Macedonian Press Agency: News in English, 2000-03-20
MACEDONIAN PRESS AGENCY NEWS IN ENGLISH
Thessaloniki, March 20, 2000
SECTIONS
[A] NATIONAL NEWS
[B] INTERNATIONAL NEWS
NEWS HEADLINES
[A] NATIONAL NEWS
[01] THE INFLATION RATE FOR GREECE'S EMU ACCESSION WAS ANNOUNCED
TODAY
[02] ISTANBUL TO THESSALONIKI WITH THE TURKISH AIRLINES
[03] ONE KILO OF HEROIN WAS HIDDEN IN AN ALBANIAN AMBULANCE
[04] SERIOUS PROBLEM IN AN OLYMPIC AIRWAYS FLIGHT
[05] GREEK EU COMMISSIONER DIAMANTOPOULOU VISITED PRESIDENT
STEPHANOPOULOS
[06] THE CARETAKER MINISTERS WERE SWORN-IN TODAY
[07] MARGINAL GAINS OF 0.08% IN THE ATHENS STOCK EXCHANGE
[08] BATTLE BY THE TWO LARGE PARTIES TO WIN OVER THE CENTRIST
VOTERS
[09] INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE JUDEO-ESPANIOL LANGUAGE
[B] INTERNATIONAL NEWS
[10] PAPANDREOU AND IVANOV DISCUSSED THE ISSUE OF KOSOVO
[11] OPEN HEART SURGERIES ON GREEKS FROM GEORGIA
[12] THE ANCIENT GREEK CIVILIZATION IN A CD-ROM
NEWS IN DETAIL
[A] NATIONAL NEWS
[01] THE INFLATION RATE FOR GREECE'S EMU ACCESSION WAS ANNOUNCED
TODAY
The European Union statistics agency Eurostat formally
announced today that Greece met the inflation rate criteria for
its accession into the EMU.
The harmonized inflation rate for the month of February was
2%, according to minister of national economy Yiannos Papantoniou.
He also pointed out that the 11 countries that formed the EMU in
1998 had joined with an inflation rate of 3%.
Referring to the stock market, he was in favor of being
independent from politics and that the capital market
investigation on the stock market's recent decline continues.
[02] ISTANBUL TO THESSALONIKI WITH THE TURKISH AIRLINES
A Turkish Airlines plane will arrive in Thessaloniki on
Wednesday in time for the inauguration of the Istanbul-
Thessaloniki flight that will be launched on March 25. The Turkish
Airlines flights will be held every Wednesday and Saturday at
8:30am from Istanbul to Thessaloniki and at 10:30am from
Thessaloniki to Istanbul.
On the occasion of the new flight, Turkish Airlines general
director Yussef Bolairli will give a reception to a Thessaloniki
hotel.
[03] ONE KILO OF HEROIN WAS HIDDEN IN AN ALBANIAN AMBULANCE
Two Albanians attempted to smuggle one kilo of heroin in
Greece by hiding it in an ambulance of a hospital from the
Albanian city of Sarante.
The drug-traffickers were arrested inside their ambulance in
the north-western Greek city of Ioannina by drug enforcement
agents from the city of Patras in southern Greece who posed as
drug dealers.
[04] SERIOUS PROBLEM IN AN OLYMPIC AIRWAYS FLIGHT
The 100 passengers of an Olympic Airways Boeing-737 plane
that was about to take off from the south-eastern Aegean island of
Rhodes to Athens were terrified when a floc of birds was sucked by
one of the plane's engines.
The pilot managed to control the plane which did not take off
and an air tragedy was averted at the last minute.
[05] GREEK EU COMMISSIONER DIAMANTOPOULOU VISITED PRESIDENT
STEPHANOPOULOS
Greek European Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou met with
Greek president Kostis Stephanopoulos at the presidential building
in Athens today and briefed him on the issues that will be
discussed in the Lisbon EU Summit meeting on March 23-24.
Specifically, the issues that will be discussed concern
employment, joblessness, poverty and social discrimination.
In statements she made, Ms. Diamantopoulou referred to the
presence of women in politics and underlined that political
parties must prepare the participation of women in politics at a
long-term level both socially and politically.
[06] THE CARETAKER MINISTERS WERE SWORN-IN TODAY
The three caretaker ministers, who will remain at their posts
until the April 9 parliamentary elections, were sworn-in today
before Greek president Kostis Stephanopoulos.
Specifically, the ministry of interior was taken over by
professor Giorgos Koumantos replacing Vaso Papandreou, the justice
ministry was taken over by former supreme court vice-president
Dimitris Gourgourakis replacing Evangelos Yiannopoulos and the
ministry of press was taken over by professor Argiris Fatouros
replacing Dimitris Reppas.
[07] MARGINAL GAINS OF 0.08% IN THE ATHENS STOCK EXCHANGE
The week for the Athens Stock Exchange opened with marginal
gains of 0.08% today confirming the optimistic scenarios according
to which, the stock market will follow an upward course.
The main index closed at 4.849,07 points, while the volume of
transactions remained relatively low today at 162.2 billion
drachmas.
[08] BATTLE BY THE TWO LARGE PARTIES TO WIN OVER THE CENTRIST
VOTERS
Governing socialist party of PASOK is leading in the race to
win over the centrist voters, according to the second part of the
opinion poll conducted by the polling company "Kappa Research" and
published by the Athens newspaper "TO VIMA".
Based on the opinion poll results, 34.2% of the people
believe that PASOK is a centrist party, 20.6% place it at the
center-right and 11.4% at the center-left. On the contrary, right-
wing main opposition party of New Democracy is regarded as a
centrist party by only a 3.9% of the voters, as center-right by
6.9% and as center-left by 0.9%.
On the issue of the long presence of PASOK in power, which is
used by New Democracy as an argument, 49.1% express disagreement
over the position that the government must change and 46% agree
with this stance.
It should be noted that, 1 in 2 Greeks believe that the pre-
election battle of the political parties is not fought over
crucial and essential issues that concern the people, while 30.9%
believes the opposite.
[09] INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE JUDEO-ESPANIOL LANGUAGE
Sepharadim from all over the world declare their
determination to breath new life into their cultural and
linguistic heritage through the 2nd International Conference on
the Judeo-Espaniol language: "A Jewish language in search of its
people" that will be held in Thessaloniki's Trade and Industry
Chamber on April 16-17.
The conference's organizing committee president Rafael
Gatenio stated that the Spanish-Jewish language or lantino was the
link and the means of communication between the Sepharadim
communities in spite of the fact that they were spread in
different countries. He said that it is a language that it is not
just a communication code but an expression of the essence of
Sepharadism, the collective soul of those people, their history
and experience through the centuries.
[B] INTERNATIONAL NEWS
[10] PAPANDREOU AND IVANOV DISCUSSED THE ISSUE OF KOSOVO
Greek foreign minister Giorgos Papandreou and his Russian
counterpart Igor Ivanov characterized as alarming the situation in
Kosovo, stressing the need for immediate action by the
international community to secure the strict implementation of UN
Security Council resolution 1244.
After his meeting with his Russian counterpart in Moscow, Mr.
Papandreou expressed the wish that human rights will be protected
in Kosovo stressing, at the same time, the need to preserve the
multi-national character of the province.
Mr. Papandreou stressed that the Serbs, Albanians, the Romas
and the small Turkish minority in the province should enjoy the
same rights and added that all decisions must be made within the
framework of Yugoslavia.
From his side, the Russian foreign minister stressed that
with his Greek counterpart shared the same views concerning the
situation in Yugoslavia, adding that both expressed their strong
concern over the situation in the region.
[11] OPEN HEART SURGERIES ON GREEKS FROM GEORGIA
Seven open heart surgeries were performed for free on Greeks
from the former soviet republic of Georgia by the America World
Council of Hellenes Abroad, SAE, medical team headed by cardiology
director Dr. Charles Kanakis.
The goal of the team's third visit to the Black Sea republic
was to promote the training of local doctors in the specific
surgery technique. The SAE medical team, which performed the first
open heart surgery in Georgia last year, has already performed a
total of 28 operations.
[12] THE ANCIENT GREEK CIVILIZATION IN A CD-ROM
A panorama of the ancient Greek civilization is included in
the electronic publication under the title "Perseus 2.0" issued by
the University of Yale in the United States.
The electronic publication is made up of four CD-ROMs with
over 420 works of 31 authors and over 24.000 pictures and images,
while it also features a full line of tools for a literary,
linguistic and aesthetic analysis, a huge map of the ancient Greek
world and other facts concerning 1.240 vessels, 366 sculptures,
523 coins, 387 buildings and 179 archaeological sites.
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