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Athens News Agency: News in English, 01-02-10Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>CONTENTS
[01] TELETEXT ENGLISH10/02/2001 19:28:44@1b NEWS HEADLINES Powell on 2004 Games Salomon: Spata airport expensive Preveza tunnel to open in August Industry growth outpaces EU average No rush over Piraeus port sale Ideal, Intrasoft to launch venture Cyprus antiquities museum in Athens Robert Wilson's stage designs @2b Powell on 2004 Games New US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday said he was confident Greek authorities would ensure that the Athens 2004 Olympic Games would be conducted in a ?safe manner?. ?I am confident that the authorities will do everything to make sure that the Games go off in a safe manner. And anything we can do to assist them with the experience that we have from the past or any other assistance we can give will be made available to the government,? Powell said, responding to a relevant question during a press conference. @3b Salomon: Spata airport expensive A new international airport for Athens, which is due to open in March, will be the third most expensive in Europe, Salomon Smith Barney said on Friday. The international investment house noted in a market report to customers that due to high costs, the Eleftherios Venizelos airport was unlikely to become a hub for Middle Eastern air traffic, as originally planned. The report added that airlines would have to up their fares to meet the costs, hurting tourism to Greece. @4b Preveza tunnel to open in August A long-awaited undersea tunnel connecting Preveza with the Aktion peninsula will open in August, the government promised in Parliament on Friday. A deputy minister said the total cost of the project has reached 28 billion drachmas. He also said delays in the tunnels opening were due to the bankruptcy of one of the companies in the construction consortium. On their part, several ND deputies charged severe delays in the project, while warning of the danger of flooding in the tunnel and a downgrading of the surrounding environment. @5b Industry growth outpaces EU average The Greek industry's growth rates significantly exceed the EU's average, a fact underlining Greek businesses' dynamism in a highly competitive environment, data from Eurostat and Greece's National Statistics Service showed on Friday. The data, published by the Greek Union of Listed Companies, said that Greek industries recorded faster growth rates compared with their eurozone and EU-15 counterparts in November, a development likely to have a positive impact on listed companies' results. @6b No rush over Piraeus port sale The government said on Friday that a part-privatisation the government is planning for the Piraeus Port Authority should be accomplished correctly, and should not be rushed. @7b Ideal, Intrasoft to launch venture Ideal is to launch an electronic department store on a website to be named myShops.gr, using software by Intrasoft, a member of the infotech and telecoms Intracom Group, Ideal said in a statement on Friday. The move, which will allow small and medium sized enterprises to sell their wares through the internet at low cost, is part of an alliance between the two Athens-quoted firms that began in summer 2000, the statement said. @8b Cyprus antiquities museum in Athens President Kostis Stephanopoulos on Monday will inaugurate an exhibition of antiquities from Cyprus, belonging to the Greek-Cypriot antiquities collector Dimitris Pierides. Pierides established the first Museum of Ancient Cypriot Art in Greece at the Athinaes art centre in Votanikos, Athens, exhibiting 153 terracotta, stone and pottery pieces of his vast collection. @9b Robert Wilson's stage designs Robert Wilson, a noted US theatre innovator, is exhibiting sketches and sculptured furniture from stage designs, including "Swan Dog", "Parsifal", "Alcestis", "Death, Destruction and Detroit II", and "Life and Times of Sigmund Freud" through February 10 at the Bernier/Eliades Gallery, 11 Eptachalkou street in Athens. @10b FOREIGN NEWS TOKYO - Rescuers scoured the seas off Hawaii for nine Japanese, including four 17-year-old high school fisheries students, lost at sea after a U.S. nuclear submarine struck and sank their fishing trawler in minutes. JERUSALEM - Firefights flared in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Palestinians vowed revenge as they buried a teenager shot dead by Israeli troops. A spokesman for Israel's forceful new leader Ariel Sharon confirmed that he had offered the defence portfolio to outgoing PM Ehud Barak in a bid to lure his defeated Labour rivals into a unity coalition with his rightwing Likud party. JERUSALEM - A U.N. team was starting an investigation into human rights violations in the occupied territories during the Palestinian uprising in a move already rejected by the Israeli government. KISSIDOUGOU, Guinea - United Nations aid workers are struggling to rescue tens of thousands of terrified refugees caught in a fresh wave of fighting in southern Guinea. The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR estimated that 5-10,000 people who fled a refugee camp in panic on Friday had formed a human column several km long on the road to Kissidougou, where UNHCR operations are based. LOS POZOS, Colombia - The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) will return to formal peace talks, the country's largest rebel force said on Friday after two days of meetings between its leader and President Andres Pastrana. TEHRAN - Security forces beat up anti-government demonstrators and arrested more than 50 people in a second day of unrest in the Iranian capital, witnesses said. WASHINGTON - The United States has told the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan to close their office in New York in compliance with U.N. sanctions. At the initiative of the United States and Russia, the U.N. Security Council tightened the sanctions in December after the Taliban failed to meet demands that it hand over Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden. HARARE - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's ruling party called on two Supreme Court judges to quit a week after forcing the country's white chief justice to take early retirement, newspapers reported. SRINAGAR, India - Police in Indian-ruled Kashmir's summer capital said their main control centre in the state was back in their control after a bloody attack by separatist guerrillas PRAGUE - Czech Television workers ended their six-week-long strike after parliament chose an interim director for the public station. @12b WEATHER Scattered cloud is forecast throughout most of Greece on Sunday, with rain showers possible but mostly clearing by the afternoon. Winds north-northeasterly, moderate to strong. In the north, temperatures will range from 2C to 1C; in the Ionian and remaining mainland from 5C to 15C; and in the Aegean islands from 10C to 17C. Cloud and showers in Athens, with temperatures between 9C and 14C. Chance of light rain in Thessaloniki, 4C to 10C. @13b Temperatures-Greece Athens 17 Thessaloniki 13 Alexandroupoli 15 Kavala - Larissa 14 Ioannina 15 Patra 14 Kalamata 18 Irakleio 18 Rhodes 17 Corfu 17 @14b Temperatures-Europe Berlin 04 Brussels 12 Budapest 12 Geneva - Larnaca 19 London - Madrid 10 Moscow 02 Paris 08 Rome - Stockholm -01 Vienna 08 @18b NBA Results Results of Thursday's NBA games (Home team in CAPS): TORONTO 99 Denver 92 CHARLOTTE 101 Atlanta 84 Houston 103 DETROIT 90 NEW JERSEY 99 San Antonio 97 @20b FOREIGN EXCHANGE Monday's buying rates U.S. dollar 366.358 German mark 172.829 French franc 051.531 Pound sterling 529.649 Irish punt 429.202 Belgian franc 008.379 Luxembourg franc 008.379 Dutch guilder 153.389 Italian lira (100) 017.457 Austrian schilling 024.565 Danish kroner 45.304 Swedish kroner 37.931 Finnish mark 056.852 Spanish peseta 002.032 Portuguese escudo 001.686 Japanese yen (100) 312.127 Swiss franc 220.236 Norwegian kroner 41.295 Cyprus pound 583.296 Canadian dollar 242.647 Australian dollar 196.874 @21b ATHENS STOCK EXCHANGE Equity prices ended the week mixed to higher on the Athens Stock Exchange on Friday, as buying interest for medium capitalisation stocks counterbalanced selling pressure on bank shares. The general index ended 0.39 percent higher at 3,169.71 points, off the day's highs of 3,185.07, with turnover an improved 128.52 million euros, or 43.79 billion drachmas. Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article |