Athens News Agency: News in English (PM), 98-11-02

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

NEWS IN ENGLISH

Athens, Greece, 02/11/1998 (ANA)

MAIN HEADLINES

• PM, president to meet on Wednesday
• Six Albanians found with 24 kilos of marijuana
• New waste disposal plant for Attica
• Sex slaves may bump up AIDS incidence
• Pangalos demands official's resignation
• PM pledges continuation of gov't policy ahead of confidence vote
• Opposition comments at the debate
• State telecom third flotation
• Weather
• Foreign Exchange

NEWS IN DETAIL

Prime Minister Costas Simitis's meeting with President of the Republic Costis Stephanopoulos, scheduled for Monday, has been postponed until after Parliament takes a vote of confidence on Tuesday night. According to press reports, the meeting has been rescheduled for 1 p.m. on Wednesday. Parliament holds the vote of confidence in the government at Tuesday midnight.

Six Albanians found with 24 kilos of marijuana

Police in northern Greece early on Monday arrested six young Albanians, including a 16-year-old, and seized 24 kilos of marijuana. The Albanians were identified as Adriatik Klize, Pepa Eduard, both 18, Toli Semir, Dede Metik, both 19, Haideri Ouzan, 20 and 16-year-old S.D. The six were arrested after Yiannitsa police sent an officer posing as a buyer to negotiate the purchase of the marijuana.

New waste disposal plant for Attica

Environment, Town Planning and Public Works Minister Costas Laliotis on Monday announced plans to build a waste disposal plant in the Athens suburb of Ano Liossia. Speaking at a news conference, Laliotis said the plant would be designed to deal with the 30,000 tonnes of hospital waste produced in the Attica region daily and put an end to this growing problem. The plant is expected to cost some 2.5 billion drachmas and begin operating in a years' time.

Sex slaves may bump up AIDS incidence

Thousands of Eastern European women now working in Greece's sex industry may drastically bump up the incidence of AIDS in Greece, experts told a news conference on Monday. A recent study in Thessaloniki has shown that the majority of these women, most of them from Albania and Bulgaria, forsake the use of condoms for more money in their transactions with men, increasing the risk of contracting and spreading AIDS. Sociologists at the news conference said these women often had fake certificates from their own countries showing that they had a clean bill of health. A number of recent raids on bars and nightclubs in Thessaloniki and rural towns has highlighted the prevalence of these women being used in the Greek sex industry.

Pangalos demands official's resignation

Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos on Monday demanded the resignation of secretary-general for administration and organisation, Constantine Zoras, holding him responsible for serious problems caused in the operation of the ministry's translation department. According to highly-placed sources, Pangalos today visited the translation department and saw that certain members of staff, who had not accepted a recent change to their terms of employment, were preventing colleagues from working. The same sources said Pangalos requested police intervention to force the dissenting employees - eight in total - to leave the building.

PM pledges continuation of gov't policy ahead of confidence vote

Prime Mimister Costas Simitis yesterday evening pledged his government would continue its work without setbacks and called on the ruling PASOK deputies to back him. "The government will continue firmly and without setbacks, hesitations or experimentations its work and this decision must be supported by PASOK in its entrirety," Mr. Simitis told Parliament at the opening of a debate which will culminate in a confiden ce vote on his government tomorrow at midnight. Mr. Simitis asked for a confidence vote last Thursday after proceeding to a minor cabinet reshuffle following a PASOK setback in local elections last month. He said the government and the ruling PASOK party should send a message that "the current situation of the country does not allow for games or manoeuvres".

Opposition comments at the debate

Main opposition New Democracy party leader Costas Karamanlis in his address to the Parliament said the PASOK government and the prime minister were "weaker than ever". "The government is weaker than ever and more so the prime minister is weaker than ever and with spasmodic moves he is asking for a confidence vote under pressure from his party's internal opposition," Mr. Karamanlis said in a frontal attack against the government. Accusing the government for what he termed the country's current "weakness", Mr. Karamanlis referred to a "dissolution of the state", of a state "which instead of being a friend to the citizen has become its enemy".

State telecom third flotation

The price of shares for sale at home and abroad in the latest flotation for Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation (OTE) was set at 6,100 drachmas on the recommendation of underwriters, National Bank of Greece said on Saturday. The third flotation for the state telecom, which was roughly twice oversubscribed, will bring the government around 302 billion drachmas, the bank said in a statement. The offer's coordinators and main underwriters were National Bank of Greece, Credit Suisse First Boston and Salomon Smith Barney. National Bank said that the offer was the first successful secondary issue to take place in Europe since a financial crisis erupted this year that battered stock markets around the continent.

WEATHER

FOREIGN EXCHANGE

(M.P.)

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