Macedonian Press Agency: News in English, 00-03-20

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From: The Macedonian Press Agency at http://www.mpa.gr and http://www.hri.org/MPA.

CONTENTS

[01] INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE JUDEO-ESPANIOL LANGUAGE

[02] BATTLE BY THE TWO LARGE PARTIES TO WIN OVER THE CENTRIST VOTERS

[03] MARGINAL GAINS OF 0.08% IN THE ATHENS STOCK EXCHANGE

[04] THE CARETAKER MINISTERS WERE SWORN-IN TODAY

[05] GREEK EU COMMISSIONER DIAMANTOPOULOU VISITED PRESIDENT STEPHANOPOULOS

[06] SERIOUS PROBLEM IN AN OLYMPIC AIRWAYS FLIGHT

[07] ONE KILO OF HEROIN WAS HIDDEN IN AN ALBANIAN AMBULANCE

[08] ISTANBUL TO THESSALONIKI WITH THE TURKISH AIRLINES

[09] THE INFLATION RATE FOR GREECE'S EMU ACCESSION WAS ANNOUNCED TODAY

[10] OPEN HEART SURGERIES ON GREEKS FROM GEORGIA

[11] PAPANDREOU AND IVANOV DISCUSSED THE ISSUE OF KOSOVO

[12] THE ANCIENT GREEK CIVILIZATION IN A CD-ROM

[01] INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE JUDEO-ESPANIOL LANGUAGE

Sepharadim from all over the world declare their determination to breath new life into their cultural and linguistic heritage through the 2nd International Conference on the Judeo-Espaniol language: "A Jewish language in search of its people" that will be held in Thessaloniki's Trade and Industry Chamber on April 16-17.

The conference's organizing committee president Rafael Gatenio stated that the Spanish-Jewish language or lantino was the link and the means of communication between the Sepharadim communities in spite of the fact that they were spread in different countries. He said that it is a language that it is not just a communication code but an expression of the essence of Sepharadism, the collective soul of those people, their history and experience through the centuries.

[02] BATTLE BY THE TWO LARGE PARTIES TO WIN OVER THE CENTRIST VOTERS

Governing socialist party of PASOK is leading in the race to win over the centrist voters, according to the second part of the opinion poll conducted by the polling company "Kappa Research" and published by the Athens newspaper "TO VIMA".

Based on the opinion poll results, 34.2% of the people believe that PASOK is a centrist party, 20.6% place it at the center-right and 11.4% at the center-left. On the contrary, right-wing main opposition party of New Democracy is regarded as a centrist party by only a 3.9% of the voters, as center-right by 6.9% and as center-left by 0.9%.

On the issue of the long presence of PASOK in power, which is used by New Democracy as an argument, 49.1% express disagreement over the position that the government must change and 46% agree with this stance.

It should be noted that, 1 in 2 Greeks believe that the pre-election battle of the political parties is not fought over crucial and essential issues that concern the people, while 30.9% believes the opposite.

[03] MARGINAL GAINS OF 0.08% IN THE ATHENS STOCK EXCHANGE

The week for the Athens Stock Exchange opened with marginal gains of 0.08% today confirming the optimistic scenarios according to which, the stock market will follow an upward course.

The main index closed at 4.849,07 points, while the volume of transactions remained relatively low today at 162.2 billion drachmas.

[04] THE CARETAKER MINISTERS WERE SWORN-IN TODAY

The three caretaker ministers, who will remain at their posts until the April 9 parliamentary elections, were sworn-in today before Greek president Kostis Stephanopoulos.

Specifically, the ministry of interior was taken over by professor Giorgos Koumantos replacing Vaso Papandreou, the justice ministry was taken over by former supreme court vice-president Dimitris Gourgourakis replacing Evangelos Yiannopoulos and the ministry of press was taken over by professor Argiris Fatouros replacing Dimitris Reppas.

[05] GREEK EU COMMISSIONER DIAMANTOPOULOU VISITED PRESIDENT STEPHANOPOULOS

Greek European Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou met with Greek president Kostis Stephanopoulos at the presidential building in Athens today and briefed him on the issues that will be discussed in the Lisbon EU Summit meeting on March 23-24. Specifically, the issues that will be discussed concern employment, joblessness, poverty and social discrimination.

In statements she made, Ms. Diamantopoulou referred to the presence of women in politics and underlined that political parties must prepare the participation of women in politics at a long-term level both socially and politically.

[06] SERIOUS PROBLEM IN AN OLYMPIC AIRWAYS FLIGHT

The 100 passengers of an Olympic Airways Boeing-737 plane that was about to take off from the south-eastern Aegean island of Rhodes to Athens were terrified when a floc of birds was sucked by one of the plane's engines.

The pilot managed to control the plane which did not take off and an air tragedy was averted at the last minute.

[07] ONE KILO OF HEROIN WAS HIDDEN IN AN ALBANIAN AMBULANCE

Two Albanians attempted to smuggle one kilo of heroin in Greece by hiding it in an ambulance of a hospital from the Albanian city of Sarante.

The drug-traffickers were arrested inside their ambulance in the north-western Greek city of Ioannina by drug enforcement agents from the city of Patras in southern Greece who posed as drug dealers.

[08] ISTANBUL TO THESSALONIKI WITH THE TURKISH AIRLINES

A Turkish Airlines plane will arrive in Thessaloniki on Wednesday in time for the inauguration of the Istanbul-Thessaloniki flight that will be launched on March 25. The Turkish Airlines flights will be held every Wednesday and Saturday at 8:30am from Istanbul to Thessaloniki and at 10:30am from Thessaloniki to Istanbul.

On the occasion of the new flight, Turkish Airlines general director Yussef Bolairli will give a reception to a Thessaloniki hotel.

[09] THE INFLATION RATE FOR GREECE'S EMU ACCESSION WAS ANNOUNCED TODAY

The European Union statistics agency Eurostat formally announced today that Greece met the inflation rate criteria for its accession into the EMU.

The harmonized inflation rate for the month of February was 2%, according to minister of national economy Yiannos Papantoniou. He also pointed out that the 11 countries that formed the EMU in 1998 had joined with an inflation rate of 3%.

Referring to the stock market, he was in favor of being independent from politics and that the capital market investigation on the stock market's recent decline continues.

[10] OPEN HEART SURGERIES ON GREEKS FROM GEORGIA

Seven open heart surgeries were performed for free on Greeks from the former soviet republic of Georgia by the America World Council of Hellenes Abroad, SAE, medical team headed by cardiology director Dr. Charles Kanakis.

The goal of the team's third visit to the Black Sea republic was to promote the training of local doctors in the specific surgery technique. The SAE medical team, which performed the first open heart surgery in Georgia last year, has already performed a total of 28 operations.

[11] PAPANDREOU AND IVANOV DISCUSSED THE ISSUE OF KOSOVO

Greek foreign minister Giorgos Papandreou and his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov characterized as alarming the situation in Kosovo, stressing the need for immediate action by the international community to secure the strict implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1244.

After his meeting with his Russian counterpart in Moscow, Mr. Papandreou expressed the wish that human rights will be protected in Kosovo stressing, at the same time, the need to preserve the multi-national character of the province.

Mr. Papandreou stressed that the Serbs, Albanians, the Romas and the small Turkish minority in the province should enjoy the same rights and added that all decisions must be made within the framework of Yugoslavia.

From his side, the Russian foreign minister stressed that with his Greek counterpart shared the same views concerning the situation in Yugoslavia, adding that both expressed their strong concern over the situation in the region.

[12] THE ANCIENT GREEK CIVILIZATION IN A CD-ROM

A panorama of the ancient Greek civilization is included in the electronic publication under the title "Perseus 2.0" issued by the University of Yale in the United States.

The electronic publication is made up of four CD-ROMs with over 420 works of 31 authors and over 24.000 pictures and images, while it also features a full line of tools for a literary, linguistic and aesthetic analysis, a huge map of the ancient Greek world and other facts concerning 1.240 vessels, 366 sculptures, 523 coins, 387 buildings and 179 archaeological sites.

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