Dresden

By Gernot Heller & Paul Carrel

Finance chiefs from the Group of Seven economic powers met on Thursday to discuss how to revive a faltering global recovery, with the United States leaning on Europe to reach a deal to avert a Greek bankruptcy.

Finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Seven wealthiest nations gathered in Dresden May 28 to discuss the global economy and tax evasion, but the Greek crisis was also high on everyone's minds.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chief Christine Lagarde said that Greece had a lot of work to do before a cash-for-reforms deal could be clinched with its creditors from the European Commission, European Central Bank and the IMF.

By Ian Wishart

Germany and France told Greece to get serious about striking a deal on rescue aid, as ministers from the world's biggest economies urged a resolution of the crisis to stop it from spilling beyond Europe's borders.

US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew called Wednesday for Greece's debt crisis to be resolved quickly to avoid the risk of "accidents", as G7 finance ministers gathered.

"Brinkmanship is a dangerous thing when it only takes one accident," he said in a talk at the London School of Economics university.

Drivers working at Deutsche Bahn, the German train operator, have embarked on a new strike which is set to continue a week.

Employees are venting their anger at a refusal of Deutsche Bahn to accept the proposal for a 5% pay rise put forward by their trade union, GDL. Another key demand includes a reduction in working hours by cutting the working week from 39 to 37 hours.

The European Commission is ready to discuss new ways to admit and distribute asylum seekers in the EU, its top migration official said Tuesday, after Paris and Berlin urged it to rethink its plans.

The German movement Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA) held it first rally in Austria on Monday.

However PEGIDA failed to attract as many supporters as it usually does in its marches in Germany, the BBC reports.

Germany's PEGIDA "anti-Islamisation" movement held its first march in Austria on Feb. 2 but was dwarfed by a colourful counter-demonstration more than 10 times larger, according to police estimates.
 
A number of the PEGIDA supporters at the Vienna demonstration were skinheads, and some of them performed Nazi salutes, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
 

German anti-Islam movement LEGIDA took on the streets of Leipzig with around 15,000 protesters on Wednesday evening.