Athens News Agency: News in English, 10-07-18

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

CONTENTS

[01] Migrant smuggler, illegan migrants arrested

[02] Papariga in Kavala

[03] Fires in Salamina, Megara

[01] Migrant smuggler, illegan migrants arrested

The 27-year-old smuggler, who was carrying six illegal migrants in his car, refused to stop for a police check and attempted to escape, but was caught by police, who seized his car and two cell phones.

The seven detainees will appear before a Xanthi prosecutor.

[02] Papariga in Kavala

Papariga said that the municipal elections will be a big opportunity to forge a different correlation of forces among the people, who should choose candidates who "will not cover up but reveal".

She said that the wider region of eastern Macedonia and Thrace has been the recipient of "tons of promises and misleading developmental visions" in the past years, but today was in a bad state, stressing that the working people in the region must realise that their problems are the result of the general policy followed in Greece in recent years by all the governments.

From the moment the crisis broke out, "tons of lies" have been have been said so as to disorient them from who is to blame for the crisis and why. "We continuously hear that the growth made in Greece was accomplished with borrowed money and that the social state that was created was also founded on borrowed money," she said, but this was not so.

"Growth in Greece was founded on the work and contribution of the working people, on the production and services of the working people. This growth led to large profitability and concentration of capital. It was, therefore, a growth that was not founded on borrowed money but on the looting of the people's toil," Papariga stressed.

Commenting on developments in the banking sector, Papariga said that ruling PASOK had, before the elections, championed extensive mergers, privatisations and buyouts. "The buyouts and mergers are the law of the capitalist system itself. But the privatisation of ATEbank concerns us because the farming land and many cooperatives are mortgaged there," she continued, referring to Piraeus Bank's recent proposal to acquire the state's major shareholdings in the Agricultural Bank of Greece (ATEbank) and the TT-Hellenic Postbank.

She further criticised the government's policy on the Aegean and Greek-Turkish relations, charging that the government was silently advancing an agreement for rendering an area of the Aegean Sea "neutral", in accordance with Turkey's wishes, "and this is very worrying for our national interests".

[03] Fires in Salamina, Megara

The fire in Megara broke out on Mt. Kantyli in a forested area, and was not threatening any residential regions, according to the Fire Brigade.

A team of 33 firefighters with 33 fire engines, assisted by a water-dropping helicopter, was battling the blaze.

The Samalina fire broke out in the Ambelakia settlement, and nearby houses were at risk.

The fire was burning dry brush, and a team of 30 firefighters with 10 fire engines, assisted by three water-dropping planes and a helicopter, was battling the blaze.

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