HotDoc Magazine Issue #26 – Maria, the banks and guns-for-hire: the contract on Vaxevanis

The following is a summary of pages 14-41 of the 26th issue of the magazine HotDoc, whose editor is journalist Kostas Vaxevanis. 

The 3rd issue of the magazine HotDoc, dated 24 May 2012, revealed sensitive information about scandals involving Greek banks. Advance copies had been sent to other news outlets. On 23 May, Fimotro, a blog often denounced for engaging in defamation and blackmail, published a picture of a receipt allegedly issued by the Greek Intelligence Service (EYP) in the name of HotDoc’s editor, Kostas Vaxevanis. The receipt was dated 15 June 2011 and said he was paid €50,000 for services to EYP for the 1st semester of 2011. Fimotro, as well as other blogs which circulated this picture of the receipt, also played a role in portraying Reuters’ Steven Grey, who was researching a similar story on Greek banks, as an “agent” of unknown forces who sought to ruin the Greek economy (Reuters published at the time a long piece on the surveillance Grey was subjected to).

#rbnews international show 23 March 2013: Greece and Cyprus, a tale of two crises

On 23 March 2013 on #rbnews international, we discussed how Greeks and Cypriot perceive each other and their countries in the context of the sudden, acute financial crisis that engulfed Cyprus since last week. Our guests (via Skype) were George Markides (@georgiemark) and George Iordanou (@iordanou) from Cyprus, Nick Malkoutzis (@NickMalkoutzis) from Greece, and Yiannis Mouzakis (@YiannisMouzakis), who is a little bit from both.

Special thanks to @pitsirikos, @CorinaVasilopoulou, @adiasistos, @madamitsa, @giwrgoslouvaris, @MariaCuchicheo, @ZenonZindilis, @Kartesios, @atreyiou and @SovJohn whose tweets gave us food for thought for this show.

You can listen to the podcast, as usual, after the jump.