ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras named a Cabinet of anti-austerity veterans and halted privatisation of Greece's biggest port on Tuesday, signalling he aims to stick to election pledges despite warning shots from the euro zone and financial markets.
Greek markets endured a second day of turmoil, with bank shares diving and investors fearing the anti-bailout government might be set on a collision course with the country's European Union and International Monetary Fund creditors. Promising to reverse budget cuts and renegotiate Greece's huge debts, Mr Tsipras' leftist Syriza party stormed to power in Sunday's snap election on a wave of anger against the German-backed austerity policies that have driven up poverty and left one in four Greek workers out of a job.
Among a team spanning the radical and more pragmatic wings of Syriza, Mr Tsipras named academic economist Yanis Varoufakis as his finance minister. The defence portfolio went to Panos Kammenos, leader of the right-wing Independent Greeks party which is the junior partner in the Tsipras coalition.
One of the first decisions announced by the new government was stopping the planned sale of a 67 per cent stake in the Piraeus Port Authority, agreed under its international bailout deal for which China's Cosco Group and four other suitors had been shortlisted. "The Cosco deal will be reviewed to the benefit of the Greek people," Mr Thodoris Dritsas, the deputy minister in charge of the shipping portfolio, told Reuters.
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