Is this UK media's Waterloo?

With the News of the World phone hacking scandal knocking over its own set of dominoes,  a real debate is kicking off in Britain over the state of the country's mainstream media and in particular the uncomfortably cozy nature of the way in which big business, journalists and politicians work together to decide upon what the rest of us get to consume as news.

In many respects the situation in Britain closely replicates the situation here in Greece as far as the media is concerned. In both countries media conglomerates are owned by the very rich who do not hesitate to use their position to set the political agenda in order to ensure their interests are either protected or extended. In this they are assisted by both journalists and politicians eager to curry favour with owners in return for the kind of publicity that will advance their careers.

As for the rest of us, we are just treated as rather silly children who must be seen but not heard, occasionally a few of us are asked our opinion on the issues of the day but this is little more than window dressing, and is no way is allowed to interfere with the media's real job which is promoting the views of the wealthy and powerful.

I suppose those living in Greece should be thankful that the local media corporations are less practiced in the dark arts of spin than their UK counterparts and so their efforts often fail to convince, either that or Greeks, long accustomed to the constant media drone of state and non state propaganda are less credulous than UK consumers and so more cyncial about whatever claim or counter claim the media chooses to make.

Following the flame out at News International it is time once again to look at the simmering conlict between old and new media or perhaps more accurately between corporate embedded media and those operating outside the hermetically sealed world of political reporting. For too long those of using the new, powerful tools offered by the internet have taken traditional journalism's claims about superior accuracy and professionalism for granted.

What is emerging now in the wake of News of the World/ Times debacle is cold, hard truth is that much of commercial journalism is deeply corrupt and has no real claim to being better than the work done by bloggers and the like. When the slick presentaion is removed what really distinguishes media players from their independent counterparts? It certainly isn't integrity if the stories coming out of Wapping are to be believed.

Public trust in Greek politicians falls even lower following Siemens scandal report

ΤΡΕΛΕΣ ΕΚΠΤΩΣΕΙΣ ΣΕ ΟΛΕΣ ΤΙΣ ΜΙΖΕΣ ΣΤΟ PASOK SALES, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

Yesterday the Greek parliament released its long awaited report on the Siemen bribery scandal. According to the authors of the report the German electronic giant poured millions of euros into the party coffers of both PASOK and New Democracy when they were in power. In return the Greek government granted Siemens lucractive contracts which are said to have incurred additional costs in the region of two billion euros.

As expected report has become a political football with parties making five different sets of recommendations over who is to blame and which poiliticians should be investigated further. The reality of the situation is that whatever happens there is little or no chance that anyone will go to jail. Once again the political leadership has proved that it is unwilling or unable to police its own no matter how how serious the charges. Instead it is reduced to playing power games which are convincing fewer and fewer voters who believe that the country is run by a deeply corrupt, moral bankrupt elite. The report coming just after one concerning the Vatopedi land swap scandal will do little to convince many of the honesty of politicians whose popularity rating are reaching record lows.

Δεκάδες Ελληνες υπουργοί συνιστούν την Siemens - Dozens of Greek ministers recommend Siemens

Δεκάδες Ελληνες υπουργοί συνιστούν την Siemens - Dozens of Greek minister recommend Siemens, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

ξέπλυμα χρήματος μέχρι και στο μισό χρόνο.
Αυτόματη αναγνώριση όλων των κομμάτων


Launder your money in half the time or less!
Automatic recognition of all parties.

Yet another political scandal gets swept under the carpet by the Greek parliament. Today it was the Siemens corruption case involving accusations that the company spent millions in bribes to PASOK and New Democracy party officials in return for contracts for the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Despite crisis business as usual for Greece's politicians

Κώστας Καραμανλής - Costas Karamanlis. Prime minister of Greece, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

Towards the end of the ex - Greek prime minister, Konstantinos Karamanlis's second term yet another corruption scandal erupted which would ultmately be the death knell for the ruling conservative New Democracy party in the 2009 general elections. After less than two years in power the party founded by his uncle, also called Konstantinos Karamanlis in 1974 lost power to the left of centre PASOK party lead by Giorgos Papandreou, son and grandson of previous Greek PMs Andreas and Giorgos Papandreou.

The revelations that senior New Democracy officials had collaborated in a highly dubious land swap in which a remote lake in the north of Greece was exchanged for a large piece of prime Athens real estate outraged public opinion and ultimately ended in Karamnlis calling for early elections.

The details of the deal which featured the Greek Orthodox monastery of Vatopedi are as convoluted as they are legally dubious. However, an insightful article in Vanity Fair by Michael Lewis paints a lucid, if dark picture of corruption and lawlessness at the heart of the Greek political establishment. According to Lewis it was exactly the ability of polticians to operate without oversight or restraint that helped create the present financial crisis and massive debt load.

Yet even as the country set to enter its third year of recession with the prospect of still more cuts and the economy set to shrink even further the the political establisment in Athens are still playing the same constitutional games, seemingly untouched by the financial maelstrom embracing Greece. Evasions, denials and endless parliamentary manouevering still rule the day and even after the appearance plethora of evidence indicating wrong doing the former prime minister of Greece can say that neither he, nor his administration have any repsonsibility for either the Vatopedi scandal of the dire state of Athens's coffers.

It would be nice to think that by ousting a corrupt government Democracy has once more won out. The reality of the situation is that one corrupt poltical oligarchy has been replaced by another. The current rulers of Greece, PASOK have a rich history of scandal and corruption which has been not resulted in a single conviction, The Sieman's bribery case and a list of pay offs by other German firms to PASOK officials in the run up to the 2004 Olympic Games has also been put on the parliamentary back burner, to be quietly dropped at a future date.

Given that the current political scene is full of exactly those officials who presided over the creation of Greece's present woes its is very hard to have faith in their ability to not repeat the mistakes of the past. In all probability the future holds more of the same just on a smaller scale reflecting the country's dire fiancial state.

It's a bitter irony that Kostas Karamanlis was elected on a reform ticket by an electorate fed up with the corruption of the previous PASOK government lead by Kostas Simitis. His promise to clean up politics and reform the dysfunctional Greek state stroke a chord with voters who hoped that the right of centre New Democracy party would change the status quo. As history has shown the differences in ideology between Greece's two largest parties are nothing compared with their inability to resist the financial temptations offered by power.

Faced with the failure of both PASOK and New Democracy to control the greed of their own officials the local elections in November may prove to be the beginning of the end of the current Greek party political scene.

Sarah Ferguson - A Very British Scandal

This weekend the Sarah Ferguson money for introductions scandal broke in the News of the World, a publication usually more interested in sex lives of footballers's wives and girlfriends than corruption amongst Britain's elites,. Since then, however, there has been precious little coverage in the country's more serious publications, even the Guardian saw fit to publish just one article entitled "Why I feel sorry for Sarah Ferguson" and seemed to suggest that she was more a victim of a royal plot than a money grubbing con woman out to make herself rich through supposedly setting up contacts with the rich and powerful via her ex-husband, the son of Queen Elizabeth II. Just weeks ago hundreds of thousands of Greek gathered outside the nation's parliament and tried to storm the place, in part because they feel their political elites were guilty of this kind of behaviour.

So what do the British do? Nothing, instead the story is quietly buried, at least as far as the "respectable" press is concerned and a woman filmed taking what constitutes a bribe is allowed to flee the country in style while Buckingham Palace publishes an apology on her behalf stating that she showed "a serious lack of judgement".

Serious lack of judgement is knocking back too much chardonnay at a party and dancing the Lambada on top of a table. Serious lack of judgement is telling your boss what you really think of them at the office Christmas party. I do not think the phrase was meant to cover demanding half a million pounds ($746,000) in bribes to ensure access to Britain's trade envoy. I'm sure that there are plenty of other phrases that more accurately describe what happened, pithy ones such as "greasing palms", "pulling strings" or perhaps the more formal "influence peddling".

ΠΑΣΟΚ - Με την ευγενική χορηγία της Ζίμενς

ΠΑΣΟΚ - Με την ευγενική χορηγία της Ζίμενς, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

"Reinhard Siekaczec, a former executive at the German electronics giant, which supplies equipment to Greece’s state telecoms operator, gave damaging testimony at a trial in Munich earlier this year. He said that “commissions” worth 8% of the contract’s value were paid to Greek politicians and senior executives through a network of offshore companies. The total amount exceeded €1 billion, he claimed. Most of it apparently went to officials from Pasok, which held power from 1993 to 2004, but the New Democracy government elected that year approved a contract worth over €40m for security equipment for the Athens Olympics.

Nikos Zagorianos, a prosecutor investigating the Siemens affair, is shortly to go to Germany. One former Pasok official, Theodoros Tsoukatos, has admitted that he accepted €400,000 from the local Siemens boss as an election contribution in 1999, when he was a prime ministerial aide responsible for collecting political donations. Amid the furore, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a New Democracy deputy who is the son of a former prime minister, recently paid an overlooked bill for a switchboard that was supplied to his private office by Siemens, after a copy of the invoice was printed in a Greek newspaper."

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12209248

Monk's monkey business threatens to topple Greek government

For most world leaders the events of the previous weeks have been a source of worry and concern. However, for Kostas Karamanlis, the leader of Greece’s ruling New Democracy conservatives the economic crisis has provided a welcome relief from the constant critical attention by the nation's media.

Despite winning re - election just 13 months ago Greece’s conservatives have struggled to keep to their political agenda amidst a seemingly endless stream of finance and influence peddling scandals. Yet, for Greek voters the latest scandal may be just one too many, especially as it involves allegations of improper dealings at the very highest echelons of government.

The latest controversy revolves around the attempts by the Greek Orthodox monastery of Vatopedi to aquire a 40 million euro conference facility in Athens earlier this year. In exchange for the facility ,which was built as part of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, the monastery offered Lake Vistonida, a protected wildlife reserve in northern Greece in exchange.

The high profile sale triggered an investigation by local media into the deal which has produced a series of long list of legal irregularities and a disturbing pattern of corruption in which the monks were given large tracts of land under what can best be described as dubious circumstances. The fact that the church then tried to sell back to the Greek state the land which it had recently been given has served to inflame popular anger against the government.

Even the usually high esteem in which the Greek Orthodox church is held in this deeply religious Balkan nation has been affected. The role of the Abbot Efraim, leader of the Vatopedi monastery and his connection with leading members of parliament, including government spokesman, Theodoros Rousopoulos has drawn the ire of many politicians and commentators across the political spectrum.

In addition the case has, according to many in the Greek media brought to light the complex web of patron-client relationships that link the Greek state and the Orthodox church.

The two public prosecutors, Ilias Koliousis and Eleni Sotiropoulou assigned to investigate the case resigned yesterday due to what they term political intervention by the government. In their letter of resignation they said that their investigation had uncovered evidence that implicated two deputy ministers in the case which is alleged to have cost taxpayers up to 100 million euros.

The dramatic developments in the Vatopedi case have merely added to the growing sense of distrust the many ordinary Greeks feel towards the New Democracy administration. The change in mood has been reflected in the steady drop of the party in recent opinion polls, triggering talk of possible elections.

According to the opposition left-wing PASOK party the current scandal is merely the 45th to come to light during the government’s 54 months in power. It should be noted that despite numerous accusations of corruption, bribery and abuse of power there has not been a single arrest or conviction of a member of the ruling conservative party.

Given the government's narrow one - seat majority and growing unrest over worsening economic conditions the chances that New Democracy will see out its second term seem slim.

NowPublic

Tags: Greece | World | MONASTERY | Efraim | New Democracy | Kostas Karamanlis | greek politics | vatopedi

General strike and marches

General strike and marches, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

To protest the Greek government's policies on pension rights, privatisation and the Siemens and Zaxolpoulos scandals (see here and here) that have rocked the country over the last few weeks.