Servants

Greek civil servants walked off the job for three hours on Thursday to protest austerity measures that include pension and salary cuts and the suspension of tens of thousands of workers on partial pay. The work stoppage was to leave hospitals with emergency staff and shut down other public services from noon to 3 p.m. About 1,000 pensioners marched through central Athens to protest outside Parliament. Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, meanwhile, was meeting with Greece's debt inspectors from the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission, collectively known as...

LONDON (AP) — Tanned and toned athletes in eye-popping outfits will compete for Olympic medals outside the British prime minister's famous Downing Street home, but it's government workers, not the U.K. leader, who will get the VIP view. Who doesn't want to see beach volleyball, which is bringing sand, bikinis and gold medals to the heart of London? Competitors known for their skimpy shorts and bikinis will battle it out in Horse Guards Parade, a storied square in Britain's capital better known for hosting a lavish annual military parade featuring hundreds of troops in scarlet...

IN POLITICS, we don't know exactly what to do with rich people. Do we admire them? Envy them? Mistrust them? Want to tax them to oblivion? But when they turn up on PBS, we know precisely what to do: Watch them flounder, and feel better about ourselves. That's one key to the success of "Downton Abbey," the "Masterpiece Classic" series that has been a surprise ratings hit. It's a standard primetime soap - the plot is driven by star-crossed lovers and scheming exes - but it's also a chronicle of early 20th-century Britain, featuring the gentry and staff of a vast estate.

WE WERE very disappointed to read Brian McGrory's treatment of City Councilor Charles Yancey in his Feb. 15 column ("Councilor exposed!", Metro). The purpose of McGrory's column seemed to be to diminish a public servant who has devoted the last 30 years of his life to Boston's neighborhoods by ridiculing the content of his monthly newsletter to constituents. Councilor Yancey should be proud of his consistent track record of communicating with his district. In focusing only on the photographs of the councilor in the community - and what is wrong with that?

Pierre Marivaux’s “Island of Slaves’’ is a classic comedy of role reversal: Marooned on a mysterious island run by former slaves, two servants switch places with their masters and discover the pleasures - and dangers - of wielding authority over another human being. After an initial wallow in revenge and humiliation, both servants and masters discover the greater power of treating one another with humanity and kindness. The theme of outsiders moving up in the world, but retaining their hold on the virtues of the underdog, makes this play a fitting choice for the Orfeo...

BECKET — This week at Jacob’s Pillow, choreographer Barak Marshall’s “MONGER’’ casts a wittily sinister eye on divisions of power and class in a dance theater piece about servants to an invisible, presumably filthy rich mistress. Marshall’s piece for 10 strong, personable dancers uses the Robert Altman film “Gosford Park’’ and the Jean Genet play “The Maids’’ as launchpads for a series of vignettes that make the dramas in “Upstairs, Downstairs’’ seem like child’s play.

BRUSSELS — European governments and the International Monetary Fund yesterday committed to pull Greece back from the brink of default, agreeing on $145 billion in emergency loans on the condition Athens makes painful budget cuts and tax increases. The rescue is aimed at keeping Greece from defaulting on its debts and preventing its financial crisis from infecting other indebted countries. After chiding Athens for years of mismanagement and cheating on budget reporting, the IMF and Greece’s 15 partners that share the euro currency rewarded Prime Minister George...

The WB's claim that "The Help" is a "biting satire" is only half true. No, it's not a satire, but yes, it does indeed bite. And it will be biting the dust before long, unless it can find a new cast, new writers, new producers, a new set, and an entirely new premise. The sitcom, which premieres tonight at 9:30, is an abysmal piece of farce about the warfare between the wealthy Ridgeway family of Beverly Hills and their sqaud of abused servants. Upstairs, the Ridgeways fritter their lives away toning their abs and sipping cocktails.

As its title indicates, “Chris Killip: 4 & 20 Photographs’’ consists of two dozen pictures. The show runs at Howard Yezerski Gallery through Jan. 4. Killip took the photographs, which are big (20 inches by 24 inches), between 1974 and 1988. Almost all of them are of Newcastle and environs, in the north of England — places about as far as you can get from “Masterpiece Theatre’’ or the Royal Family and not be in the North Sea. Instead of picturesque local color, you see barbed wire and threadbare overcoats, public housing and playgrounds in the shadows of smokestacks.

QUITO, Ecuador — Ecuadoran soldiers firing automatic weapons and concussion grenades rescued President Rafael Correa late yesterday from a hospital where he was trapped most of the day by police rebelling over a cut in benefits. At least one security force member was wounded in the 35-minute operation, and the government said at least one person was killed and six injured in clashes earlier in the day outside the hospital between Correa’s supporters and insurgent cops. Correa, 47, told cheering supporters from the balcony of the...

Q. My husband and I work comparable hours, but I earn less than half of what he does and have little discretionary income. I come home to my "second shift," which includes cooking, cleaning, and picking up after this man, who leaves his dirty clothes, snack packaging, and other things strewn about the house. Meanwhile, he runs off to play golf. After dinner, he falls asleep in front of the TV. He doesn't even mow the lawn or do routine household maintenance. He hires out for those things.

IN POLITICS, we don't know exactly what to do with rich people. Do we admire them? Envy them? Mistrust them? Want to tax them to oblivion? But when they turn up on PBS, we know precisely what to do: Watch them flounder, and feel better about ourselves. That's one key to the success of "Downton Abbey," the "Masterpiece Classic" series that has been a surprise ratings hit. It's a standard primetime soap - the plot is driven by star-crossed lovers and scheming exes - but it's also a chronicle of early 20th-century Britain, featuring the gentry and staff of a vast estate.

Greek civil servants walked off the job for three hours on Thursday to protest austerity measures that include pension and salary cuts and the suspension of tens of thousands of workers on partial pay. The work stoppage was to leave hospitals with emergency staff and shut down other public services from noon to 3 p.m. About 1,000 pensioners marched through central Athens to protest outside Parliament. Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, meanwhile, was meeting with Greece's debt inspectors from the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission,...

LONDON — Hundreds of thousands of British teachers and civil servants will go on strike later this month, unions said yesterday — the latest in a wave of walkouts by workers facing frozen salaries and shrinking pensions. Members of the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers said they would walk off the job for a day on June 30. Another group, the Public and Commercial Services Union, said 250,000 of its members would hold a 24-hour strike the same day. The union represents a wide array of public sector staff, including border guards, tax...

As its title indicates, “Chris Killip: 4 & 20 Photographs’’ consists of two dozen pictures. The show runs at Howard Yezerski Gallery through Jan. 4. Killip took the photographs, which are big (20 inches by 24 inches), between 1974 and 1988. Almost all of them are of Newcastle and environs, in the north of England — places about as far as you can get from “Masterpiece Theatre’’ or the Royal Family and not be in the North Sea. Instead of picturesque local color, you see barbed wire and threadbare overcoats, public housing and playgrounds in the shadows of smokestacks.

QUITO, Ecuador — Ecuadoran soldiers firing automatic weapons and concussion grenades rescued President Rafael Correa late yesterday from a hospital where he was trapped most of the day by police rebelling over a cut in benefits. At least one security force member was wounded in the 35-minute operation, and the government said at least one person was killed and six injured in clashes earlier in the day outside the hospital between Correa’s supporters and insurgent cops. Correa, 47, told cheering supporters from the balcony of the...

MANILA — A servant of the politically powerful clan accused in last year’s massacre of 57 people told a Philippine court yesterday that the family members plotted the killings of rivals and journalists over dinner six days before the ambush. The witness, Lakmudin Saliao, took the stand on the first day of trial nearly 10 months after the Nov. 23 massacre in southern Maguindanao province exposed the shocking violence of Philippine politics. Among the dead were 30 media workers traveling in an election convoy, making it the deadliest single attack on reporters in the world.

MEMOIR OF A DEBULKED WOMAN: Enduring Ovarian Cancer By Susan Gubar Norton, 320 pp., $24.95 There's a kind of cancer book that insists illness is a teacher, and "treatment is a journey with a spiritual pot of gold at its end. " Feminist literary scholar Susan Gubar, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2008, did not want to write that kind of book, and she has not. Instead of triumph or transcendence, she...

MANILA — A servant of the politically powerful clan accused in last year’s massacre of 57 people told a Philippine court yesterday that the family members plotted the killings of rivals and journalists over dinner six days before the ambush. The witness, Lakmudin Saliao, took the stand on the first day of trial nearly 10 months after the Nov. 23 massacre in southern Maguindanao province exposed the shocking violence of Philippine politics. Among the dead were 30 media workers traveling in an election convoy, making it the deadliest single attack on reporters in the world.

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban have issued a new code of conduct ordering fighters to protect civilians — as long as they don’t side with the Afghan government or NATO coalition. If they do, the punishment is death. The 69-page directive, obtained yesterday by the Associated Press, follows an acceleration in Taliban attacks on Afghan officials — a campaign that threatens the NATO goal of bolstering local government to help turn back the insurgents. “The Taliban must treat civilians according to Islamic norms and morality to win over the hearts and minds of the...