Athens News Agency: News in English, 09-06-20

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

CONTENTS

[01] 2 girls drown in summer camp's pool

[02] New Acropolis Museum officially inaugurated

[03] Papoulias receives leaders

[01] 2 girls drown in summer camp's pool

The tragic incident was reported on the first day of the season at the summer camp, located at the Velika site in coastal Larissa prefecture, central Greece.

Initial autopsy results reportedly show that the two victims lost consciousness after diving into the pool with their backs first. Efforts to resuscitate the two girls proved fruitless.

The two co-owners of the summer camp and the pool supervisor were arrested on the spot.

[02] New Acropolis Museum officially inaugurated

In one of the most poignant moments of the evening, Prof. Dimitris Pantermalis, the director of the new state-of-the-art facility, pointed to numerous mutilated sculptures on display in the third-storey Parthenon Hall, sculptures whose other half is found at the British Museum in London. Instead white-coloured plaster replicas depict the missing friezes in the New Acropolis Museum.

Pantermalis personally gave a guided tour of the museum to international dignitaries, including EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura, who addressed the ceremony, as well as to Greece's leadership.

"Today, the whole world can see, all together, the most significant sculptures of the Parthenon. Some are missing. Now is the time to heal the monument's wounds with the return of the marbles to where they belong ... their natural setting," Greek President Karolos Papoulias said in addressing the international audience and television viewers across the country.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis emphasised that the new 130-million-euro museum belongs to all of humanity and forms part of the world's cultural heritage.

"In the sacred hill of the Acropolis the world views the forms that ecumenical and eternal ideals take. In the New Acropolis Museum the world can now ascertain these forms, these ideals, reuniting them and allowing them to regain their radiance ... Welcome to a Greece of civilisation and history; together we are inaugurating a museum for the supreme monument of the Classical civilisation: the Acropolis Museum," Karamanlis said, while again referring to his namesake and uncle, Greek statesman Constantine Karamanlis, along with iconic Greek actress and culture minister Melina Mercouri, as protagonists in the decades-long campaign to build the new museum.

On his part, Greek Culture Minister Antonis Samaras opened his address by expressing optimism that "the (pieces) that are not here today, those that were separated and carted off 207 years ago will return. They will certainly return; the Parthenon and its sculptures were the victims of plunder. This crime can, today, can be corrected. The museum serves as the moral force to invite them back; to reunite them," he stressed.

Caption: ANA-MPA photo / ORESTIS PANAGIOTOU

[03] Papoulias receives leaders

All three leaders arrived in Athens to attend Saturday evening's inauguration of the New Acropolis Museum.

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