Athens News Agency: News in English, 01-07-27

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

CONTENTS

[01] German youths pay tribute to Kalavryta massacre victims

[02] UNICEF report says most Greek children happy

[03] Foreign Exchange Rates: Monday

[04] UN search to discover illegal immigrants along border with Turkey

[05] Greece to get driving safety centre

[06] Algerian, Norwegian projects win UNESCO 'Melina Mercouri' award

[07] US Congress holds special session on Turkish invasion in Cyprus

[08] Coca-Cola may buy company operations in Russia

[09] Weather Forecast: Mostly sunny on Saturday

[10] Athens Bourse Close: Stocks end the week higher

[11] Reppas outlines relief measures for Skyros

[01] German youths pay tribute to Kalavryta massacre victims

Kapi hill, the site of the massacre of 1,300 people of Kalavryta, in the Peloponnese, by Nazi occupation forces in December 1943, was visited on Friday evening by 1,800 German youths.

The youths, accompanied by the German ambassador to Athens Karl Heinz Kunha, were welcomed by Kalavryta Mayor Thanassis Papadopoulos who told them they did their duty by visiting Karavryta.

Papadopoulos also said the German state still owed a tangible apology to the families of the victims of the Nazi atrocity in Kalavryta, the biggest holocaust in Greece.

The German ambassador said that in no other part of the world does a German visitor feel his heart so tense as in Kalavryta. He added that the presence of the youths proves that the peoples of Germany and Greece are friends today and desire peace.

[02] UNICEF report says most Greek children happy

Most Greek children are happy, they feel pleased at school, believe in the future and make a very positive evaluation of their relations with their teachers and fellow pupils, but feel that the children of sensitive social groups are not treated fairly.

These were the conclusions of a report by UNICEF on Greek children aged between 9-17, which is part of a larger report on Europe and central Asia entitled "Youth Voices" registering their desires, dreams, problems and concerns.

Greek children want politicians to give more consideration to their opinions, from whom they also want a better educational system, free time and security, while they also requested their parents' tenderness and care, who in most cases treat them with understanding.

Good relations, mutual respect and honesty are the elements which Greek families teach their children. Levels of violence are low among children, which are optimistic about their future and most of which wish to continue living in Greece, according to the report.

Compared to children in Europe, Greek children are faced with much lower levels of violence, while Greece has fewer working children. They have less confidence in adults and declare lower levels of substance use, but have a greater lack of information on issues regarding sex and are more ignorant than European children about electronic computers. They are also more optimistic about their future lives.

[03] Foreign Exchange Rates: Monday

Indicative buying rates until Monday afternoon

U.S. dollar 385.507

German mark 172.829

French franc 051.531

Pound sterling 550.440

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 45.400

Swedish kroner 36.415

Finnish mark 056.852

Spanish peseta 002.032

Portuguese escudo 001.686

Japanese yen (100) 311.102

Swiss franc 224.133

Norwegian kroner 042.337

Cyprus pound 588.840

Canadian dollar 251.773

Australian dollar 195.126

[04] UN search to discover illegal immigrants along border with Turkey fruitless

United Nations High Commission Greek Chapter representatives discovered no migrants on the Greek-Turkish borderline on Friday, but added that they may have been there earlier.

"We did not see any illegal migrants on either side of the border. This of course concerns our investigation today and it does not mean that they were not here yesterday or the day before," Maria Stavropoulou and Petros Mastakas of the UN Chapter in Greece said during a press conference in Alexandroupolis, in the Evros prefecture in northeastern Greece.

Foreign news agency reports on Thursday noted the existence of 70 African illegal immigrants trapped on the border line between Greece and Turkey.

The Greek officials said at the time that searches made so far to detect the illegal immigrants along the entire length of the border line have failed to produce results and are continuing.

According to a report in the Athens daily "Ta Nea", the BBC reported that most of the African illegal immigrants had been arrested in Istanbul during a "sweep" operation by the Turkish police, which forced them to sign declarations that they entered Turkey through Greece.

International practice allows countries to deport illegal immigrants to the neighboring country they came from and not their country of origin.

The illegal immigrants were reportedly from Kenya, Ethiopia and Nigeria, while human rights organisations have expressed concern over their fate.

[05] Greece to get driving safety centre

Safetrack SA, a subsidiary of Athens-quoted Technical Publications SA, is to build Greece's first driving safety centre, which may help to bring down the country's high road accident rate.

The newly created company has bought a tract of land off the Athens-Lamia motorway, near the capital, to house the centre.

The project, which is expected to cost 1.6 billion drachmas, is due for completion by 2004. Seminars at the centre will begin in the middle of 2002.

[06] Algerian, Norwegian projects win UNESCO 'Melina Mercouri' award

Algeria's Oran and Norway's Lygra Island projects won the "Melina Mercouri" UNESCO Hellas award for 2001, which will be presented in October during the organisation's General Conference, a press release issued by the Greek culture ministry said on Friday.

The $30.000 award given once every two years aims at encouraging actions of preservation and promotion of important cultural landscapes around the world. Algeria, Australia, the Bahamas, Cyprus, Egypt, Ecuador, France, Greece, Nepal, Norway, Syria and Tunisia participated in the competition.

Algeria's Centre National de Recherche en Anthropologie Sociale et Culturelle (CRASC) will receive the award for its work on the Oran region of that North African country, which features important Arab-Islamic architectural elements.

Norway's Healthland Centre will receive the other half of the award for its Lygra Island project, which focused on the establishment of an agricultural park on the two-square-mile island located in a Nordic fiord.

[07] US Congress holds special session on Turkish invasion in Cyprus

WASHINGTON (ANA - T. Ellis) - The United States Congress on Thursday held a special session commemorating the 27th tragic anniversary since the Turkish invasion and continued occupation of Cyprus' northern part.

The session was organized at the initiative of Greek-American Congressman from Florida Michael Bilirakis, who said the efforts of the United Nations to resolve the political problem of the island republic have failed because of the intransigence of Turkish Cypriot community leader Rauf Denktash.

Bilirakis, recalling a statement by US Secretary of State Collin Powell's, reiterated that Denktash is the major obstacle on the course to resolving the problem.

During the session the continued occupation of the northern part of the island republic by Turkish armed forces was condemned.

Bilirakis lauded the "impressive development and progress of the Republic of Cyprus and its pending accession to the European Union", adding that the EU correctly so, did not connect Cyprus' accession to the resolution of the problem.

The Congressman called on Turkey to cooperate with the UN and the international community on the Cyprus problem, so as to promote its own accession process to the EU.

"The promotion of Cyprus' EU candidacy will take away a great obstacle in reaching a comprehensive solution of the Cyprus problem," he stressed, adding "as Americans, we have a moral obligation to use the American influence in reuniting Cyprus".

Statements by other congressmen of both the Democratic and Republican parties, who addressed the session, had similar contents.

[08] Coca-Cola may buy company operations in Russia

Coca-Cola 3E of Greece on Friday made a non-binding expression of intent to acquire the premises and operations of The Coca-Cola Company in Russia and Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

It would also purchase the US firm's 40 percent holding in Coca-Cola Molino Beverages Ltd, in which the Greek company already holds 60 percent.

Coca-Cola 3E, which operates in 23 countries, is the second largest bottler worldwide of The Coca-Cola Company's products.

The acquisition is expected to total an estimated 200 million US dollars.

[09] Weather Forecast: Mostly sunny on Saturday

Mostly sunny weather is forecast throughout the country on Saturday, with scattered cloud over the northern mainland that may lead to isolated storms on high ground. Winds northerly, light to moderate, turning strong in the Aegean. On the mainland, temperatures will range from 18C to 37C; and in the islands from 23C to 34C. Hot and sunny in Athens with temperatures between 24C and 37C. Same in Thessaloniki, with temperatures from 22C to 35C.

[10] Athens Bourse Close: Stocks end the week higher

The Athens bourse maintained its upward momentum on Friday after a week of steady gains totalling 8.86 per cent in the wake of an earlier slump.

The Athens general share index jumped 2.50 per cent to end at 2,729.36 points. Turnover was 154.3 million euros (52.58 billion drachmas), fuelled by 9.3 million euros in block trades.

In the previous session, the market had broken through key resistance at 2,640 points in a bid to consolidate higher after nearly two weeks of mostly sharp increases and declines.

The FTSE/ASE-20 index for blue chip and heavily traded stocks ended 2.07 percent higher; the FTSE/ASE-40 for medium capitalisation paper 3.62 percent up; and the FTSE/ASE-80 for small cap equities gained 3.36 percent.

Of 360 stocks traded, advancers led decliners at 324 to 25 with 11 issues remaining unchanged.

A week ago on Monday the bourse had shed nearly five percent in a single session as part of a lasting slump after buyers resolutely stayed out of the market, with small capitalisation shares the worst hit.

Since then, the market has posted roller coaster closes day by day with players edging back into blue chips, and then into small and medium sized paper.

[11] Reppas outlines relief measures for Skyros

The government had already raised 50 million drachmas for emergency repairs on the earthquake-stricken island of Skyros, government spokesman Dimitris Reppas said on Friday.

He said the money would be used to restore the road network on the island and allow life on the island to return to a normal pattern.

The island's roads and water supply were damaged during an earthquake early on Thursday morning measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale, whose epicentre was just north of the Skyros coast.

Reppas said geotechnical crews were already on Skyros to assess the risk of landslides and rockfall and take protective measures.

Experts were also investigating the area where the main spring was 'lost' and were making efforts to dig an artesian well to restore the water supply.

In the meantime, Reppas said, the island was being supplied with water by Greek Navy water tankers, assisted by other artesian wells existing on Skyros.

The spokesman reiterated that all measures that applied for earthquake victims in the past would also apply for Skyros.

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