Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 14-02-01

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

CONTENTS

[01] Travelling tobacco exhibition reconstructs long-gone trade routes

[02] SYRIZA leader's speech to Central Committee focuses on criticism of premier, gov't

[03] Medical provisions and beds, ND deputies delegation arriving at Cephalonia this weekend

[01] Travelling tobacco exhibition reconstructs long-gone trade routes

"Kapnos-Tabak" will be following the same traveling route the commerce of tobacco took a century ago within Greece.

The exhibition focuses on the influence accepted by the influence of architecture (tobacco shops, corporate offices and tobacco merchants' homes) from European and mainly Austrian trends, dating from the mid-19th century until the interwar period.

Maria Radetzi, a historian and associate professor at the National Technical University who is curating the exhibition, said the the tobacco trade's network was extensive and the exhibit shows the role cities played during the Ottoman rule. "In the early twentieth century, cultivation, trading and processing of tobacco leaves for export was the main economic activity in the cities of Kavala, Xanthi, Drama and Thessaloniki," she told ANA-MPA.

Spyros Flevaris, an architect-engineer at the Graz University of Technology, explained the structure of the show, which he said is divided into five sections: tobacco, trading,technology,tobacco shops and architecture. The first three sections provide a general introduction: tobacco as an agricultural product; its trading path and the foreign banks' introduction into Greece; and the different technologies used for tobacco processing.

Tobacco, Flevaris told ANA-MPA, was a great economic growth factor and considered key in empowering Greeks in areas that were under Ottoman occupation. The growth of the sector attracted foreigners who came to live here and helped the industry develop. On the other hand, tobacco also became an exotic luxury product, around which an entire culture of smoking was built, as its cultivation was risky but brought huge profits as well.

"The exhibition's goal is for the history of tobacco to be retold through its trading routes, this time in a different way, by using the power of images and objects," added Radetzi.

Exhibits in the show include an Austrian tobacco cutting machine of the early twentieth century, Austrian monopoly cigarette packages of the same era, a series of hitherto unknown photos from the Swedish Match Tobaks Museum, a large collection of photos from the archives of ELIA-MIET in Athens, photographs of from the University of Lausanne Paul Collart archive, as well as other rare, original photographs and objects.

[Photo: From a catalogue of the international Austro-Hungarian tobacco company - ML Herzog et Cie - published in 1901 and included in the exhibit. The company was based in Budapest and had central offices in Kavala, the tobacco-growing centre of the north; it was also where the company warehouse was and to which tobacco merchants arrived annually to weigh, assess and negotiate the sale price of tobacco.]

[02] SYRIZA leader's speech to Central Committee focuses on criticism of premier, gov't

Tsipras focused his speech on criticising the government and Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in particular, saying that May's double elections "will serve as a real referendum against the government of memorandum and subjugation that has throttled local government as well."

"A victory in both of these referendums will be historic and catalytic," he said. "The overthrow we have envisioned, for which we have struggled and which will wrest the country from the memorandum bog, is at hand," he stressed, while he called for more young candidates on ballots "to bring a fresh air in the heavy fog of political life."

In a speech seen as launching the party's election campaign by its focus on the government and Samaras to the exclusion of other parties, SYRIZA's leader said that his party offers the only way out of today's impasse for the majority of the Greek people. "The one phantom hovering over Greece for them is SYRIZA," Tsipras said, and called the prime minister "a representative of what is old and worn," claiming that "his fear can no longer be covered up" and, elsewhere in the speech, that Samaras "is in a panic."

At another point in his speech Tsipras referred to Samaras' speech before the New Democracy parliamentary group in which the premier flatly rejected any possible collaboration with SYRIZA, asking, "Who really asked him about it (collaboration)? Who is pressuring him? Whoever thinks of such perverse complexes, such political monstrosities? Why doesn't he name who they are?"

His own candidacy for the European Commission presidency, Tsipras said, was strongly criticized by New Democracy, Samaras and his supporters with "impressive meanness, hatred, and perversion" despite the positive response his candidacy and SYRIZA's struggle met with in Europe as a movement againt authoritarianism and austerity. "Samaras' ultra-right staff have spared no mud and slander" to prove the candidacy is "something close to an unpatriotic act," he said.

Responding to charges he was supporting a Turkish-Cypriot party, Tsipras attacked Samaras saying that SYRIZA is proud that they are in the same European party with fighters who have dedicated their lives to the reunification of Cyprus, who are being prosecuted by the Turkish government and half of whom have been jailed. "We are proud we are fighting together for the reunification, the just and viable solution for the Cyprus people against the authoritarian regime of the Turkish occupation. After all, the European Left party (in the European Parliament) has made its stance on the Cyprus issue clear, with the contribution of AKEL and the Turkish-Cypriot left," he added.

Quering what the conservative European People's Party stance is on the Cyprus issue, he further asked, "What is the position Samaras expects to take on the plan being promoted right now that calls for the island's splitting? Let us hear the response of the professional patriots....Some similar professional patriots led the Cyprus people to a tragedy 40 years ago."

The works of SYRIZA's Central Committee are expected to conclude on Sunday night.

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[03] Medical provisions and beds, ND deputies delegation arriving at Cephalonia this weekend

Prometheus is already on route, bringing basic goods, medication and health equipment as well as six Navy doctors of various specialties; the ship has a fully-equipped dispensary, including a telemedical system. Chios, which will sail within the day, will provide another 250 beds.

National Defence Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos ordered the despatch of the ships following a request by the island's mayor.

Meanwhile, a delegation from the New Democracy parliamentary group will also visit the island on Sunday to be personally briefed and help through interventions and parliamentary control in returning the island to normalcy. The delegation will remain on the island on Monday and also check that government measures to help residents are being applied.

Cephalonia was struck by an earthquake of 5.8 on the Richter scale on Sunday and is still experiencing aftershocks. There were no deaths but damages were incurred at homes, some schools, and the hospitals on the island.

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