Athens News Agency: News in English, 01-03-10

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

CONTENTS

[01] Eleftherios Venizelos Airport-Licence

[02] PASOK-Central Committee-Meeting-Development Conference

[03] Lyssarides-ANA Interview

[04] New Political Group-CentreLeft-Environment

[05] Crete-Earthquake

[06] Weather Forecast-Sunday

[07] Foreign Exchange Rates-Monday

[08] Aget Heracles-Masked Gunmen-Theft

[09] Venizelos-British Museum-Frieze-Theft

[01] Eleftherios Venizelos Airport-Licence

Transport and Communications Minister Christos Verelis on Monday is expected to issue an operating licence for the newly built Eleftherios Venizelos airport near Athens.

The airport at Spata, east of Athens, will open on March 27, replacing the existing Hellenikon facility on the southern Attica coast.

Access roads to the new airport are due to open to traffic on March 19, ministry sources said on Saturday.

[02] PASOK-Central Committee-Meeting-Development Conference

The ruling PASOK party's central committee is to hold a meeting on Friday, its secretary, Kostas Skandalidis said.

Addressing the close of two-day PASOK conference on development on Saturday, Skandalidis said the committee would discuss internal party matters.

He rapped some party officials for a failure to communicate effectively enough with the public.

Ruling PASOK would be unable to make overtures to the public if senior officials failed to head a communications drive with social agencies in order to familiarise themselves with the issues and debate them, Skandalidis told delegates.

[03] Lyssarides-ANA Interview

The leader of Cyprus' Social Democrats Movement said on Saturday that he expected no progress in resolving the Cyprus issue to emerge until 2003 as the European Union and the US were unlikely to exert pressure on Turkey by that date.

"I do not foresee that by 2003 Turkey will allow a solution to the Cyprus problem, given Turkey's intransigence and the fact that the US is unlikely in the current phase to exert substantive pressure, and that the EU lacks an effective lever for pressure," Vassos Lyssarides told the Athens News Agency in an interview.

"Europe will have then to apply the decisions under which a solution to the Cyprus issue and Cyprus' entry into the EU are not linked. It will also have to ask Turkey to comply with the obligations that derive from its bid to join the EU," the party leader said.

According to Lyssarides, Cyprus' entry into the 15-nation bloc would act as a catalyst to shift Turkey's position.

On Friday, Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou said in an interview to the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation that Turkey was aware its line would be an obstacle to membership of the EU.

Papandreou on Sunday begins a three-day official visit to Cyprus for talks with the Cypriot government and political party leaders.

[04] New Political Group-CentreLeft-Environment

The creation of a new political group was announced on Saturday by two small left-wing movements that aim to create a broad-based, centre-left, pro-environment alliance backing the government's reform drive but seeking greater vision.

The newly created Forum for a Modernised and Pro-Environment Left supports reforms by Prime Minister Costas Simitis' government, but the ruling party now needs an "overall vision of change" to remove voter disillusion, Nikos Bistis, a founder, told a news conference.

The forum was set up by the existing Left Movement for Modernisation and Renewal and Citizens' Initiative for Left Renewal and the Environment.

Founders of the movement said the forum aimed to rally the centre-left, incorporating groups with different identities and backgrounds.

"Within this framework, it is necessary for the wind of modernisation to blow also within the (ruling) PASOK party," the forum's founding declaration said.

"PASOK should evolve into a contemporary socialist party that is able to play a leading role in the alignment of broad forces, exercising more fully its central role in the effort to modernise," the declaration added.

On Sunday, the forum will release the names of its coordinating group.

[05] Crete-Earthquake

An earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale shook the southern Aegean island of Crete on Saturday. No injuries or damage were reported.

The epicentre of the earthquake, which occurred at 1321, was located in the seabed about 30 kilometres from the Cretan town of Ierapetra, or 370 kilometres south-southeast from Athens.

[06] Weather Forecast-Sunday

Scattered cloud is forecast throughout the country on Sunday, turning to showers in the Ionian, mainland Greece, the Cyclades and Crete. Winds will be southerly, light to moderate. In the north, temperatures will range from 4C to 19C; on the rest of the mainland from 7C to 20C; and in the islands from 9C to 18C. Light cloud in Athens and possibly showers, with temperatures between 9C and 19C. Same in Thessaloniki, with temperatures from 5C to 18C.

[07] Foreign Exchange Rates-Monday

Monday's buying rates

U.S. dollar 361.270

German mark 172.829

French franc 051.531

Pound sterling 530.317

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 45.286

Swedish kroner 37.202

Finnish mark 056.852

Spanish peseta 002.032

Portuguese escudo 001.686

Japanese yen (100) 302.593

Swiss franc 219.061

Norwegian kroner 41.187

Cyprus pound 583.695

Canadian dollar 233.710

Australian dollar 185.039

[08] Aget Heracles-Masked Gunmen-Theft

Masked gunmen on Saturday broke into northern offices of Aget Heracles, a major cement maker quoted on the Athens bourse, and made off with 1.3 million drachmas after beating up an employee, police said.

The attack by the two youths occurred in the early hours of the morning at the company's office in Kalohori, Thessaloniki. They threatened Yorgos Anastasiou, 54, with a gun before beating him and stealing the cash.

It was the second overnight armed theft in the northern port city. In another incident, two youths stole more than 500,000 drachmas in takings at gunpoint from a store in a lively night-time city centre street, police said.

[09] Venizelos-British Museum-Frieze-Theft

Greece on Saturday sought a briefing from the UK government on the theft of part of an ancient Greek frieze from the British Museuem that originally belonged to a temple of Apollo in the Peloponnese.

Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos told a news conference in the northern city of Thessaloniki that a letter had been sent to his British counterpart requesting details of the theft of the frieze segment from the temple to Epicurean Apollo, built in 420-400 BC.

He said the theft demolished one of the basic arguments used by officials of the British Musuem to support their case that the Elgin Marbles should remain there for reasons of security.

"Perhaps this is an opportunity for everyone in Britain to rethink, very cool-headedly, what their position should be in relation to the return of the Marbles to the Parthenon," Venizelos said.

"I believe that this incident is only one indication of the problem, of its depth and acuteness. I hope the investigation will soon lead to the return of the stolen frieze," he added.

Venizelos was informed late on Friday about the theft by the Greek Embassy in London.

"What happened to the equally significant frieze from the temple of Apollo could also happen, as things would seem to indicate, to the Parthenon frieze," the minister cautioned.

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