Athens News Agency: News in English, 05-11-22

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

CONTENTS

[01] Quality in merchant shipping also concerns well-trained seamen, Kefaloyannis tells IMO Assembly

[02] Patriarch Theofilos of Jerusalem to be enthroned

[01] Quality in merchant shipping also concerns well-trained seamen, Kefaloyannis tells IMO Assembly

Kefaloyannis said that the present Assembly session was taken place at a time when important developments were taking place on a global level and protection of the sea environment was arising as the most fundamental investment by the present generation for future generations.

Today, he said, "shipping is a much safer industry than in the past, and its environmental credentials have improved significantly".

Kefaloyannis said that IMO and its member countries, in the framework of their authorities and their influence, have an equally important role to play in this respect as well. The international safety standards must in now way create areas of commercial competition among the flags. The disreputable factors involved in shipping must comprehend that the credentials of maritime are not negotiable, but applied in a uniform way on a global basis," he said.

The Greek minister, who was one of the keynote speakers at the Assembly session, also stressed the "need for investment in the human potential".

"Quality in merchant shipping does not concern only the ships and engines. It also concerns well-trained seamen with an upgraded professional status and working conditions," he explained. "Prospective measures of a regional extent must be avoided at all cost", Kefaloyannis said, stressing that any measures should "reflect the international activity of maritime".

IMO is the United Nations agency concerned with maritime safety and security and the prevention of marine pollution from ships. Piraeus-born Efthymios Mitropoulos is currently at the helm of the IMO, after being elected as the organisation's 7th secretary general by IMO's 90th Council meeting in June 2003 and the approval of his appointment by the 23rd regular session of the IMO Assembly on November 2003. He will serve as IMO chief for an initial four-year term which started on January 1, 2004.

Urgent priority is being placed by the Assembly on the rising incidents of piracy against merchant ships, ship safety, and protection of the sea environment.

Also, the final phase in the development of the new voluntary IMO Member State audit scheme is set to be launched at the present Assembly.

The adoption of the Scheme will herald a new era for IMO, in which the Organization will have at its disposal a tool to achieve harmonized, standardized global implementation of IMO standards, which is key to realizing the IMO objectives of safe, secure and efficient shipping on clean oceans.

The Scheme will address issues such as a Member State's conformance in enacting appropriate legislation for the IMO instruments to which it is a Party; the administration and enforcement of the applicable laws and regulations of the Member State; the delegation of authority by a Member State in terms of the implementation of convention requirements; and the control and monitoring mechanism of the Member State's survey and certification processes and of its recognized organizations.

It will help to identify where capacity-building activities would have the greatest effect and it will also enable appropriate action to be much more precisely focused. Individual Member States which volunteer to be audited will receive valuable feedback and, on a wider scale, generic lessons learnt from audits could be provided to all Member States so that the benefits may be shared. The regulatory process at IMO may also benefit from the results of this learning experience.

Alongside the audit scheme framework, the Assembly is expected to adopt a Code for the Implementation of Mandatory IMO Instruments, which will provide the audit standard.

[02] Patriarch Theofilos of Jerusalem to be enthroned

Groups of worshippers from Messinia, birthplace of the new Archbishop Theofilos III of Jerusalem, have flocked to the Holy City for the enthronement ceremony, which will take place at noon Tuesday at the Church of the Ascension.

Theofilos is the 140th Patriarch of Jerusalem, Palestine, Syria, beyond Jordan River, Cana of Galilee & Holy Zion.

President Papoulias and Greece's deputy foreign minister Panayotis Skandalakis, accompanied by Greece's consul general, will meet with the new Patriarch at noon.

It is noted that the Israeli authorities have not yet acknowledged the new Patriarch, but this was not an obstacle to his enthronement, according to the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre. Under Church law and custom, any new patriarch must be approved by the governments of Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan. Palestine and Jordan in September approved Theofilos' election by Jerusalem's Holy Synod.

The Greek President, Archbishop Christodoulos, and Skandalakis will spend the afternoon in Jerusalem, and depart at 7:30 p.m. for the scheduled return flight to Athens.

The Patriarchate of Jerusalem is known as the "Mother of All Churches". The Brotherhood, or Guards, of the Holy Sepulchre (Holy Tomb)comprises everyone belonging to the Patriarchate -- metropolitans, archbishops, bishops, Archimandrites, priests, monks and deacons, and is administrated by an 18-member standing council, the chairman of which is the Jerusalem Patriarch.

His Beautifude Patriarch Theofilos III was unanimously elected the 140th Patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem on August 22, 2005 by the 14 members of Jerusalem's Holy Synod.

Theophilos was born in 1950 in Messinia, Greece. In 1964, he went to Jerusalem. He served as archdeacon for then Patriarch Benediktos. From 1991 to 1996, he was a priest in Cana in Galilee, which had a predominantly Israeli Arab flock.

In 1996, he was one of the first Christian clergymen in centuries to make an opening into the closed Wahhabi Islamic society of Qatar, a historically under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem. He subsequently served as Exarch of the Holy Sepulchre in Qatar. From 2000 to 2003, he was church envoy to the Patriarchate of Moscow.

Before becoming patriarch, Theophilus served for a short time as the Archbishop of Tabor, consecrated to the episcopacy by the now deposed patriarch Irineos in January of 2005.

Theophilos studied theology at the University of Athens and went on to complete a master's degree in London. Besides his native Greek, he also

speaks English and Arabic.

Other Patriarchs of Jerusalem bearing the same name were Theofilos I, Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1012 to 1020, and Theofilos II, Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1417 to 1424.

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