Pressure builds in Greece, as deadline looms

I am amused by the Financial Times headline Tsipras shrugs off gaffe about Hollande. When Evangelos Venizelos, the Greek socialist leader, boarded a 7.30am flight to Paris on Tuesday, only his closest aides knew he was on the way to a hastily arranged meeting with the French president.

Visiting Greek President Karolos Papoulias met with Israeli leaders on Monday, as long-frosty relations between the two Mediterranean nations reach new heights of cooperation.Papoulias's three-day trip, which will also take him briefly to the Palestinian territories, comes a week after Athens effectively prevented a flotilla of pro-Palestinian activists from reaching Gaza and breaching Israel's naval blockade of strip.

Private holders of Greek debt must decide by 10pm (GMT+2) Thursday whether to accept a writedown to slash €100 billion from the country's €350 billion in debt. Greece is set to default in less than two weeks if too few investors agree to the swap.

Greece let yet another deadline slip on Monday for responding to painful terms for a new EU/IMF bailout as patience in Brussels wore thin over drawn-out negotiations among its feuding political leaders.

The deadline looms for Greece's creditors to accept a vital €206bn (£172bn) bond swap, putting the country on the path of the biggest sovereign restructuring in history, and leaving it dangerously exposed to default.

A leading EU official urges private holders of Greek bonds to sign up to a vital debt swap deal ahead of a deadline later on Thursday.