ATHENS, Greece AP – Greece announced painful new austerity measures Wednesday worth � 4.8 billion $6.5 billion to deal with a financial crisis that has hammered the euro and unsettled financial markets.

The decisions were “not taken out of choice but out of necessity,” Prime Minister George Papandreou said as he briefed the country’s president on the new measures, which are aimed at winning European Union support for Greece and calming financial markets.