The Athens Journalists’ Union (ESIEA) called a 48-hour strike from 6 a.m. on Wednesday on TV and radio stations to protest the closure of state broadcaster ERT.

ESIEA said newspaper journalists would strike on Thursday for 24 hours.

There was also a six-hour stoppage on TV and radio on Tuesday after the government announced it would closing ERT and later opening a new broadcaster with fewer employees.

Despite the signal to ERT’s TV channels being lost shortly after 11 p.m. on Tuesday, employees at the broadcasters headquarters in Athens and Thessaloniki refused to leave the buildings and managed to resume broadcasts via digital TV and the Internet.

The Communist Party (KKE) also offered the frequency of its TV station, 902, to rebroadcast ERT’s programs.

Thousands of people protesting the broadcaster’s closure had gathered outside ERT’s headquarters in northeastern Athens.

Send in the clowns. No wait - they're already here!

"Despite record unemployment in the continent, anemic growth at best and a manufacturing sector in contraction, French President Francois Hollande said this weekend that the euro zone crisis is over.

"What you need to understand here in Japan is that the crisis in Europe is over," he told an audience of business leaders organized by the Nikkei media group in Japan on Saturday...."

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