Athens News Agency: News in English, 07-10-07

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

CONTENTS

[01] Greek PM Karamanlis receives Bill Clinton

[02] Bakoyannis-Barnier meeting on Mon.

[01] Greek PM Karamanlis receives Bill Clinton

One-hour talks reportedly focused on current international issues, and no statements were made afterwards.

A day earlier, Clinton gave an address at a downtown Athens hotel to detail his views on dealing with the 21st century's major challenges, as he said.

The address was attended by many government and opposition members, as well as by personalities of the country's political life. Later on Friday evening, Clinton had dinner with main opposition PASOK party leader George Papandreou.

Clinton brought his message of viable development and market-friendly environmental advocacy for the 21st century to Athens on Friday evening less than a day after defining a personal role for himself in a possible future Hillary Clinton administration -- namely, to restore America's standing overseas, as he said.

Clinton, 61, also outlined his leitmotif approach of "partnerships" between philanthropists, governments and the private sector around the world to tackle monumental problems, i.e. AIDS treatment and childhood diseases in the Third World.

True to form, the former US president and husband of top Democratic contender Sen. Hillary Clinton ticked off climate change, loss of resources and population explosion in the coming decades as the ecumenical challenges facing the world. However, he devoted a good portion of his address to the issue of "identity" as a source of numerous and intricate crises plaguing humanity, noting that this issue, in a sense, is behind global terror.

He said the issue of "identity", beyond whatever legitimate problems and differences, dominates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; played a elemental role in the break-up and subsequent clashes in the former Yugoslavia, and today is evident in the grumbling, for instance, between Turkey and Iraq's Kurds. He also mentioned the Cyprus problem as containing the issue of "identity" as well as thorny Greece-Turkey ties.

In fact, Clinton said the 1996 Imia incident - which almost resulted in an armed conflict between Greece and Turkey over an uninhabited rock islet in the eastern Aegean - actually made him a better president. Clinton said he realised the graveness of the incident, which was initially deemed as inconsequential by outsiders, after being briefed in detail by experts on Greek-Turkish relations.

Finally, he cited rapprochement between Athens and Ankara following the mutual assistance provided by each government when both countries experienced major earthquakes in the late 1990s.

The event was jointly organised by the Capital Forum group and the Hellenic-American Chamber of Commerce.

-- H. K. Tzanis

Caption: Bill Clinton, standing at right, in front of the Parthenon on the Athens Acropolis, Saturday, Oct. 6, 2007. ANA-MPA / M. KIAOU

[02] Bakoyannis-Barnier meeting on Mon.

Caption: File photo of French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier. EPA/ANA-MPA/ PETER FOLEY

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