Greek lawmakers began voting Thursday on the bill determining the implementation of draconian austerity ordered by creditors to pave the way for new emergency funding from Europe and the IMF. The roll call of MPs started at 4:02 pm (1302 GMT), after Prime Minister George Papandreou secured outline backing on Wednesday during riots in the streets surrounding the parliament in Athens. Currency partners have set a deadline of June 30 for Greece to re-draw its budgets through until 2015, allowing eurozone finance ministers to prepare a second bailout of a similar size to last year’s 110-billion-euro rescue in a bid to prevent damage to neighbours with high debts of their own on financial markets.
