Greece Crisis: PM Accuses Lenders Of Blackmail

The Greek Prime Minister has accused his country's creditors of "blackmail" - and has vowed to fight for mutual respect from the European Union.

Speaking in Brussels, Alexis Tsipras told reporters: "The European Union founding principles were democracy, solidarity, equality and mutual respect. It was not based on blackmail and ultimatums."

Creditors have offered Greece a five-month, €12bn extension of the country’s current bailout programme, on the condition that a raft of reforms are implemented.

Speaking briefly at the EU summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Greece to accept the deal, describing it as "extraordinarily generous".

But according to German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, the chances of a settlement happening “are about 50-50”.

Mr Tsipras met with Mrs Merkel, along with French President Francois Hollande, ahead of crunch talks to try and reach a deal on his country’s debt crisis.

He told them that Greece was frustrated with the “harsh measures” creditors are demanding in exchange for the €7.2bn its economy badly needs, according to a Greek government official.

A discussion between Mr Tsipras, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank ended at an impasse on Thursday evening, after both sides failed to agree on the economic reforms that Greece needs to make.

The country had unveiled plans to make €8bn in savings through VAT increases, taxes on the wealthy and a cut in defence spending, but the IMF has claimed these proposals are insufficient, as further cuts to salaries and pensions are needed.Greece’s Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, has told RTE that his country has “bent over backwards to accommodate some rather strange demands of creditors” – and warned there was a “moral duty” for an agreement to be made.

But if his fellow finance ministers – collectively known as the Eurogroup – do not reach a settlement on Saturday, Greece faces a potential debt default on Tuesday, as it needs to make a €1.5bn payment to the IMF.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the Eurogroup, has said any bailout deal must be reached on Saturday, or else there will not be enough time for it to receive parliamentary approval in Greece and other EU member states.

Even though figures suggest cash is being withdrawn from the Greek banking system at the rate of about €1bn a day, there is little sign of panic in Athens, according to Sky’s Europe Correspondent Robert Nisbet.

He said: “Queues at ATMs around the Greek parliament were normal for a Friday lunchtime, while inside, business was steady with no suggestion of saver after saver withdrawing their life savings.

“However, anecdotal evidence suggests Greek businesses have started to stockpile hard currency in vaults of security firms.

“It takes 24 hours in Greece to complete transactions of €5,000 and over, so large movements of money have increased leading up to Tuesday’s deadline.

“If the talks break up without agreement this weekend, there is speculation that capital controls may be in place on Monday morning before the banks open.

“That could take the form of limiting cash withdrawals, restricting the amount of money being moved abroad, and taxing those who take their money out of banks to buy ‘safe haven’ investments like houses and luxury cars.”

Even if an agreement is thrashed out with the EU and the IMF, Mr Tsipras would still need to convince his anti-austerity Syriza party to approve concessions needed to unblock the desperately needed bailout funds.

He only has a slim majority within the Greek parliament and opposition within his own party to proposed concessions means ratification in Greece is by no means assured.

Tunisia: Gunmen Attack Two Tourist Hotels

Gunmen have killed at least 27 people in an attack on two tourist hotels in a Tunisian town popular with British holidaymakers.

Tourists fled from the beach in Sousse to take refuge in hotel rooms after guns were fired on the beach.

One man said his son saw someone get shot as he raced back to the hotel from the sea.

Photographs seen  show one man in his 60s or 70s lying in a pool of blood in his swimming shorts.The country's interior ministry says one gunman has been killed, while another is still on the loose. At least 27 people have been killed.

Tourists are now gathered in hotel reception areas and hiding in rooms as the situation develops.

British tourist Gary Pine said: "We thought fire crackers were going off but you could see quite quickly what was going on.

"There was a mass exodus off the beach. My son was in the sea at the time and myself and my wife were shouting at him to get out and as he ran up he said I’ve just saw someone get shot.

Holidaymaker Susan Ricketts said: "It sounded like a machine gun going off. There are people crying and going hysterical. We just came up to our room."

Another said: "People are running around the hotel. No-one has really been told what to do."

John Yeoman has barricaded himself inside his hotel room using a bed and chair.

At least 16 people have been killed and dozens wounded in the attack.

Paramedic Abdelrahman al-Yusef says most of the victims were men or boys who were at the mosque when the bombing took place.

Fit Fam 'Chinese mushrooms can help with weight loss' - Researchers find

Researchers in Taiwan have said that a mushroom, which has been in use for centuries in Chinese medicine, and has traditionally been sold for "health and longevity", reduces weight gain.

According to the study, published in Nature Communications, the mushroom called Ganoderma lucidum slowed weight gain by altering bacteria in the gut.

To this end, the researchers suggested the mushroom could eventually be used in the treatment of obesity.

The researchers at Chang Gung University analysed the impact of the mushroom on mice being fed a high-fat diet and found that those on just a high-fat diet reached 42g after their first two months whereas mice that were also fed a high dose of mushroom extract reached only 35g.

In their report, the team said mushroom extract "may be used as pre-biotics to reduce body weight gain, chronic inflammation and insulin resistance [type 2 diabetes] in obese individuals."

Prof Colin Hill, a microbiologist at University College Cork inIreland told BBC that the idea of Chinese medicine coming back into science was a good development, he however said no intervention will overcome someone who drinks lots of soft drinks.

Palace Refurb May Force Queen To Move Out

 

The Queen may need to relocate from Buckingham Palace while refurbishment work is carried out, according to royal sources.

The historic building is in need of an estimated £150m overhaul and palace officials are considering moving the monarch out while the work is done.
The Queen spends around a third of the year at her official residence, which has not been redecorated since 1952.
The building has old plumbing, ageing wiring and significant amounts of asbestos which need to be removed.
"One option is for the palace to be vacated. We're getting experts to look at these scenarios and cost them for us," said the royal source.

"The initial estimate for the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace looks like £150m refurbishment.
"That depends on how you go about refurbishment, whether you do it in parts or the whole thing (at once)."
Buckingham Palace has been the Queen's official London home throughout her reign and for a period before.
The last time she left for any length of time was during World War Two when she was moved to Windsor Castle with her sister Princess Margaret.
It comes as the release of the royal accounts shows the monarchy cost the taxpayer £35.7m for the second year running - the equivalent of 56p for each person in Britain.
The figures also show a dramatic increase in the cost of travel for the royal household, with costs rising from £4.2m to £5.1m.
The royal household made a total of 63 journeys costing £10,000 or more in the past financial year.
Among the most expensive was an official visit to Colombia and Mexico made by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, which cost £446,159.
Prince Charles' visit to the Middle East in February cost £262,212.
A royal source said the monarchy could expect an annual funding cut of between £1m and £1.5m if plans for further Scottish devolution are approved.
The cuts could occur if profits from the Crown Estate in Scotland are retained by the Scottish Parliament rather than the UK Parliament in a year's time.
But both the Scottish and UK governments said they did not expect devolution to have any negative impact on Scotland's contribution to funding the monarchy.
A UK Treasury spokesman said: "Scottish taxpayers will continue to fund a full and fair share of the sovereign grant.
"The grant will not be adversely affected by devolution - under the Sovereign Grant Act it cannot be reduced."
A Scottish Government spokesman said: "There would be no change in Scotland's contribution to the Sovereign Grant through general taxation."

Intra – Industry Trade; FG urges to invest more on infrastructural facilities.

Welcoming participant at the june 2015 NISER research seminar series (NRSS) the Director Generalof the Nigerian Institute of Social And Economic Research (NISER) Ibadan, Prof Olufemi Taiwo has commended the media organization for their reportage and urge them to do more.

He retreated his staffs commitment towards realization of his institute vision, mission and mandate.

Prof Taiwo while commending the author and presenter of the paper whom he described as a young researcher for a well research work ,later called on fellow researchers for disaggre gation of drivers of intra-industry trade and European union in otherto be specific for the Federal Government of Nigeria.

Overview the seminar topic, the chairman Prof P.A olomola, dept of economics, faculty ofsocial sciences, Obafemi Awolowo University , Ile-Ife Osun State   observed that since the empirical studies have examined intra-industry  trade among developed countries as horizontal Intra-industry trade while adequate attention is yet to be paid to the developing countries vertical intra-industry trade.

Prof olomola enumerated that the lecture paper will examine the type , extent and drivers of intra-industry trade between Nigeria and European Union.

In his paper presentation titled ; Drivers of intra-industry trade between Nigeria nad European Union.

Dr. Felix Arawomo of survelliance and forecasting research dept(SFD)NISER Ibadan noted that the income of Nigeria which is unstable due to the dominance of primary manufactured products in the country’s exports can still be reversed through trade in the similar products intra-industry trade (IIT) between Nigeria and her highest trade partners from European union.

Speaking further on the specific objectives of the paper, he stylized fact on Nigeria’s trade with EU and drivers of intra-industry trade. The trade policies and agreement between Nigeria and EU .

The author found that all the products in which Nigeria have intra industry trade with EU are vertically differentiated and suggested that the enforcement of local content policy in Nigeria should be taking seriously to facilitate knowledge transfer from multinationals to Nigeria and fixing of infrastructural deficits such as energy, water and good road network and as well urged federal government to invest into infrastructural facilities in the various export processing zone created across the country.

Dr Arawomo finally urged thr federal government and its agencies such Standard Organization of Nigeria(SON), Ministry of commerce and industry as well as Ministry of science and technology to ensure strict compliance on quality of products and developed a national strategy.