The Greek prime minister has replaced his finance minister as part of a broad cabinet reshuffle - an example of reforms aimed at tiding over the country's crippling debt crisis despite popular resentment.George Papandreou's move came two days after protesters angry with harsh austerity measures clashed with riot police in the capital, Athens.
George Papaconstantinou, the finance minister, will move to the environment and energy ministry. He will be replaced by Evangelos Venizelos, a government front man said on Friday.
Venizelos, an influential Socialist politician, had challenged Papandreou for the party leadership four years ago.
Government portfolios were also redistributed to address demands for faster reform from Greece's debt monitors at the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
A new ministry for administrative reform was created to help scale back the country's public sector.
Dimitris Droutsas, a close friend of Papandreou, lost the foreign affairs portfolio to Stavros Lambrinidis,
who heads Greece's Socialists in the European Parliament.
The new cabinet ministers were sworn in shortly after being named on Friday, and went into a meeting with Papandreou.
The prime minister had said he would also seek to build consensus among various political parties while sticking to the course of economic reforms.
"We have some tough negotiations ahead of us and the next few days will be crucial ... These are critical moments for the country and we must have stability," he told parliament on Thursday.
Meanwhile,
...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth had turned a paler shade of blue. Star-A-Star had struck again...
the leaders of Germany and La Belle France said they were united behind a new aid package for Greece.
Angela Merkel
...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as
Mom...
, the German chancellor, said the new package, which includes voluntary private sector participation, was a "good foundation" for a Greek deal.
"We have to move forward on this now and I think it makes sense to involve the private sector. This is important for us," she said at a joint presser with Nicolas Sarkozy
...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit...
on Friday.
Germany had previously said it wanted to forces banks to contribute funds to the bailout for Greece.