Pasok Party troubles , Greek unemployment continues to soar and will Greek isles go on the sale block ?

PASOK faces fresh woes as staff protest In an unprecedented move, a crowd of angry PASOK employees on Wednesday blocked the entrance to the party headquarters in central Athens to demand four months in unpaid wages, drawing attention to PASOK’s dire finances as its cadres prepare for a leadership contest next week amid plummeting public support. Dozens of employees blocked the entrance to the building on Ippocratous Street for an hour in a type of protest virtually never held by any members of the two main political parties and more in keeping with leftist groups. The protest reignited debate about the debts of the Socialist party, estimated at 120 million euros. PASOK has also borrowed against its future state funding. Last month PASOK leader George Papandreou met with Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, in the presence of Parliament Speaker Filippos Petsalnikos, to discuss the party’s debt problem but they failed to agree on how to solve it, sources said. Employees of conservative New Democracy, which is some 132 million euros in debt, have lodged similar complaints about outstanding wages. Sources said, however, that progress has been made in paying staff their dues. Both parties are said to be pressing the Finance Ministry for funding as their debts grow and their camps gear up for early elections, expected in late April or early May. PASOK first has a leadership contest to get through. Venizelos, who is the favorite to replace PASOK leader and former Premier George Papandreou but who has yet to announce his candidacy, has reportedly garnered the support of more than half of the party’s 376-seat political council, gathering more than 200 signatures. Christos Papoutsis, who resigned as citizens’ protection minister last month in order to join the race, is said to have collected 94 signatures, making it unlikely that a third candidate will run. and.... Over half of Greek youth unemployed  Statistics service figure shows joblessness hit record high of 21% in NovemberGreek unemployment hit another record high in December and for the first time the number of young people without a job outnumbered those in work. Statistics service ELSTAT said on Thursday that the overall jobless rate rose to 21 percent from 20.9 percent in November, twice the euro zone rate. The average unemployment rate for 2011 jumped to 17.3 percent from 12.5 percent in the previous year, according to the figures, which are not adjusted for seasonal factors. Youth were particularly hit. For the first time on record, more people between 15-24 years were without a job than with one. Unemployment in that age group rose to 51.1 percent, twice as high as three years ago. Budget cuts imposed by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund as a condition for saving the debt-laden country from a chaotic default have caused a wave of corporate closures and bankruptcies. Greece's economy is estimated to have shrunk by a about a fifth since 2008, when it plunged into its deepest and longest post-war recession. About 600,000 jobs, more than one in ten, have been destroyed in the process. Things will get worse before they get better, according to analysts. «Despite some emergency government measures to boost employment in early 2012, it is hard to see how the upward unemployment trend can be stabilized in the first half of the year,» said Nikos Magginas, an economist at National Bank of Greece. A record 1,033,507 people were without work in December, 41 percent more than in the same month last year. The number in work dropped to a record low of 3,899,319, down 7.9 percent year-on-year. Pressured by its international backers under the terms of a planned European Union/International Monetary Fund bailout, the country's second since 2010, Greece last month slashed its minimum monthly wage by about a fifth to about 580 euros ($760), gross, to encourage hirings. German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, however, said on Wednesday this was still higher than other debt-laden countries such as Spain. The average jobless rate in the 17 countries sharing the euro rose slightly in December to a seasonally adjusted 10.6 percent, from 10.5 percent in November. ($1 = 0.7622 euros). and... Foreign buyers eyeing Patroklos By Nikos Roussanoglou The issue of the sale of Patroklos, an islet in the Saronic Gulf with a surface area of 2.6 square kilometers, is emerging afresh as well-informed sources suggest that a Canadian billionaire came to Greece last week and expressed an interest in its acquisition. Interest in the islet off the Attica coast is also being expressed by Lebanese entrepreneur Antoine Maalouf, chairman and chief executive officer of the Meyers Management Consulting Group. Maalouf had also come close to acquiring Patroklos four years ago, producing letters of guarantee to the amount of $15 billion, but his efforts proved futile due to town-planning and bureaucracy limitations. However, the government’s desperate need for funds may change that this time. Patroklos has recently featured on websites -- some of them fairly dubious -- advertising Greek islands for sale, with a price tag of 150 million euros. However, the islet’s land usage status remains unclear, hampering any acquisition efforts.