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Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-10-10
CONTENTS
[01] Dijsselbloem: Greece has completed milestones, will get 2.8 bln in
two installments
[02] Police presents priceless loot from antiquities smuggling ring bust
[01] Dijsselbloem: Greece has completed milestones, will get 2.8 bln in
two installments
Eurozone finance ministers have approved the disbursement of a
2.8-billion-euro sub-tranche of loans to Greece in two installments,
Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem said on Monday. He said the four
institutions had confirmed completion by Greece of 15 open milestones
and "enables us all to close the first review." Greece had undertaken
important reforms, he added, "and this progress enables the European
Stability Mechanism (ESM) to disburse 1.1 billion remaining out of the
second tranche.
"There's also been substantial progress on arrears clearance in July and
August...technical work will continue to gather the September data. This
always takes a number of weeks to complete, this cannot be helped, it
cannot be done faster. We hope and presume that before the end of October
those data are available. They will then be assessed by the institutions
and on that basis, the ESM could decide on the disbursement of 1.7 billion
euros. This is specifically for the clearance of arrears," he said.
[02] Police presents priceless loot from antiquities smuggling ring bust
Greek police and the Culture ministry presented on Monday numerous
priceless ancient artifacts and religious icons confiscated during a
major police operation last week which resulted in the arrest of the
members of two antiquities smuggling rings in Patras and Ioannina.
The most important pieces rescued from the smugglers include a golden
wreath which dates from the Hellenistic times, two religious icons and a
large number of ancient Greek and Roman coins. The rest of the artifacts
will be presented to the relevant museums, authorities said.
Speaking at the presentation at the ministry for Civil Protection,
Culture Minister Aristidis Baltas said it was an important day and that
he's happy these objects will be added to the other museum collections.
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