"Who knows how many of these munitions may be used to cause the kind of damage to Lebanon which the prime minister of that country described in Rome as cutting his country to pieces.
As if to underline his willingness to stand up to anyone prescribing more austerity for his country, Mr. Duhalde also announced today that he was cutting the country's value-added tax by two points, from 21percentto19percentcent.
In a recent study of 173 fiscal-policy changes in rich countries from 1978 to 2009, economists from the IMF found that cutting a country's budget deficit by 1% of GDP typically reduces real output by about two-thirds of a percentage point and raises the unemployment rate by one-third of a percentage point.Occasionally, an economy will buck the trend.
On Wednesday, convoys of tractors in Thessaly, the nation's breadbasket, blocked the road at Tempi, effectively cutting the country's main north-south highway.
But in 2015 the oil price was cut in half and Venezuela's reckless public finances helped make it a high-risk debtor, cutting the country's access to international capital.
Their program, as set out in the Queen's Speech, set as a "first priority" cutting the country's annual budget deficit of around $220 billion, one of Europe's highest, and restoring growth after the country's worst recession since the 1930s.
The idea of cutting the country adrift has hitherto looked riskier than sticking with it.
Standard & Poor's also downgraded Portugal on Tuesday, cutting the country's sovereign debt rating by two notches.
Navigation along the Congo River, the lifeline for commerce, has all but dried up, cutting the country in half.
Israel has responded to the attacks by bombing three Lebanese power plants, cutting the country's electricity supply by 50percentt.
They are debating whether their president is finally cutting the country's warlords down to size, or whether he is just electioneering.
