for greece for many years.lves to going through with the project, we have the agreements with the bulgarian side and the russian sidend for the proje and we consider it very important, both in internally and strategic importance. and, actually, a few days before those announcements by the prime minister of bulgaria, we, the ministry of environment had called a meeting with our bulgarian counterparts to discuss and move as fast as we could within the environmental assessment for the project, and sadly, a few days later the prime minister of bulgaria announced exactly that, and, in a way, put it as withdrawing from the project which is a very negative development. still, from our side, we keep still pushing for the project. we actually, the ministry of environment is planning to continue on presenting also the greek side for the permit for such a project eventually that will happen if there was a change of minds in bulgaria, and, we still consider it very important. now, the problem is, that we cannot take the de

so, i would say, let's look at the trend in greece and the trend in greece is a positive one. we're 40% down on our deficit. we're ahead of target from the first report card that we're getting from the i.m.f. and the european union. we have made major changes. we're doing reforms in pension, education, and health. these are things that show we're on track. >> reporter: so, why does it matter to america, to americans what happens here in greece? >> well, first of all, i think that we're all a very interdependent world so that anything that happens anywhere in the world affects everyone else. we saw that with lehman brothers in the crisis on wall street. it didn't just affect the united states only. it affected the global economy, but we saw that also with greece. i wouldn't have expected, and i didn't expect this even just a few months ago, was how greece could become the center of attention because of its problems. and that's because, and we all know this, when it hits you, it is much more striking, the fact that we are so interwoven, so interdependent. a small event here, an

more per year than greece has citizens. shops and restaurants in athens still open and pretty pricey. government still on duty on guard. but greece is now marching to different drummers. europe and the imf, which came to its aid with the three-year loan package on condition that greece raise taxes and cut state salaries. this month prime minister also pushed pension reform through parliament, raising the retirement age while reducing benefits. >> these are very difficult measures. obviously that's why people are unhappy and feel the pain. even though there are demonstrations we also have a large support of people who understand that this is a patriotic duty, that that we must move forward, change our economy, do not default and deal with our debt. >> reporter: the government boasts beating its deficit targets, refinancing its debt at cheaper rates. but how much support for austerity is there in greece? will the reforms succeed? eventual default be averted? no more crisis? >> a cab driver who asks to be called by his adopted

tonight he starts with how the mess began in greece.it's part of his ongoing reporting on making sense of financial news . >> reporter: greece, striking public servants, outraged pensioners, a usually laid back pop las up in arms about cutbacks, tax scandals and the skepter of bankruptcy which in turn has undermined faith in the euro and markets around the world. this week we'll be reporting from greece about what's happening now. but to help explain the cause of the greek economic crisis, as well as the prospects for the future, we went first to nashville. because it's home to a professional investor named john shane whose's alter ego merle hazard writes clever country songs about economics and at our prodding, an economic song about a country. it just so happens that nashville also has the perfect set for this act, a full scale replica of the parthenon. >> oh yes, the greeks gave us a-- and plato and other wonder stuff ♪ ♪ but balancing their national budget, their budget ♪ ♪ apparently is tough ♪. >> reporter: the song is supposed to

>> it's not another greece. >> deficits. >> they aren't going to bring it to greece, are they? >> they are going to bring >>> despite uncertain world events and the resulting ups and downs in the market, we are moving america forward again. >> well mr. president, a growing number of americans don't seem to share your optimism. pbs polls released this past week show this. item, obama overall job approval. 18 months ago, the new president gained 69% approval. today 43%. a 26% plunge. item, handling the economy. the president has spent too little time addressing the nation's economy, 52%. the president has spent the right amount of time, 33%. the president has spent too much time, 8%. item, the $787 billion obama stimulous. the stimulous has had no affects on the economy, 56%. the stimulous has helped, 23%. the stimulous has hurt, 13%. item, recession time frame. americans predict two or more years, 75%. item, afghanistan war, two months ago, 49% of americans believed the afghanistan war was going somewhat badly or very badly. today 62% say the afghanistan war is >>> question, is

the shipping community is bringing money to greece.hose who do not pay the taxes are not the wealthy or the big companies. they are the small merchant-- the small people who have made money illegally through corruption and they don't want to declare it because they cannot prove where they took the money from. >> reporter: the big blame the small. the small, t rich. >> justice means the big fish must pay. >> reporter: small businessman and professor nick sigrimis is struggling to keep his firm, which automates greenhouses and fish farms, afloat. like so many greeks, he and his workers are now suffering pay and benefit cuts, income and sales tax hikes. the government has to hook those on top, he insists. >> the government has to get the big fish in order to present to the people that we do what we have to do and we need the people to come along with us in the effort that we do to get out of the crisis. >> reporter: journalist teloglu agrees. >> the political justification of the austerity program will come if you catch the big ones. we h

they could withstand another financial crisis of the seven five were from space one each came from greece european banking officials hope the financial health check would show the confidence economy could be strong and whether that crisis over the tests have been criticized for being too easy to profit. dutch

ireland and greece and one other had strong results today. the spanish government unloaded almost 6 billion euros in treasury bills despite banking concerns. ireland unloaded $1.5 billion in paper after seeing their rate lowered by moody's. greece, $2 billion in bonds. goldman sachs released disappointing second-quarter numbers. more on their numbers later, but here is a wrap-up of trading action from the frankfurt stock exchange. >> the world waited for new numbers from goldman sachs, and they have been disappointing, the weakest since 2008. this shows there are still problems ahead for the banking section, and especially here in germany. goldman sachs has not been the only disappointment so far. ibm and texas instruments have been under expectation, so this all soured the mood here on the floor, and stocks went down under 6000 points. >> let's get a look at how stock markets ended the tuesday session. similar for the euro index. new york and wall street, the dow in late trading, 10,230 right now and our currency versus the euro down just a

we're actually borrowing more this year than greece. so, it's necessary for britain to tighten its belt and prove that we can live within our means. and having won the election on that basis, and formed a coalition government on that basis, i want to demonstrate that that's what we're going to do. >> reporter: you don't look at the united states and in any way say, you are continuing to stimulate yourself into a point of no return? >> well, president obama himself

spain france and italy have all denied the bank a leading role in their sovereign bond sales so greece which used goldman in a bond sale this year is practically at war with the bank the press is acting as if it's a mystery like why suddenly is europe having no problem selling their debt but before you had goldman sachs was the primary dealer and yet they were betting against their own client just like in america the deal seems to be bet against your children bet against the future still from the future steal from your population and apparently when you remove that element of the equation your economy grows like a real free market right i mean you've got a war on terror and it's interpreted in two different ways in the united states are going after men in caves that are probably long sense departed and in europe they're getting rid of the real terrorists goldman sachs and as a result their economies are now doing much better certainly they're able to sell their debt easier now so francis the article says hasn't used goldman in three years quote french people would. in the streets if we

and i went to greece and i was learning greek. ski with this instructor named gisele. didn't speak any english. >> jimmy: that was your first time skiing? >> yeah. >> jimmy: were you good at it? >> yeah. i have this thing -- there's something in my brain -- i'm not afraid of anything, at least, like, falling on my face in the snow and stuff. snow is -- >> jimmy: you're a vampire. why would you be scared? as a vampire, you have nothing to fear. >> right now, i'm tan. i'm not a vampire. >> jimmy: you got up there, you were good at it -- >> i was decent. and then i had to, like, lie and say that i had skied before, because people thought i was a liar, so i lied to not be a liar or something. >> jimmy: because your skiing was so good, people doubted that you are -- >> i wasn't like wonder woman on the slopes, like -- >> jimmy: wonder woman skis? i didn't know that. in her invisible plane on the slopes. are you an athletic person in general? >> i think so. well, i quit smoking a year ago, actually, july 5th is, like, my one year. [ app

police have arrested 40 people connected to the bombings. >>> in greece several children's camps have been evacuated after a large forest fire expanded southeast of athens. fanned by strong winds as many as 45 fires are racing across the country burning large sections of vegetation. crews battling them from the ground and from the air. so far no injuries have been reported no homes have been damaged. huge forest fires devastated large areas outside of athens in 2007. >> now to the gulf where bp is extending its trial run of a cap keeping oil from going into the water. the oil giant was initially given 48 hours to test the latest effort but this afternoon the company was given another day. how the cap is preforming and what bp plans to do next. >> reporter: no signs of a new leak so far as bt tests the cap it placed over its broken well. company officials say pressure readings are slightly higher than friday's levels. a sign the well isn't springing new leaks. >> once again we are looking for if there could possibly be any breaches. >> reporter: on thursday they stopped the gush of oil

spain, greece, eastern europe, portugal, all tremendously weak. and, have you been taken off guard? >> i'm always cautious and i'm always very attentive to the unknown risk. because i strongly believe that the risk is going to come from somewhere unexpected. >> reporter: how bad is the threat now? >> what we've done for europe at large i think is a very massive plan, totally unexpected, totally counter treaty because it was not scheduled in the treaty that we should do a bailout program as we did. >> reporter: this is the may 9 bailout that you did. i think you said at the time that it was the most expensive night in the history of the world. >> that's right, because we had essentially a trillion dollars on the table to confront any market attack that would target any country, whether it's greece, spain, portugal or anybody within the euro zone. >> reporter: so you're not worried that there's an imminent threat to the global economy at the moment. you wouldn't tell me if you were i don't guess. >> no, no, let me be more specific about it. i was asked if it was the beginning of the c

of the seven have failed, five are in spain, one is in germany, and one is in greece. according to regulators, the stress tests are very stringent. we should be reassured. the were the tests stressful enough to restore the credibility of european banking? we have this report. >> it felt like exam results time for europe's thanks, and these were the teachers marking the books. -- europe's banks, and these were the teachers marking the books. >> we have seven banks that would now, if the stress materialized, would be under the 6% threshold that we used as a benchmark. the capital shortfall to reach the sec's% set -- 6% would be 3.5 billion. >> across europe, regulators tested be held of 91 banks and in total. questions included how they would cope with their work and unexpected fall in economic growth and what would be the impact of the worsening in the government money market? the seven banks that failed were in germany, spain, and greece. most of them were small. they need to raise $4.5 billion between them. in banking terms, that is peanuts. the big question now -- is

the world's worry has been that greece's troubles could spread here. but the stakes are much higher: spain is the ninth largest economy in the world. the ripple effects of a debt crisis here: a global deluge. so what's the problem and how likely is the flood? for answers, we began at the madrid home of old friends: journalists jose soler and american wife, ana westley, together since 1968 when spain, still a dictatorship, was dirt poor. >> spain, when i first arrived here, was really third world. >> reporter: today, it's a rich country with its own problems. >> this is not greece, this is not portugal or ireland. we have three years ago, four years ago, five years ago surplus. we were growing, double than any european country. now what happened we have double crisis. we in spain, we do everything exaggerated! european has a crisis, we have two crises! okay? >> reporter: in spain, soler explained, there was both a financial crisis and a housing crisis. >> we built double number of houses than the average in europe. so now when this financial crisis came

we need the direct crisis mechanism in cases like greece. european monetary stability fund could work as at last resource to stabilize the european monetary system. the objective is not to be allowed which would be a contradiction to the european critics and would not be in aaccord with the german constitution. that is the main problem, and it is our problem too. financial support by the monetary stability fund would not mean to take over the debt, but to take a temporary credit. however, the idea to set up the lender as last resort which has found support of the government has attracted critics from the european federal bank and also from the french government. many questions are still open including who would pay into the fund and how independently it would be from the commission. that's the -- how the economic should be organized in the future. the french president was in favor for permanent directory european countries and inclusion of other member states. as a compromise only emergency situations, the euro zone countries are meet on an

truckers are protesting top new austerity measures adopted in response to greece's debt crisis. >> tom: you may own the land, but not what is under it. pitting neighbor against neighbor in the rush to cash in on natural gas. >> susie: president obama defended his decision to rescue g.m. and chrysler at two campaign-style rallies in michigan today. the president said letting the auto industry fail would have cost up to a million jobs, spreading pain across the country. taxpayers are still expected to lose more than $24 billion on the government's investments, but the president pointed to recent industry profits and 55,000 new auto industry jobs as evidence he made the right call. >> so today, this industry is growing stronger. it's creating new jobs. it's manufacturing the fuel- efficient cars and trucks that will carry us to an energy independent future. you are proving the naysayers wrong, all of you. >> susie: next month, g.m. is expected to file for a new initial public offering of stock, a little more than a year after it emerged from bankruptcy. >> tom: late today, the house of re