Will Simitis & Venizelos testify in Tsochatzopoulos case on April 29th?

The Greek Court of Appeal for Felonies on Wednesday summoned  the seven-member Government Council of National Defense (KYSEA) -active between 1998 and 1999- to testify after Easter in the scandalous case of the armaments procurement programmes. As such, former Prime Minister Costas Simitis, PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos, and former ministers Yannos Papantoniou and Vasso Papandreou are all expected to testify (as is George Papandreou). Military officers Athanasios Tzoganis, Manolis Paragioudakis and Giorgos Ioannidis are also expected to testify on April 29th as well.

The subpoena to former members of KYSEA was a standing request of the main accused Akis Tsochatzopoulos since the beginning of the judicial investigation, who argues that the decision on the disputed contracts for submarines and the TOR M1 was a government decision and was not taken by himself but by KYSEA.

Meanwhile, the court rejected the applications for suspension of execution of sentence that would release Tsochatzopoulos' wife Vicky Stamati and his accountant Frosso Lambropoulou.

In order to gain a better understanding of this case, we propose that you also read:

Akis Tsochatzopoulos implicated in ruthless prison-based extortion ring
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2015/01/akis-tsochatzopoulos-implicated-in.html

Attorneys of Tsochatzopoulos Want Costas Simitis To Testify!
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2013/05/attorneys-of-tsochatzopoulos-want.html

Tsochatzopoulos: The Sausage Maker's Son Who Became a Millionaire
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2012/04/tsochatzopoulos-sausage-makers-son-who.html

BUSTED - Tsochatzopoulos' Cousin & Friend Pins Him To The Wall
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2013/07/busted-tsochatzopoulos-cousin-friend.html

Tsochatzopoulos indicted on submarine procurement deal
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2011/07/tsochatzopoulos-indicted-on-submarine.html

SPECIAL REPORT - Zigras "Gives" Tsochatzopoulos & Reveals How PASOK "Fixed" 2000 Elections (VIDEOS)
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2012/07/special-report-zigras-gives.html

PASOK calls on SYRIZA MPs to return their savings back to Greece

PASOK MP Odysseas Konstandinopoulos urged SYRIZA MPs to return their deposits from foreign banks back to Greece in a letter to Parliament President Zoi Konstantopoulou.

In his letter, Konstandinopoulos maintains that apart from the European Central Bank, it is necessary that all citizens contribute to the stability of Greece's banking system by returning all the money that was taken out of Greece over the last few years beginning with MPs.

He especially called on many SYRIZA MPs who have openly admitted in transferring their money to foreign accounts instead of keeping it in Greek banks.

According to him, this is a "sublime patriotic duty" of all Greek MPs, and would set a positive example for the Greek citizens.

According to some reports, there are more than 700,000 Greek citizens that transferred their savings (said to be more than 300 billion Euros) in foreign accounts over the past few years -or since George Papandreou's PASOK government seized power-.

PASOK Slams Reports That Claim Venizelos Will Resign

The PASOK party slammed reports on Wednesday that claimed that its leader Evangelos Venizelos was planning to resign. The party said in a statement that the news which is being circulated on the Internet not only lacks "seriousness" but is a downright lie.

     "The president of PASOK's statement that he made on the night of elections," January 25, it said, "still holds... Everything, including the issue of party leadership will be discussed and decided on at the party congress."

The statement also noted that PASOK's greatest priority is the Greece's course, which, according to the party is going to affect the course of all of Greece's political powers.

Venizelos: “PASOK’s failure has a name…” (And that name is Papandreou)

The leader of PASOK Evangelos Venizelos congratulated SYRIZA on its win in the general elections and at the same time expressed his hope that its leader Alexis Tsipras is successful for the good of the nation.

Speaking to reporters, he said that in this day and age "a social consensus is necessary”. He then noted that the percentage of votes that his party received in the elections is small and insufficient  and attributed this fact to the To Kinima leader George Papandreou, whom he noted was responsible for Golden Dawn ascending to third place.

This kind of explains why some reports were saying on Monday morning that the pictures of the former PM were being taken down from PASOK's offices.

The rivalry between Venizelos and Papandreou stems from George's decision to leave PASOK in order to form the Movement of Democrats Socialists.

PASOK, which for some odd reason believes has to constantly rule Greece, argues that this divided PASOK voters and averted them from being in third place today, or playing a decisive role in the new government formation.

Quick to reply, Papandreou's press office said that “it would be best for those who tolerated and cooperated with Baltakos in the government they served to not talk about who is responsible for Golden Dawn coming third in the European elections”.

Venizelos, and in general PASOK (old and new members), are so thirsty to rule Greece that after the first exit polls were announced and showed that SYRIZA was going to win the elections, PASOK began stating that Greece cannot be governed with a 35%-37% majority. They are so determined not to let go of their Ministerial seats, that a meeting was apparently held at PASOK’s central offices where Venizelos debated with other members about proposing the formation of a national unity government.

If the proposal is not accepted by the other parties, then PASOKers are going to join the opposition and support government decisions that are in line with the national strategy it described in its proclamations.

Venizelos lashes out at Papandreou And SYRIZA

Currently on the campaign trail with the aim of attracting much needed votes, Foreign Minister and leader of the PASOK party Evangelos Venizelos at the weekend lashed out at both former Premier and PASOK leader George Papandreou as well as Radical Left main opposition SYRIZA party leader Alexis Tsipras of not being truthful and uncooperative (respectively).

During a press conference in the city of Ioannina at the weekend, Venizelos publicly accused Papandreou of not being "accurate and honest" when speaking about his assertion that the former PM had offered to make him prime minister.

     "There is a public dialogue ethic. For issues that are serious, political, which belong to history, we have to be accurate and honest", Venizelos noted.

In response to Tsipras' public call to the electorate to offer him (to Tsipras) absolute majority in Parliament at the forthcoming elections of January 25th, Venizelos noted that the leader of SYRIZA uses the absolute majority argument "sometimes as a threat, other times as an alibi, or even as an assertion".

He added that:

     "SYRIZA denied to offer political acquiescence and now he's going to have a hard time finding it".

While addressing a political rally later on in the same city, Venizelos warned the electorate, that they "will suffer a great shock on the 26th of January" - a day after the national elections - especially the ones who abandoned PASOK. He emphasized that "In search of paradise lost, one might find themselves in an economic and social hell".

He also called on citizens to vote for PASOK, which he views as a "critical and useful" act.

     "The stakes of the elections are not about who will govern, but how the country will be ruled", he said.

In his opinion, "we are witnesses to a blind clash" between senior government coalition partner New Democracy party and SYRIZA, who polarize people.

     "One of them terrorizes people, while the other is being complacent", as Venizelos put it.

Meanwhile, in an article by Venizelos published in "Kathimerini" newspaper, he said that during February 2012 Greece managed to complete the largest debt "haircut" in history, by getting rid of 180 billion euros of debt in net present value (NPV).

To Venizelos' view, it was even more important that the remaining debt was restructured, as 90% of it was taken outside the markets, in the hands of members of the European Union. He said, that the total arrangements agreed with Greece's creditors practically amounted to a 60% haircut.

Venizelos emphasized that it's absolutely necessary for Greece to complete its exit from the memorandum and the troika supervision and to safeguard a precautionary credit line. Especially because Eurogroup already "has officially agreed and pledged that it will offer further debt relief once Greece attains a primary surplus and completes its adjustment program. It's the point we're at today", he concluded.

Venizelos: PASOK's Role of "The Guarantor" - Says Possible Elections Again in Feb.

PASOK is against the strategy of fear and lie, its leader Evangelos Venizelos said on Tuesday in a party meeting in the northern city of Thessaloniki. He said that the wager of the upcoming general election is not which of the two parties (New Democracy or SYRIZA) will be the leading one as well as PASOK's opponent in the elections but the risks to Greece itself, because the sacrifices that the Greek people have made over the last five years should not get wasted.

According to him, PASOK wants to be the third party and claim the role of guarantor in a possible coalition government rather than the one of the wildcard.

     "We are aiming at the third place," he noted. "Others want the role of the guarantor as well. We are the guarantors. Guarantor is one thing and a wildcard is quite another. We claim the third mandate to form a government."
     "There is no majority government, there are no second round elections, there is no excuse, no one can blackmail a second election; there should be cooperation because the negotiations with the troika should be concluded within a month," he warned.

He also attacked SYRIZA on its view over extending the extension that already has been agreed with the Troika.

     "An extension on the extension equals staying in the Memorandum, without a new loan, just on the terms. What a great idea! Of course, markets will have reacted violently, foreign investors would have rushed out, banks will be facing problems with the European Central Bank and we will be begging to remain in the Memorandum!" he said.
He then called on citizens to vote for PASOK as his party guarantees the exit from the Memorandum.
     "We are not saying ‘vote for us' to continue austerity; we are saying there are no new austerity measures," he said.

In his Wednesday morning appearance on SKAI TV, Venizelos noted that the more voters consider their options, regarding the elections, the more they will side with his party.

The PASOK leader argued that the prospect of a second electoral race in February may “derail the train” and stressed that while figureheads and governments regularly change in other European countries, the principle of State continuity is always upheld.

Venizelos was dismissive of the new party formed by George Papandreou, noting that he wished to remain focused on the major issues that are being faced by Greece at the present moment.

Following some pressure, he decided to respond by admitting that he undermined Papandreou in 2011 over the possibility of a referendum, claiming that “it would result in devastation”.

He also pointed out that it was not the bailouts that brought the crisis to Greece, but rather the crisis that brought the bailouts in Greece. Expanding further he said that everything regarding the bailouts must be investigated “but the point is to not have to investigate everything that will happen after [the elections on] January 25th.”

Sources - To Vima, ANA-MPA

Get Ready Ellada - Papandreou Forms New Political Party

Former Prime Minister and leader of PASOK George Papandreou is going to announce the name and statute of his new party in the Supreme Court on Saturday. After a couple of years of touring with various lecture groups across the world where he would read prepared speeches, after living the high life in Manhattan where he rented an apartment next to Lady Gaga and after pretending to take on the role of a global thinker at Harvard, Papandreou has decided to come back to Greece and once again be active politically.

Despite his personal and historic ties to PASOK, George has decided to form his own political party. HellasFrappe predicted this months ago and expects that George will form a party that is modeled after the US Democratic party.  As announced, the new party will be called Democratic Socialist Movement.

According to a statement released by Papandreou, the formal declaration of the founding of his new party, along with the announcement of its name, symbols and goals, will take place at a special event on Saturday at the Benaki museum.

Meanwhile, he released a statement on his web site about the new political party. He said that the party, whose name he did not reveal, aims to contest the upcoming January 25th general election.

Below is the full statement (translation by The TOC).

"A new year, a new beginning. The time has come for the next big step of the progressive forces of the country.
The time has come to build, all together, the new political home which will house our progressive values, the values which united us and unite us.
Listening to your voice, the demand of thousands of citizens from all of Greece, we are taking the initiative and extending an invitation to all progressive citizens to participate in this new beginning.
Tomorrow (January 3rd), at 5.30pm in the amphitheater of the Benaki Museum – Piraeos St. 138, we are not founding just another party.
From tomorrow, we are taking part in the launching of a Movement, which can and must rise to the major challenges which concern the country and the Greek people.
A Movement with which we want to secure the presence of the real forces of progress in the next parliament, the forces which believe - and have proven their belief in practice with real democratic reforms – that Greece will not definitively surpass the crisis, will not fully recover, if it doesn’t change fundamentally, if it doesn’t change its foundations, on the basis of a ‘Greek Plan’ and Institutions that work – with the citizen as an ally.
A Movement which will work in the next parliament to secure all of the necessary preconditions for a safe and final exit from the crisis.
A Movement which will give all of its powers to make a reality of the transition to a Post-clientelist Greece, with a vision of building a Greece of Justice and Creativity.
A Movement, the creation of which will be completed with an open, participatory conference – which will be programmed for after the elections, where all will be decided. By the Movement, with broad participation, with principles of self-organization from the base. As befits a Movement which reflects the principles of Democracy, Socialism and Sustainable Development.
A Movement, which puts Greece and its citizens first – not all manner of clientelist and other interests.
With my wishes for a happy New Year for all Greeks, I issue a call for participation.
From tomorrow, the 3rd of January.
Let’s go."

Obviously the announcement is Papandreou's formal break with PASOK, the party which was founded by his late father Andreas Papandreou.

His position in the party after his political downfall a couple of years ago has been very shaky. He was elected PASOK leader in 2004 (after Costas Simitis passed on the ring of power to him) and finally became Prime Minister in October 2009 after (suspiciously) defeating Costas Karamanlis.

He was accused of working underground with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) towards some sort of bailout deal before the national elections in 2009, as well as for delaying to deal with the financial crisis. He is also continually slammed for signing the original bailout deal with the so-called Troika of creditors (European Commission, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund) in May 2010 which tied Greece hand and foot to its lenders as well as was the foundation that led to all the other Memorandums.

Following his announcement on his web site, and before the formal announcement on Saturday afternoon, PASOK issued a statement which slammed Papandreou's move characterizing it as "immoral" and "absurd". At the same time it accused him of betraying the memory of his father, the late Andreas Papandreou, PASOK's founder and long-time leader.

PASOK stressed that George Papandreou is not forming a new party because of political differences, but to settle a personal score (with current PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos) and to have his own "personal, wholly-owned party."

     "There's no political reason, and there neither is any historical or moral basis. The motives are strictly personal," PASOK said.

Parallel to this, the statement also blames Papandreou for making the "crucial decisions to enter into the original (bailout deal) in 2010".

The split in PASOK is also expected to resurface some bright characters from PASOK who fell under great controversy and scrutiny in the past. One such character is Michalis Karchimakis. As expected he said that he is going to join Papandreou's new movement (because he probably feared that Venizelos would not include him on his electoral lists because of his scandalous past - Read about that by clicking HERE).

Of course Karchimakis is just one of many that are expected to follow. The "movement" is expected to resurface other former MPs (m@lakes) such as former Finance Minister Filippos Sachinidis, Simon Kedikoglou and others.

George's move is also expected to steal many voters from SYRIZA since most of this party's supporters are former Papandreou fans.

Sources in Greek - TOC, ProtoThema, enikos, Defencenet

Related articles

• Guess Who Is Back? - Papandreou Hints At Establishing New Party

Papandreou to Announce New Political Party By End of 2014

Ex-premier and former leader of the PASOK party George Papandreou is apparently ready to announce the formation of a new political party, and will finally formalize his immediate and definitive break from his father's PASOK party. HellasFrappe featured an article on this several days ago but it was still unknown when this would be. According to the Greek press Papandreou will make the announcement by December 30th, or a day after the third vote in parliament for the critical Presidential election.

Papandreou, who is expected to vote in favor of Stavros Dimas believes that the government is not going to secure the necessary 180 votes in the third vote to avert early elections, so he is preparing as quickly as possible.

He is going to have to rush, because if Parliament fails to vote for a president in the third vote then national elections will be called and the most logical date to hold them would be January 25th (or the first week of February).

On Tuesday, just a little before the second presidential vote PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos met with Papandreou but both men refused to comment on their discussion.

Political analysts believe that the two men discussed the possibility of early elections being called and how the latter may be included in PASOK’s ballots, in order to avoid the creation of a new party.

(Hmmmm... That means that Venizelos was ready to give him the boot!)

NEW NGO SCANDAL - PASOK NGO now obligated to return foreign aid - 200,000 missing!

State grant to Pasok think tank Istame for the "restructuring" of Georgian parliament was signed off by the director of Hellenic Aid, Alex Rondos, a close associate of onetime advisor to then foreign minister George Papandreou. The grants were approved while Papandreou was foreign minister.

Auditors in 2013 recommended the return of 200,000 Euros in grants which the Greek state provided, via PASOK's party research foundation, for a “restructuring” of the Georgian parliament that may have never taken place, Eleftherotypia revealed at the weekend.

In 2002, the foreign ministry's developmental agency, Hellenic Aid, agreed to fund 75% of a 413,399-program Euros to assist in the revamping of the legal, the organisational and operational framework of the parliament and to contribute to computerising the body's work.

The grant was approved by the new director of Hellenic Aid, Alex Rondos, a close associate of onetime advisor to then foreign minister George Papandreou, who appointed him to the position.

Last week it emerged that Rondos, who served as the European Union’s special representative for the Horn of Africa from 2012 to 2013, is also suspected by police of involvement in a 8.9 million Euros fraud at another NGO, International Mining Initiative, from 2000 to 2004.

The Greek NGO which would oversee the program was the PASOK-affiliated think tank, the Andreas Papandreou Institute of Strategic and Development Studies (Istame).

The 18-month program had a total budget of 413,399 Euros three-quarters of which came from Hellenic Aid. It was to run March 2004, the year in which, according to reports, Rondos he became advisor to the then Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

Following reports in 2012 about corruption in NGOs affiliated with Hellenic Aid, the ministry ordered an audit of all 600 organisations in receipt of funding.

According to the audit into the Georgian parliament "restructuting" program, Istame was unable to account for 340,400 Euros in grants. In addition, the audit was unable to ascertain from the files whether the project was ever completed. Its conclusion was that Istame must return 199,445 Euros to Hellenic Aid.

As the report was completed in 2013, it raises the question as to why it is now only coming to light, given that the current foreign minister, Evangelos Venizelos, is now the PASOK leader.

What the audit found

• According to the documentation seen by the auditors, the ministerial decision authorising the first tranche of the grant (amounting to 155,000 Euros) was signed on 12 July 2002, six weeks before the contract was signed between Hellenic Aid and Istame, on August 30th, 2002.
• The file also contains a letter from the Georgian parliament saying that the works had not been completed by December 6, 2007. The same letter also said that he had received an official invitation to visit from the Georgian parliament, the director of the NGO [Istame], never paid a visit to Georgia, as was foreseen by the program.
• The audit found that much of the documentation submitted to support the grant were photocopies of certified documents, not originals. Other documents were not certified at all.
• The file also showed that Istame did not seek official translations of foreign documents.
• According to the file, Istame also signed a contract with an NGO called Iason, but the documentation does not make it clear where this organisation was based.
• When it came to the program’s accounts, it listed five different categories of expenses which were all broadly similar, such as printing and stationary. Thus, the budget provided for 12,500 Euros for "Accessories and supplies", 12,000 Euros for “Routine costs”, about 9,000 Euros for “Other costs”, 17,893 Euros for “Unexpected costs” and 37,575 Euros for the “NGO’s operating and administrative expenses".
• A further 8,713 Euros was budgeted for “Services”, such as legal advice, drafting costs, IT and accounting work. For the latter two services, there are no contracts to show where that money went.
• A Georgian invoice for 2,250 Euros for catering services was not signed by the person who received the money.
• Although 259,000 Euros was purportedly to be spent on labour costs, the file contains no evidence that staff contracts were signed. Payslips were mostly unsigned by their recipients.

New building

If any Hellenic Aid money was spent on Georgia's parliament, it's no longer used for that purpose. In 2009, construction began on a new building to house the Georgian parliament. The huge glass domed structure, located in the second city of Kutaisi, was inaugurated in 2012. Some reports said the bill for the controversial building and associated costs came to around USD 200 million.

Eleftherotypia, EnetEnglish

Related articles

• BUSTED - Papandreou gave the order!
• Papandreou Says He Is Not To Blame For Corrupt NGO - Yeah Right...
• SPECIAL REPORT - A.Rondos - Now Wanted For Involvement In PASOK Crony NGO

SPECIAL REPORT - Trouble in Gov't - 40 ND MPs Against Racist For Greeks Anti-Racist Bill

Around 40 MPs from the ruling conservative New Democracy party sent an ultimatum to the government on Friday warning all concerned that if the "anti-racist" bill which is currently being debated in Parliament does not include three more crucial genocides, then they will simply oppose it. Specifically, the MPs argue that the Armenian Genocide, the Genocide of the Greeks in Pontus and the Genocide of the Greeks in Asia Minor must be included in the new hate law, and not extracted as some (members from the Left) would prefer.

The ultimatum was handed over to Justice Minister Haralambos Athanassiou by a representative group of New Democracy parliamentarians, who did not stop short from noting that the above genocides should not be ignored in the new bill as well as those that have already been formerly recognized by the Greek Parliament.

The ND rebels, who basically demanded the obvious, were strongly supported by parliamentary spokesperson Makis Voridis, as well as legal documentation from the Secretary General of the Government, Panagiotis Baltakou.

The new bill, which was submitted by the Justice Minister, foresees tough penalties for racially-motivated crimes (jail sentences of up to three years and financial penalties of up to 20,000 euros for incitement to racist attacks). Sounds pretty fair right? Unfortunately its not. This is what the mainstream media is saying about the bill. The truth is that if the bill is passed then it will allow Kemalist and Islamist fascists in Athens and Thessaloniki to freely ridicule and mock the Greek victims of the Pontus, and Asia Minor genocides (and their descendants). At the same time it will ignore racist remarks about the Armenian and Assyrian genocides, because these genocides have not been recognized by the Greek or international court system! And this is what they are betting on!

In some twisted way, the anti-racist bill is actually extremely racist towards Greek citizens and this is because it only penalizes those who deny foreign genocides and not those that were imposed on the Greek and Armenian peoples (which have already been recognized by the whole world, but as we stated above have yet to be recognized formerly by the international court system)!

The Minister of Justice was comfortable with these demands, but PASOK and its leader Evangelos Venizelos are not! As incredible as this sounds, reports on Friday said that Venizelos does not want this provision to be included in the bill at all.

His stance on this issue should only be characterized as being tragic, and anyone who is of Greek origin, or who has half an ounce of knowledge about Greek history, should criticize him strongly for this refusal.

HellasFrappe believes that one of the reasons that he is so fixated in his stance is because he is being supported by the technocrats of parliament (yes the same group that was led by Costas Simitis, and unfortunately this also includes quite a few conservatives). Why? Well, if you go look at Greece's recent history (meaning the past 20 years) then you will note that following the incident at Imia, the socialist conducted quite a bit of "secret diplomacy" with Turkey on matters that deal with the Aegean (examples, Imia, Ocalan, etc.). We are convinced that Papandreou did, so why wouldn't Venizelos?

Frappers, as much as it pains us to say this, there are quite a few parliamentarians in New Democracy that are comfortable with the bill just the way it is. Of course, PASOK and DIMAR are 100 percent in favor and believe it or not those who are opposed to the new law are SYRIZA, KKE and the Golden Dawn party. The Independent Greek party has not yet announced what sort of action it will take, but we want to believe that it will also oppose the bill.

On February 24, 1994, the Greek Parliament unanimously voted on proclaiming May 19 as the "Day of Remembrance for the Genocide of the Greeks in Asia Minor" and some may argue that this recognition will continue to be fully respected by the Greek state. So why all the fuss?

Well we want to point your attention to an article that was featured in last week's Sunday edition of the Dimokratia newspaper. In this article, Savvas Kalterides, a novelist, researcher and geopolitical expert on Turkish and Kurdish affairs said that anyone who votes for this "monstrosity" of a bill is a traitor of the Greek people. The argument behind his strong statement stems on the fact that the new law domestically and internationally excludes the genocides of the Greeks of Pontus, of Asia Minor, the Armenians and even the Assyrian peoples. And he predicted that if the bill came to pass then it would cancel the three existing laws which are recognized by the Greek Parliament.

(Essentially, we would be basically poking our own eyes out and this time it would be Greeks performing a genocide on Greeks.)

The article in Dimokratia mobilized quite a few people, including Thessaloniki MP Savvas Anastasiadis, who has been very active in the past on matters of Greek national interest much to the disappointment of the Turkish Consulate in Komotini which has worked feverishly in northern Greece in spreading hate. According to Kalteridis, Anastasiadis mobilized approximately forty members of his party, who requested a meeting with the Minister of Justice Mr Athanasiou, to express their objections to the bill and to unequivocally state that they will not vote on it unless these provisions were changed.

In a follow-up article, which was published on Friday, Kalterides revealed that the New Democracy party held a heated in house debate to discuss this matter and strong opposition to the bill was openly voiced by many leading cadres.

HellasFrappe cannot predict how our parliamentarians will vote on this racist against the Greeks anti-racist bill, but certainly we are grateful that there are still many MPs in the New Democracy party who were not dazzled by power and remain true to the ideologies of ND as well as patriots to their country, and its history.

The only thing that is certain, and which is noted by Kalterides, is that Turkey will once again attempt to intervene on this matter by sparking up some sort of provocation in its relations with Cyprus, in the Aegean and even in the area of Thrace, so that the Greek government can swing the vote in its favor.

It should be reminded that on 28.5.2013 the Turkish Foreign Ministry described the events for Memorial Day of the Pontian Genocide as being "hostile and racist initiatives" and had the audacity to call on the Greek parliament to discard those classifications that poison the Greco- Turkish friendship. And if that wasn't enough, the Turkish Ministry even went as far as advising the Greek government to "endorse the positions of DIMAR Rep. Mary Repousi" who we all know detests her Greek roots!

(Quick note on who Repousi is. She is the same MP who exited the Greek Parliament building twice when the House Speaker asked representatives to hold a moment of silence in respect to the over 300,000 Greeks who lost their lives during those genocides. She is also the same individual who had caused a national stir several years ago when she said that the slaughtering and butchering of Asia Minor Greeks was in fact just a "gathering" of peoples in a port area, and had the audacity to poison Greek textbooks with this.)

Kalterides also revealed something else that we found quite interesting. He writes that Turkey has been trying to persuade many nations to ignore matters that deal with genocides (and/or that were performed by Turkey), in view of the 100 years since the Armenian genocide, because it is expected that a wave of protest against this unspeakable massacre will peak globally.

We agree with Kalterides on one thing: the only way Greece can iron out its relations with Turkey is to finally force Ankara to recognize all the barbaric acts it has performed against hundreds of thousands of innocent Greek, Armenian and Assyrian people.  Everything else, is just another excuse, or a path, that will once again lead all of us to Neo-Ottoman barbarity.

HellasFrappe agrees with anti-racist bill, but ONLY if it includes these provisions. Everything else is just heresay to us, and we pledge to fully support these 40 MPs as much as we can.

References

• defencenet
• Dimokratia
• infognomonpolitics

Leftist-Backed Same-Sex Civil Union Law Worries The Right & The Church

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The progressives, or Left, and the conservatives, or Right, are fighting a new cat and mouse game, and this time it concerns a law recognizing civil union between same-sex couples. On Wednesday the debate in Parliament heated up when it was proposed that the existing legislation would be extended. This prompted members of the church to intervene warning legislators not to vote for it.

The ruling conservatives, supported by the Independent Greek party as well as Golden Dawn are in reality all against this law, and especially over same sex marriages, but following the denial of the amendment extensive talks took over between officials from PASOK and New Democracy and according to press reports an agreement was reached.

A ruling by the European Court of Human Rights earlier this month condemned Greece for excluding gay people from civil partnerships. The court ruled that Greece had not offered “convincing and weighty reasons” to justify excluding gay people.

The case against the Greek government was brought by the former adviser to George Papandreou, Grigoris Vallianatos, Nikolaos Mylonas as well as other members of the non-government organization (NGO) “Synthesis”. The applicants argued that there was no provision in the domestic courts to examine the validity of their claims, since the current legislation causes discrimination and violation of privacy.

Meanwhile, a senior Orthodox cleric attacked plans to extend the legislation and he even warned that any MPs who decide to back this measure will be excommunicated.

In a nine-page statement Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus condemned alleged efforts to make “this terrible sin of homosexuality, sodomy, unnatural sexual intercourse, pederasty and paedophilia appear as normal behavior, as mere diversity.”

The Metropolitan underlined that any other relationship, barring that between a male and a female, “is a unnatural aberration not even observed in animals.”

KKE Slams SYRIZA On Proposal for Committee To Probe Submarines Scandal

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) said that it was in favour of a Parliamentary probe into the suspect submarines contracts and privatisation agreements for the shipyards in Skaramangas. At the same time, KKE accused main opposition 'Coalition of the Radical Left' (SYRIZA) that tabled the proposal of "shooting blanks" in its criticism of this and past governments.

    "All these years, KKE has been condemning the policy of the privatisation, the downgrading and shrinking of the country's shipbuilding and repair sector, as well as of the defence industry," the announcement which was dispatched by the state news agency said.

KKE added that this policy was a typical example, revealing the anti-popular nature of the capitalist path for growth and EU strategies, as well as the responsibilities of PASOK and ND governments."

The announcement pointed out that KKE's conclusions after the factfinding committee set up in 2011 concerning the contracts for the submarines, as well as with a host of other statements, had attributed grave political responsibilities to ND, PASOK and their governments for the privatisation of the shipyards at Skaramangas and elsewhere and for the unacceptable and damaging contracts signed with German monopolies, the Abu Dhabi company and for the submarines.

Lastly, it said that KKE "is in favour of setting up of a factfinding committee in Parliament that will attribute political responsibilities and will investigate whether penal responsibilities also exist for the privatisations, the relevant contracts, the dissolution of the Skaramangas Shipyards, etc".

Golden Dawn Down But Slowly Rising Again - ANALYSIS

Harry van Versendaal (voxversendaal) - Golden Dawn voters are drawn to power. A lot of them voted for the party because they wanted someone big and strong to stand up to the political status quo, says Paschos Mandravelis, a liberal commentator.

In September, a Golden Dawn member stabbed to death an anti-fascist rapper, Pavlos Fyssas, in a Piraeus neighborhood. The public outcry over his death prompted the government to arrest dozens of party members, including parliamentary deputies and Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos. The charges include homicide, blackmail and running a criminal organization.

Mandravelis believed that the crackdown would drive away a big chunk of the neo-Nazi party’s voters. “I expected that the sight of Golden Dawn members in handcuffs would remind people that there is a force larger than them, that these guys were not that untouchable after all, and as a result their popularity would be reined in,” he says.

That has not happened. Nearly two months after the launch of a judicial investigation into the neo-Nazi party – which is reportedly linked to 10 murders, as well as attempted murder, blackmail, money laundering and other crimes – public surveys suggest that despite the aura of criminality around Golden Dawn, its popularity has not been hit.

An ALCO poll conducted between November 12 and 15 for Sunday’s Proto Thema newspaper put Golden Dawn, which controls 18 seats in the 300-strong House, in third place with 8.8 percent, up from 6.6 in a previous poll carried out a month earlier. A Pulse survey for To Pontiki weekly between November 8 and 12 put the party even higher at 10.5 percent and clearly ahead of the once-dominant PASOK socialists, withering at 6.5 percent. A Metron Analysis poll for Ethnos on Sunday put support for Golden Dawn at 10 percent, more than 2 percentage points higher than a month earlier.

Lack of trust

Part of the reason behind Golden Dawn’s enduring appeal, experts say, lies with Greeks’ notorious lack of confidence in institutions. For more than a decade, public surveys have found Greeks to have among the lowest rates of trust in institutions when ranked with their European counterparts. This mistrust extends to the local media, which is usually owned by big business conglomerates considered to be compromised by their ties to political parties and whose stories are often seen as an extension of the status quo.

“When the integrity of all social and political institutions is being questioned, faith in the media is also lost,” Mandravelis says. Some Greeks are so suspicious of the status quo, he says, that the crackdown simply confirmed already-held convictions and conspiracy theories.

     “The media are viewed with mistrust. All those people who think that everything is the result of a global conspiracy also believe that revelations about Golden Dawn are a part of this conspiracy,” he says.

MPs of Golden Dawn, which was recently stripped of state funding after a vote by fellow MPs, have – rather predictably – styled themselves as martyrs waging a battle against a corrupt establishment. Party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris on Monday called on supporters to join a rally in central Athens on Saturday to demand the release of Michaloliakos and two other detained lawmakers whom he described as “political prisoners.” Their detention, he said, was a “constitutional deviation” and a “political frame-up.”

     “Although the involvement of Golden Dawn in Fyssas’s assassination is likely to have weakened the party’s appeal among non-core supporters, Golden Dawn’s purported victimization has clearly boosted support among its core – i.e. young, male, anti-systemic voters,” says Elias Dinas, a UK-based expert on voter behavior.

Whereas it was once considered taboo to endorse Golden Dawn publicly, over recent months a number of high-profile figures have been happy to admit their admiration for the extremist party. Vocalist Petros Gaitanos, famous for his performances of the Byzantine liturgy, pop singer Yiannis Ploutarchos or the idiosyncratic Notis Sfakianakis, have bashed the “corrupt” establishment and openly voiced their support for Golden Dawn.

In a much-publicized outburst last week, singer Sfakianakis praised Greece’s 1967-74 military dictatorship, urged support for Golden Dawn and called Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos a “pig.” Sfakianakis’s comments prompted pop diva Despina Vandi to announce that she would be breaking off her on-stage collaboration with him in Athens.

These, and other similar comments, feed into the feeling of mistrust of the state and mainstream media, which is not unique to the right of the political spectrum.

Critics from the left have accused the government of not actually being interested in bringing alleged criminals to justice, but rather intent on marginalizing an upstart that is siphoning voters away from the two coalition parties. In the June 2012 election, four out of 10 Greeks who cast their vote for Golden Dawn were former New Democracy supporters.

Vassiliki Georgiadou, a political science professor at Panteion University in Athens and an expert on right-wing radicalism, notes that a large portion of the anti-fascist movement in Greece thinks that the whole Golden Dawn clampdown is a bit “fishy.”

     “When the main enemies of Golden Dawn are skeptical about the authorities’ intentions, there is little you can hope for from those who are ideologically closer to the party,” she says.

Data suggest that in the 10 days following the clampdown, Golden Dawn saw its power drop by about 2 percent. Interestingly, the decline stopped as party leader Nikos Michaloliakos and two senior lawmakers were put behind bars pending trial on charges of participation in a criminal group. Their police protection was also pulled.

On November 1, four days after Ochi Day, two Golden Dawn members, Manolis Kapelonis, 23, and Giorgos Fountoulis, 26, were gunned down at point-blank range underneath the Metaxas banner as they patrolled outside the party’s offices in the Athens suburb of Neo Iraklio, rekindling the party’s ratings.

A previously unknown group, the Militant People’s Revolutionary Forces, claimed responsibility for the killings. In an 18-page proclamation, the organization said the attack had been carried out in retaliation for the stabbing of Fyssas. Police have not confirmed the authenticity of the claim.

     “The killings brought Golden Dawn into an ideal position. It was able to sell the argument that it is the victim of a conspiracy, as it has long insisted,” Georgiadou says.

The martyr effect has been observed before, most memorably in the Netherlands. After Dutch right-wing populist Pim Fortuyn was shot dead in 2002, his party went on to win an unprecedented 17 percent of the vote in elections.

Evolution pattern

Analysts agree that containing Golden Dawn’s momentum is a daunting task. Part of the challenge lies with the party’s structure and evolution pattern. Unlike mainstream political parties, Europe’s extremist groupings have mostly sought to expand their leverage using regional strongholds as springboards – a model seen at work in Antwerp, the base of Belgium’s far-right Vlaams Belang, and in Carinthia, the bastion of Austria’s Freedom Party. Extremists use these strongholds to carry out on-the-ground, grassroots work that allows them to directly engage with local community groups, often posing as guardians. Golden Dawn picked Aghios Panteleimonas, a high-crime, low-income neighborhood in central Athens with a large immigrant population, as well as the poor shipbuilding district of Perama, outside Piraeus.

For the past few years, Georgiadou and Lamprini Rori, a researcher on Golden Dawn and PhD candidate at the University of Paris (I), have studied how the party has used the neighborhoods as bastions to build a strong social network and at the same time bolster its visibility. It was in Perama, she says, that Golden Dawn succeeded in gradually becoming the main receptacle for unemployment-hit working-class voters who had formerly been taken under the wing of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) – a process reminiscent of “left LePenism” in France during the 1990s.

     “If you really want to curb the influence of Golden Dawn, you have to cripple its strongholds,” Georgiadou says.

Can the influence of Golden Dawn be contained? If there is one thing analysts agree on, it is that any progress will take time.

     “It will not be a fast decline,” Georgiadou says. “And it will only occur provided that all hell does not break loose, sending Greece back to 2009. It is also crucial that the judicial investigation does not stall. Should the case move ahead, it will help undermine the influence of the organization.”

Greek lawmakers last month voted to strip a number of Golden Dawn deputies of their immunity to make way for a deeper investigation into allegations against them.

Three of them faced magistrates on Monday to defend themselves on charges of belonging to a criminal organization – the same charges that have been brought against Michaloliakos and another five deputies.

The three were given until December 7 to prepare their defense after asking for more time to look through the bulky case file.

Any political message, Mandravelis says, will take longer to hit home with this section of society than others.

     “The deliberations in this lower level of support for Golden Dawn take time – this is not a group of people that contemplates politics or takes a long, hard look at things,” he says.

Out of touch

Driving the message home will also depend on the ability of the political class to reconnect with a disaffected section of society used to selling their vote in exchange for party favors.

     “Mainstream politicians have lost touch with the working classes. In the good old days they were able to control them through patronage. They gave them jobs and had their vote in return,” Mandravelis says.
     “But now that the client state is in ruins, politicians have to figure out new ways to get those people back.”

Dinas is rather pessimistic about the chances of eliminating Golden Dawn’s influence. He says that the absence of rigid political ties to established parties, as a result of voters’ frustration with the brutal debt crisis and reduced opportunity for patronage, has worked to the benefit of the self-styled anti-establishment party.

     “It seems that we will have to learn to coexist with an anti-democratic wing in the Parliament which will probably continue to attract approximately one out of 12 voters,” Dinas says.

Mandravelis remains optimistic that the power of the party will wane, sooner or later. “Whatever inflates quickly, usually deflates just as fast. But it will take a symbolic event for this to happen,” the commentator says.

Although the party itself may eventually be eclipsed, the ideas that propelled it into being look like they are here to stay.

     “The values and ideas that Golden Dawn stands for – nationalism, racism and xenophobia – are not alien to Greece. They were not brought here by Golden Dawn; the truth is they already existed,” says Mandravelis.

Dinas shares the concern. “Even if you eliminate the supply,” he says, “it does not mean that you can fully wipe out demand.”

[A slightly modified version of this article frist appeared on MacroPolis.gr]

How Much Money Did Margret Get From Andreas Papandreou?

The cover of the Thursday edition of the Kontra news newspaper is certainly raising a few eyebrows. Spread across the entire page, an article titled "Margret grabbed $6,000,000 or TWO BILLION drachmas to give Andreas a divorce," can only be viewed as being scandalous. The paper had promised to reveal how much the late Andreas Papandreou paid off to his former wife Margaret in order to divorce on Wednesday and it delivered. (Click here to read)

All this from the family that did not care about money... that produced a son that sold a fake campaign promise that said "money exists". Who at the death of his father said that the only thing that he had left behind for him was a watch... Yeah right.

The publisher of Kontra News will probably get sued for what he published because as we all know the Papandreou family has many friends in high places, but until he does we have a feeling that he is going to hang out a lot of dirty laundry on this family.

HellasFrappe does not have a copy of the article, and therefore cannot go into details about this story, as of yet that is, however we propose that you read the following articles which would certainly give you a little taste of how money, power and the Papandreou family are tied together.

The Scandals of PASOK (80s & 90s)
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2013/10/special-series-scandals-of-pasok-late.html

The Forbidden Nemesis - THIS IS A MUST READ
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2013/01/the-forbidden-nemesis-this-is-must-read.html

OPINION - Does The Papandreou +Rondos +Lazzard +Sorros Alliance = The Rothchilds? You Bet It Does!
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2013/11/opinion-does-papandreou-rondos-lazzard.html

Conspiracy or Truth - The Origins Of Margarita Papandreou's Family - MUST READ
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2013/07/conspiracy-or-truth-origins-of.html

Margaret Papandreou Files Law Suits On Claims Of Being Linked To Lagarde list
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2013/05/margaret-papandreou-files-law-suits-on.html

Angelopoulos, Kokkalis, Papandreou, the Clintons & Harvard - What a Happy Family!
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2012/10/angelopoulos-kokkalis-papandreou_1.html

George Soros - Sponsor Of The Papandreou Family?
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2012/05/george-soros-sponsor-and-of-papandreou.html

Newspaper Publisher Ready To Expose Dirty Laundry of Papandreou "Mommy"

Slap us silly with a toothpick... This is just so shocking. Reporters cannot go around spreading such lies... because then they would call them conspiracy theorists (much like they call blogs like ours who have been noting this for three years now). Seriously folks... the publisher of the newspaper Kontra cannot assume such negative things about George's mommy... (wink wink...)

Jeeezz...

He says he knows how much money Margaret received from her late ex husband Andreas Papandreou before he married Dimitra Liani Papandreou and he is planning on publishing all of this information on Thursday!

But that would mean that Margaret was a money-hungry power machine. Can this be true?

(You bet your souvlaki it is!)

Does the publisher of Kontra News know something that the public does not? Does this have anything to do with the mystery woman who is implicated on the controversial Lagarde List with well over 550 million Euros in deposits at the HSBC bank in Switzerland?

Is that what George was referring to when he said "Lefta Yparxoun, or Money Exists?)

And if it is not then then where is this huge amount of money that she apparently received from Andreas?

(Some press reports in the past have spoken of a huge ranch in California that is owned by the family, and about some mysterious deposits in several Asian banks... But this is all gossip right? -wink wink-).. 

Oh my... looks like PASOK is turning on PASOK... the sh****t is going to start hitting the fan...

It is indeed going to be a very interesting winter after all Frappers...

Stay tuned and keep on reading HellasFrappe, the paper is due to reveal everything on Thursday!

NO MYTH: Even Foreign News Reports Confirm Golden Dawn Popularity

By John Ward (The Slog) - The latest opinion poll from Greece has a more robust sample than the last, but confirms its findings… and establishes as clear fact that Golden Dawn is now the largest Party by voting intentions in the Hellenic Republic.

CLICK HERE for details about this public opinon poll, as well as a video report posted by HellasFrappe on Friday)

The results combine the findings of two online polls conducted by electronic newspaper Zougla.gr over the last two weeks.Golden Dawn has consolidated its lead with 22.6%, followed by SYRIZA with 19.2% and New Democracy (effectively the ruling Party) third with just 16.7%. Independent Greeks and KKE are on 4.9% each, with junior Venizelos-led Coalition Party PASOK near-insignificant at 4.5%.

Assuming some horse-trading on Right and Left, we are still looking at a stand-off in the next election. All told, what we have here is Right 35% and Left 25%. But even though one could produce a Government with neither Syriza or GD in it, this would be a suicidal thing (socially) for any Establishment to attempt: disenfranchising 3 voters in 5 isn’t a very clever strategy.

There are however some astonishing new signs on the “where votes were gained and lost” dimension. For example, 16% of SYRIZA defecters went to Golden Dawn…. suggesting that some Greeks care nothing for political ideology, they will just back anyone who stands up to the Troika and Brussels. The new GD support is also heavily biased towards middle class, fully-educated respondents.

A psephology source in Athens observes, “The impetus behind to Golden Dawn among well educated people from all over Greece shows that Greeks are looking for a National leader with clear Patriotic, national priority and not political messages. It also states very clearly that Greeks will turn their back on Europe if it continues this ridiculous saga. As long as European and Greek government politicians do not undertand this, the numbers of GD and other nationalism parties will rise [because they] put their country first and on top of everything and everybody. This is to do with the values of a nation, of the family, of the culture.”

Support will grow further for Golden Dawn once voters wake up to the reality that debt relief has been cancelled, and default some time in the Spring of 2014 is now inevitable.

Last April the Slog posted an article about SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras as follows:

     ‘I suspect the truth is that Tsipras is already leaking support further down the social scale as he backs away from EU and geopolitical confrontation…’

In September the author the Slog also posted this from Kalamata:

     ‘Greece’s Leftist rainbow from disgruntled Pasokists via Syriza to the KKE needs to wake up fast… The same Patriotic Liberal/Left Front is required as that created before and during the ejection of the Colonels’ Junta. This time however, it must eject over time three things from Greece: Establishment corruption, the euro, and rule from Brussels.’

Tsipras has failed to take note of this. So the baton is passing to Golden Dawn.

This is a crucial moment for SYRIZA. Either Tsipras bites the bullet, becomes more inclusive and rejects foreign rule by madmen, or he will increasingly be seen as just another collaborator. And he does not have a lot of time to decide.

CLICK HERE for details about this public opinon poll, as well as a video report posted by HellasFrappe on Friday)

Does Papandreou Plan To Return To Leadership of PASOK?

George Papandreou has decided to place his career as a critical thinker and lecturer on hold for a while, and this is one of the reasons why we saw him earlier in the week planting a tree somewhere in Constantinople while the PM of Turkey was stating that he did not recognize the existence of Cyprus. In fact good old George has decided that his place should once again be in the Greek parliament -and at the leadership of the PASOK party- and because of this, (and in accordance with news reports), he is conducting his own research to see if the Greek people will once again have him.

Reports claim that his associates (and broader environment, including former MPs, and party members) have been circulating a questionnaire which asks citizens to note the positive and negative aspects of his term in government.

Why is he doing this?

Well word has it that he is preparing a novel and those who support him might say that these questionnaires will later be used as research material.

Others disagree, and claim that Papandreou wants to gain a deeper understanding of how society views the PASOK party because he sees it is hanging on for dear life.

The PASOK regime, which has governed this country for the past three decades, and which is highly responsible for the state of economic and political affairs in Greece, does not want to lose power and former MPs are now flip-flopping over to Papandreou's corner (behind Evangelos -The Large's- Back) because they are terrified that they will not even be able to make it to parliament in the next elections.

All this of course at a time when PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos is attempting to change the rules in the game by transforming PASOK into a more "centrist" party.

HellasFrappe on the other believes that George is simply paving the road for his future cooperation with Gianna Angelopoulou-Daskalaki.

Several months ago, we feautured an article (here) claiming that George Papandreou and Gianna Angelopoulos were planning on forming a new party in Athens, titled the Democrats and that this new force has the blessings of the Clintons! In that article we noted that the new party is going to be modeled after the relevant party in the US.

Now, the official Democratic party in Greece denied that report at that particular time, but there were too many other reports in the press claiming otherwise.

In all fairness, this is all speculation. Because we really do not know what kind of role Mrs. Angelopoulos can actually play. Nonetheless if we had to guess then we would automatically assume that she will deal with foreign contacts while George Papandreou lays the groundwork (or awakens his shady socialist network) all over Greece.

(Editor's Note - There are also some rumors -and totally unconfirmed- that the Greek government is planning on strengthening Greek-Russian relations. If these stories are true, then we can safely conclude that this is why George is getting back into the scene, after all he was the force that placed them on a below zero temperature to begin with. Is he coming into the game again to finish the job? It remains to be seen. Stay tuned Frappers, it looks like it is going to be an interesting winter season.)

SHOCK - New Public Opinion Poll Places Golden Dawn in First Place! (VIDEOS)

It looks like the crackdown against the Golden Dawn party, that resulted with the imprisonment of its leadership on a flimsy indictment, is not only turning into a boomerang for the establishment, but is allowing the ultra-right party to gain even more popularity with voters.

A shocking public opinion poll was presented late on Thursday night on veteran reporter Makis Triantafyllopoulos' news show, after being conducted by his online news site "Zougla.gr". According to the results, Golden Dawn's popularity is rising very quickly, and in one of the two polls presented it was even shown to be in first place (as far as voting intentions are concerned). Certainly this radical change in the balance of power shocked his guests, but nonetheless should have been expected. In the first poll, as well as in the second, SYRIZA is also shown as having a high percentage -or above the New Democracy party- but Antonis Samaras is still considered as being most suitable for prime minister as opposed to Alexis Tsipras.

In the second poll, Golden Dawn received 22.6% of the vote, followed by SYRIZA with 19.2% and New Democracy with 16.7%. The Independent Greeks party and the Greek Communist party (KKE) both scored 4.9%, PASOK 4.5%, while DIMAR barely received 1.1%.

The voting intentions of the valid and the obscure vote was estimated at 14.9%.  The percentages are as follows: Golden Dawn 26.6%, SYRIZA 22.6%, New Democracy 19.6%, the Independent Greeks party as well as KKE 5.8%.

Article in Greek
http://www.zougla.gr/politiki/article/ta-apotelesmata-ton-dio-diadiktiakon-psifoforion

Kassidiaris - "Thieves (PASOK) cannot slander Golden Dawn" - VIDEO

Golden Dawn spokesman Ilias Kassidiaris was catapult in today's parliamentary session when reacting to the plethora of insults and wisecracks from other parliamentary members who continue to characterize Golden Dawn a "neo-Nazi party". Kassidiaris asked the leadership of the parliament to delete this word from all daily records whenever it is repeated by any MP. (It's about time!)

Following this, Kassidiaris decided to direct every one's attention to the scandalous arrests of several PASOK MPs. This heated up the debate in parliament but he was soon cut off when he began talking about the "criminal organization of PASOK". In fact he faced the fury of the vice-president of parliament Mr. Kalantzis who was presiding over the session and who continued to rudely cut him off and prevent him from expressing his views.

Kassidiaris may represent an extremist party, but he made some pretty good points. PASOK is up to its eyeballs in scandals. Remember the Bank of Crete scandal?

One of the many scandals that emerged in Greek politics in the late 1980s when PASOK was in full power, the most notorious by far was the so-called Koskotas affair or bank of Crete scandal. In the 90s it was the famous Siemens scandal, the overcharged works for the Athens 2004 games, the numerous telecom contracts and defence contracts that were signed with Germany and so on... and so on... Also and following the assassination of Brigadier Saunders by the terrorist group 17 November (17N) in 2000, there are numerous reports from the western media which had gone as far as accusing PASOK of colluding with the terrorists (or the notorious November 17 organisation)!

And let us not even touch the subject of Theodore Pangalos, Costas Simitis, George Papakostantinou, and George Papandreou and the scandals that they are implicated in. Our blog would probably need more web space just to analyze each scandal separately!

Friends, Kassidiaris is not the only one that has characterized PASOK a "criminal organization". Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos has suggested that PASOK should be considered a criminal organization because a number of its members have been linked to corruption scandals, but only former Defense Minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos has been tried and convicted so far.

Kammenos is right. Many of PASOK's former ministers have already been charged of crimes such as kickbacks, money-laundering and even bribery. One MP -who was almost elected to the party's leadership- is already serving time at the Korydallos prison for all the above reasons, a second is said to be in Brazil somewhere -but we discovered that he was on the Lagarde List-, a third is due to give his deposition on November 25th for openly admitting to accepting kickbacks from a German telecom company and a fourth -although he has confessed of taking kickbacks- has yet to be charged of anything even though he openly admitted on camera that what he did was illegal!

Not even the Italian Camorra operates this way. So you can't really blame Kassidiaris of getting the wrong impression now can you....

Watch the video.

OPINION - Does The Papandreou +Rondos +Lazzard +Sorros Alliance = The Rothchilds? You Bet It Does!

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In Greece we have a saying that says “show me your friends so I can show you who you really are”, meaning the people that you associate with are generally a direct image of your real character. If that is so, then to what conclusion can a simple blog like ours come to when we see George Papandreou encircling himself with “shady” groups and international crooks?

HellasFrappe has published many stories about Papandreou's meetings with George Sorros, but did you know that good old George has even more shadier friends? One such character is Alex Rondos and the other is the infamous and mysterious Lazzard group.

The Lazzard Company is a very hush-hush BANKING investment group. This “shady” group, which has acted as adviser to Papandreou while he was in government, apparently has direct links with the infamous Rothchilds of America. Yes the same Rothchilds that practically own every central bank in the world, and who, as some claim, have more than 60 percent of the world’s wealth (capital or over 500 trillion US smackaroos). The very same Rothschilds that employ international crook and Skopje propaganda financier George Sorros who in return is suspected of employing Mr. Alex Rondos.

Recap: So Papandreou's adviser is Alex Rondos, who is linked to the the Lazzard Group, and then linked to George Sorros and then linked to the Rothchilds… Is it just us here at HellasFrappe or does this stink from a mile away?

So why the Lazzard group. Well when the government of Papandreou was asked why the Lazzard group, it had said that they were sought out and coincidentally hired in order to take steps to cut its budget deficit in the wake of the 110 billion bail-out package (this of course was at the beginning of the crisis while Papandreou was in government). Lazard later on confirmed it had been hired to assist Greek authorities but dismissed speculation that debt restructuring was one option being considered.

The company was apparently giving Papandreou and his government “general financial advice” but at the same time it was apparently helping its communication with rating agencies and market participants.(This should make all of weary... and very, very skeptical.)

Reports at the time said that Lazzard was also advising Papandreou's government to restructure its railways, and the electronic gaming industry so as to bring it in line with European Union directives. (Incidentally, a bill which was introduced by Papandreou about the gaming industry almost cost him a coup d’état from his own deputies which in some say was set up by Evangelos the Large). Finally, the investment bank also apparently advised Papandreou and his cronies on privatisation initiatives and real estate investment trusts such as large chunks of state property.

(Notice, that the Lazzard group was pushing the government of Papandreou to SELL SELL SELL.... and at the same time was in contact with ratings agencies. Hmmm....)

Alex Rondos on the other, is a whole chapter by himself. Press reports say he was a former Ambassador of Greece and prior to his government service he also worked for the World Bank, formed the first international relief and development organisation of the Orthodox Church, the International Christian Orthodox Charities, and he also apparently worked with Catholic Relief Services in Ethiopia, the Middle East and the United States. Today, this mysterious man is apparently "consulting" for the private sector, and contributing to the efforts of several non-governmental initiatives.

Following his run at the World Bank, he became an adviser to Foreign Minister of Greece, George Papandreou counseling him and implementing changes in Greek strategy in the Balkans and Turkey as well as helped to manage the Greek Presidency of the European Union during the Iraq crisis (all this of course when Costas Simitis was heading PASOK).

In addition to serving as personal adviser to Papandreou, Rondos also apparently undertook special missions.

These special missions apparently included designing a relief mission to Kosovo during the NATO bombing campaign (he was a support adviser to Ambasador Maljas in 1999 via an NGO); advising senior democratic opposition politicians in Belgrade leading up to and during the change of power (or toppling of the Milosovic government), etc.

This is a direct passage from the article we have been analyzing on ohridsky.com (bear in mind that the English translation of this text is not that well)

     "After the fall of Milosevic, the Greek Embassy in Belgrade employs the wife of Ivan Vejvoda. Mediating the movement of persons "Resistance" and other half secret operations  at that time in Serbia. Once an external adviser to Vojislav Kostunica at a time when Kostunica is the President of Yugoslavia, and later as an external advisor to the Minister Zoran Djindjic.
     "Immediately after the assassination of Djindjic, Serbia's leaving and returning in 2004, and makes repeated attempts to bring to Kostunica and his acting office is through the centre of Athens next to the building of the Greek Foreign Ministry. Connoisseurs say that there are good relations in Turkey and that some acts there in the secret negotiations between Greece and Turkey and the Cyprus issue since the talks despite Serbian and Turkish.
     "In Greece, Alex Rondos was considered one of the Western country, "through which comp funds from secret funds for pursuit of political influences, pressures and political changes in neighbouring countries."

He also led the Greek humanitarian mission to Turkey following the earthquake there in 1999 that led to a rapprochement between Greece and Turkey. Throughout this period, he also served as a personal envoy of the Foreign Minister on missions to Turkey, governments in the Middle East, Europe, and the USA.
Impressive (and frightful) resume indeed. It is almost like he was always in the right place at the right time (or in the right place while matters of energy, banking, regime change and what not were being determined). So who the hell is this mystery man and why the hell was Papandreou so close to him (or what linked them to each other)?

His friendship with Papandreou apparently strengthened when Rondos came to Athens with the late President of the former Council of Hellenes Abroad (SAE) Andrew Athens to convince the Greek government to financially support the Greek Diaspora in the Black Sea. In 1999 Papandreou took the helm of the Foreign Ministry succeeding Theodore Pangalos.

Again... This does not really have any juice, so who exactly is this man that we hear so much about, who is apparently tied to the assassination attempt against former prime minister Costas Karamanlis and who was and probably still is so chummy chummy with Papandreou? Well... hold on to your hats Frappers, in the analysis on  ohridsky.com about Rondos we uncovered the following shocking information.

The site specifically said that Rondos is directly involved with the Greek Foreign Ministry’s chapter on foreign aid development which is responsible for an annual budget of some 60 million Euros, in other words, he has a lot of funds to move around with. The website claims that Rondos' connections to the IMF and the World Bank apparently helped Papandreou to deal with the debt crisis while in government.

The same report also notes that Rondos also holds excellent relations with FYROM authorities especially people from the WAZ Group including the director Srdjan Kerim. His liaison or mediator with Greek political and business structures is always Marinela Koppa, someone whose role in secret negotiations about the name issue is referred to in various WikiLeaks documents.

Interestingly, it also claims that Rondos' activities over the last decade also included a project in Egypt and the article clearly states... that the activity of this project was via an organization that was linked to non-violent protests that topple governments in undemocratic regimes. (Remember the Arab Spring... Coincidence?)

Quite shockingly the same article also says that this non-violent “organization” operates from centers in Serbia and (surprise, surprise) on the island of Crete. Some of Rondos' closest friends aside from Papandreou had also included former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Dimitris Dolis, who has apparently also led para diplomatic activities by Greek NGOs in (other countries of turmoil such as) Pakistan and India. But the shocker for us here at HellasFrappe by far was discovering in the same news report that Rondos' first activities were in the countries of Albania, Egypt, Libya, Cyprus and Turkey, where he apparently occupied himself on marking the division of Mediterranean.

The article notes that Rondos was involved in Greek-Albanian "secret" activities (the politically correct term is secret diplomacy), and if we examine the news over the years then we can safely assume that this had something to do with strategic agreements on maritime borders (in other words... oil and natural gas). Apparently, these agreements were also known (and later signed) by Dora Bakoyannis who is also apparently an extremely close friend of Rondos, and who as we all know worked very hard at helping PASOK bring down Costas Karamanlis (who does not hold Rondos in the highest regard).

So now you have a general idea how all these names tie together. But what you do not know is that these ties go back at least four decades, or during a period when Margaret Chant, the mother of George Papandreou, (and former wife of our late Prime Minister Andrea Papandreou), was apparently working as a secretary for the Rothchilds. Of course we cannot confirm this, but there have been numerous reports about this over the years and from what we know she has never denied it.

In fact, some believe that she is the heart of all these links and let us not forget that she has/had worked very hard at promoting her son through the years.

It is also believed that she was the link that allowed the Rothschilds to approach her late ex-husband Andreas Papandreou who apparently was asked to come to Greece in 1974 and sell an “anti-American” climate to Greek Leftists who were at the time just beginning to come out of a dictatorship style government. Some also claim that Andreas founded PASOK via Rothchild funds (and/or CIA money) and sold the notion that he was a “Leftist” by slamming American policy with campaign slogans such as “Out with American bases” in Greece. The same analysts claim Andreas did this so he can steal votes from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) which at the time held a strong position in Parliament.

This theory doesn't sound that far-fetched because when Andreas took office as Prime Minister in 1981 the anti-American slogans suddenly vanished and the Communist Party of Greece was weakened to some 8-9 percent. (Just like the Americans -or the FED- wanted).

During the same period, criminal George Sorros presented his newest protégé to the Rothchilds, Mr. Alex Rondos, yes the same man who later on stood by George Papandreou’s side. A couple of years later, and while papa Andreas Papandreou was in power, a new plan began taking shape, the Rothchilds together with Sorros and Alex Rondos began mapping out the political future of Papandreou under the strict eye of his mommy Margaret.

Some would say so what is wrong with that? True, there is definitely nothing wrong with friendships and/or relations, but let us not forget that Sorros and the Rothchilds were behind the dismantling of Serbia and the re-shaping of the Balkan map. And please do not take our word for it, do your own research. Just google the subject and you will find a plethora of information. In fact George Sorros even still brags about it.

Now add all the above to what Kissinger said in 1974 about Greece and the Greeks, (yes the same year Andreas Papandreou came to Greece), then zoom to the present and go research how investment banks work, and how they can damage and/or improve a country's image with credit agencies and presto... you will begin getting a good picture of what happened. (If of course all the articles you read end up with the IMF moving in... then you hit a jackpot.) Following this, go research which countries and areas were visited by Alex Rondos (while he was working under Papandreou) and you will find out that most of these areas later suffered from uprisings, war, economic turmoil and/or other troubles, and trust us Frappers everything (and we mean EVERYTHING) will begin making perfect sense.

In simple words, George Papandreou had a purpose. He was raised to take on the role he took (and probably promoted by his mother to do so). After all, the Rothchilds, George Sorros and Alex Rondos  worked very hard towards this, or since the mid seventies, and they invested heavily in George Papandreou's political future. He owes (and owed) them BIG TIME since his childlike buffoon knowledge on world affairs, combined with his (mommy's) lust for power, make George Bush Junior look so innocent!

Most importantly Papandreou owes them his political career and he does not care what price that entails. We saw this with Greece. Instead of helping Karamanlis to take softer austerity measures several years ago, (or basically freezing wages) Papandreou purposely refused because his job was to come into power and destroy everything that Karamanlis built. How else could he destroy and dismantle every opportunity this country had of ever becoming an international energy hub? How else would he place Greece in the arms of the IMF and allow corporate giants to move in and buy everything in this country at a sale price?

Treason, some would say and it is, but unfortunately the drama has not ended.

We are in the middle of this crisis, or right smack in the eye of the storm, and there are many, many more events at store. We have already witnessed the "Arab Spring", the clashes in Egypt, the crisis in the banking sector and judging from Rondos' involvement with FYROM we may even expect to see developments on the issue of Skopje very soon as well. Another subject is the issue of gold mining, the Cyprus issue, Turkish advances in the Aegean (something that Rondos has been lobbying for), the exploration and exploitation of oil and gas deposits of course and finally (and we believe this strongly) on the dismantling of Greece itself.

Does it sound like a huge conspiracy? It might to some because it is too incredible to even digest, but we  highly doubt it is and this is because if one goes through the news day after day, month after month and year after year, it is all there in black and white. In fact if you guys set out researching this in detail then you may even uncover more information than we did.

So why is all this happening? The answer is complex and at the same time very obvious: The name of the game is energy, and Greece is sitting right smack in the middle of this international energy chessboard. Even though the area of concentration is the Caucasus region (because of the vast amounts of natural gas that are suspected and/or have been found there), Greece still holds a geo-strategic position in the region because it is a gateway to the Middle East, to the Balkans, to Europe and most its natural reserve potential has not fully been explored yet.

Besides, almost all the current geopolitical developments in this region are energy-related and part of Rothschild fav. Dr Zbigniew Brzezinski's "grand chessboard" to Eurasia game.

Over the next few years, all the eyes of the world will be in the East Mediterranean, and this is not because of its vast amounts of natural gas which are suspected of being there, but because of the pipelines that will begin sending much needed energy to well over 500 million Europeans.

According to Wikipedia the following gas pipelines are at play (or are already functioning): The AMBO pipeline, the Baltic Pipeline System, the Brent System, the controversial Bourgas-Alexandroupoli pipeline, the CLH Pipelines - Spain, the  Druzhba pipeline, the Forties pipeline system, the Grozny-Tuapse pipeline, the Ninian pipeline, the Odessa-Brody pipeline, the Pan-European Pipeline, the Transalpine Pipeline, the South European Pipeline, the TRAPIL - France,

According to Wikipedia the following natural gas pipelines are at play (some of which prove the importance of Greece's role -and position in the Mediterranean and even more so in the control of the Aegean-) - The Baltic Gas Interconnector- Germany, Denmark and Sweden (planned), the Baltic Pipe (planned), the Balticconnector (planned), the BBL Pipeline, the Blue Stream pipeline, the CATS pipeline, the ENAGAS Pipeline - Spain, the Europipe I, the Europipe II, the FLAGS, the Franpipe, the Frigg UK System, the Fulmar Gas Pipeline, the GALSI (planned), the Gazela Pipeline, the Greece-Italy pipeline (planned), the Greenstream pipeline, the Interconnector, the JAGAL, the Langeled Pipeline - Northwestern Europe, the MIDAL, the Maghreb-Europe Gas Pipeline (Algeria-Morocco-Spain-Portugal), the Medgaz (Algeria-Spain), the MEGAL, the Nabucco Pipeline (planned), the NEL pipeline (under construction), the Netra, the NOGAT Pipeline System, the Nord Stream (North European Gas Pipeline), the OPAL pipeline, the Progress Pipeline, the Rehden-Hamburg gas pipeline, the STEGAL, the Skanled (planned), the Statpipe, the South German natural gas pipeline, the South Stream - Russia - Bulgaria - Italy/Austria -and formerly in Greece as well- (planned), the South Wales Gas Pipeline, the Soyuz Pipeline, the Trans Austria Gas Pipeline, the Trans Europa Naturgas Pipeline, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (planned), the Trans-Mediterranean Pipeline, the Transitgas Pipeline, the Turkey-Greece pipeline, the Tyra West - F3 pipeline, the Vesterled, the West-Austria-Gasleitung, the WEDAL, the White Stream, the Yamal-Europe pipeline, the Zeepipe.

Turkey has a strong presence in the region, but Israel does not trust Ankara at all. Today, it seeks an alliance with Greece and Cyprus and this is to our benefit because Greece is the only nation in the region that is on good (or fair) terms with all four global geopolitical players. Meaning: The US, Russia, the EU and China.

Most importantly, Greece controls the Aegean Sea. The Aegean Sea is an important as a sea route and air passage between Europe and Turkey and the broader Eastern Mediterranean, and between the former Soviet Republics of Russia, Ukraine (including the shipment of oil and gas from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan etc.) and the Mediterranean Sea. Interestingly, the Aegean airspace is one of the main airways connecting Israel with the United States and Western Europe which is of major importance for the survival of Israel - with the implication that Israel would never consent to the occupation of this airspace by an unfriendly power -in other words Turkey-. The Aegean Sea is a very important space in the context of geopolitical dynamics and control, while it is an asset for whichever power has sovereign rights over it.

For now, we are being tugged at the nose by the US for geopolitical reasons because Papandreou made sure to relinquish Greece of any energy ties with Russia (Bourgas-Alexandroupoli pipeline, South-Stream, etc) and probably through his close ties with Rondos (and Lazzard, which was friends with Sorros, and the Rothschilds) Greece's natural gas and oil is now going to be controlled by the West, or the petrodollar (and/or the FED). On the other hand, the EU made sure to tie us hand and foot to the Memorandums of shame so it too can secure its share in this geopolitical game (that is why Samaras said European maritime boarders - This phrase alone speaks volumes).

So there you have it... now you know what is at play, and now you know what Papandreou's role was as well as why they wanted Karamanlis desperately out of the way quickly.

And no, never expect any of this news to be analyzed by the mainstream media, with the exception of reporters such as George Trangas, and EXTRA channel, and certainly never expect any of these people to be charged and thrown to jail either for the crimes that they may/or maybe not have committed. Certainly they have their networks set up on every corner of this globe and if we judge how they take care of Papandreou in the US, then it is obvious that when you scratch their back, they will scratch yours.

There is only one thing that can change their agendas and that is us. If we as a society begin discussing and debating the real issues that affect our country, or the stories within the stories... then we can protect Greece's interests. It might sound naive, but we can. If we stop being indifferent, arrogant and ignorant and begin involving ourselves on matters that deal with geopolitics, energy and politics then we can force change, and possibly end all this scheming. Certainly all the players indicated above have their own interests at heart, but we must also follow suit.

So shake off your political ideologies Frappers and unite with us today in surfacing the truth.

Will you join us?

Sources:
http://www.ohridsky.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=601&Itemid=121
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2011/08/total-destruction-of-greek-russian.html
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2011/08/authorities-launch-formal-investigation.html
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2013/04/special-report-plot-thickens-in.html
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2013/11/pasok-mp-implicated-in-karamanlis-wire.html