On Sunday, for the second week running, protesters gathered in the main squares of major cities across Europe to voice their opposition to the wave of austerity that is sweeping the European Union. Nowhere was the call to protest answered with greater enthusiasm than in Greece.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, right, with his attorney Benjamin Brafman, is arraigned Monday, May 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand, Pool)
The arrest of the International Monetary Fund's chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, adds a further layer of uncertainly to the volatile mess that is the Eurozone's debt crisis. Earlier this month, Portugal became the third country to accept a bailout by the so-called troika of lenders -- the EU, the European Central Bank, and the IMF -- to the tune of 78 billion euros. Analysts have increasingly been probing Spain's ability to weather the storm that is clobbering the rest of Europe. But a year into the harsh austerity regime imposed by its lenders and nowhere near returning to the international bond markets, Greece is the place where the aftershocks of the Strauss-Kahn scandal are likely to be felt most keenly.
