 Heather, Athens has experienced massive strikes involving more than a hundred thousand citizens and quite vivid public demonstrations. We saw Stimata Square on fire in all of our newspapers this morning and on TV. How are these public demonstrations shaping what's going on in Europe right now? Yeah, we've definitely entered a new and more acute phase of the European sovereign debt crisis. And what you've seen over the last two days in Athens is an expression of the Greek people saying enough, we can no longer take economic and social downward pressures from these austerity measures. But the Greek government is in a terrible bind because if they don't continue to pass really deep spending cuts laying off 30,000 public sector employees, they will not get the next tranche of funds from the IMF and the European Union. So they have to do this. They know how unpopular it is. But at this point, we're now seeing where popular will is going to express itself. They're going to try to increase more taxes. Well, the finance ministry has been on strike for the last 10 days. Tourism, their major economic boost has been devastated because there have been ongoing public sector strikes. And today we're seeing a real manifestation of the breakdown, quite frankly, of Greek society due to the pain of these incredible austerity measures. And what do they want the government to do? They want the government to stop the pain. Many Greek citizens believe that it's right now better for Greece to leave the Euro and to return to their former national currency, the drachma, than to move forward. Now it may seem that way. Unfortunately, though, that Greek removal from the Euro would cause incredible devastation to the banking sector, to the Greek economy. But this speaks to the disparity. The Greek people see no hope. They don't see a light at the end of the tunnel. What they see is years and years of this austerity, this great pain. And they're also very frustrated because these bailout funds actually go to pay the banks to pay their debt. It doesn't go to the Greek people or the economy. So this is going to end. The end of the road is coming. We just don't know what that end will look like. Well, as Greece continues to slide towards financial calamity, what are its partners in Europe doing to head off a major crisis across the Eurozone? Well, they're meeting on Sunday, the European Council Summit meeting. We've sort of been down this road before. In May of last year, there was a huge European summit where they were going to deal with Greece once and for all decisively, big bailout package. Well, that lasted for about 14 months. And they had to do a second package because these measures, as much as the Greeks are trying, they're trying to put in place these austerity measures, they're not meeting their targets. The contraction, economic growth is extraordinary. They cannot meet these targets. So what do we do? Do we stop funding them? Does Europe stop funding Greece, or do they continue to do this? So in part, the conversation on Sunday will be about the second Greek bailout package. And what German leaders in particular are talking about is, you know what, the private sector has to take a bigger so-called haircut. They're looking at the range of 50% to 60%. This will be dramatic. It will have a significant impact on European banks. The global economy waits for the answer. Europe says they have a plan, but the plan doesn't look like it's come together quite yet. You mentioned a Franco-German divide on some of these issues. Can you expand on that and tell us what the issues are there? Absolutely. And it's important to remember that France and Germany must agree for Europe to proceed. There has to be agreement. They're the two engines of the European Union. So this is critical, their agreement. But they have been at odds over the European debt crisis actually from the very beginning. The French preferring a European solution, the German approach being much more on more austerity, have to sort of punish a bit for the lack of fiscal discipline, and that shouldn't come at the expense of German taxpayers or European taxpayers. So they've been able to paper over their differences. They've been able to agree to some extent. But now the rubber is really meeting the road. And the difference now is that France is under assault. The contagion has now spread to French banks, where their credit ratings have been slipping. And now there's some concern the credit rating agencies may reduce France's AAA credit rating. This is particularly sensitive because presidents are cozy faces re-election in six months. So a great deal is at stake. The French banking system is certainly very vulnerable. So the French would like a European solution. They'd like to have access to some of these facilities. The Germans would like this to be a private-sector solution and to have very little involved by the taxpayer to continue to bail banks out. They don't agree on that, and they don't agree on this leveraging of this stability fund. And so you're seeing this back and forth. We'll see on Sunday what the compromise ends up being, but I think the compromise will be underwhelming. There's a lot of doom and gloom talk. There's a lot of worst-case scenarios being thrown out there. What do you think are the worst-case scenarios we're looking at in the short term now for Europe and what kind of effect will that have worldwide? Yeah. I mean, Europe has been weighing on the markets for months, and it's just this level of uncertainty. You know, there are three groups that are going to have a say in how this works. The people, and we're seeing the Greek people express their displeasure at the current situation today. They have a say. Democracy has a say. And the parliaments of the 17 Eurozone members have a say in how this works. The markets have a very big say, and they've been speaking very loudly and downgrading Spain's sovereign rating, downgrading French banks. They're starting to say, I don't see how this ends well, but I think there is unanimous agreement, even if the politicians don't want to say this, that Greece eventually must default. They cannot sustain the current policies moving forward. They must get out from under this overwhelming debt and begin to return to growth and competitiveness. The entire global economy hinges on the answer. We just don't know what the answer will be right now. Heather Conley, thank you very much for your time. Thank you.