Greece bailout plan approved

Greece announced that it had reached an agreement on a long-delayed rescue package that would require years of painful fiscal belt-tightening, but the deal probably would not defuse the potential threats to other European countries also suffering from mounting debts and troubled economies. I have done and will do everything not to let the country go bankrupt, Prime Minister George Papandreou said in a televised address that urged Greeks to accept great sacrifices to avoid catastrophe. The bailout, which was worked out over weeks of negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and Greece's European partners, calls for as much as $145 billion in loans intended to stave off an immediate debt default and stop the spread of economic contagion to other parts of the region. While the bailout provides a lifeline to the Greek government, similar challenges lie in wait for Portugal, Spain and perhaps Italy, the other countries on Europe's deficit-wracked southern tier. Moreover, outside the nations that rely on the euro as their common currency, Latvia, Hungary and Romania are all faltering in their own efforts to meet economic and fiscal goals set in conjunction with the IMF.