Antenna: News in English, 99-03-15

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From: Antenna <www.antenna.gr/> - email: webmaster@antenna.gr

CONTENTS

[01] Pasok's fifth congress

[02] Pangalos

[03] Kalenterides

[04] Sports

[01] Pasok's fifth congress

But everyone wants unity on his or her terms.

The congress looks set to be the stage fo another showdown between the prime minister and his suporters on the one side, and the government's in- house critics, on the other.

Three days before Pasok's fifth congress starts, the undercurrent of conflict is apparent.

It surfaced dramatically over the weekend - 42 opponents of the prime minister's modernising wing of the party walked out of the meeting of the 18- member central committee.

The dissidents accused the party leadership of following a line that's shrinking Pasok's base of support.

Ever since Kostas Simitis took over as prime minister in 1996, his opponents have kicked back against his attempt to modernise Pasok.

They dislike his economic austerity measures. And they think his foreign policy is too soft when it comes to dealing wih the pressures of other countries, especially Turkey.

Differences were highlighted by the Ocalan affair, with dissidents angry that the government didn't offer better protection and more assistance to the Kurdish leader, a fugitive from Turkish justice.

Since the Ocalan affair, many in Pasok have been warning that the party will be badly beaten in this June's European elections.

But the prime minister's supporters are putting a positive spin on things.

Says former foreign minister Theodoros Pangalos in an interview in the newspaper "Ethnos".

"If you know how to read the polls, you see that things aren't that tragic, and Pasok can regain it's front-running position".

But there's a precondition to that, adds Pangalos. At the congress, the party has got to discuss what he feels are key issues: education, health, security, and unemployment - if they aren't discussed, he thinks the party's slide will continue.

At the central committee, Simitis made it clear that he doesn't intend to veer off the policy course he's charted, a course designed to take Greece into the single European currency. The congress, he added, cannot be allowed to jeopardise the nation's future.

The prime minister has little to fear in the way of a leadership or policy challenge from the congress - up to 70 per cent of the delegates may be in his corner.

The Pasok opposition will certainly make its voice heard.

But the overwhelming view seems to be that infighting should take a back seat to looking ahead to making sure Pasok's fighting fit for the Euro- elections in June.

In an interview in the daily Ta Nea, education minister Gerasimos Arsenis says the congress shouldn't be a battlefield for a clash between Simitis's modernisers and the traditionalists.

That could be interpreted as a warning to Simitis not to deal once and for all with the dissenters.

At the same time, though, Arsenis says that Simitis's leadership of Pasok should not be questioned at the congress.

[02] Pangalos

Pangalos made his comments at the launch of a book on Greek foreign policy by Greece's ambassador to the Council of Europe.

Pangalos said that in both Kosovo and Kurdistan, you have people demanding autonomy or independence. In the case of Kosovo, it's the ethnic Albanians who want to be free of Yugoslavia.

And the international community has rushed to their aid, even threatening to violate Yugoslavia's territorial integrity in promoting the Albanian's demands.

In the case of the Kurds, Pangalos added, the picture is very different. The international community is doing nothing to help the Kurds attain some measure of autonomy.

[03] Kalenterides

In his statements to the prosecutors, Greek intelligence major Savvas Kalenterides, who was with Ocalan from the time he left Greece until the day he was arrested in Kenya, takes some indirect shots at former intelligence service director Charalabos Stavrakakis.

Kalenterides criticises some of the orders Stavrakakis gave him while he was responsible for Ocalan in Kenya.

Kalenterides also says that the prime movers behind the Ocalan episode were former Greek naval commander Antonis Naxakis and his associate Kostas Badouvas, thrown out of Pasok's parliamentary group over the affair.

[04] Sports

Panathinaikos, two games out of first, locked horns with Aris over the weekend.

And the second-place team emerges victorious. Liberoboulos and Asanovic score twice for Pao in the first half as the Athenian club whips Aris 3-1.

SOCCER HOME GUEST FINAL Paniliakos AEK 1-0 Irakles Paok 1-0 Xanthi Eth Asteras 0-1 Ethnikos Ionikos 1-2 Ofi Apollon 0-1 Veria Elevsina 0-1 Panionios Kavala 1-2

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