Athens News Agency: News in English, 04-01-14

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

CONTENTS

[01] Weather Forecast: Light cloud on Wednesday

[02] Foreign Exchange Rates: Wednesday

[03] PM Simitis addresses PASOK parliamentary candidates

[04] Robin Cook supports return of Parthenon Marbles to Greece

[05] German president to receive Kalavryta metropolitan, mayor

[06] Noted Greek-American expert focuses on int'l migration policy

[01] Weather Forecast: Light cloud on Wednesday

Light cloud is forecast in all parts of the country, with showers mainly in the west. Winds westerly, light to moderate, turning strong in the south. Temperatures in Athens 8C to 17C and in Thessaloniki 5C to 12C.

[02] Foreign Exchange Rates: Wednesday

Reference buying rates per euro released by the European Central Bank

U.S. dollar 1.285

Pound sterling 0.695

Danish kroner 7.508

Swedish kroner 9.207

Japanese yen 136.7

Swiss franc 1.574

Norwegian kroner 8.637

Cyprus pound 0.591

Canadian dollar 1.638

Australian dollar 1.648

[03] PM Simitis addresses PASOK parliamentary candidates

Prime minister Costas Simitis on Tuesday called on the ruling PASOK party's parliamentary candidates to launch a major, continuous public awareness mobilisation until the March 7 early general elections, at the same time expressing certainty in the party's re-election for another four-year term.

The key to the elections, he said, was informing the citizens.

Simitis said that PASOK was renewing itself, and reflected the dynamic change and reform of society.

He further said that the change of leadership in the ruling party ensured the continuity of a modern and strong PASOK in the coming years.

Turning to elections, Simitis put forward certain ''critical'' questions, which he said the Greek people would be called on to answer.

Elaborating, he said the first question concerned Greek-Turkish relations. Simitis reminded that in late 2004 the EU would decide on whether and when accession negotiations would begin with Turkey. The quandary arising, he said, was who would handle the national issues more efficiently in the crucial period of 2004: the party that led Cyprus to EU membership and rendered the Greek-Turkish issues EU issues, with EU pressure on Turkey, or the party that consistently had objections on the policy followed.

Simitis said that foreign minister George Papandreou, slated to succeed Simitis in the PASOK leadership, had international stature, collaboration with all those who participated in the taking of international decisions, and enjoyed international recognition.

The second quandary, he continued, concerned the negotiations for the 4th Community Support Framework (CSF), which ''will be difficult following the addition of the 10 new EU members''.

The third quandary concerned the Stability Pact, and who could ensure economic stability and growth: the party that achieved it or the one that failed in the past (1990-93).

On PASOK's campaign platform, Simitis said it would be approved at the party's extraordinary Congress to be held on February 6.

[04] Robin Cook supports return of Parthenon Marbles to Greece

LONDON (ANA/L. Tsirigotakis) - British former foreign secretary Robin Cook, in a full-page article in London's Evening Standard newspaper on Tuesday, calls on the British government to return the Parthenon Marbles to Greece in light of the publication of an opinion poll on Wednesday according to which 80 percent of Britons agree with their return.

''The curators of the British Museum can react personally to the return of the Marbles but they have no right to ignore the wishes of the citizens who they represent as curators of the Museum,'' Cook said, adding that it is not logical and wise on the part of the curators of Museums to undermine London's effort to contest the 2012 Olympic Games with their refusal.

''This year is the year in which the Olympic Games will be held in Athens and, at the same time, the campaign of candidate cities for the Olympiad of 2012 will begin,'' he said in his article.

Cook also says the return of the Marbles will restore the unity of the splendid cultural monument that the Parthenon is.

''If they had dismembered our statue of Nelson and had left us with only the stomach and his legs and his remaining body somewhere else I do not think that anybody would be at ease until the reunification of the statue was restored. Since, therefore, the Parthenon cannot be moved to Russell Square, where the British Museum is, the solution is for the Parthenon Marbles to return to Athens,'' the former foreign secretary stressed.

[05] German president to receive Kalavryta metropolitan, mayor

BERLIN (ANA) Germany's President Johannes Rau is to receive Kalavryta Metropolitan Ambrosius, Kalavryta Mayor Athanassios Papadopoulos and an eye-witness of atrocities committed in Kalavryta by Nazi occupation troops, Ioannis Andropoulos, at the presidential mansion Bellevue in Berlin on Wednesday.

During the meeting, Rau will be formally presented with an album from his visit to Kalavryta in April 2000, issued by the Kalavryta municipality in December 2003 to commemorate the 60th anniversary since the atrocities.

Rau visited Kalavryta accompanied by President of the Republic Kostis Stephanopoulos to formally apologise on behalf of the German people for the most extreme act of violence perpetrated by German occupation troops against Greeks.

[06] Noted Greek-American expert focuses on int'l migration policy

One of America's most distinguished experts on migration policy told an Athens audience on Tuesday evening that Greece was transformed ''in a mere decade'' from a country hosting ''a low-digit'' number of foreign-born nationals into one ''more immigrant-dense than the United States''.

While terming the Greek model since 1990 as ''extraordinary'', noted Greek-American scholar Demetrios G. Papademetriou nevertheless said the percentage of people defined as ''immigrants'' world-wide has remained at more-or-less steady levels for the past few decades, namely, 2.5 percent of the planet's population at any given time.

Papademetriou, the co-director and co-founder of the D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute and Washington's convener of a top US-Mexico migration panel that devised the framework that recently prompted the US and Mexico to re-examine their migration relationship, said the total number of foreign born people in the United States and Canada stands at 38 to 40 million, as opposed to 40 to 45 million in Europe.

However, the former senior Carnegie Endowment associate stressed that the lion's share of immigration world-wide was centered in Asia (40-50 percent), whereas the west only hosted a 'miniscule' of the world's refugees -- which he said were 5 to 10 percent of the approximately 150 million people defined as immigrants.

As per his native Greece, Papademetriou told an audience at the Hellenic American Unions roof garden hall that foreign-born people make up anywhere between 8 to 12 percent of the country's general population.

Papademetriou spoke on the issue of ''Europe and the New Age of Migration: Capturing Benefits and Managing Costs'', a lecture sponsored by the Kokkalis Foundation.

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