• Report: Britain spied on world leaders at G-20 summit

    A new report based on the information leaked by Edward Snowden is suggesting Britain spied on world leaders at two London summits in 2009. Meanwhile, protestors are demonstrating in support of Snowden in China. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

    By Alastair Jamieson, Staff writer, NBC News

    LONDON -- British spies intercepted the phone calls of foreign politicians and delegates at the G-20 summit in 2009, according to documents provided to The Guardian by self-declared NSA leaker Edward Snowden, the newspaper reported Monday.

    U.K. intelligence agency GCHQ also monitored the computers of delegates at the London conference and tried to capture their passwords, the newspaper said.

    Among the foreign politicians targeted were then-President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, and Turkish finance minister, Mehmet Simsek, the newspaper said.

    Sen. Lindsey Graham says leaker Edward Snowden's actions "compromised our national security" and elaborates on his definition of justice in locating Snowden.

    The report came hours before President Barack Obama and other world leaders from the G-8 countries - all of which are in the G-20 – were due to attend a two-day summit in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland.

    Although espionage at international conferences has often been rumored, it is rare for evidence to be uncovered, The Guardian said.

    It said the evidence was contained in classified documents shown to its reporters by Snowden, a U.S. citizen who worked for a private defense contractor and now faces a federal investigation into a string of embarrassing leaks about the National Security Agency and the PRISM surveillance program.

    Snowden is reportedly in Hong Kong, where he told The Guardian that he was hoping to fight the U.S. government in the courts.

    A spokesman for Britain’s foreign ministry declined to comment on the report. A spokesman for GCHQ said the agency never commented on intelligence matters.

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    This story was originally published on Mon Jun 17, 2013 8:29 AM EDT

  • Greece avoids 'Drachmageddon' but Europe debt crisis remains

    Greece appeared to have avoided crashing out of the euro currency zone early Monday after political parties in favor of an international bailout deal won a slim election majority – but the region's debt crisis showed no sign of abating. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    Greece appeared to have avoided crashing out of the euro currency zone early Monday after political parties in favor of an international bailout deal won a slim election majority – but the region’s debt crisis showed no sign of abating.

    Antonis Samaras, leader of the conservative New Democracy party, said he was confident of forming a coalition as he announced talks with leaders of all parties "that believe in Greece's European orientation and the euro."

    Foreign leaders reacted positively to the result, viewed as crucial in holding the joint currency together, and there was a brief rally on Europe’s money markets. 

    Arriving at the G20 summit meeting in Mexico, Italy’s Prime Minister, Mario Monti, said: “This allows us to have a more serene vision for the future of the European Union and for the eurozone.”

    However, fresh worries over debt problems in Spain and Italy wiped out the market gains. Spanish 10-year government bond yields rose to 7.14 percent, pushing the nation's implied borrowing costs to their highest during the euro's lifetime. Italian 10-year bond yields also rose to 6.08 percent. Seven percent is widely seen as an unsustainably high cost of borrowing.

    Citigroup analyst Jurgen Michels said on Monday that, even after the election result, the probability of Greece leaving the euro over the next 12 to 18 months remained at between 50 and 75 per cent, according to Business Insider.

    Struggling Greece remains deeply divided over whether to implement a harsh austerity package, the price for receiving a total of $300 billion in bailout money from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to save its near-bankrupt economy. 

    Right-winger re-elected despite assault trial
    The radical left, anti-austerity SYRIZA bloc won 27 per cent of the vote – only 2.7 percentage points less than New Democracy, while the ultra-right wing Golden Dawn party also enjoyed success despite its spokesman, Ilias Kasidiaris, facing trial for assault after slapping a female rival during a live television debate.

    Andreas Solaro / AFP - Getty Images

    Ilias Kasidiaris, member of Greek Parliament and spokesman of extreme-right ultra nationalist party Golden Dawn looks on during a pre-election rally in Athens on Friday.

    Kasidiaris was re-elected in Sunday’s poll, according to Bojan Pancevski‏, a reporter for Britain's Sunday Times.

    "My biggest fear is of a social explosion," a senior adviser to Samaras told Reuters on Monday. "If there is no change in the policy mix, we're going to have a social explosion even if you bring Jesus Christ to govern this country." 

    Despite pro-bailout parties winning a majority in parliament, actual votes for Greece's anti-bailout parties added up to 52 percent.

    Samaras now faces the awkward task of convincing the center-left PASOK movement to join a coalition charged with implementing highly unpopular spending cuts and privatizations, while the economy nosedives. 


    The streets of central Athens are scarred after repeated waves of protests, some hospitals are running short of vital medicines, thousands of businesses have closed, beggars and rough sleepers are multiplying and suicides are rising. 

    Under the terms of the international bailout, the new government must fire up to 150,000 civil servants, slash spending by 11 billion euros this month, sell off a swath of state-owned companies, improve tax collection and open closed professions to competition. 

    A PASOK-New Democracy coalition would be guaranteed a parliamentary majority thanks to a quirk of Greek electoral law which gives the winning party a bonus of 50 extra seats. But that will not win the argument on Greece's streets. 

    The Greek economy is expected to shrink by 5 percent this year after contracting 7 percent last year and unemployment is running at almost 23 percent. Many economists believe that the harsh austerity measures will only make matters worse in the short term. 

    'Fight' goes on for leftists
    PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos has previously said he would only formally join a coalition if SYRIZA did so as well, something which is politically impossible, given the radical left bloc's unstinting opposition to the austerity measures. 

    Greek analysts noted that SYRIZA's charismatic 37-year-old leader, former student communist Alexis Tsipras, conceded defeat quickly in a phone call to Samaras, apparently relieved he was free of the pressure to form a government and make compromises. 

    "From Monday we will continue the fight," Tsipras told cheering supporters in an open-air square outside Athens university. "...the next government after this one will be a left government." 

    "We will fight to topple these policies," the youthful crowd chanted back as loudspeakers played World War Two Greek Communist resistance songs. 

    Filippos Nikolopoulos, a sociology professor at Crete University and SYRIZA supporter, said that Tsipras's fans were jubilant because they had won new force and authority by increasing their share of the vote so much on Sunday. 

    "We want Europe, we want to cooperate," he said. "But we do not want to be subjugated by (German Chancellor) Mrs. Merkel." 

    Stathis Stavropoulos, a newspaper cartoonist famous for his drawings depicting German officials preaching austerity at Greece as Nazi taskmasters, said the new conservative government would have the people of Greece against it from the outset. 

    "Our dream of European Union was very different," he told Reuters. "It was a union of countries and peoples, not a union to serve banks and not a Fourth German Reich." 

    Financial markets had feared a victory for SYRIZA, and New Democracy’s win prompted a surge in shares in early trading on Monday.

    "It's a temporary rally but we're seeing broad gains because the global situation has changed now that the prospect of a 'Drachmageddon' has disappeared," said Fumiyuki Nakanishi, general manager of investment and research at SMBC Friend Securities in Tokyo.

    Reuters and msnbc.com's Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.

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