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Merkel and Hollande begin Greek talks [photos]

Over in Paris, Socialist French president, Francois Hollande has welcomed German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the Elysee Palace for crisis talks about Greece.

Socialist French president, Francois Hollande welcomes German Chancellor Angela Merkel

Over in Paris, Socialist French president, Francois Hollande has welcomed German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the Elysee Palace for crisis talks about Greece.

They swiftly got down to business after a brief smile for the camera.

Greece slipped deeper into its financial abyss after the bailout programme it has relied on for five years expired at midnight on Tuesday and the country failed to repay a loan due to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

With its failure to repay the roughly $1.8bn to the IMF, Greece became the first developed country to fall into arrears on payments to the fund. The last country to do so was Zimbabwe in 2001.

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After Greece made a last-ditch effort to extend its bailout, eurozone finance ministers decided in a teleconference late on Tuesday that there was no way they could reach a deal before the deadline.

As the leader of the biggest economy in the eurozone and the biggest single creditor to Greece, Angela Merkel’s voice is easily the most important. No deal gets done against her will. And if Greek banks are to be cut off by the European Central Bank (ECB) it will be because she has tacitly given the nod.

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