Greek Prime Minister George Panpandreou is in Germany to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss a new strategy to keep his country from defaulting on its debt. Greece needs a further â?¬8 billion to pay its bills. Without it, hundreds of thousands of civil servants will not get paid. Early Tuesday, Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said his country will receive bailout funds. What has all of this been like for ordinary Greeks? Mark Lowen, correspondent for the BBC, filed a report from Athens about how Greeks are coping with what Panpandreou called “the largest fiscal consolidation in a single year [of any eurozone member].” Andrew Walker of the BBC reports on the state of the debt reduction talks and how Merkel’s support of Greece is playing in Germany.
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