Welcome. This is James Corbett of the Corbett report with your Sunday update from the Center for

Research on Globalization at global research.CA.

And now for the real news.

World markets experienced dramatic losses and rebounds last week as investors watched economic developments in Greece with growing anxiety.

The jitters come after weeks of gathering turmoil in the Eurozone, starting earlier this month when Credit

Rating Agency Moody's Investor Service downgraded Greek debt to C. A.1.

And indicated a 50% chance that the country would default on its bonds.

Just two weeks ago, standard and poor responded by downgrading Greek debt to triple C,

giving it the lowest credit rating for any country in the world.

One fear is that the contagion of a Greek default would spread throughout the Eurozone causing

borrowing rates for other fragile European economies in Ireland and Portugal to

skyrocket. A Portugal default would be a massive hit to the Spanish banking system, which has the largest

exposure to Portuguese debt in the Eurozone.

Now Moody's has threatened to downgrade the credit worthiness of some of the largest Italian banks

and has put the Italian public debt on review for downgrade.

The EU and the IMF have scrambled to throw together a second massive bailout for the tiny Greek

nation, this one expected to be

worth 120 billion euros with 12 billion euros of those funds to be dispersed early next

month. The Greek Parliament will have to vote this week on whether or not to accept the package,

which contains another round of punishing austerity measures as conditions for the funds.

As European leaders scrambled to further ensnare Greece in a web of bailouts. The Greek people

have once again taken to the streets on mass to protest the austerity cuts that are

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