Athens News Agency: Daily News Bulletin in English, 14-06-10

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

CONTENTS

[01] Greece gets a new government after reshuffle, new FinMin Gikas Hardouvelis

[02] New Cabinet to be sworn in on Tuesday at 15:30

[03] Reactions of political parties to the new Cabinet announcement

[04] KKE leader: Cabinet reshuffle does not signal change of policy

[05] DIMAR leader hands in his resignation to the party's Central Committee

[06] Venizelos in Cairo

[07] Finance Ministry rules out taxation of owner-occupied properties

[08] Creation of 11.2 mln euros financing mechanism, announces Environment Ministry

[09] TAXISnet system up and running again on Tuesday

[10] Sagiada, a cruise destination in the 19th century

[11] Greek Air Force conducted two health-emergency evacuations from the Dodecanese

[12] Pregnant Russian tourist injured by speedboat

[13] Three Syrian nationals arrested at Kalamata airport

[14] PASOK party offices targeted

[15] The Sunday edition of Athens' dailies at a glance Politics

[01] Greece gets a new government after reshuffle, new FinMin Gikas Hardouvelis

The "hot seat" of Finance Minister finally goes to Professor Gikas Hardouvelis, following extensive rumours about a multitude of potential candidates for this key government position. According to widely circulated unverified Press reports, former Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras may become next (central) Bank of Greece Governor.

The last reshuffle of the incumbent New Demo-cracy (ND) - PASOK coalition government had taken place about a year ago, in late June 2013, after the with- drawal of second junior government coalition partner Democratic Left (DIMAR).

Evangelos Venizelos, the leader of the junior government coalition partner PASOK, retains his major role as Government Vice-President and Foreign Minister.

Dimitris Avramopoulos (Defence Minister), Miltiadis Varvitsiotis (Shipping & Aegean Minister) and Olga Kefalogianni (Tourism Minister) are among the ministers who retain their portfolios.

On the other hand, Adonis Georgiadis (former Health Minister), Constantinos Arvanitopoulos (former Education and Religious Affairs Minister), Yiannis Michelakis (former Interior Minister), Costis Hatzidakis (former Develop-ment & Competitiveness Minister), Panos Pana-yiotopoulos (former Culture and Sports Minister), Athanassios Tsaftaris (former Rural Development and Food Minister) and Simos Kedikoglou (former Government Spokesman and Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister), are some of the prominent members of the government who lose their portfolios.

The new Cabinet, as announced by the new government spokesman, Sofia Voultepsi, will be the following:

Prime Minister: Antonis Samaras

Government Vice-President and Foreign Minister: Evangelos Venizelos

Deputy: Dimitris Kourkoulas

Deputy: Akis Gerontopoulos

Finance Minister: Gikas Hardouvelis

Alternate: Christos Staikouras

Deputy: Giorgos Mavraganis

Administrative Reform and E-Governance Minister: Kyriakos Mitsotakis

Deputy: Evi Christophilopoulou

Interior Minister: Argyris Dinopoulos

Alternate: Theofilos Leontaridis

Deputy: Giorgos Dolios

National Defence Minister: Dimitris Avramopoulos

Alternate: Fofi Genimata

Deputy: Giannis Lambropoulos

Development and Competitiveness Minister: Nikos Dendias

Deputy: Odysseas Constantinopoulos

Deputy: Gerasimos Giakoumatos

Deputy: Notis Mitarachi

Infrastructure, Transport and Networks Minister: Michalis Chryssohoidis

Deputy: Michalis Papadopoulos

Environment, Energy & Climate Change Minister: Yiannis Maniatis

Alternate: Nikolaos Tagaras

Deputy: Asimakis Papageorgiou

Education and Religious Affairs Minister: Andreas Loverdos

Deputy: Alexandros Dermetzopoulos

Deputy: Constantinos Koukodimos

Culture and Sports Minister: Constantinos Tassoulas

Deputy: Angela Gerekou

Deputy Minister for Sports: Yiannis Andrianos

Labour, Social Security and Welfare Minister: Yiannis Vroutsis

Deputy: Vassilis Kegeroglou

Deputy: Antonios Bezas

Health Minister: Makis Voridis

Alternate: Leonidas Grigorakos

Deputy: Katerina Papakosta

Rural Development and Food Minister: Giorgos Karasmanis

Alternate: Paris Koukoulopoulos

Justice, Transparency and Human Rights Minister: Charalambos Athanassiou

Public Order and Citizen Protection Minister: Vassilios Kikilias

Tourism Minister: Olga Kefalogianni

Shippping and Aegean Minister: Miltiadis Varvitsiotis

Macedonia-Thrace Minister: Giorgos Orfanos

State Minister: Dimitris Stamatis

Government Spokesman and Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister: Sofia Voultepsi"

[02] New Cabinet to be sworn in on Tuesday at 15:30

[03] Reactions of political parties to the new Cabinet announcement

SYRIZA: Immediately following Monday's announcement of the new Cabinet, the main opposition Radical Left Coalition SYRIZA party issued a statement, in which it stresses that "no one believes today's reshuffle will influence even in the slightest measure, the applied government policy and the commitments undertaken by Mr. Samaras' government under the memorandum [bailout] agreement".

SYRIZA goes on to mention, that "the government not only did not get the [triple] elections' message, but tries to overtake it with a reshuffle that confirms the unswerving application of its commitments against its lenders, being indifferent to the daily suffering of the Greek people".

The biggest opposition party concludes its first comment on the government reshuffle by saying "The only message Mr. Samaras received is the one Mr. Schauble sent a few days ago: 'No thought for relaxing'. What the country needs are not costless reshuffles, but a government which will stop acting as a surrogate of the lenders' interests".

PASOK: Junior coalition government partner PASOK party retained its control over crucial ministries, in the new Cabinet announced on Monday evening.

Apart from the Foreign Ministry - firmly in the hands of Government Vice-President and leader of PASOK Evangelos Venizelos - the ministers of Environment, Infrastructure and Education all come from either the PASOK party or the Elia political formation, in which PASOK is the largest constituent.

PASOK also secured the Cabinet positions of Alternate Rural Development Minister, Alternate Health Minister, Deputy Interior Minister, as well as Alternate Defence Minister and deputy ministers in Administrative Reform, Development, Labour and Foreign ministries.

KKE: The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) issued the following statement, regarding the government reshuffle:

"The target of the new Cabinet, as well, will be the materialization of old and new unpopular measures, which are forwarded in the framework of long-term EU memoranda, forming strategic choices, in order to reinforce the competitiveness of capital.

The people have by now accumulated enough experience so as to perceive that the faces only change in order to promote more effectively the same unpopular policy and that reshuffles of unpopular governments cannot form the true hope for life and their future.".

DIMAR: As a first comment to the government reshuffle, the Democratic Left (DIMAR) party issued a statement on Monday evening, in which it emphasized that "Governments are not judged by the faces, only by the content of the applied policies. If the new Cabinet remains prisoner to the political obsessions and ideological entanglements which marred the previous one, then it is absolutely certain that neither the society, nor the economy, will be able to breathe air".

DIMAR concluded its comment by saying "Now more than ever, the renegotiation of the programme which brought the country to an absolute deadlock and irreparably injured its social cohesion, is necessary".

Independent Greeks: Commenting on the new Cabinet announced, the Independent Greeks party representative Terens Quick offered the following statement: "The government reshuffle restores people sworn to troika [the tripartite group of Greece's bailout lenders], it places people who have unrepentantly voted for the measures of Greek people's misery... What is the importance of who is the minister, when in every ministry there is a lender commissioner who gives orders? The real reshuffle will be when the ministers apply the Constitution and national sovereignty returns to the country".

Golden Dawn: Golden Dawn commented, that the Samaras-Venizelos government "continues along the same policy of ethnocide... Despite the condemnation of this miserable policy by the majority of the Greek people, Greece remains prisoner to the second and fourth largest political parties, which only answer to the German economic oligarchy".

[04] KKE leader: Cabinet reshuffle does not signal change of policy

Koutsoumbas also noted that "it becomes more and more obvious that on the political landscape's quicksand that everyone seems to talk with everyone, neither the cabinet reshuffle nor SYRIZA's bridges to PASOK and DIMAR signal a change of policy in people's favour" adding that "the well known old and 'new' saviours are moving in the old and tested framework of the same growth path that brought us the crisis. The well known one-way of EU, capitalism and of the monopolies".

[05] DIMAR leader hands in his resignation to the party's Central Committee

Kouvelis also proposed a party's Congress to take place in autumn and until then DIMAR's Central Committee to decide on the party's political direction. For this reason, he proposed DIMAR to contribute into the creation of a new authority block with active participation in the effort towards the forming of the centre-left and with the participation of main opposition SYRIZA, if and when it clarifies its European course.

DIMAR leader also ruled out the possibility of cooperation with New Democracy adding that he will approach PASOK, ELIA and POTAMI and other independent progressive movements and personalities in the area of Ecology in order to secure the strong presence of the democratic socialism in the political developments.

"The Cassandras have anticipated the end of DIMAR. But they will be proved again wrong. The Democratic Left will be present in the developments and will heal its wounds. It will contribute in the country's revival through progressive governmental solutions" concluded Kouvelis.

[06] Venizelos in Cairo

Financial News

[07] Finance Ministry rules out taxation of owner-occupied properties

In an announcement the Finance Ministry clarified that newspaper articles referring to the taxation of owner occupied properties have absolutely no bearing with reality.

[08] Creation of 11.2 mln euros financing mechanism, announces Environment Ministry

The programme foresees the financing of actions related with the management, protections and upgrading of the monitoring of sea and inland water sources on national or local level, in fresh water supply projects to the islands and in the saving and improvement of the fresh water, in the improvement and monitoring of the sea and in environmental education promotion actions in school.

The programme is co-funded by EEA (85%) and by the Public Investments Programme (15%).

[09] TAXISnet system up and running again on Tuesday

Citizens will be able to resume electronically filing tax return statements for their 2013 incomes, on Tuesday.

General News

[10] Sagiada, a cruise destination in the 19th century

However, in the late 19th century European tourist agents promoted Sagiada as a cruise destination in the Ionian Sea.

A local newspaper (Phoni tis Ipirou) wrote in January of 1901 that from 1893 an Austrian steamship approached Sagiada once a week. The tourists were transferred to the land on boats while the cruise line continued until the early 20th century.

The new village of Sagiada (Skaloma) is located opposite the town of Corfu and was established after 1943 after the old town was burned down by the Nazis.

The abandoned settlement of old Sagiada offers a large number of attractions to the visitors. Buildings of traditional architectural significance, churches and cobblestone streets along with a spectacular view of the Ionian Sea are worth the 10 minute car trip from Skaloma to the old Sagiada that rests on the slopes of the homonymous mountain.

[11] Greek Air Force conducted two health-emergency evacuations from the Dodecanese

Early on Monday, a C-130 plane flew to Elefsina, Athens from Rhodes island in south-eastern Dodecanese, two prematurely born twins - a boy and a girl - only two-hours-old, in incubators. They were immediately taken to an Athens hospital with an ambulance, upon arrival at Elefsina.

In another similar incident, a C-130 plane transported to Elefsina, Athens from Kos Island, Dodecanese on Sunday, a 25-year-old pregnant woman who was due to give birth prematurely. From Elefsina, she was urgently taken to an Athens hospital with an ambulance.

[12] Pregnant Russian tourist injured by speedboat

The 30 years-old tourist was immediately transferred to Venizelio hospital suffering from injuries in hip, thigh and abdomen. She underwent a surgery and afterwards was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit.

According to information the Russian tourist is out of danger and the condition of the embryo is under control.

An investigation into the circumstances of the accident is underway.

[13] Three Syrian nationals arrested at Kalamata airport

The three men showed fake Italian identity cards during the control of a flight to Milan, Italy.

[14] PASOK party offices targeted

No material damages or injuries were reported.

[15] The Sunday edition of Athens' dailies at a glance

ELEFTHEROS TYPOS: New retirement age foreseen in social security policy for 2015.

EPOCHI: Bits and pieces.

ESTIA: Greece of creation.

ETHNOS: The last tango in Paris.

IMERISSIA: Turmoil over the new owner-occupied dwelling tax.

KATHIMERINI: Bottleneck for Samaras (Antonis, prime minister) until the debt arrangement.

NAFTEMPORIKI: ECB's measures gave a deep breather to the markets.

RIZOSPASTIS: Opposition to the antipopular capital's way.

RealNews: In continuous 'hostage' with weapon the debt.

TO ARTHRO: Reshuffle and in the banks.

TO VIMA: Sacrifices, bargaining, pressures and agonies.

VRADYNI: How to get your pension ten years earlier.

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