Athens News Agency: News in English, 00-06-03

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

CONTENTS

[01] TELETEXT ENGLISH

[01] TELETEXT ENGLISH

@1b

NEWS HEADLINES

PM at Berlin conference

Stake in OA for sale

NATO troops land for exercise

Energy network for SE Europe

Chinese delegation to Crete

Ecological exhibition opens

Mercedes Sosa in town

Cyprus handicrafts exhibition

@2b

PM at Berlin conference

One cannot halt globalisation or the markets, and talk about the need to put a rein on globalisation is "outside the realm of reality", Prime Minister Costas Simitis said Friday just before the beginning of an international conference in Berlin. Simitis also confirmed that he would meet with US President Bill Clinton and other world leaders on the sidelines of an international conference focusing on the ?centre-left? movement and on alternatives to traditional liberal and conservative approaches to government.

@3b

Stake in OA for sale

British Airways' new management does not intend to take up its option to bid for a stake of up to 20 percent in Greek national carrier Olympic Airways, and an international tender will be called to find a buyer, national economy and finance minister Yannos Papantoniou said Friday. Papantoniou said a tender consultant would be announced next week. The winner of the tender will also take on the ailing Greek carrier's management, the national economy minister added.

@4b

NATO troops land for exercise

NATO troops, among them 150 Turkish commandos, landed Friday on beaches in Kyparissia, southwestern Peloponnese, as part of the alliance's Dynamic Mix 2000 manoeuvres. The exercise, NATO's largest in southwest Europe, began May 20 and ends on June 10. It involveds the participation of 15,000 troops, 293 aircraft and 65 ships from 12 countries. It is the first time that Turkish troops and aircraft are on Greek soil. Greece and Turkey's participation in joint manoeuvres on each other's territory has been viewed as a sign of progress made by the two traditional rivals towards reconciliation.

@5b

Energy network for SE Europe

Energy ministers from Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Romania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Greece on Friday signed a memorandum aiming to form a competitive regional energy market in southeast Europe. The memorandum was signed on the last day of a European Energy Conference held in Athens. Dominique Ristori, the European Commission's general affairs director at the energy and transport directorate, ended the two-day conference presenting its results.

@6b

Chinese delegation to Crete

Deputy Constructions Minister of the People's Republic of China Ye Rutang will visit Irakleio, Crete, on Monday together with nine mayors of his country's biggest cities. The members of the Chinese delegation will arrive at Nikos Kazantzakis airport in Irakleio at 8:30 a.m. on Monday on board an Olympic Airways flight. The Chinese delegation will be visiting Knosos, the archaeological site at Knosos, the traditional village of Arolithos, the Irakleio prefecture, the museum and the municipality of Arhanes.

@7b

Ecological exhibition opens

Environment and Public Works Minister Costas Laliotis and Athens Mayor Dimitris Avramopoulos on Friday inaugurated the "Ecological Building" exhibition of construction products and technologies friendly to the environment at the Gazi exhibition centre. The exhibition is to last until June 5, which is World Environment Day.

@8b

Mercedes Sosa in town

Renowned Argentinian vocalist Mercedes Sosa, dubbed "the voice of the silent majority", will be in Greece for two performances on June 12 and 13, at the Lycabettus Theatre in Athens and the Mylos Club in Thessaloniki, respectively.

@9b

Cyprus handicrafts exhibition

An exhibition of handicrafts from Cyprus opened Thursday evening at the Union of Cypriots in Greece building, 3 Kekropos street in Plaka, and running for one week.

@10b

FOREIGN NEWS

MOSCOW: Rebels fighting Russian forces in Chechnya said they had launched an overnight attack on Grozny and the Russian military command warned of a major new separatist offensive on the devastated capital.

BEIRUT: U.N. envoy Terje Roed Larsen said after talks with top Lebanese officials he was close to an agreement with Lebanon over the marking of its border with Israel. Agreement will remove a major hurdle to U.N. verification that Israel's pull out from south Lebanon last week was completed in line with Security Council Resolution 425 -- a key condition for Lebanon to deploy its forces in the volatile

region.

STOCKHOLM: Sweden's prime minister, speaking two days before a planned Middle East trip, said his country was ready to mediate in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians if asked to do so.

SRINAGAR, INDIA: At least 12 people were killed and more than 15 wounded when a bomb exploded near a religious gathering in India's restive state of Jammu and Kashmir, police said. Police said the injured included a prominent Kashmiri Shia religious leader and former housing minister of Kashmir, Moulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari.

HARARE: Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe proclaimed his intention to compulsorily acquire 804 white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks, but said the process would begin after a parliamentary election in June. Together, they comprise about 10 percent of the estimated 12 million hectares of prime farm land owned by the members of the one-percent white minority.

BERLIN: U.S. President Bill Clinton and 13 other world leaders on the centre-left of politics began a summit in Berlin looking for ways to make the wired and worldwide "New Economy" work to the benefit of all.

HAVANA: Half a million Cuban women and children marched noisily on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana in one of the biggest rallies yet on the Caribbean island to demand the return of castaway Elian Gonzalez.

ALGIERS: The Organisation of African Unity resumed talks with Ethiopian and Eritrean delegations after a 24-hour break to allow the two countries to study proposals to end their two-year-old border war.

FREETOWN: Fighting erupted in Sierra Leone as government forces tried to recapture the strategic town of Lunsar, which has already changed hands twice this week, local soldiers said.

@12b

WEATHER

Sunny weather is forecast in most parts of the country on Saturday, with scattered cloud in the east and south. Winds northerly, moderate to gale force. In the north, temperatures will range from 12C to 26C; in the west from 14C to 29C; and in the rest of the country from 17C to 27C. Scattered cloud in Athens with temperatures between 17C and 27C. Same in Thessaloniki, with temperatures ranging from 16C to 26C.

@13b

Temperatures-Greece

Athens 27

Thessaloniki 26

Alexandroupoli 24

Kavala 25

Larissa 28

Ioannina 25

Patra 29

Kalamata 26

Irakleio 24

Rhodes 26

Corfu 27

@14b

Temperatures-Europe

Berlin 27

Brussels 20

Budapest 22

Geneva 25

Larnaca 27

London 17

Madrid 28

Moscow 15

Paris 25

Rome 25

Stockholm 15

Vienna 23

@20b

FOREIGN EXCHANGE

Mondays rates (buying)

Euro 334.354

U.S. dollar 357.299

German mark 170.952

French franc 050.972

Pound sterling 534.986

Irish punt 424.541

Belgian franc 008.288

Luxembourg franc 008.288

Dutch guilder 151.723

Italian lira (100) 017.268

Austrian schilling 024.298

Danish kroner 044.813

Swedish kroner 040.027

Finnish mark 056.234

Spanish peseta 002.010

Portuguese escudo 001.668

Japanese yen (100) 329.165

Swiss franc 212.650

Norwegian kroner 040.241

Cyprus pound 581.610

Canadian dollar 239.370

Australian dollar 204.550

@21b

ATHENS STOCK EXCHANGE

Equity prices ended the week with minor changes on the Athens Stock Exchange on Friday in subdued trade reflecting investors' reluctance to take positions in the market ahead of the weekend. The general index ended at 4,534.83 points, up 0.02 percent, after moving within the 4,582-4,510 range throughout the session. Turnover was a low 138 billion drachmas.

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