Greece axes about 30,000 jobs

Greece was expected to unveil plans to trim its bulging public service and meet one of its creditors’ key demands ahead of a euro-zone meeting that could free up a vital 8billion euro loan.The 17 countries will meet in an effort to reach an agreement on releasing the bail-out tranche which has been blocked by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the past month.Divided euro-zone ministers will seek to avert a Greek default, which could send stock markets into a panic, deal an unprecedented blow to the European currency and bring the world to the brink of a fresh financial crisis.Earlier, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou chaired an emergency cabinet meeting to finalise the details of a scheme aimed at shrinking the public sector.After consultations with European Union (EU) and IMF auditors, the government now seems to have fixed on a scheme to place 30000 public servants temporarily in a “labour reserve”. Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said the government had prepared the scheme, in effect laying off state workers with “transparent and objective” criteria.