Greek Defense Minister Dismisses Militay Leaders Ahead of Referrendum

Greece's ruling Socialist government was reeling and on the verge of collapse as several lawmakers and ministers called for a referendum over the bailout package that Prime Minister George Papandreou had managed to secure from the European Union.

Several ministers and lawmakers called for an emergency meeting of the governing Socialists in parliament, where Papandreou has convened a cabinet session for noon.

His shock referendum decision Monday angered European leaders and many of his own party lawmakers, several of whom have called for the prime minister to step down and a cross-party national unity government to be created in order to safeguard the bailout.

Speculation that the referendum pledge may be abandoned alongside a caretaker government has helped calm frayed nerves in the markets. Athens main stock market outperformed its peers, rising by over 3 percent by midday trading.

Though the leaders of the world's economic powerhouses were gathered at the chic French resort of Cannes for the Group of 20 meeting, most attention in the financial markets was focused on Athens and the mounting political crisis, which erupted earlier Thursday when Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos broke ranks with Papandreou on the referendum proposal.

Papandreou's referendum proposal horrified Greece's international partners and creditors, triggering turmoil in financial markets as investors fretted over the prospect of a disorderly debt default and the country's exit from the eurozone.

In perhaps an even more disturbing development out of Athens, Greek defense minister Panos Beglitis announced the summary dismissal of the heads of the Greek Army, Air Force and Navy on Thursday. Beglitis is an ally and confidant of PM Papandreou.

Neither the minister nor any government spokesman offered an explanation for the sudden, sweeping changes, which were scheduled to be considered on November 7 as part of a regular annual review of military leadership retirements and promotions. Usually the annual changes do not affect the entire leadership.

“Under no circumstances will these changes be accepted, at a time when the government is collapsing and has not even secured a vote of confidence,” said an official announcement by the opposition conservative New Democracy party.

“It has no moral or real authority any more, and such surprise moves can only worsen the crisis currently sweeping the country”.

The party said it will not accept the new nominations and will take its own decisions on armed forces changes if it comes to power at the general elections that are expected to take place in Greece if the government loses the vote of confidence on Friday night.

The left wing SYRIZA party said that the government’s decision “gives the impression that it wants to create a highly politicized armed forces that it can control at a time of political crisis”. It called on the President of the Republic not to proceed with the formal ratification of the defence minister’s decree and to wait until new general elections take place.

Similar statements were made by all smaller political parties from the extreme right to the hard-line communists.

From the late 1960s the the mid 1970s, Greece was ruled by a military junta, although many experts feel that this week's moves were what could be a final opportunity for Papandreou to fill the military's top slots with candidates of his choosing, as his government could be looking at a no-confidence vote in Parliment on Friday.

While some think that either a coup or declaration of martial law would be farfetched, between the clashes between the government and protesters, the ongoing economic crisis and the top brass being dismissed, the table seems obligingly set for some of the more unpleasant scenarios.

Scam Within a Scam- Hackers Hit EU Carbon Credit Exchange, Steal €30 Million in Carbon Credits

Trading on the European Union Carbon Exchange was halted after hackers made off with an estimated €30 million in carbon emission allowances from five European countries in late January.

The Czech Registry for Emissions Trading was one of the worst affected by the hack, losing 7 million euros worth of the pollution permits, known as EU Allowances (EUAs).

Some 2 million EUAs were stolen by hackers from Austria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Estonia and Poland within a few days. Each credit allows the bearer one ton of emissions and is worth 14 euros.

EU authorities say they suspect a phishing scam enabled hackers to log into unsuspecting companies' carbon credit accounts and transfer the allowances to themselves, allowing them to be sold on.

The credits are normally traded between companies that have a shortage of or excess emissions allowances for their current operations, and involve instant payment, meaning hackers can create accounts and then delete them as soon as they are paid.

Investigators in Greece have traced the thefts to at least 8 internet protocol addresses in Romania. Registry officials in Estonia and Germany say they have located some 610,000 allowances stolen from the Czech registry, but the theft not only highlights a lack of security on the international exchanges, but also raises concerns that credits purchased in good faith on the open market could turn out to be stolen from the registries.

Some of the markets reopened with limited activity on Feb 3rd after giving "reasonable reassurances that the minimum security requirements are in place".

It is not the first time the ETS has suffered a security breach. The system was hit by a phishing scam last year that saw 13 European markets shut down, while a cross-border fraud scam in 2008 and 2009 netted criminals 5 million euros, according to Agence France-Presse.

I could go on about how such 'cap and trade' or climate or carbon Exchanges are pretty much worse than useless, but they do a bang up job of explaining that all by themselves- however unintentionally. Hell, Chicago's much-ballyhooed Climate Exchange shut down at the end of 2010.

Leaving aside the fact that such a system would arbitrarily place limits on output from manufacturing, transportation, utilities and energy exploration, how exactly would these trading mechanisms be enforced? It would require a massive bureaucracy and even more red tape- think along the lines of 0bamacare's 1099 mandate, only for air instead of healthcare.

All while obstructing further exploration and drilling for oil in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, coal in West Virginia or natural gas in the Marcellus shale. This in turn has already driven up energy costs and will only further America's dependence on energy imported from unstable or belligerent nations.

And if anybody think the above problems will magically go away thanks to some sort arbitrary imposition of cap and trade of carbon exchange scheme, I have a bridge in Brooklyn couple of EU carbon credits to sell you.

More Mail Bomb Madness: Parcel Bombs Sent to Foreign Embassies in Greece, French President and German Chancellor

Authorities in Greece say that at least five foreign embassies in Athens were targeted in mail bomb attacks earlier this week. Two of the bombs went off seperately at the two seperate compounds where the Swiss and Russian embassies are located, with no reports of injuries.

Shortly after those explosions, an Athens courier became suspicious of a parcel he was carrying and alerted police on duty at the Greek Parliment building, where it was destroyed in a controlled demolition.

Two more parcel bombs surfaced- one at the Bulgarian embassy and the other at a shipping company in central Athens and were also destroyed by Greek police in controlled blasts.

One of the explosive parcels made it as far as the mail room of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin before it was intercepted and disarmed by German police.

The rash of bombings in Athens came the day after two Greek men in Athens carrying pistols and ammo in waist packs were arrested with a parcel bomb that was addressed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and another addressed to the Belgian Embassy.

Police in Athens were responding after a parcel bomb exploded and burned a female employee of a delivery company on Monday when they noticed two suspicious men wearing baseball caps, wigs and sunglasses at a nearby bus stop. The men, aged 22 and 24, were taken into custody and are believed to be members of the Nuclei of Fire- a leftist-anarchist group reposnsible for a rash of arsons and setting off small bombs in Greece over the last two years.

Greece has suspended foreign mail shipments while authorities in the EU are undertaking an emergency review of security procedures for air cargo. The parcel bombs originating in Athens are thought to be unrelated to the recently unearthed Al Qaeda parcel bomb plot that originated in Yemen.