Athens News Agency: News in English, 11-02-02

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

CONTENTS

[01] Greek bond market closing report

[02] Figures on illegals for 2010 

[01] Greek bond market closing report

The Greek finance minister on Wednesday expressed his confidence that European leaders will hammer a comprehensive agreement to deal with the debt crisis during their Summit in March.

The yield spread between the 10-year Greek and German benchmark bonds fell to their lowest levels in six months (738 basis points), down from 776 bps on Tuesday. The Greek bond yielded 10.59 pct and the German Bund 3.21 pct. Turnover in the market was a low 75 million euros, of which 44 million euros were sell orders and the remaining 31 million euros were buy orders. The five-year benchmark bond was the most heavily traded security with a turnover of 17 million euros.

In interbank markets, interest rates remained largely unchanged. The 12-month rate was 1.66 pct, the six-month rate 1.33 pct, the three-month 1.08 pct and the one-month rate 0.91 pct.

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[02] Figures on illegals for 2010

The specific conclusion was reached after taking into account the illegal migrant interceptions conducted by police and the Coast Guard during the past year.

A total of 132,524 illegal migrants were arrested in 2010 compared with 126,145 in 2009, while 1,150 migrant smugglers were arrested in 2010 and 1,716 in 2009. (ANA-MPA)

According to the police, the overwhelming majority of the illegal migrants crossed into Greece from the land borders with Turkey in the northeast, as opposed to previous years when most of the illegal migrants preferred the Aegean Sea islands.

Of the 132,524 illegal migrants intercepted in 2010, 47,088 crossed the land borders with Turkey and 6,204 crossed the sea borders with Turkey. (ANA-MPA)

As regards their countries of origin, 50,175 were from Albania, the others hailed from Afghanistan (28,299), Pakistan (8,830), the Palestinian territories (7,561), Algeria (7,336), Somalia (6,525), Iraq (4,968), Bangladesh (3,264), Morocco (1,645), Eritrea (1,628), Georgia (1,456) and Iran (1,133).

The majority of the migrant smugglers arrested (363) were Albanians, followed by Greek nationals (183). They were also Iranians, Turks, Bulgarians, Syrians, Afghans and Pakistanis. (ANA-MPA)

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