

Gunmen Set Fire to Microsoft’s Greek Headquarters - tathagatadg
http://mashable.com/2012/06/27/microsoft-greek-headquarters-fire/

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cs702
My guess would be that Microsoft's Greek office didn't want to pay protection
money to some or other criminal racket -- or something else along similar
lines also involving criminals. This kind of violent activity tends to become
more prevalent and audacious when grown men and women can no longer provide
food and shelter for their families.

Greece is truly in the midst of a _Great Depression_. According to official
statistics published by the Greek government, the country's rate of
unemployment is now nearly 22% -- that is, one out of every five people
looking for a job can't find one; and more disturbingly, the unemployment rate
for young people is 53% -- one out of every two can't find employment.[1]

[1] <http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-06/D9V87S5G0.htm>

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panacea
The thing I've always had in the back of my mind regarding Greece's current
woes, is that, despite being the cradle of democracy, the parthenon, the
diaspora etc... they're just a short boat trip away from Northern Africa. And
beyond that, just subsistence Africa, the Sahara etc. They may have the
trappings of a "Euro" country at the moment... but things could quite
concievably get way worse for them and a lot closer to their neighbours than
it's easy to imagine.

~~~
ktizo
And the US is right next door to Mexico and South and North Korea are, well,
you get the point. Geographical proximity is not an accurate economic
indicator. Also, Africa is not some homogenous blob of poverty.

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michaelcampbell
I'm truly baffled by what they were protesting, here. I'm no MS fan, but I
haven't heard of any particular ire pointed at them for anything, much less
the troubles Greece is going through now. Was this just a wanton act of
petulance?

~~~
_delirium
I think it'll be hard to guess unless more evidence surfaces. With a machine
gun, gas canisters, etc., it sounds pretty organized, not a random splinter
group of angry students or anything. The "mass" left movements (KKE, Antarsya,
various squat-based anarchist groups, etc.) tend not to carry out military-
style armed actions like that, and are more into the mass marches with
Molotovs and rocks. There could be a smaller group that chose MS as a
convenient target (probably it was less well protected than banks or
government building are). But even those, when they do something "big", tend
to try to make a PR stunt out of it, e.g. unfurl a big banner on the front of
the building and spraypaint slogans. This looks more clinical in a way, which
makes it look more like a pointed threat than a protest.

With the current high unemployment and general anger, there are a _lot_ of
questionable groups in weird webs of entanglement in Athens, so could be other
things as well. There are some violent right-wing groups who might be coming
from nationalist rather than leftist reasons (out with the foreigners/etc.),
or it could be something apolitical like organized crime. The latter is
getting bigger as groups of desperate people are looking for any way to make a
living; in particular, many people suspect that some football-hooligan "ultra"
groups have morphed into criminal syndicates. They're also sometimes
associated with the Golden Dawn neo-Nazi group, though it's never quite clear
how much of that is politics versus money versus general not-very-precisely-
directed anger.

(As a side note, Athens vs. everywhere else in Greece are almost completely
different places these days. Even as half-Greek I would be careful where I
went in Athens right now, but the rest of Greece is much different.)

~~~
Apocryphon
Could be a false flag operation designed to discredit one side or another.

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nhebb
According to other news reports, this is just the latest in a string of
attacks on American companies in Greece. McDonalds, Citibank, and Starbucks
were hit in Athens. If this continues, you might see multinationals scale down
operations or even close up shop in Greece, adding to the unemployment ranks -
just what the Greek economy does not need.

~~~
cs702
Sources?

~~~
nhebb
> Sources

A Reuters wire story.

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graiz
Am I the only one who read the headline as "...Microsoft Geek Headquarters?"

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billy22
Title got me to, its always funny when it happens.

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willvarfar
Didn't pay protection perhaps?

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TeamMCS
Someone turned off the firewall!

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Irishsteve
They were trying to end of life IE6 in Greece.

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powertower
Too brazen to be Mac users.

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itmag
Now that's what I call a flame-war.

