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It is the height of a hot Greek summer, and Athens is mobbed by tourists. Dressed in shorts and sandals, they cram the shops lining the narrow cobblestone alleyways of [...]

The article discusses Greece's astronomical debt and the potential impact on the European Union (EU) and the euro. Striking labor unions have challenged the austerity plan of of Prime Minister George Papandreou and have closed schools, hospitals and air travel. It explains how bond-market vigilantes created the situation, how Greece needs outside help to avoid default, and whether or not the EU will come to its aid.

The article profiles the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), the Malta-based nonprofit organization which rescues and assists refugees and migrants trying to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea and its founders, married couple Chris Catrambone and Regina Catrambone. Topics include the number of migrants who died attempting to cross the Mediterranean in 2014, the rescue efforts of Italy and other European countries, and Chris Catrambone's firm Tangiers Group.

The article offers information on the problem of aging populations. It mentions about a research that indicates a shrinking labor supply and lower productivity of older workers, together with greater pressure on the public purse for health care and pensions; and also focuses on the implications for health care and social services to converge to western European incomes.

The article focuses on the need for the nation of Greece to recover from financial crisis. Topics discussed include the economic challenges caused by statism and corruption, the optimism expressed by Kostas Maltezos of bedding retailer Coco-Mat on the economy and the decision by depositors to pull funds from debilitated banks ahead of a debt-payment deadline. Also mentioned are the potential growth of the country's tourism sector and the challenge posed by the justice system to foreigners.

The article focuses on the Greek government's asset sale program, which may lead to the sale of the country's former Olympic venues in Athens, Greece. Topics include Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' attempts to raise funds required under the country's bailout agreement, Greece's calls for debt relief from the European Union (EU), and foreign investment in Greece in 2014.

The article discusses the failing economy of Greece and the stance that Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou needs to take to secure Greece's financial future. The article discusses Papandreou's birth and upbringing in the U.S. and his personality traits. Papandreou is said to be coaxing citizens of Greece to change their financial habits. The Greek government has instituted wage reductions, is poised to raise the retirement age, and is said to be waging war on tax evasion and corruption. The article opines that Papandreou will need to follow his instincts in governing the financial austerity policies that have been set in place to save Greece's financial future.

The article discusses a debt crisis in Europe. At a time when some question whether the euro can survive, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet believes greater integration in the Euro zone is required. The crisis has prompted European cooperation on a number of measures including a nearly $1 trillion package of financial aid to struggling countries. INSET: How Will the Euro Zone Crisis End?.

The article discusses transactions between Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Greece. An off-balance-sheet currency swap Goldman arranged for Greece helped that nation hide some of its indebtedness. On several subsequent occasions when Goldman managed bond sales for Greece, it failed to disclose the swaps.

The article reports that financial firm Fitch Ratings downgraded Greece's government debt because of updated estimates that the country's budget deficit was unmanageable. Investors in European markets became anxious that Greece might default on their bonds. The author examines why Greece and other European countries that use the euro lack the options that the U.S. has in fighting a recession.

The article examines Internet auctions held by Greece as part of an effort to reduce its public debt in return for its bailout in the European Sovereign Debt Crisis. The auction's sale of real property held by the government is examined. A dilemma facing Greece in which the recession generated by the crisis has caused a severe drop in real estate prices, making the auctions generate less revenue, is examined.

The article focuses on Turkey's economy under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoġan in 2011. Topics include the effect of the Greek financial crisis on Turkey, the value of the Turkish currency the lira, and Turkey's dependence on foreign funds. The government's lack of savings, lagging labor productivity, and a large trade deficit are also discussed.

The article discusses plans in Greece to sell $71 billion in government-owned assets by the year 2015. Properties to be sold include golf courses, casinos, and toll roads. The sales are intended to help Greece meet conditions set by the European Union for receiving financial aid. Banking companies Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse Group are among those engaged by the government to assist in the sales.

The article discusses a debt crisis in Greece. Although the International Monetary Fund and European Union have pledged to provide financial assistance to Greece, doubts exist as to whether that nation will follow through with austerity measures necessary to improve its fiscal health. Support in the Greek Parliament for stern fiscal measures was not as broad as some may have hoped for.

Government could be given decades to sell property assets To keep up the pressure over asset sales, euro area finance ministers agreed on Aug. 14 that the new fund will begin operating by the end of the year, three months earlier than planned. [Extracted from the article]

Foreign tourists unaccustomed to asking for receipts for goods and services bought in cash, mandatory in Greece, are prime targets. Card use will also cut cash management costs, which range from 0.1 percent of GDP for non-cash societies like Scandinavian countries to 0.4 percent for southern European countries where cash is more prevalent, Tzakou-Lambropoulou said. "The Greek government was mulling imposing a 70-euro per transaction ceiling on cash payments in tourist islands", he said. [Extracted from the article]

The largest bank, National Bank of Greece SA, issued more than 400,000 debit cards during the last four weeks. The number of active Visa debit cards in Greece more than doubled in July from previous months, said Nikos Kabanopoulos, the country manager for Visa Europe. [Extracted from the article]

Even as he clawed back some supporters in last week's parliament vote, Syriza officials publicly worried about the chasm growing between dissident leftists and the more pragmatic group Tsipras leads, fearing a breakup of the party. Samaras's replacement is temporary and the party has backed the bailout Tsipras has delivered to keep Greece in the euro. [Extracted from the article]

Delia Velculescu will replace Rishi Goyal as mission chief for Greece, the Washington-based IMF said in a statement late Tuesday. The bailout proposed by European leaders this month is conditional on Greece seeking a new IMF loan program once the current one expires in March. [Extracted from the article]

All transactions with credit or debit cards and other electronic forms (web banking, phone banking) can be conducted as normal These payments can be done through web banking, phone banking or by ATM. Credit and debit cards of foreign banks issued in Greece are subject to the same terms as those valid for cards issued by Greek banks. [Extracted from the article]

To contact the reporter on this story: Maria Petrakis in Athens at mpetrakis@bloomberg.net In a working class neighborhood near the center of Athens, right across from the headquarters of Syriza, Thanasis Kontogiannis has run his tiny bakery and breakfast joint since 1972, when Greece was under a military dictatorship. [Extracted from the article]

To contact the reporters on this story: Mehul Srivastava in Athens at msrivastava6@bloomberg.net; Maria Petrakis in Athens at mpetrakis@bloomberg.net Before the euro replaced the drachma in 2002, the Greeks were already a European bête noire, their currency mostly trapped inside their nation, where cash was king and checks a novelty. As 2001 drew to a close in Athens and fireworks lit up the skyline, the drachma was dead, and euros took over, the final step in Greece's integration into Europe. [Extracted from the article]

Greek resort manager Kostas Dimitrokalis's customers have started asking in recent weeks about an amenity often ignored in an age of online and credit card payments: reliable hotel safes to stash their money. While his hotels are full right now, Dimitrokalis says forward bookings are weak given the uncertainty surrounding the country's financing. [Extracted from the article]

Since Greece sparked the euro area debt crisis in 2009, companies have been living with banks unable to lend, an economy struggling to emerge from recession and the shadow of uncertainty over the country's future in the euro area. Hellas Direct, a Cyprus-based car insurer operating in Greece in which U.S. billionaire Daniel Loeb's Third Point Hellenic Recovery Fund has a 20 percent stake, has always kept cash out of Greece and Cyprus. [Extracted from the article]

Framed by newspapers headlining Greece's latest bailout-talks failure, an Athens newsstand seller says all he hears from customers these days is dissatisfaction with the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. On Sunday, last-ditch talks in Brussels between Greece and its creditors were called off without a deal on reforms Tsipras has to deliver to get as much as 7.2 billion euros ($8.2 billion) from the country's existing bailout funds. [Extracted from the article]

A bronze statue of Harry S. Truman stands unguarded along a busy Athens road, a reminder of Greece's post-World War II position as a strategic bulwark for the U.S. and Europe. "There's always been the threat of a catastrophic spillover effect if Greece was left to its own devices or, worse, turn into a failed state in Europe's backyard". The military regime, or junta, in 1967 to 1974 was seen as sponsored by the U.S. Truman's statue, erected in 1963 by grateful Greek Americans, was defaced, attacked and toppled regularly over the years to protest U.S. policies in Greece and the region. [Extracted from the article]

To find out why Greece's pension system is tying negotiators up in knots, look no further than Maria Kounani, 59, a mother of two, single parent and early retiree. In the last five years, pensions fell as much as 48 percent, Tsipras said, while 45 percent of recipients get pensions that are below the poverty threshold. [Extracted from the article]

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras heads into talks to break a stalemate over a financial lifeline in Brussels on Wednesday surrounded by trusted party hands, chief among them Euclid Tsakalotos. The Oxford-educated economist and Greek deputy foreign minister was asked in April to step into the shoes of Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis in day-to-day debt negotiations as Tsipras moved to defuse the acrimony building up with creditors. [Extracted from the article]

As founder of Genesis, Greece's biggest fertility clinic, he oversees 5,000 cycles of treatment every year, or about a third of the total in the country, and five times what he did just a few years ago. Away from the wrangling over Greek finances, the medic and his team want to make Greece a hub for assisted reproductive technology, or ART, a worldwide market predicted to exceed $20 billion by 2020. "There might be a financial crisis, but people will still pay to get a child when they want one", said Pantos, 58, as he monitors a procedure he can see on a live television feed in his office. [Extracted from the article]

"In terms of the cash position of Greece obviously it's a matter of weeks now", Gilles Moec, the chief European economist for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told Bloomberg Television on March 27. At the Varvakios market, named for a Greek pirate who became a Russian millionaire thanks to the largesse of Catherine the Great, passersby are talking about the country's debt. [Extracted from the article]

"This was a kiss for Greek-German friendship", said Astros, who in 1969 moved from Greece to Germany, where he met his wife. About 329,000 Greeks live in Germany, and Germans were the largest group of euro-area tourists to visit Greece last year. Those ties haven't stopped the two nations from trading barbs over Greece's austerity program and whether Germany should pay more for the Nazi occupation of Greece during World War II. [Extracted from the article]

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras makes his first visit to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Monday in an effort to win her support for additional money from Greece's bailout fund. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and his Greek counterpart Yanis Varoufakis have verbally sparred with each other over aiding Greece, leading a majority of Germans for the first time to say in a poll this month that they want Greece to leave the euro. [Extracted from the article]

Greece's economy has shrunk by a quarter under the conditions laid down by Germany and other euro-area nations in bailout terms. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and Tsipras have sparred with euro-area peers since an initial agreement on Feb. 24 to recalibrate the austerity that shrank the economy. Drawdowns on the 10 billion euros of central government deposits in the banking system, including 3.4 billion euros at the central bank, are also possible, although a large deposit withdrawal could add to liquidity stresses at Greek banks, S&P said. [Extracted from the article]

The article focuses on the challenge posed by tax evaders to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. Topics covered include the decline in the country's revenue in 2014, the skepticism of German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the Greek government's capability to find the evaders and the support offered by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble to send tax officials to Greece to address the problem. Also mentioned is a study of the Greek economy that was generated by tax evaders.

On Monday night, talks between Greece and its European creditors foundered after Tsipras's government said the euro area's proposal to extend existing bailout commitments was "absurd" and "unacceptable". The GPO poll showed more than six in 10 believed there was still a danger Greece will leave the euro area, up nearly 10 percentage points since the last reading on Jan. 23, two days before Tsipras's victory. The risk of Greece exiting the euro was raised to 50 percent from 25 percent by Commerzbank AG after talks with euro-area finance ministers broke down. [Extracted from the article]

To contact the reporter on this story: Maria Petrakis in Athens at mpetrakis@bloomberg.net On a sunny Wednesday morning in Athens, two days after Alexis Tsipras became Greek prime minister, workmen dismantled the barricades that had protected the Parliament and its ceremonial guards for three years from angry protesters. [Extracted from the article]

Kammenos formed his own group in parliament after being expelled from the New Democracy party by ex-Prime Minister Antonis Samaras for opposing the terms of Greece's bailouts. The Syriza-led coalition replaces one led by Samaras since June 2012 that included New Democracy and Pasok, the two parties that have traditionally vied for power in Greece. [Extracted from the article]

For culture ministry officials meeting in a darkened amphitheater in Athens two weeks after Samaras's televised tour, it didn't really matter. While the European Commission forecasts Greece's economy to expand 0.6 percent this year, the first annual expansion since 2007, Samaras will still need to stay the course on budget discipline and other economic reforms as he works on capping a debt load that's about 177 percent of GDP. [Extracted from the article]

The article reports that Greek government is selling real estate properties, acquired through foreclosures, bequests, or donations, in online auctions to generate money for rescue funds. It says that the government is not able to generate sufficient fund, required to revenue demanded by the European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund, the group of lenders which bailed out the country.