GREECE: Government assurances do little to calm economic jitters

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REPORTING FROM ATHENS -- Assurances from the Greek government that it had enough cash to pay its bills through mid-November did little to calm global economic jitters Tuesday, as the debt-stricken country braced for a strike against the cuts in public spending that are the price of staving off default.

Thousands of demonstrators already staging rolling wildcat strikes and sit-ins at government buildings in Athens are expected to join forces Wednesday, filling the streets of the capital and other major cities to protest austerity measures many say are causing pain without generating improvements.

The protests are raising further doubts about the government’s ability to impose the fiscal discipline required by its lenders. Uncertainty that Greece could meet its targets has, in turn, spooked global financial markets, which fear a Greek default could devastate European banks that hold Greek debt.

Investors were alarmed by the government’s acknowledgement this week that the country would miss its deficit-reduction targets through 2012 despite radical spending cuts and billions of dollars in rescue funds cobbled together by its European peers and the International Monetary Fund.

“We’re at the worst moment under the worst conditions,” Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos told reporters Tuesday. “We have to make a superhuman effort to win this wager of our times.”

Still, he added in a bid to soothe spooked investors and worried families, “There is no [cash flow] problem until mid-November. We have done a cash flow forecast and our estimates are secure.” ALSO:

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-- Anthee Carassava