Athens News Agency: News in English, 01-03-02

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

CONTENTS

[01] Foreign Exchange Rates-Monday

[02] Weather Forecast-Saturday

[03] Rhodes - earthquake

[04] ASE-close

[01] Foreign Exchange Rates-Monday

Monday's buying rates

U.S. dollar 361.002

German mark 172.829

French franc 051.531

Pound sterling 531.815

Irish punt 429.202

Belgian franc 008.379

Luxembourg franc 008.379

Dutch guilder 153.389

Italian lira (100) 017.457

Austrian schilling 024.565

Danish kroner 45.277

Swedish kroner 37.387

Finnish mark 056.852

Spanish peseta 002.032

Portuguese escudo 001.686

Japanese yen (100) 303.023

Swiss franc 219.796

Norwegian kroner 41.124

Cyprus pound 583.466

Canadian dollar 233.310

Australian dollar 190.490

[02] Weather Forecast-Saturday

Warm, humid and cloudy weather is forecast throughout the country on Saturday that may turn to showers in the northwest. Winds will be south-southwesterly, strong to very strong, turning gale force at sea. In the north, temperatures will range from 0C to 17C; on the rest of the mainland and the Ionian from 6C to 19C; and in the Aegean islands from 10C to 20C. Scattered cloud in Athens, with temperatures between 9C and 19C. Same in Thessaloniki, with temperatures from 4C to 17C.

[03] Rhodes - earthquake

A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 5 on the Richter scale was recorded near the Aegean island of Rhodes on Friday at 13:52 local time, and was felt particularly strongly on the eastern side of the island.

Its epicentre was estimated to be 500 kilometres southeast of Athens, in the open sea 80 kilometres southeast of the Rhodian town of Lindos.

Geology Prof. Efthymios Lekkas did not rule out a second, even stronger quake from the same epicentre, saying it was a well known fault with intense seismic activity.

He said the area was being monitored by seismologists and that several, smaller aftershocks had occurred there during the afternoon.

Rhodes town residents, which are on the west side of the island, were completely oblivious to the tremor, however, and no damages were reported.

[04] ASE-close

Equity prices rebounded strongly in the last half hour of trading on the Athens Stock Exchange on Friday, reversing a declining trend that prevailed for six consecutive sessions in the market when the general index lost 2.55 percent.

Traders said a recovery in telecommunication stocks was the driving force behind a general rebound of the market. Analysts said that the market reaffirmed the 3,100-point level as a strong support level in the short-term.

The general index ended 1.42 percent higher at 3,154.82 points, off the day's lows, with turnover an improved 185.52 million euros, or 63.217 billion drachmas.

Hellenic Telecom's share price ended 2.28 percent higher after falling to an intra-day 52 week low of 14.64 euros. Panafon jumped 5.20 percent and Cosmote rose 2.98 percent.

The FTSE/ASE 20 index for blue chip and heavy traded stocks rose 1.61 percent to 1,805.46 points, and the FTSE/ASE 40 index jumped 2.62 percent to 371.10 points.

The parallel market index for smaller capitalisation stocks soared 5.19 percent to 333.67 points.

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