Athens News Agency: News in English (PM), 98-03-06

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr>

NEWS IN ENGLISH

Athens, Greece, 06/03/1998 (ANA)

MAIN HEADLINES

• February inflation falls to 4.3 pct
• Gov't condemns Kosovo violence
• No back-tracking on education reforms
• Illegal immigrants contribute to crime - Romeos
• PM wants stepped-up decentralisation to local gov't
• Crime on agenda of Balkan tripartite meeting
• Three arrested in radar protests
• New Jewish museum of Greece to open next week
• Weather
• Foreign Exchange

NEWS IN DETAIL

Year-on-year inflation fell to 4.3 percent in February, a fall of 0.1 percent from January's figure, the National Statistics Service (ESYE) said today.

ESYE secretary-general Nikos Karavitis predicted that the downward trend would continue in the coming months and that March year-on-year inflation would fall below 4.3 percent.

February's figure was down 0.5 percent compared to a reduction of 0.4 percent in the same month last year.

Average inflation in the February 1997-1998 was 5.2 percent compared to 7.9 percent in the February 1996-1997 period.

The fall in inflation was attributed to reduced prices in clothing and footwear due to the winter sales and to a fall in petrol prices.

Gov't condemns Kosovo violence

The Greek government condemns violence in Kosovo from wherever it originates and is opposed to the secession of the region as well as to any change of borders in the region, government spokesman Dimitris Reppas said today.

He added that Athens was calling on the two sides in the Kosovo problem to engage in dialogue so that a mutually acceptable solution might be found.

Greece, the spokesman added, is at the disposal of both sides in terms of extending its good offices.

No back-tracking on education reforms

There will be no back-tracking on reforms under way to the Greek education system and teachers must contribute to making them a success, government spokesman Dimitris Reppas said today.

Reppas was responding to questions at a news briefing shortly after unemployed and substitute teachers held a protest march in the city center.

In Kavala, teachers held a three-hour work stoppage at junior and senior high schools to allow substitute teachers to participate in the Athens march. Teachers' union OLME called a four-hour work stoppage in Athens to allow teachers to attend the rally.

The teachers are demanding that they be exempted from a competition to grade and appoint them to public service positions, part of new measures introduced by Education Minister Gerasimos Arsenis designed to restructure and streamline the education system. The measures include the abolition of a waiting list for teachers to public school appointments.

"The educational reforms are a given and all are obliged to contribute to their success," Reppas told reporters.

High school teachers early last year held an eight-week walk-out to protest the reforms.

Illegal immigrants contribute to crime - Romeos

Public Order Minister George Romeos said today that the thousands of illegal immigrants entering the country were contributing considerably to the increase in Greece's crime rate.

Speaking at a conference on foreigners in Europe at the Orthodox Academy of Crete in Chania, Romeos referred to the measures being taken by the Greek government concerning illegal immigrants, but stressed that in order to make the problem less acute, initiatives would have to be taken at a European level.

Romeos attributed the large increase in the influx of illegal immigrants to the "games" of the major powers, citing as an example the sanctions imposed on Iraq and the Kurdish problem.

He forecast that the problem would in the future take on explosive dimensions.

The UN High Commission's representative in Greece, Janvier de Riednmateten, who is attending the conference, described as positive the measures being taken by the government to faciliate the reception of immigrants.

According to public order ministry figures released at the end of February, murders rose by 37 per cent to 251 in 1997, compared to the previous year, while the percentage of unsolved crimes rose by 45 per cent over the same period.

PM wants stepped-up decentralisation to local gov't

Prime Minister Costas Simitis at a Cabinet meeting today called for the speeding up of procedures aimed at the decentralisation of functions and duties to local and prefectural authorities.

The premier said it was necessary for decentralisation to proceed at a faster pace in order for the government to complete its administrative reforms, contained in several institutional bills such as the "Capodistrias" bill which reorganises the structure of local government.

According to informed sources, Simitis also urged the speeding up of infrastructure works being carried out in the provinces.

Crime on agenda of Balkan tripartite meeting

Drugs and arms smuggling and organised crime will be among the key issues to be discussed over the weekend by the public order ministers of Greece, Romania and Bulgaria in Thessaloniki, the Public Order Ministry said today.

The tripartite talks will also focus on terrorism, money laundering and illegal migration, a ministry source told the ANA.

Greece's public order minister George Romaios and counterparts Gavril Dejeu of Romania and Bogomil Bonev of Bulgaria, heading delegations from their respective countries, plan to "lay the foundations for intensified cooperation and the development of coordinated and efficient measures in combatting organised crime, terrorism, drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and illegal migration", the source said.

The talks will open at the Mediterranean Palace Hotel in Thessaloniki on Saturday morning, and will be followed by a press conference.

The Bulgarian and Romanian ministers will be taken on a tour of Greek archaeological sites later in the day and on Sunday they will be flown by helicopter to the all-male monastic community of Mt. Athos.

Three arrested in radar protests

Three people were arrested today when residents of areas near Thessaloniki airport clashed with riot police who had blocked a road leading to a site designated for radar installations.

The residents of Perea and adjoining areas have for the past four days been protesting the installation of the landing radar by the Civil Aviation Authority, believing it will pose a serious health hazard.

Scuffles broke out when the protesting residents tried to break through the police cordon set up early this morning.

Representatives of the protesters in a statement yesterday rejected all forms of violence but warned that the residents' reactions "cannot be controlled".

After three people were arrested this morning, the protesters moved a short distance away from the police cordon and continued to demonstrate peacefully.

Local residents have sought the intervention of the public works ministry to halt construction at least until their appeal to the Council of State is heard on May 8.

New Jewish museum of Greece to open next week

The Jewish Museum of Greece, whose collections chronicle the relatively unknown and insufficiently documented 2,300-year history of the Greek Jews, opens to the public next week in its newly-acquired own premises.

Housed in a neoclassical building on 39 Nikis street in Plaka, the 800 sq.m. museum will be inaugurated Tuesday night in a formal ceremony attended by Culture Minister Envagelos, Education Minister Gerassimos Arsenis and Athens Mayor Dimitris Avramopoulos.

The museum's 7,000 artefacts, documents and photographs are divided into nine thematic entities exhibited on the nine levels of the building surrounding an octagonal atrium with a clear glass dome at the top letting ample natural light into the building's interior.

"Most of the exhibits in the Museum's collection have been acquired on the basis of their authenticity and direct association with some of the 28 Jewish communities that thrived in various parts of Greece prior to World War II," a museum spokesman told the ANA.

"Although the majority of the exhibits -- unlike their original owners -- managed to survive the war, this Museum is not intended to serve as a 'monument' to the almost total success of the nazi regime in eliminating the Jewish element from the face of the earth, but to provide the appropriate environment for studying the rich and multi-cultural Jewish history and the more than 2,300 year old presence of the Jewish people throughout Greece," the spokesman said.

The museum documents the history of the early Greek-speaking Jews, or "Romaniote", from the first Jewish immigration in Phoenician times -- when Jewish communities flourished in much of the Mediterranean -- to the arrival of the Sephardim, or Spanish Jews, after their expulsion from Spain by the Holy Inquisition in 1492, to the Holocaust and the present.

"The exhibition chronicles the historical, religious and social history of the Greek Jewish community," the spokesman said, adding that a gallery of related exhibits had been set up in memory of the 70,000 Greek Jews who perished in the Holocaust and in honor of "the numerous (Christian) Greeks who helped many others to survive".

He said the first written evidence of the establishment of Jews in Greece comes from an inscription discovered in Oropos, Attica, dating to circa 300- 250 B.C., which refers to a Jew from Beotia named Moschos Moschionos.

It is believed that the first Jews arriving in Greece came as slaves sold by the various conquerors of Judaea to neighbouring nations, the spokesman said.

The Jewish Museum of Greece, founded in 1997, ranks third among the top Jewish Museums in Europe, he added.

WEATHER

FOREIGN EXCHANGE

(M.P.)

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