Athens News Agency: News in English, 02-12-27

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

CONTENTS

[01] Christodoulakis to unveil Greek EU Presidency's policy priorities

[02] Immigrant smuggling to be considered a felony by law

[03] Weather Forecast: Cloud & rain expected on Saturday

[04] Greek stocks end week 1.61 percent lower

[01] Christodoulakis to unveil Greek EU Presidency's policy priorities

Greek Economy and Finance Minister Nikos Christodoulakis will unveil the Greek EU presidency's policy priorities in a news conference on Monday.

The Greek economy and finance ministry has to promote, during the first half of 2003, a so-called Lisbon package and at the same time to monitor developments in Iraq for assessing all scenaria from a likely US military strike against Baghdad.

Ministry sources said that the government would continue its efforts to esnure a successful spring EU council, to be held in Brussels March 21-22 under the Greek EU Presidency.

[02] Immigrant smuggling to be considered a felony by law

Immigrant smuggling will be receiving tougher treatment and, according to reports, the merchant marine ministry will table a draft law in Parliament soon changing immigrant smuggling from a misdemeanour to a felony.

Thousands of illegal immigrants are currently on the Turkish coast, waiting to travel to Europe through Greece.

Coast guard officials have intercepted 50 boats over the past five months, carrying about 5,000 people, and forced them to turn back to Turkey.

Meanwhile the search for five missing illegal immigrants continued at first light on Friday after their boat sank off the island of Chios on the previous day.

The bodies of four illegal immigrants have been found so far while 13 other people were rescued.

Nikolaos Panagopoulos, allegedly responsible for carrying the illegal immigrants, has been arrested and will be brought before an investigating magistrate on Chios on Monday.

[03] Weather Forecast: Cloud & rain expected on Saturday

Storms are forecast for most parts of the country on Saturday. Winds south southeasterly, strong turning gale force in the southern Aegean. In the north and center, temperatures will range from -04C to 8C; in the west from -01C to 12C; and in the rest of the country from 04C to 14C. Cloudy in Athens with rain later on in the day and temperatures between 03C and 12C. Same in Thessaloniki, with temperatures from 03C to 07C.

[04] Greek stocks end week 1.61 percent lower

Greek stocks ended the last trading session of a shortened week lower on the Athens Stock Exchange with the general index finding support at the 1,700 level.

The index fell 0.14 percent to end at 1,762.69 points, for a net loss of 1.61 percent in the week.

Turnover was a low 45.7 million euros.

The IT, Cement and Metal sectors suffered the heaviest percentage losses of the day (2.15 percent, 1.15 percent and 1.11 percent, respectively), while the Investment, Telecommunications and Retail sectors scored gains (1.04 percent, 0.78 percent and 0.60 percent).

The FTSE/ASE 20 index for blue chip and heavy traded stocks fell 0.19 percent, the FTSE/ASE MID 40 index eased 0.36 percent and the FTSE/ASE SmallCap 80 index ended 0.66 percent lower.

Broadly, decliners led advancers by 193 to 102 with another 54 issues unchanged.

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