Athens News Agency: News in English, 01-01-04

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

CONTENTS

[01] Australia-Greenpeace-Greek activist

[02] Central Bank -Money Supply

[03] Athens Academy - Greek - Latin letters

[04] Athens Water-hydroelectric-auction

[05] ASE-close

[01] Australia-Greenpeace-Greek activist

MELBOURNE (ANA - S. Hatzimanolis) - Athina Lambrinidou, a Greek anthropologist and member of the international ecological organisation Greenpeace, made world news when she stopped a merchant ship outside the port of Oakland, capital of New Zealand, in an effort to prevent the unloading of genetically modified food for animals with the help of other members of the organisation.

She is also the sister of Stavros Lambrinidis, a former Overseas Hellenism secretary general and the current general director of the Olympic Truce Centre.

Lambrinidou scrambled up the ship's anchor while the crew were removing it from the seabed, as her colleagues commandeered cranes and other parts of the vessel, delaying its entry to the port for hours.

Her boldness amazed the ship's crew and the strong police force summoned by port authorities. While TV stations broadcast scenes all over the world, police waited patiently to arrest the demonstrators, both men and women, who gave themselves up several hours later.

Lambrinidou and her colleagues were released on bail and will appear before a court in Oakland on January 8.

[02] Central Bank -Money Supply

Growth in the country's money supply as measured by the M4N indicator accelerated to 12.6 per cent in November year-on-year from 13.5 percent year-on-year in October against an indicative target of up to 9.0 percent for 2000, the central bank said on Thursday.

Repos posted a 100 per cent rise in November on a year-on-year basis, reaching 6.5 trillion drachmas, private deposits in drachmas and foreign currency also rose, the Bank of Greece said in a statement.

Attention should be paid to the overall figure and not to changes in the separate categories of the M4N indicator as the shifts in cash were largely from one to another, the statement added.

[03] Athens Academy - Greek - Latin letters

Forty members of the Athens Academy have publicised a proclamation severely criticizing what they call an increasing tendency of late in Greece to replace Greek letters with the Latin script in signs and information technology, among others.

?This tendency becomes obvious particularly in texts produced on computers often by users in state services and even universities and shown on television as well as through urgings by foreign radio stations.

?Its noteworthy that this effort, which will produce a deathblow to Greek thinking and all the concepts of Hellenic civilisation as expressed through written texts along with most humanities..." the proclamation reads.

The 40 members of the Academy added:

?The Greek language ... the language that enriched not only Latin but the primary European languages, and which is indissolubly tied to its alphabet, cannot endure abatement with the abolition by none other than ourselves,? the announcement concludes.

[04] Athens Water-hydroelectric-auction

Athens Water, a listed water utility company, said on Thursday it would auction two small hydroelectric projects, worth 1.375 billion drachmas, on February 28 and March 1.

The two hydroelectric projects are aimed to exploit energy produced from waterfalls at the Mornos reservoir.

The first project is to be built at the village of Kleidi, in Viotia prefect, at a total cost of 583.5 million drachmas. The power station will have a power of 630 KW with an estimated annual electricity energy production of 2,650 MWh.

The second station is to be built at Mandra, Attica, with a cost of 787 million drachmas. The station will have a power capacity of 680 KW with an estimated annual production of 5,250 MWh.

Both projects will be funded by European Union funds by up to 50 percent.

[05] ASE-close

Equity prices lost more ground on Thursday hit by lack of buying interest and a tight liquidity in the market.

Traders said the Greek bourse ignored a spectacular rebound of prices in international markets, spurred by a surprise decision by the US Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by 50 basis points on Wednesday.

The general index ended 1.42 percent lower at 3,312.79 points, off the day's lows of 3,286.33 points. The index jumped 1.88 percent early in the session but lack of follow-through buying reversed the trend.

Turnover was a low 104.93 million euros, or 35.756 billion drachmas.

The FTSE/ASE 20 index for blue chip and heavy traded stocks ended 1.76 percent down at 1,902.87 points and the FTSE/ASE 40 index ended at 385.47 points, off 1.30 percent.

The parallel market index for smaller capitalisation stocks ended 1.85 percent lower at 303.12 points.

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