Press Review March 5: "Russian Roulette"

Concern for Greek exports as Putin and Obama face off over Crimea; a former 17N leader releases a tell-all book about his days as a terrorist; a TV journalist launches a new political party; the troika’s auditors keep up the intense pressure on the government; and Greece’s ‘bosses’ are willing to do anything to secure lucrative waste management contracts.

The Press Project
5 Μαρτίου 2014 | 10:00:31

	TA NEA Russian Roulette Putin: The use of military force is a last resort Obama: You are not fooling us, you have violated international law [Greek Foreign Minister] Venizelos is opposed to the imposition of sanctions on Moscow Concern over Greek exports and businesses A game o Russian roulette is playing out in Ukraine where the situation continues to remain fluid. The US and Russia yesterday traded serious accusations despite Putin having described the use of military violence as a ‘last resort’. “You are not fooling anyone” Obama responded.
	ETHNOS A provocative book from the unrepentant terrorist Koufodinas The bloody history of November 17 I was there in Piraeu when Savas was injured by the explosion How he decided to give himself up after the arrests – what he says about 17N’s hidden secrets The relationship between 17N and ELA, Kassimi and other terrorist organisations There is a wealthy ‘elder’ who gave us information about targets. [Dimitris Koufodinas was one of the leaders of November 17, the Greek terrorist group responsible for numerous killings and other attacks from 1975 until 2002 when it was dismantled following the arrest and imprisonment of its members. Koufodinas has been sentenced to 11 life sentences. ]
	EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON ‘To Potami’ [the river] begins to run The journalist Stavros Theodorakis presented his new political party in a televisual manner. Giving vague answers he avoided taking a particular political stance. He described the Memorandum as having played out and said that what needs to be built is a ‘national strategy for us to get out of the crisis.” He presented a list of his top 30 collaborators. [Stavros Theodorakis is a well known TV journalist. He started practicing journalism in 1984 and since then he has worked for an array of papers and radios in Greece. Since 2000 he has been the presenter of weekly news feature series “The Protagonists” and the co-founder of collective oped website protagon.gr. He was born in Crete in 1963.]
	ELEFTHEROTYPIA The auditors want everything and they want it now! The lenders are planning to keep the government under intense pressure from now until the European elections, removing from its hands any pre-election ‘card’ it could potentially play (the disbursal of the surplus, achieving an agreement with the troika, securing the next tranche of bailout loans) and keeping it chained to the method of installments which are linked to strict preconditions. The troika’s auditors are continuing to demand everything, here and now, without demonstrating any inclination to conclude the negotiations before the crucial Eurogroup meeting on Monday. The Finance Ministry hopes that the troika will at least concede to making a statement acknowledging ‘satisfactory progress’ as the ‘time constraints are becoming tighter’.
	KONTRA The ‘pimps’ are willing to do anything to gain control of waste management They are vying to get ‘their’ mayors elected in order to get waste management contracts where the profits are bigger than those in shipping and oil. These elections will go down in history as the ‘waste elections’. [In 2004 the then PM Constantine Karamanlis used the phrase “five pimps” (davatzides) to describe the powerful businessmen that “control the political life of the country” [source: Kathimerini, in greek]