erity measures included in the bailout deal, including the layoffs of 15,000 workers and a 22 percent drop in the minimum wage and pension cuts, have set off street protests and led to the resignations of half a dozen Cabinet officials. Lawmakers are wary of voting for the measures and the prospect of more to come, along with the job cuts and the shutdown of several state agencies, including welfare agencies. The demands of creditors, including the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, have caused one of the original coalition parties the populist right-wing Popular Orthodox Party to quit the government and withdraw its four members from the cabinet. Two more cabinet members, both socialist deputy ministers, have also quit. They cited their disagreements with parts of the austerity package. Both Papandreou and Samaras made it clear that dissenters are not welcome in the party. Samaras threatened to expel those who did not vote in favor and exclude them from the lists of party candidates in the next election. "I want to make it absolutely clear ... rebels or 'bravehearts' have no place in (the party's) candidate lists," he said. Your comment will be posted immediately, unless it is spam or contains profanity. For more information, please see our Comments FAQ. An insider's guide to politics and policy, available on the iPad or as a PDF download,toms shoes sale.
By ALISON MUTLER, Associated Press BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) European shippers say they are losing millions because a lengthy stretch of the Danube one of Europe's key waterways is stuck in the longest freeze in recent memory. Huge chunks of ice floated down the middle of the Danube on Friday in southern Romania while water close to the banks remained iced over, with barges,tomsoutletsalecheap.com, boats and ships tangled in a wintry web,http://toptechy.com/index.php/2012/12/27/a-small-presentation-on-osi-layer-model-. The Danube flows for 1,785 miles (2,872 kilometers) through nine countries, starting in Germany's Black Forest, before passing through Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia,http://sscjb.com/home.php?mod=space&uid=13791&do=blog&id=46781, Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine. The river began to ice over in early February as temperatures plunged to minus 20 Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit). The freeze followed a drought in the fall in which water levels had dropped so low that it was interfering with shipping along the international waterway. By Friday, ice had halted shipping on 440 miles (700 kilometers) of the Danube in Romania, an official from the Romanian Transportation Ministry told The Associated Press,cheap toms shoes, speaking on the department's customary condition of anonymity. The river forms the border between Romania and Bulgaria and six river crossings were also closed due to the ice. Upstream, the river was also iced over in parts in the Serbian capital of Belgrade. Costache Constantin,http://www.07928893888.com/plus/view.php?aid=223500, manager of Europolis Shipping Trading shipping company, surveyed the scene from a warm office in the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta. He said he'd never seen such a drawn-out freeze on the Danube since he began working in the industry in 1981. "This is costing millions of euros. The transportation of raw materials, coal, min