Athens News Agency: News in English, 01-09-24

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

CONTENTS

[01] President Stephanopoulos begins official visit to Spain on Tuesday

[02] Photographic exhibition on the Aegean presented in Brussels

[03] Onassis Foundation donates 500,000 dollars to US families

[04] Greece to hold European jewellery trade fair in Japan

[05] Foreign Exchange Rates - Tuesday

[06] Gov't to debate contingency plan for 2002 budget

[07] Weather Forecast: Mostly sunny on Tuesday

[08] Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Athens, Thessaloniki

[09] Culture ministry presents legislation for protection of monuments

[01] President Stephanopoulos begins official visit to Spain on Tuesday

President Kostis Stephanopoulos will make an official visit to Spain on September 25-27 in return for the visit made to Greece three years ago by Spanish King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia.

President Stephanopoulos will meet the Spanish royal couple at noon on Tuesday and will be meeting the country's political leaders later on in the day.

On Wednesday he will lay a wreath at the Plaza de la Lealtad monument and will be going to the Senate for a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. He will also be visiting the Chamber of Industry in the afternoon to inaugurate the economic forum and the Greek Jewellery Exhibition.

President Stephanopoulos will call at the famous Prado museum on Thursday morning and at noon he will visit Toledo where the great painter Dominikos Theotokopoulos (otherwise known as "El Greco") worked and died (1541-1614).

[02] Photographic exhibition on the Aegean presented in Brussels

BRUSSELS (ANA - M. Spinthourakis) - The Secretary General of the Greek Press Ministry, Yiannis Nikolaou, last Thursday inagurated a photographic exhibition on the Aegean at Brussel's Museum of History and Art.

The exhibition, which is titled "Aegean-Pictures of Greece," is being held under the auspices of the Greek Press Ministry and the Greek Embassy in Brussels. It includes 160 colour and black and white photographs by 11 photographers.

The photographic exhibition has already been shown in Washington, Paris, Helsinki and Rome.

[03] Onassis Foundation donates 500,000 dollars to US families

The Onassis Foundation has donated the sum of 500,000 US dollars to the assistance funds for the widows and orphans of the hundreds of firemen and policemen who were killed while trying to save people trapped in the rubble of the two towers of the World Trade Centre in New York following the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11.

[04] Greece to hold European jewellery trade fair in Japan

A weeklong trade fair of European jewellery will be held in Japan, organised by the Greek national economy ministry and the Association of Northern Greek Exporters.

The fair, held under the Hermes plan to promote trade ties between Greece and Japan, will be held on 21-30 January 2002.

Thirty companies from five European countries will take part.

[05] Foreign Exchange Rates - Tuesday

Indicative tourist buying rates

U.S. dollar 368.856

German mark 172.829

French franc 051.531

Pound sterling 539.460

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 45.446

Swedish kroner 34.080

Finnish mark 056.852

Spanish peseta 002.032

Portuguese escudo 001.686

Japanese yen (100) 314.519

Swiss franc 231.487

Norwegian kroner 042.364

Cyprus pound 589.339

Canadian dollar 235.194

Australian dollar 181.481

[06] Gov't to debate contingency plan for 2002 budget

The government is to debate a contingency plan for the 2002 budget at a cabinet meeting on October 1, National Economy and Finance Minister Yiannos Papantoniou said on Monday.

If approved, the plan would be incorporated into the ministry's final draft of the budget that is destined for parliament early in November. It would not contain cuts in social spending, Papantoniou told reporters.

He added that terrorist attacks in the US on September 11 would have an adverse impact on most member countries of the European Union, leading to a short-term recession.

Analysts had forecast a slight dip in the rate of growth, followed by a mild recovery towards the end of 2002, if Washington's military and political response to the attacks was limited, and if destabilisation was avoided, Papantoniou said.

More concrete information would be available at the end of October when the EU's finance ministers were due to meet, he added.

[07] Weather Forecast: Mostly sunny on Tuesday

The weather will be mostly sunny on Tuesday. The northern Ionian, Epirus and Macedonia may be showery later in the day. Winds westerly, light to moderate. In the north, temperatures will range from 16C to 34C; on the rest of the mainland from 18C to 36C; and in the islands from 21C to 33C. Mainly sunny in Athens, with temperatures between 22C and 36C. Light cloud over Thessaloniki with temperatures from 18C to 32C.

[08] Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Athens, Thessaloniki

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is to perform at the Herod Atticus theatre in central Athens on Monday and Tuesday nights, followed by three dates in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki on Sept. 27-29.

According to Judith Jamison, the New York-based dance troupe's artistic director, the dancers in the black group had to overcome their pain and grief at the tragic events of September 11 in their city before making the journey to Greece.

The group will be perform three ballets, one choreographed by Alvin Ailey based on spirituals, one by Alonzo King and another by Ronald Brown.

[09] Culture ministry presents legislation for protection of monuments

Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos unveiled a new, comprehensive bill for the protection of antiquities on Monday, which he described as a 'matrix' for future measures once it's made into law.

The bill covers all the country's cultural assets from earliest antiquity up to the present day, with those dating before 1830 classified as antiquities.

Previously, only artifacts and monuments dating up to the late Hellenistic and Roman eras were automatically classified as having archaeological interest. The category has now been extended to include Byzantine and post-Byzantine monuments and artifacts, while a distinction is made for movable and fixed monuments.

Movable monuments such as portable Byzantine icons, funereal stele or pottery vessels, large numbers of which are currently in the possession of private individuals, will have to be declared and registered if the law is passed, while they are automatically considered monuments if they date before 1453.

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