Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-10-19

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

CONTENTS

[01] Greek central gov't cash balance in deficit of 1.144 bln euros in Jan-Sept

[02] ND leader levels against government on TV licences

[03] Thousands of refugees trapped on the islands due to EU policy insufficiency, says Lesvos mayor Galinos

[04] Diving into the mystery of multiple sclerosis

[01] Greek central gov't cash balance in deficit of 1.144 bln euros in Jan-Sept

The central bank, in a report, said that during this period, ordinary budget revenue amounted to 34,851 million euros, compared to 31,463 million in the corresponding period of last year. Revenue of 43 million euros regarding Securities Markets Programme (SMP) income transfers from the Bank of Greece is excluded. Ordinary budget expenditure, including expenditure of about 2,029 million euros for the repayment of arrears, amounted to 36,051 million, from 33,832 million euros in January-September 2015.

[02] ND leader levels against government on TV licences

Mitsotakis was speaking in parliament ahead of the presidents meeting on the NCRTV. He began his speech by recalling that in his previous speech warned that the country cannot afford to experience a crisis of justice along with the financial crisis.

"The country is experiencing an unprecedented institutional degeneration, undermining the quality of democracy. Efforts to manipulate the judges were recorded that remind conditions of lawlessness rather than the rule of law," he said.

[03] Thousands of refugees trapped on the islands due to EU policy insufficiency, says Lesvos mayor Galinos

Galinos proposed the establishment, initially in Greece, of a municipalities network with small hosting facilities for refugees and afterwards this example to be followed by European municipalities. "There are some thousands of municipalities, so if each one of them had a small facility we could face the problem without substantial burden on our societies and put an halt to the racist and fascist voices" he noted.

Lesvos mayor is currently in Brussels for "Cities of Solidarity-Solidacities" event held on Tuesday at the European parliament. During the meeting Galinos tabled a proposal on a "fair distribution of the refugees problem" in Greece and in Europe.

[04] Diving into the mystery of multiple sclerosis

The new finds are the result of the analysis of genomes of over 110,000 people (47,351 suffering from the disease) conducted by researchers from 30 universities and research centres in 18 countries.

After comparing the genomes of thousands of patients with the genones of thousand of other people without MS, the scientists reached to very important conclusions on the genetic profile of the disease. Most involved genes are related with the cells and the operation of the immune system, something that was expected.

The results of the research were presented by the representative of the international research consortium at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics in Vancouver, Canada. "It is the largest research globally. Due to the large sample size we found areas of the genone that can be involved with multiple sclerosis among them some less known genetic variations that, apparently, seem to have considerable effect in development of the disease, stated Patsopoulos.

The multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory neurodegenerative disease in which the patient's immune system turns against itself and destroys the brain's ability to contact with the body through the signals of the nervous system. The new genetic research reaffirms that the disease can be 'triggered' through a complex interaction of different cells and other factors of the immune system. Despite the substantial progress that brings the new research, at a high level the biological mechanisms that lead to the attack against the patient's nerves, remain still unknown.

Very important for the scientists was the discovery that many of the involved cells appear to be also involved and in other auto-immune diseases as rheumatoid arthritis, the type 1 diabetes and ulcerative colitis. The specific discovery raises the question, why if these genes are common, the diseases attack different organs and have other clinical symptoms.

"The similarities and differences between MS and other auto-immune diseases are part of our research that is in progress. Many of these diseases affect the cells of the immune system but we believe that they change them in different ways which lead to different kind of diseases" estimated Patsopoulos.

Patsopoulos was born in the central Greek city of Larissa in 1980 and graduated from the Medical School of Thessaly University. He got his PhD in Genetics Epidemiology at the Medical School of Ioannina University in 2008 and made a post-doctorate research on Statistic Genetics at Broad Institute of Boston and at the hospital Brigham &Women's of the Medical School of the University of Harvard where he is currently associate professor in the department of neurology.

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