Greek Austerity Package, Europe Debt Crisis | featured news

Riot police fired tear gas at youths hurling rocks and petrol bombs near the Greek finance ministry Tuesday, trying to quell the anger unleashed during mass protests and a general strike as parliament debated new cost-cutting measures.

Under the plan, French banks would give Athens more time to pay back loans as they come due over the next three years.

Austerity measures being adopted by many industrialized world governments in the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis are undermining economic recovery, a United Nations report said on Wednesday.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou sacrificed his finance minister on Friday and put his main socialist party rival into the job in a bid to force through an unpopular austerity plan and avert bankruptcy.

Prime Minister George Papandreou has vowed to stay on and fight to pull his country out of a crippling debt crisis, facing down a revolt in his Socialist party over new but widely unpopular austerity measures....

Greek unions announced on Wednesday that they would stage a 24-hour nationwide strike on May 20, the second major protest against tough austerity measures pledged in exchange for billions of euros in aid.