links
Spain downgrade sparks European sell-off
Cost of covering Greek debt heads higher
The violence came as negotiations were concluding between the socialist government of George Papandreou, the IMF and the EU over a multi-billion-euro rescue package for Greece.
Anger has grown against the EU for insisting on tough austerity measures in return for a bailout worth an estimated €45 billion (£39 billion) this year alone, and up to €120 billion (£104 billion) over three years.
Some young Greeks prefer to blame their elders for the mountain of debt that has resulted in Greece, like a wayward child, being placed under the tutelage of the men from the IMF.
“I cannot help but blame my parents a little for what’s happened,” said Achilles Zacharoulis, a 36-year-old cardiologist. “They were here all that time,” he added, referring to the past three decades of mismanagement and fiscal insanity. “But what did they do to stop it?”
Vaggelis Gettos, 24, is just as alarmed at the burden being heaped on the young by austerity measures expected to be announced today, and has pledged to resist them in more protests this week against what he sees as a plot to impoverish Greece.
“We will live much worse than our parents,” he said. “Why should we be made to pay for their mistakes?”
The question of who was to blame and who should pay for the greatest crisis to afflict the single currency was a subject of heated debate, particularly after a leading credit rating agency put the cradle of civilisation in the same category as Azerbaijan by reducing its government bonds to “junk” status.
Economists regard the bloated civil service with its jobs for life and generous pensions as a cancer consuming the country’s resources. The older generation, the experts grimly concur, turned the state into a giant cash machine to be plundered at will.
Today the party is over, however, and that makes some experts optimistic: Greece now has no choice but to implement much-needed reforms that will bring swift results. “It’s like a dentist putting a child in braces,” said one observer. “It’s not nice, but necessary for growth in the right direction.”
Even before it was announced, the rescue package had provoked angry outbursts. On Thursday, Gettos and friends tried to break through a police cordon outside the finance ministry only to be forced back by tear gas.
They were in the thick of things again yesterday when police used tear gas to prevent protesters from marching on the American embassy.
Even greater social unrest is expected as resentment simmers among poorer families at being told to tighten their belts when wealthy Greeks can protect their fortunes by moving their money abroad, some of it into property bargains in London.
“It’s always the poor people who pay,” complained Katerina Ioannou, 20, in the cafeteria of the Athens University law faculty, a hotbed of student activism. “If I get a job as a trainee lawyer I’ll only earn €300 [£260] a month,” said Thanos Petrou, 21. “How can anyone survive on that?”
Some are already referring to a “lost generation” who will never find jobs or security, but the students, proud of their university’s reputation for being at the forefront of the uprising against the military dictatorship in 1973, are not the only ones planning resistance.
Mikis Theodorakis, the 84-year-old musician who composed the score for the film Zorba the Greek, calls for revolt against what he sees as an American plot to turn Greece into a “protectorate”. Bureaucrats will raise their fists at the barricades in a general strike and protests on Wednesday to protect their considerable perks from the IMF.
They and other public sector workers are virtually unsackable, can retire as early as 45 and get bonuses for using a computer, speaking a foreign language and arriving at work on time.
Some of them get as many as four extra months’ salary a year, compared with the 14 months that are paid to other Greek workers. One of the most generous bonuses is paid to unmarried daughters of dead employees in state-controlled banks: they can inherit their parents’ pensions.
Stefanos, 49, seems to embody the Greek good life. He retired as an army captain last year on a full pension and says he is quite happy planting his garden. He worries, though, about how to protect his savings from the crisis. “What about banks in Germany?” he asked friends around a dinner table in Athens.
“There’s an awful lot of fat to cut from the system,” says Yannis Stournaras, a former government financial adviser, in what sounded like understatement. He is considered one of the architects of Greece’s entry into the euro zone in 2001 but dismisses as “utter nonsense” allegations that Greece fudged its figures in order to be admitted.
Today the country’s budget deficit is 13.6% of GDP and the overall debt stands at €300 billion (£260 billion). Unemployment among 16- to 24-year-olds has risen to 30%, according to government figures. Crime, too, is increasing in Athens.
“I feel like a prisoner here,” says Ilias Iliopoulos, head of the powerful civil servants’ union, gesturing to new bars on his windows after two recent burglaries of his office.
“People are stealing so they can live, so they can eat,” he said. “And it will only get worse. These [IMF] measures will drag hundreds of thousands of Greek citizens into a life of poverty.”
Resentment among Greeks at being singled out as lazy and corrupt has hardened into outrage at Germany, whose leaders complain that the Mediterranean country should never have been allowed into Europe. Greeks were particularly hurt by German suggestions that they sell their islands to pay off the debt.
Yannis Criticos, who works for an international ferry operator, said that one of his secretaries had written an angry letter to a German tour operator client to complain about “bloody Germans” being jealous of Greece’s sun-drenched Mediterranean lifestyle.
“He was very upset about it,” said Criticos, who was attending the launch of a tourism fair in Athens last week. “It took a while for him to calm down.”
Vitriol is also being heaped on Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, by Giorgos Trangas, a popular radio talk show host.
“She looks like an apple strudel that’s been squashed by a Wehrmacht lorry,” he said on his programme.
In an evocation of Greece’s wartime suffering, Trangas has taken to introducing the show with a rendition of Deutschland Uber Alles and the sound of goose-stepping soldiers. This is to highlight what he describes as “another German occupation”.
As if in the path of an advancing army, Greeks are hiding their money. In the end, Stefanos, the retired captain, opted like his friends for a safety deposit box. The super rich, for their part, have shifted an estimated €11 billion to Cyprus and other havens since the start of the year, according to Konstantinos Michalos, president of the Athens chamber of commerce.
“I try to be optimistic,” he sighed. But things had got to “a tragic level”.
There was hope, he believed, if the government lifted numerous restrictions on business. It costs more to transport a sack of potatoes from northern Greece to Athens than from Athens to Dusseldorf, because haulage, like many other sectors of the Greek economy, is an impenetrable cartel.
When Michalos started a commodities trading business in London in the 1980s, the paperwork took him 48 hours, he said. In Greece’s “Soviet-style” economy he had to go through 117 bureaucratic procedures to get the right government permits. A wealthy friend of his had taken 10 years to win permission to put up a hotel.
“It would have taken him another 10 years or a large payment under the table if he wasn’t a friend of very important politicians,” said Michalos. Stournaras, an Oxford-educated economist, who believes that lifting these restrictions and trimming fat from the public sector will have an extraordinary effect on the Greek economy.
“I’m sorry because poor people will suffer, but this could get us back on our feet within three to five years,” he predicted.
Others believe the country is in for a much longer haul.
Zacharoulis, the cardiologist, is far from being alone in thinking that it may be time to leave in search of a more secure future, perhaps in America or Britain. Gettos, the radical, would also like to get out.
“I’ve always wanted to see the world,” he said. “But you need money for that and I don’t have any.”
That is likely to become a Greek chorus.
Johnson & Johnson recalls liquid Tylenol, Motrin for kids
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson Inc. has initiated a voluntary recall of liquid Tylenol, Motrin and other over-the-counter drugs for children and infants because of 'manufacturing deficiencies' in its Port Washington, Pa. plant that may affect quality, purity or potency of the drugs.
The company, in conducting a self assessment before the Food and Drug Administration's routine inspection, informed the FDA of its voluntary recall, said Bonnie Jacobs, a spokeswoman for J&J's McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit that's conducting the recalls.
She said there have been no reported injuries or hospitalizations and that the company's initiating the recall not "on the basis of adverse medical events."
She declined to comment on the possible cost of the recall for the company and said the recalled products are limited to those made at a Pennsylvania plant. She declined to specify other manufacturing facilities that Johnson & Johnson owns.
"We will begin manufacturing after we've implemented the corrective action," she said.
Products recalled also include certain liquid infant's and children's Zyrtec and Benadryl products, the FDA said.
J&J said it's initiating the voluntary recall because some of these products may not meet required quality standards. The products were distributed in the U.S., Canada, Dominican Republic, Dubai, Fiji, Guam, Guatemala, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Panama, Trinidad & Tobago, and Kuwait, the company said in a statement.
It said some of the products included in the recall may contain a higher concentration of active ingredient than specified; others contain inactive ingredients that may not meet internal testing requirements; and others may contain tiny particles.
While the potential for serious medical events is remote, FDA said consumers should discontinue use of these recalled products.
"We want to be certain that consumers discontinue using these products and that they know what to do if they have concerns about a specific product," FDA Commissioner Drugs Margaret A. Hamburg said in a press release. "While the potential for serious health problems is remote, Americans deserve medications that are safe, effective and of the highest quality. We are investigating the products and facilities associated with this recall and will provide updates as we learn more."
The company also said it's conducting a "comprehensive quality assessment across its manufacturing operations and has identified corrective actions that will be implemented before new manufacturing is initiated at the plant where the recalled products were made."
Johnson & Johnson /quotes/comstock/13*!jnj/quotes/nls/jnj (JNJ 64.30, -0.71, -1.09%) shares fell 1.1% to $64.30 on Friday.
Andria Cheng is a MarketWatch reporter based in New York
The company, in conducting a self assessment before the Food and Drug Administration's routine inspection, informed the FDA of its voluntary recall, said Bonnie Jacobs, a spokeswoman for J&J's McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit that's conducting the recalls.
She said there have been no reported injuries or hospitalizations and that the company's initiating the recall not "on the basis of adverse medical events."
She declined to comment on the possible cost of the recall for the company and said the recalled products are limited to those made at a Pennsylvania plant. She declined to specify other manufacturing facilities that Johnson & Johnson owns.
"We will begin manufacturing after we've implemented the corrective action," she said.
Products recalled also include certain liquid infant's and children's Zyrtec and Benadryl products, the FDA said.
J&J said it's initiating the voluntary recall because some of these products may not meet required quality standards. The products were distributed in the U.S., Canada, Dominican Republic, Dubai, Fiji, Guam, Guatemala, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Panama, Trinidad & Tobago, and Kuwait, the company said in a statement.
It said some of the products included in the recall may contain a higher concentration of active ingredient than specified; others contain inactive ingredients that may not meet internal testing requirements; and others may contain tiny particles.
While the potential for serious medical events is remote, FDA said consumers should discontinue use of these recalled products.
"We want to be certain that consumers discontinue using these products and that they know what to do if they have concerns about a specific product," FDA Commissioner Drugs Margaret A. Hamburg said in a press release. "While the potential for serious health problems is remote, Americans deserve medications that are safe, effective and of the highest quality. We are investigating the products and facilities associated with this recall and will provide updates as we learn more."
The company also said it's conducting a "comprehensive quality assessment across its manufacturing operations and has identified corrective actions that will be implemented before new manufacturing is initiated at the plant where the recalled products were made."
Johnson & Johnson /quotes/comstock/13*!jnj/quotes/nls/jnj (JNJ 64.30, -0.71, -1.09%) shares fell 1.1% to $64.30 on Friday.
Andria Cheng is a MarketWatch reporter based in New York
OBAMA CHEATING SCANDAL
PRESIDENT OBAMA has been caught in a shocking cheating scandal after being caught in a Washington, DC Hotel with a former campaign aide, sources say.
And now, a hush-hush security video that shows everything could topple both Obama's presidency and marriage to Michelle!
A confidential investigation has learned that Obama first became close to gorgeous 35 year-old VERA BAKER in 2004 when she worked tirelessly to get him elected to the US Senate, raising millions in campaign contributions.
While Baker has insisted in the past that "nothing happened" between them, the ENQUIRER has learned that top anti-Obama operatives are offering more than $1 million to witnesses to reveal what they know about the alleged hush-hush affair.
Among those being offered money is a limo driver who says that he took Vera to a secret hotel rendezvous where the President was staying.
On the condition of anonymity, the limo driver said he took Baker "from a friend's home in the DC area to the Hotel George where I learned later that Obama would be spending the night."
The driver recalled that he "waited in the lobby while she went to change her outfit.
"But to the best of my knowledge she did not have a room at the hotel and she was not staying there so I thought that it was a bit odd."
The driver said he then picked up Obama at the airport and drove both he and Baker to various locations while he was campaigning for funds. Vera accompanied him to each meeting.
"About 10:30 PM, I drove them to the hotel and they went in together!"
"My services for the evening were done - and there was no indication she was going to leave the hotel that night."
A top DC source told The ENQUIRER exclusively that the driver's account had been independently corroborated by investigators who believe the couple spent the night together at the hotel.
The ENQUIRER has also learned that on-site hotel surveillance video camera footage could provide indisputable evidence.
"Investigators are attempting to obtain a tape from the hotel (that) shows Vera and Barack together," the DC insider confided.
"If the tape surfaces, it will explode the scandal."
DEVELOPING STORY
And now, a hush-hush security video that shows everything could topple both Obama's presidency and marriage to Michelle!
A confidential investigation has learned that Obama first became close to gorgeous 35 year-old VERA BAKER in 2004 when she worked tirelessly to get him elected to the US Senate, raising millions in campaign contributions.
While Baker has insisted in the past that "nothing happened" between them, the ENQUIRER has learned that top anti-Obama operatives are offering more than $1 million to witnesses to reveal what they know about the alleged hush-hush affair.
Among those being offered money is a limo driver who says that he took Vera to a secret hotel rendezvous where the President was staying.
On the condition of anonymity, the limo driver said he took Baker "from a friend's home in the DC area to the Hotel George where I learned later that Obama would be spending the night."
The driver recalled that he "waited in the lobby while she went to change her outfit.
"But to the best of my knowledge she did not have a room at the hotel and she was not staying there so I thought that it was a bit odd."
The driver said he then picked up Obama at the airport and drove both he and Baker to various locations while he was campaigning for funds. Vera accompanied him to each meeting.
"About 10:30 PM, I drove them to the hotel and they went in together!"
"My services for the evening were done - and there was no indication she was going to leave the hotel that night."
A top DC source told The ENQUIRER exclusively that the driver's account had been independently corroborated by investigators who believe the couple spent the night together at the hotel.
The ENQUIRER has also learned that on-site hotel surveillance video camera footage could provide indisputable evidence.
"Investigators are attempting to obtain a tape from the hotel (that) shows Vera and Barack together," the DC insider confided.
"If the tape surfaces, it will explode the scandal."
DEVELOPING STORY
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