Global Voices

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The world is talking, are you listening?

An online petition [el], entitled “Save Greek water from privatization” has begun after Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ announcement calling for an aggressive programme of privatisation, including water. Main arguments of the petition is that countries in which  privatization has been applied has caused an extreme rise of prices and in some cases put public health at risk. The issue has provoked various reactions from netizens in Facebook and Twitter.

A new movement, “Stay in Europe” [el], aims to gather all Greek citizens who want Greece to remain in the Eurozone and European Union in a big demonstration in front of Syntagma Square in Athens one week before elections (June, 10, 2012). The movement has started an online campaign calling all people, regardless of their political views, to send a strong message to the future government.

A new documentary about the catastrophic consequences of the privatization of the public sector in Greece, entitled Catastroika [el], is in progress. The title comes from the combination of the words ‘catastrophe’ and ‘Troika’ (the tripartite committee led by the European Commission with the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, that organised the financial rescues of Greece, Ireland and Portugal). The same producers have also created Debtocracy [el], a documentary about the reasons for the Greek economic crisis; watch the trailer here.