Most Greeks know little about the European Union, and even less about what goes on, in European Parliament sessions.

In the video that follows, we will watch British MEP and UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, giving a piece of his mind to the first, non-democratically elected, President of the EU, Herman Van Rompuy. In his speech, Farage states that ever since Van Rompuy assumed Presidency, Greece has been turned into a protectorate.

It is one of the videos that will never be aired on any news report in Greece.

By Professor Christos D. Katsetos
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Yet another week has passed by, which was marked by a display of paroxysmal manifestations about the Greek financial debacle in the German media. The crisis is real and the utter disappointment and resentment of Greece's European partners –Germany included-- is justified to a large measure. But the German wrath has gone too far.

And so it came last week's edition of the Munich-based “Focus” weekly magazine bearing the sensationalist title "Betrüger in der Euro-Familie" ("Swindlers/defrauders in the European Family" -- "Απατεώνες/καταχραστές στην Ευρωπαϊκή οικογένεια") on its cover page along side with an appalling image depicting Aphrodite of Milos (Venus di Milo) giving "the finger" whilst being wrapped, from the waist down, in the Greek flag [Focus, vol. 22, issue number 8, February 2010].

By Dimitris Papageorgiou*
written in Korydallos prison

It has already been over a month since my confinement in prison. The time may not be much. Surery, to my family seems much more. What scares me personally though, is not the duration of my detention. It is an odor. The odor which emerges from the corpse of totalitarianism that seeks to crush anyone who wants to resist the leveling of all those considered 'ours'.

So far, we have the first signs of this process. Those who bear some sort of "title", ministers, consultees, etc, and who, through television, denounce and threaten those who take the opposite view, describing them as "unsociable", and do not hesitate to use the means at their disposal to implement what their obsession requires. Unfortunately, life is not fair. And if these means tomorrow or the day after are not enough, they will not hesitate to get more.

Georgios Gialtouridis
Newton, MA

On February 13, 2010 the New York Times published an article titled “Wall St. Helped to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis” exposing Goldman Sachs’ secret deals with earlier Greek governments whereby with creative financing through the Wall Street giant Greece was able to conceal billions in debt and stay under deficit thresholds set by the Maastricht Treaty.
 
In early November 2009 — three months before Athens became the epicenter of global financial anxiety — a team from Goldman Sachs arrived in the ancient city with a very modern proposition for a government struggling to pay its bills, according to two people who were briefed on the meeting.
 
The bankers, led by Goldman’s president, Gary D. Cohn, held out a financing instrument that would have pushed debt from Greece’s health care system far into the future, much as when strapped homeowners take out second mortgages to pay off their credit cards.

By John Lichfield
The Independent
11.02.2010


Offices deserted. An economy on the brink. A nation in uproar. As Greece is stricken by walkouts, John Lichfield finds cautious hope of salvation on the streets of Athens

As we speed into Athens by taxi the radio voice switches abruptly to English. The Greek DJ is a wannabe Michael Moore or Russell Brand.

He repeatedly telephones a switchboard in London (where it is after 10pm) to put challenging questions on the Greek debt crisis. "Hello, is that The Financial Times? I want to speak to someone who will tell me why the world hates Greece."

Switchboard operator: "Just a moment, please, I will try to connect you."
Finally, after several attempts, the DJ gives up and announces, in excellent English: "I do not give a blind f... for The FT."

February 1, 2010

Mr. Mike Posner President of Human Rights
C/o Ms Emily Stanfield Executive Assistant to the President
Human Rights Department
US Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Mr. Posner,

We would like to bring to your attention the injustices and violations against the historical and cultural identity that we feel are occurring against the 2.500.000 Greeks of the Greek administrative region of Macedonia, who are ethnologically and linguistically Greek, consider themselves ethnically Greek, and are proud of their Macedonian cultural identity for millennia. Our people recently are attacked by a self-proclaimed “Macedonian” ethnic identity of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (the FYROM). Being ethnically Greeks from the Greek administrative region of Macedonia, we would like to express grave concern about attempts to appropriate our cultural and historical Macedonian identity in this region, emanating from a newly independent state that occupies only a small part of the ancient geographical region of Macedonia.

 With this letter we state that the Macedonian identity belongs exclusively to Greece on cultural and historical terms and it is extremely inappropriate and threatening to Greece to allow an ethnic self-proclaimed “Macedonian” identity at the northern borders of Greece. Under no circumstances should the international community and the international legal system allow that the principle of self-identification interfere with the cultural and historic identity belonging to another nation for millennia. No one should be allowed to use a term ethnologically that belongs to another nation culturally and historically for centuries. In our case it should be perceived as an obvious attempt to appropriate everything Macedonian.

If we take into account Cyprus’s recent history the bloodshed on the island began long before the Turkish invasion of 1974. It can be argued that this bloodshed began when the British denied the Cypriot people their right to self-determination. This denial provoked the EOKA armed liberation struggle prompting the British to enforce their bloody policy of DIVIDE & RULE.

This policy was pre-planned, to be imposed in Cyprus before 1955 and its implementation started during the liberation struggle of 1955-59: The British separated the Cypriots into Greek-Cypriots (G/C) and Turkish-Cypriots (T/C). As a consequence of this 1st Separation between Cypriots the blood of the EOKA heroes was forged with the bloodshed.

The book is written in both Greek and English:

• Part one (pages 7 – 192) Αιματηρή αλήθεια - in Greek
• Part Two (pages 197 – 366) Bloody truth - in English

You can download the whole book here: BLOODY TRUTH

At this historic juncture where we are three main fronts in which we must take a clear stand:

The first case of Cyprus and the Annan plan. The second is Skopje with the name "Macedonia". And the third defense of Hellenism in front of the attack received from Greek and international interest groups.

1) Cyprus: While the Greek Cypriot people rejected the Annan Plan with great majority (70%), though both in Cyprus and in Greece there are people and forces that conspire in order to create appropriate conditions to impose finally a victory and remains a key objective of U.S. policy, they want me this way to ensure an important strategic basis for the immediate and long term plans to the Middle East.