Antenna: News in English (AM), 97-04-03

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From: Antenna Radio <http://www.antenna.gr> - email: [email protected]

News in English, 03/04/97

TITLES

• Albanian premier Baskim Fino comes to Greece
• Olympiakos fans celebrate their basketball team's victory in the streets
• And, Zorba the Greek is revived in our hearts.

FINO/SIMITIS

In the warm meeting of the two countries' leaders it was agreed that a loan of about 75 million dollars will be given from Greece to Albania. Greece will also help in regrouping the albanian armed and police forces.

Tomorrow, Fino and Simitis will meet with Franz Vranitzky, the top international envoy for Albania, and Hans van Mierlo, the current president of the European Union, in Athens for talks on the same issue.

Albanian premier Baskim Fino flew to Athens Wednesday for talks on the situation in his country with prime minister Kostas Simitis and the leadership of the Greek foreign ministry.

Fino was welcomed with official honours by the Greek officials and was given a special reception, before he and his delegation started the talks with his Greek counterpart. The Albanian premier also met with president of the republic Kostis Stefanopoulos.

In the meeting, which was held in an especially warm atmosphere sources say, the Albanian and Greek leaders agreed that a loan of about 75 million dollars will be given to Albania in an effort to help in improving the current situation in the country, and especially in the countryside, after the long-lasting turmoil and armed insurrection. Greek officials will try to get more financial aid for Albania on the sidelines of the European Union.

Greece will also help the Albanian armed forces regroup. They virtually dissolved when the rebellion started.

Greece will provide technical help to Albania in the country's national election which will be held in June.

At the press conference which followed their meeting, Simitis emphasized once again on the, quote, "especially warm and friendly relations between the two countries". The Greek premier said that the Albanian officials reassured him that special measures will be taken for the safety of the ethnic greek minority living in southern Albania.

Fino told reporters that it is extremely difficult to restore public order after only seventeen days of ruling the country by the interim government.

"That's the reason why we ask for a large support from all of the European countries, and especially the neighbouring Greece and Italy", he added.

Greece will participate in the dispatch of the multinational peacekeeping force to Albania to secure aid shipments with 700 soldiers.

FINO/PRODI

The two men talked about the dispatch of the multinational military force to Albania to secure aid shipments as well as about the recent naval tragedy when a boat carrying 150 Albanian refugees collided with an Italian warship near Brindisi last week.

Italian premier Romano Prodi flew on a surprise visit to Albania Wednesday morning to meet with his Albanian counterpart, Baskim Fino, only a while before Fino flies for Greece.

The fifteen-minute meeting was mainly focused on the multinational peacekeeping force which will be sent to Albania headed by Italian officers, according to a decision of the UN Security Council.

Special security measures were taken by Italian commandos for their premier, as forty heavily armed special forces accompanied the Italian delegation, arriving by three army helicopters.

The two premiers will meet again in Avlona within the next few days.

Albanian prime minister Baskim Fino visited the Greek consulate in Argyrokastro Tuesday afternoon to be informed by consul Nikos Kanellos on the current situation at the villages where the ethnic greek minority lives.

The unrest in southern Albania has ethnic Greeks on their guard, especially after the shooting death of 39-year-old Eleni Kokka, forced to get out of her car with the rest of her family, by two gunmen who hurled anti-Greek abuse at them earlier this week.

Many ethnic Greeks are placing their hopes for security in the international peacekeeping force soon to arrive.

Even the Greek consul in Argyrokastro isn't safe. Gunmen fired 8 shots at his house Monday night. Kanellos and some consulate employees, who have worked at the consul's home for the past several days for reasons of safety, were unharmed.

PASOK

Prime minister Kostas Simitis called on his party members for action and support to the ruling party's decisions.

The premier said, "As our party is the only one with clear positions and complete planning over the country's problems, we must assume our responsibility to bring the government's decisions closer to the greek people, so that all of the country's live forces are actively involved in the implementation of our policy".

Referring to the role of all of the party's deputies, Kostas Simitis said, "Every Pasok MP should undertake a pioneering role to the great changes the public mandate charged the party with by September's national election".

ND

The group unanimously re-elected Stavros Dimas as its secretary, as well as his five alternates.

The speech of Kostas Karamanlis was mainly focused on the basic lines of the policy he wants his party to follow as the main opposition party. He said that New Democracy should appeal to all of Greeks adding that his party HAS a wide range of ideas enabling it to offer reliability, hope and perspectives of victory.

The newly-elected leader of New Democracy called all of the party members to join forces, talking about a fresh start, a difficult yet highly important course for the party to win the next national election. Kostas Karamanlis added that creative unity is necessary with respect to the party's history, without any personal discriminations nor prejudice.

Referring to Pasok's government, Karamanlis criticised the governmental policy talking about, quote, "a bankruptcy of ideas" and "a management- accounting conception of the people's problems". He added, though, that New Democracy will support any governmental decisions it'll consider right, but not without lashing out against their weakness or ineffectiveness.

As for Greece's national issues, Karamanlis said that they don't offer themselves for high opposition tones. He was critical to the government's handling of several foreign policy issues, talking about omissions, mistakes and lack of courage.

Stavros Dimas will keep his position as the party's parliamentary group secretary, after a unanimous vote for him and his five alternates.

After the group's meeting, Dimas said, "I hope and believe that New Democracy's parliamentary group will do is best so that our party fulfils its role as the main opposition party and makes the necessary conditions which will enable it to win the next national election".

MILITARY SERVICE

The government's military service bill especially aims to put the past in order. All males who have avoided their military service, will be called on to serve a portion of their terms, a forty-day basic training, and buy the remainder off at a price of 700 dollars a month.

All those who will voluntarily join up, will serve two months less than the 18-month obligatory term. A reduction of three months in service time will also be the reward for young men attending university not wishing to delay their recruitment until they finish their studies.

Conscientious objectors will have to serve longer than other recruits and assist on social works at welfare foundations.

B/BALL

An impressive 65 to 57 came in addition to the previous game's score of 69- 49 of last week and brought thousands of Olympiakos fans to the streets of Athens and other cities all over Greece to celebrate the victory of their team. Olympiakos will participate with another three European basketball teams to the European championship which will be held in Rome, Italy at the end of April.

We can watch now how the red-and-whites' fans celebrated their team's victory in the streets all night.

ZORBAS

Antenna's Popi Tsapanidou went to Zorba's tomb in Fyrom, where he lived for twelve years.

"A live heart, a warm voice, a great and pure soul that hasn't been detached yet from its mother, the earth" : with these words well-known Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis described in his book Giorgos Zorbas, a simple man who became a legend caracterizing an entire nation, the Greeks.

Who hasn't seen the famous movie based on Kazantzakis's book "Zorba the Greek" ? And who can't remember the scores written for this film by another great Greek artist, composer Mikis Theodorakis ?

Fifty five years after his death, the tomb of Giorgos Zorbas, the real person which the book was based on, was located in Fyrom. Everybody knows him with the name of "Alexis Zorbas". A bouquet of flowers left on his tomb proves that some haven't forgotten him ; among them, Antenna television....

Giorgos Zorbas was born in a northern Greek village. He worked for a while as logger in Chalkidiki, in northern Greece. A wild spirit as he was, he couldn't stay too long in a place, at a job. "People like me should live for one thousand years", he used to say. And as the president of a cultural union of Zorbas's village explains, "Zorbas was nothing less than the mixture of several Greek types like the bohemian, the active man and the man who can survive in all conditions".

In 1930 he went to Fyrom where he set up his own business, making his own mine and managing to digg out a rare ore. When the Germans seized his mine in the beginning of the World War II, Zorbas was distressed. Shortly after this incident, he died, in 1943.

The long-lasting dispute between Greece and Fyrom over what Fyrom's permanent name should be is already known. Fyrom wants to call itself just "Macedonia", while Greece objects, saying that using the Greek name is expansionist and theft of Greek history. Today, the story of Zorbas the Greek becomes a bridge of friendship between the two countries. Next Saturday, this story will revive on stage at Fyrom's Popular Theatre via a concert that composer Mikis Theodorakis will give there.

The theatre's manager explains, "For us, this concert is the best occasion for our nations to come in contact, as our peoples live very close to eachother to feel as strangers between them".

The 840 seats capacity theatre will host the concert which will also include a dancing performance under the choreography of Lorka MassIne.

© ANT1 Radio 1997

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