On toxic waste dumps, Apoyevmatini, free speech, reforms and unemployment

Thank you for your reporting and attention to this issue (?Toxic waste dumping raises inspectors’ concerns?).

This is just another astonishing example of the egregious collusion between the Greek government and industry at the expense of Greek citizens’ health. WikiGreeks.org also wrote on a similar issue of corporate malfeasance concerning the company DePuy and its involvement in pervasive bribery which caused Greek citizens to pay exponentially higher health expenses than other Europeans.

Dimitri Bertson

Turk’s campaign for a Greek paper

People like Efe Kerem Sozeri will change the world.

It is so refreshing to see this happening.

Many thanks from another Greek living abroad.

Alex Charalambous, France

Free speech

This article (?How do we control blogs in Greece, if at all??) lacks clarity. Is the author opposed to free speech in Greece or for it? This is unclear. There cannot be ‘free speech’ in a country that passes laws limiting free speech.

The Internet is a major bastion to everyone’s right to obtain information. It is inevitable that some of that information (or information distributed through more traditional means, like hard-copy news and radio) will be inaccurate or designed to attack an individual or group. That’s just how it is. Suppressing negative information just sets a precedent for suppressing any information deemed by some individuals to be undesirable.

Kathryn Waterfield

Civil servants and taxes

When I read that the civil servants? union would refuse to collect taxes as their campaign against further cuts, I wondered which idiots ran that union.

If they really wish to give the politicians a headache, refuse to process their pay, refuse to process their refunds for expenses, refuse to process their holidays, etc.

Hurt the politicians where it will really hurt as they so thoroughly deserve.

If all the parties were honest in their hopes to save Greece then they would have volunteered to cut their own pay and benefits.

What? You did not hear such an offer? Neither did I.

Angelos Eleftherios Kenos, Australia

Unemployment

The figures are probably flattering the real situation:

– Some people do have a job, but work fewer hours now than before.

– Workers in the informal economy are not jobless in the official statistics. And when they do not work now they still are no part of these statistics. But also here having an income is sometimes hard.

In my estimation, the real situation is 5 to 10 percent worse.

Hans van der Schaaf