Macedonian Press Agency: News in English, 2000-11-17
MACEDONIAN PRESS AGENCY NEWS IN ENGLISH
Thessaloniki, November 17, 2000
SECTIONS
[A] NATIONAL NEWS
[B] INTERNATIONAL NEWS
TITLES
[01] POLYTECHNIC MARCHES TAKE PLACE TODAY
[02] GREEK INITIATIVES FOR COMMON BALKAN POSITION
[03] MPA HOLDS INTER-BALKAN MEDIA CONFERENCE NEXT WEEK
[04] OTE IS AN OFFICIAL SPONSOR OF "ATHENS 2004"
[05] SAE MET IN THESSALONIKI YESTERDAY
[06] REPPAS ON THE STATEMENTS MADE BY MILUTINOVIC
[07] TSOCHATZOPOULOS: THE PARLIAMENT WILL RATIFY THE TREATY ON THE
ABOLITION OF THE LAND MINES UNDER CERTAIN PRECONDITIONS
[B] INTERNATIONAL NEWS
[08] AVRAMOPOULOS TO VISIT SKOPJE TODAY
[09] KOSTUNICA: GREECE IS THE WINDOW TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD FOR
BELGRADE
[10] ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN MEETING WILL BE HELD IN ATHENS
[11] NEW MEASURES IN THE GREEK CONSULATE IN PLOVDIV FOR THE
ISSUING OF VISAS
[12] THE 1ST EXHIBITION OF GREEK COMPANIES OPENED IN TURKEY
[13] INFLATION OF 2.7% IN THE EURO-ZONE IN OCTOBER
NEWS IN DETAIL
[A] NATIONAL NEWS
[01] POLYTECHNIC MARCHES TAKE PLACE TODAY
The citizens of Athens, Thessaloniki and other Greek cities
are today celebrating the anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising,
with student marches taking place all over the country.
The Polytechnic of Athens will shut its doors at 1pm and the march
towards the American embassy will begin at 4pm. The Greek police
force has ordered 3.000 policemen to be onguard during the march,
in order to deal with any possible problems.
Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis stated that the
Polytechnic continues to symbolise the struggle, ideology and
values of today's youth and other political leaders forwarded
their messages and wreaths in honour of the anniversary.
[02] GREEK INITIATIVES FOR COMMON BALKAN POSITION
The Foreign minister of Skopje, Alexander Dimitrov will visit
Athens on Tuesday, together with his Yugoslavian counterpart Goran
Svilanovic, where they will meet with Greek Foreign minister
George Papandreou.
The talks will aim to exchange views for the reorganisation
of the Balkans, in preparation for the European Union summit due
to be held in Zagreb at the end of next week.
Top of the summit's agenda will be the financial regulations
for the years 2002-2006, which is expected to include an
allocation of 4.6 billion euros.
Greek diplomats have promoted the idea of organising a
meeting of Balkan foreign ministers in Skopje before next
Wednesday to formulate a common position that will then be
conveyed to the European delegation at the summit.
[03] MPA HOLDS INTER-BALKAN MEDIA CONFERENCE NEXT WEEK
Directors and Chief Editors of the 60 largest mass media
organisations in the Balkans, as well as top technical executives
involved in the latest developments within new technologies and
the Internet will attend the 6th Inter-Balkan Journalists
Conference, being held by the Macedonian Press Agency next Friday
and Saturday (November 24th and 25th) in Thessaloniki.
The conference will focus on "New media technologies for the
development of cooperation in Southeastern Europe" and will
include speeches by media directors and representatives from
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Kosovo-
Yugoslavia, Moldavia, FYROM, Romania, Turkey and Greece.
The formal opening ceremony will take place at 5pm on Friday
November 24th and will include introductory speeches by
specialists on the latest technological Internet developments.
The conference will be sponsored by the Greek National
Tourist Organisation (EOT), the Greek Telecommunications Company
(OTE), Olympic Aviation, the Commercial Bank, the Inter-Balkan
Medical Center, Tax-Free Goods Center (KAE), the Greek Investments
Center (ELKE), the Centre for Inter-Balkan Cooperation and the
technical companies CIN and ATC.
[04] OTE IS AN OFFICIAL SPONSOR OF "ATHENS 2004"
Greek Telecommunications Organization, OTE, will be the
official sponsor of the Athens Olympic Games in 2004 after the
agreement signed by "Athens 2004" Organization president Ms.
Yianna Angelopoulou-Daskalakis with OTE president Nikos Manasis in
the presence of minister transportation and telecommunications
Christos Verelis.
The specific sponsorship is expected to play a big role in
the Athens Olympic Games due to the services it will have to offer
in the games.
The "Athens 2004" Organizing Committee Board of Directors was
also briefed on the developments concerning the rest of the
sponsorships.
[05] SAE MET IN THESSALONIKI YESTERDAY
World Council of Hellenes Abroad, SAE, met in Thessaloniki
yesterday to discuss the organizing of its young members and its
networks, while the preparations for December's general assembly
are underway in which the main topics of discussion will be the
developments in the United States, the US-Greek relations and the
Cyprus issue.
SAE will also have contacts with government officials and
political party representatives for the better organizing of the
assembly.
New undersecretary of foreign affairs Grigoris Niotis was
also present in the general assembly and stated that Thessaloniki
is an international networks' organizing center that will lead to
the development of Greece's relations with the new international
environment taking advantage of the power the Greeks living abroad
have.
[06] REPPAS ON THE STATEMENTS MADE BY MILUTINOVIC
There is no evidence leading to the conclusion that the Serb
president or any other official have bank accounts or assets in
Greece, of such a kind that can be checked, stressed Greek
government spokesman Dimitris Reppas when asked to comment on
whether the Greek government has checked the finances of Serb
president Milan Milutinovic, as he has stated himself in an
interview with the Athens newspaper "Ethnos".
Mr. Reppas underlined that specific decisions have been
reached within the framework of the EU on the assets of officials
that are included in a specific list. The Bank of Greece is in
cooperation with the bank institutions of the other EU countries
for the handling of such issues. Mr. Reppas stated that there is
no evidence leading to the conclusion that the specific official
has bank accounts in Greece.
When asked to comment on the statement of Mr. Milutinovic
that the visit of Greek minister of national economy Yiannos
Papantoniou to the Balkans was like a tour of a movie star, he
responded that the presence of Greece in the Balkans and the
recognition of its important role in south eastern Europe by the
EU and the United States is due to a great degree to the way in
which the Greek ministers participated in the developments in the
Balkan states namely, by visiting them and holding talks with
their leaderships and the social and economic officials. Without
this strong presence, said Mr. Reppas, it would have been
impossible for Greece to undertake the initiatives that led to the
vindication of its policy.
[07] TSOCHATZOPOULOS: THE PARLIAMENT WILL RATIFY THE TREATY ON THE
ABOLITION OF THE LAND MINES UNDER CERTAIN PRECONDITIONS
Greece meets its obligation based on the Ottawa Treaty which
it has signed and is not supplied with land mines. On the
contrary, it has started the gradual destruction of the existing
minefields given the fact that Turkey has not signed the specific
treaty, stated minister of defense Akis Tsochatzopoulos in
parliament.
He also gave the assurance that the Greek government will
ratify the treaty based on humanitarian reasons and if the
necessary preconditions are formed.
Mr. Tsochatzopoulos stated that Turkey has not signed the
treaty and expressed the hope that the improvement of the Greek-
Turkish relations will contribute to having positive results on
the specific issue.
[B] INTERNATIONAL NEWS
[08] AVRAMOPOULOS TO VISIT SKOPJE TODAY
The Mayor of Athens, Dimitris Avramopoulos, will visit Skopje
today, where he will participate in the three day forum being held
for cities and regions in Southeastern Europe.
Mr Avramopoulos will meet with FYROM president Boris
Trajkovski and with the country's Prime Minister Ljubco
Georgievski, as well as with the Mayor of Skopje, Pisto Penev.
[09] KOSTUNICA: GREECE IS THE WINDOW TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD FOR
BELGRADE
In exclusive statements to Duetsche Welle, Yugoslav president
Voislav Kostunica referred to the special relation between Athens
and Belgrade, saying that the relations between Yugoslavia and
Greece were always positive and friendly and Athens was always
some kind of a window to the outside world for Belgrade even in
the period of the international sanctions.
The Yugoslav president also stated that definitely there is
greater potential for better relations with the lifting of the
sanctions and the opening of Yugoslavia to the world and Europe's
opening to Yugoslavia. On the other hand, said Mr. Kostunica,
Greece also had a very important role in the procedure for
Yugoslavia's transition to a democratic status.
[10] ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN MEETING WILL BE HELD IN ATHENS
The crisis in the Middle East and the new wave of violence in
the region were discussed in the 4th summit of the foreign
ministers of the Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation states that was
held in Marseilles.
Greece was represented by foreign minister Giorgos
Papandreou, who announced that a meeting of Israelis and
Palestinians will soon be held in Athens. Mr. Papandreou pointed
out that a similar initiative had been launched in the past and
added that the Greek proposal was received in a positive way both
by the Israeli and the Palestinian side.
On the sidelines of the summit, Mr. Papandreou had a meeting
with his Turkish counterpart Ismail Cem and he also had contacts
with his Arab and European counterparts. Mr. Papandreou reiterated
to his European counterparts the Greek positions on the EU-Turkey
partnership relation text that will be discussed in the EU general
affairs council on Monday.
[11] NEW MEASURES IN THE GREEK CONSULATE IN PLOVDIV FOR THE
ISSUING OF VISAS
Greece's position that favors the abolition of the visa
requirement for the Bulgarians was expressed by Greek foreign
minister Giorgos Papandreou in a letter addressed to his Bulgarian
counterpart Ms. Nadezda Michailova.
Mr. Papandreou in his letter praises the excellent bilateral
relations and expresses Greece's positive view of the initiatives
undertaken in Bulgaria in the sectors of justice and internal
affairs as well as for the measures taken in the country regarding
the customs checks.
It should be reminded, that minister of justice Michalis
Stathopoulos had backed the abolition of the visa requirement for
the Bulgarian citizens in an EU summit meeting last September.
Meanwhile, Sofia newspaper "Monitor" writes that Greece's new
consul general in Plovdiv, Bulgaria Mr. Yiannis Rizopoulos has
banned the entry of tourist agencies representatives in the
consulate in order to stop them from overcharging the people who
want to travel to Greece and give their passports to the travel
agencies to get them a visa. As it was made known, anyone who
wants to travel to Greece and needs a visa must come in person to
the consulate with their passport. The issuing of a visa for
Greece costs DM 33 and the intermediaries charge up to USD100-250.
[12] THE 1ST EXHIBITION OF GREEK COMPANIES OPENED IN TURKEY
The 1st Exhibition of Greek Companies, in which participate
100 exhibitors, was inaugurated yesterday in Istanbul in the
presence of minister of Macedonia-Thrace Giorgos Paschalidis. The
exhibition will last until November 19. The Turkish government was
represented by Ms. Sibel Akcaharman, an official at the country's
international trade undersecretaryship and not by a government
minister.
Speaking in the inauguration ceremony, Mr. Paschalidis stated
that by the end of 2000 the overall volume of transactions between
Greece and Turkey will be over USD1.1 billion, adding that the
improvement in the economic climate can help in the improvement of
the political climate.
Turkish-Greek Business Council president Sarik Tara expressed
the view that the revenues of Greece and Turkey could have been
over USD100 billion if the political problems that were presented
in the last decade had been faced.
From his side, the Greek-Turkish Business Council Panagiotis
Koutsikos stressed that the trade transactions between the two
countries reached USD500 million in the first half of the current
year showing an increase of 35%.
Finally, Giorgos Sortikos, president of Thessaloniki's
International Trade Fair that organized the exhibition, pointed
out that it is inconceivable to have the administrative borders
between the two countries block the development of business
cooperation and gave the assurance that the 2nd Exhibition of
Greek Companies in Turkey will be much bigger.
[13] INFLATION OF 2.7% IN THE EURO-ZONE IN OCTOBER
Inflation was at 2.7% in the Euro-zone countries in October
compared to 2.8% in September, according to figures provided by
the European Union Statistics Agency, Eurostat.
The small drop in the inflation percentage in the Euro-zone
countries is due mainly to the 0.8% decline in the energy sector
prices compared to the previous month of September.
The highest inflation rates in the EU countries were recorded
in Ireland 6%, Luxembourg 4.3% and Spain 4%, while the smallest
were in Britain 1% and in Sweden 1.3%. It should be noted that
these two countries have not joined the single currency.
In all the EU states, the consumer goods prices were
increased by 2.4% in October compared to the same period last
year.
|
