PALERMO, Sicily | 
 
 PALERMO, Sicily (Reuters) - A 78-year-old Italian woman leapt to her death from a fourth floor balcony on Tuesday after her pension was cut, police said. 
 
 Authorities had recently reduced her monthly pension to 600 euros from 800 and she had become overwhelmed with concern about not being able to make ends meet, her children told local police in Gela, southern Sicily. 
 
 Suicide attempts connected to economic woes are reported regularly in Italy, which is struggling with a recession, rising unemployment and increasingly severe austerity measures. 
 
 Last week, two men facing financial trouble set themselves on fire in northern Italy in two separate incidents. Both survived, one with severe burns. 
 
 On Monday, a picture frame maker on the outskirts of Rome hanged himself due to what he described in a suicide note as "overwhelming economic problems", newspapers reported. 
 
 The government is trying to revive growth while also remaining committed to an austerity plan after narrowly averting a Greek-style debt crisis at the end of last year. 
 
 It has introduced a series of measures including spending cuts, tax hikes and pension reform and is currently trying to pass an unpopular set of labor reforms that will make it easier for companies to fire employees. 
 
 (Reporting By Vladimiro Pantaleone, writing by Catherine Hornby; Editing by Kevin Liffey) 

 Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit www.djreprints.com 
 
 ATHENS—A 77-year-old Greek man took his life in Athens' central Syntagma Square on Wednesday, leaving a note behind linking his actions to the country's deepening economic crisis. 
 
 The man shot himself with a handgun in a grassy area to one side of the Greek capital's main square during the morning rush hour. His death added to a sharp rise in the number of suicides in the country that has coincided with years of recession and subsequent austerity measures that have cut deeply into the country's standard of living, particularly for low-income earners and retirees. 
 
 The square, across from the national ...
– How dire is the situation in Greece? It's come to this: A 77-year-old killed himself in an Athens square this morning, apparently distraught over his mounting debt. Police say the unidentified man shot himself about 300 feet from the parliament building in Syntagma Square, as rush-hour commuters passed by. Though the man left no suicide note, witnesses heard him shouting, "So I won't leave debts for my children." The Wall Street Journal notes that suicides were up 20% in 2010 and 2011 in Greece, compared to pre-crisis 2009. But a government rep downplayed the incident, saying, "We must all be calm and respect the real causes (of the suicide), which are not yet known." The death follows similar occurrences in Italy: Reuters reports that a 78-year-old woman jumped out of her fourth-floor balcony yesterday after her pension was chopped by 25%. The week prior, two men stricken with debt set themselves on fire; both survived.