Athens News Agency: News in English, 03-05-09

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

CONTENTS

[01] Weather Forecast: Sunshine on Friday

[02] Foreign Exchange Rates - Friday

[03] Greek, Polish premiers focus on June EU Summit during meeting in Warsaw

[01] Weather Forecast: Sunshine on Friday

Hot, sunny weather is forecast in all parts of the country, with periodic scattered cloud in the west. Winds northerly, light to moderate, turning strong in parts of the southern Aegean. In the north, temperatures will range from 13C to 31C; in the west from 15C to 33C; and in the rest of the country from 16C to 30C. Temperatures in Athens between 16C and 30C; and in Thessaloniki from 15C to 28C.

[02] Foreign Exchange Rates - Friday

Reference buying rates per euro released by the European Central Bank

U.S. dollar 1.152

Pound sterling 0.717

Danish kroner 7.484

Swedish kroner 9.188

Japanese yen 133.8

Swiss franc 1.516

Norwegian kroner 7.922

Cyprus pound 0.592

Canadian dollar 1.611

Australian dollar 1.798

[03] Greek, Polish premiers focus on June EU Summit during meeting in Warsaw

Prime minister and European Council President-in-office Costas Simitis met with his Polish counterpart Leszek Miller in Warsaw on Thursday the eighth stop in his tour of European Union member-states and acceding countries.

The two premiers talks lasted for more than an hour and was followed by a press conference.

Miller said that during the meeting he had the opportunity to express his opinion concerning the preparation of the Summit's agenda, recognizing that the issues to be discussed in Thessaloniki in June will be very important.

''We, also, discussed Greece's experiences in its course toward the European Union and all those elements that certify that Greece, within the EU, was able to hasten reforms and its modernization,'' Miller said, adding that ''this is very important for us, since during this period we are preparing for the Polish referendum (for the ratification of accession)''.

On his part, Simitis congratulated Poland's leadership and people for the successful accession bid and reassured the country's voters that the positive aspects of accession outweighed the negative in Greece's experience.

He spoke of the benefits of EU funding for infrastructure projects and underlined that ''the second very positive results is that the accession to the EU aids, as it happened with Greece, to the European integration and the position of every country in the international economy''.

''No state, at this time, in Europe - and I believe anywhere in the world - can solve its problems without the cooperation with other states,'' Simitis said, adding that ''a specific example, we discussed with Mr. Miller today, is the issue of illegal immigration. There are hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants that cross the borders of the EU, thus this problem should be handled through coordination among countries''.

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