Greece debt crisis: PM Alexis Tsipras faces Syriza mutiny after capitulating to demands

As was said just yesterday.

 

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras returned to face a mutiny within his coalition after he surrendered to European demands for action to qualify for up to 86 billion euros ($127.8 billion) of aid Greece needs to stay in the euro.

With two factions in his government already saying they won’t support the deal, Tsipras met with his closest aides as he tries to stop the revolt from spreading before a vote in parliament on Wednesday. Creditors’ demands include an overhaul of sales tax, a broadening of the tax base and a clampdown on pension costs.

Tsipras will “have to change his administration and clear out hardliners and radicals from his party,” as well as rely on opposition support to pass the necessary measures, said Eurasia Group analysts Mujtaba Rahman and Federico Santi. “But it is a tough call to determine how Tsipras will go about doing this.”

Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi Iran’s next leader

 

The Iranian Assembly of experts, composed of clerics who are empowered to appoint and dismiss their country’s ‘supreme leader’, have chosen the ultraconservative Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi as their new chairman today

The surprise choice of Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi as head of the Assembly of Experts took place at a highly sensitive time, as Iran and six world powers face a March 31 deadline to reach the outline of an agreement overTehran‘s disputed nuclear programme.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 75, underwent prostate surgery last year and rumours have recently resurfaced about his health, although he was shown on television last Sunday meeting a group of environmental activists.