South Asians hit by Greek crisis

29 June 2011 Last updated at 19:11 GMT Greece is in the grip of violent protests against austerity cuts Thousands of South Asian migrants have left Greece in recent months to escape the country's growing economic crisis.

Many of the migrants are now out of work and facing hardship, community leaders told the BBC.

One Bangladeshi grocer in Athens said daily proceeds from his shop had plummeted and he had had to lay off six of his eight employees.

Greece faces massive tax rises and spending cuts aimed at preventing the country from defaulting on its debts.

Without a second bail-out from the European Union, the country could run out of money within weeks. Greece is in the grip of a nationwide strike and violent clashes are continuing in Athens.

'No jobs'

Jainal Abedin, a businessman and president of the Bangladeshi Association in Athens, said there were 30,000 people of Bangladeshi origin in Greece.

Continue reading the main story

Lots of factories and shops were closed and our people lost jobs”

End Quote Madhur Gandhi President, Indian Community in Greece The financial crisis meant jobs were being cut and orders were down, he said.

"Many Bangladeshis are leaving Greece because they don't have jobs," Mr Abedin told the BBC Bengali service.

He said his grocer's shop used to take 6,000-7,000 euros a day, but that had now dropped to 300-400 euros and suppliers were no longer willing to take his cheques.

The Bangladeshi embassy said dozens of the country's nationals were asking it for help every month in returning home because of the lack of work.

Pakistani community leaders in Athens speaking to the BBC Urdu service had a similar tale.

They say there are around 80,000 Pakistanis living in Greece. Some 17,000 are legally settled while others are either asylum seekers or illegal immigrants.

Continue reading the main story June 29: Parliament approves new austerity package June 30: MPs to vote on details of implementing packageJuly 3: EU will sign off latest bail-out payment to Greece - 12bn euros - if both votes are passedJuly 15: Without the 12bn euros, Greece will defaultThey estimated that more than 75% of Pakistanis had been directly or indirectly affected by the financial crisis in Greece.

Most had lost their jobs or work, and people running small businesses were now incurring heavy losses.

According to an official figure, 1,500 Pakistanis in Greece have returned to Pakistan since the financial crisis began in 2008.

They did so under an official programme to facilitate the return of illegal immigrants. Many more Pakistanis have gone back on their own.

'Shops closed'

Indians, too, are leaving, for similar reasons.

Madhur Gandhi, a shipping businessman in Athens and president of the Indian Community in Greece, said the crisis had affected lots of lives.

Out of about 30,000 Indians in Greece, only 18,000 were legal immigrants, he said. The vast majority of the community were agricultural workers employed on various islands - only a couple of hundred lived in Athens.

"Lots of factories and shops were closed and our people lost jobs," Mr Gandhi told the BBC Hindi service.

"Agriculture workers were also affected but most seriously affected were the construction workers. About 1,000-2,000 Indians have gone back to India."

The Sri Lankan community numbers 5,000-6,000, Matale Dhammakanda, a Buddhist priest in Athens, said.

Most work as housemaids or in hotels and many had entered the country illegally.

They were facing severe hardship and many were now trying to find ways to migrate to other countries in search of employment, he told the BBC Sinhala service.

Send your pictures and videos to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to 61124 (UK) or +44 7725 100 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here.

Read the terms and conditions

View the original article here

Kabul Bank crisis threatens aid

20 June 2011 Last updated at 17:28 GMT Kabul Bank was taken over by the Afghan central bank in September 2010 The Afghan finance minister has said he is "running out of patience" with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after it rejected a plan to deal with the troubled lender Kabul Bank.

Kabul Bank nearly collapsed last year after it emerged it had made unsecured loans of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Afghan elite.

The IMF is blocking the release of $70m (?43m) in aid because of its concerns.

Unless a deal is agreed, Afghanistan may struggle to pay its civil servants.

The government uses Kabul Bank to pay salaries, including those of teachers, police and the army.

Diplomats told the Reuters news agency the Afghan government could face a "cash crunch" as soon as next month.

Kabul relies on aid for about 40% of its operating budget and for all of its multi-billion dollar reconstruction and development projects.

Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal said further talks with the IMF would be "a waste of [his] time".

Concerns about abuses

Mr Zakhilwal said the IMF had asked the Afghan parliament to inject $73m into Kabul Bank in a supplementary budget. When parliament refused to do so, the IMF withheld its own release of $70m to the government.

"We are now negotiating with a partner who is not a willing partner to actually conclude this," the minister told a news conference in Kabul.

The ministry of finance sent two proposals to the IMF last week, but diplomats said these were not sufficient to guard against future abuses.

The Afghan parliament has now begun its 45-day summer break, and Mr Zakhilwal says it will not be recalled to deal with the crisis.

The IMF suspended its support programme last September when the Kabul Bank scandal came to light. Without the IMF's seal of approval, donors are unlikely to contribute funds.

Afghans rushed to withdraw their savings when it emerged that the bank had been lending money to government officials and their friends and relations.

Kabul Bank was bailed out by the central bank as part of efforts to prevent it from collapsing after former executives granted themselves off-the-books loans worth a reported $900m (?555m). In April, it was split into a "good" and "bad" bank.

The bank has almost $1bn (?600m) in outstanding loans at a time when many foreign governments and donors are warning that they will not make more aid payments until the bank's problems are dealt with by the IMF.

The World Bank says 97% of Afghanistan's gross domestic product (GDP) is linked to spending by the international military and donor community.

The fallout is all the more damaging as the country prepares for 2014, when the number of foreign troops is due to be substantially reduced.

Between now and then the government is hoping to finance a $820m (?506m) bail-out of the bank - with the ministry of finance announcing that it will ramp up its tax collection efforts to pay for it.

Public confidence in the banking system - never strong under the Taliban - has now been almost completely destroyed, correspondents say, with thousands of safes being sold over the last year to people wanting to hoard cash at home.

No payments have been made by donors into the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), the main vehicle for international aid to Afghanistan, for the past three months.

Payments to the ARTF have been stopped because of the continued lack of an IMF support programme, a seal of approval required by most donors before they pledge aid.

Kabul Bank was founded in 2004 by Sherkhan Farnood, a leading international poker player. Other co-owners included Mahmood Karzai, a brother of President Hamid Karzai.

View the original article here