"The Middle East is right next to us. I believe that this issue concerns us all. We condemn the terrorist activity taking place in the state of Israel, but we are supportive of what the Palestinian people are going through", stated the President of the A ssociation, PASOK MP Panagiotis Fasoulas.

Earlier Mr. Simitis will preside over a meeting in view of his visit to Zachynthos tomorrow, while he will meet and cooperate with the Ministers of Finances and Transports on Olympic Airways.

"The opportunity will then be given to us to distinguish our country and demonstrate our potential and the importance of our policies in the region. During this period, in fact, the accession process of Cyprus, for which we have systematically been worki ng since 1994, will be complete. During the Greek Presidency the beginning of a Europe with more members and new goals will be marked. The Greek Presidency will be an enlargement Presidency", underlined Mr. Simitis.

Then, referring to the priorities of the Greek Presidency, the Prime Minister pointed out that employment issues, fighting social exclusion phenomena, boosting competitiveness by promoting small businesses, promoting the European social model, confrontin g illegal immigration and organized crime, will be on the daily agenda.

Also, referring to developments in the Middle East, Mr. Simitis pointed out that the need to form a common security and defense policy is obvious once again, and he added that on that issue, as well as on the development of common foreign policy, special

attention must be paid by the Greek Presidency.

Finally, the Prime Minister underlined that the Cabinet discussed organizational issues concerning the convergence of the Summit Meeting in Thessaloniki - which will be "a message for the peace, cooperation and development of the Balkans", as he characte ristically said. The political message, he stated, was that "the Presidency must be a lever for the coordination of financial and social policy".

The selection of the Olympic mascot was made from among 196 proposals - ideas, that reached the Organizing Committee from all over the world according to competition procedures. The criteria for the mascot were the promotion of the ideals of the 2004 Oly mpics, the presentation of a modern image, differentiation from the mascots of previous Olympics and the securing of artistic and design competence.

Tomorrow, Mr. Paschalidis will have meetings with President Boris Trajkovski, the President of the Parliament, Stojan Antof, Ministers of National Economy, Nikola Gruevski, Local Government, Faik Aslani, Environment, Vladimir Dzabirski and coordinator of

the Program Committee for the Prespes Park, Metodija Dimovski. In the afternoon of the same day he will leave for Ochrid.

On Saturday, he will take a tour of Ochrid and will meet with the Mayor. He will then leave for Prespes, he will visit the Monastery of St. Naoum, and immediately following the Monastery, where he will meet the Mayor and will be shown around the Church o f St. Dimitrios.

A protest rally has been organized for today by Heracleon bodies, in expression of their solidarity to the Palestinian people, in the Lions' Square, at 7pm.

Another solidarity rally in Crete, is the one organized by the Chania Prefecture, at 8:30pm, in the Municipal Market Square.

Another show of protest, with "Not another holocaust - A state for Palestine, now", has been organized by the Coalition of the Left Youth for this afternoon at 6pm, outside the Israeli Embassy in Athens.

As the responsible party for N. Greece, surgeon Eleftheria Parthenopoulou, stated to the MPA, that as soon as the airplane of the Greek mission landed, the authorities took the passports away from the Greeks and forced them to remain in the airport for h ours, before boarding a different airplane, in order to return to Greece.

"In a communication I had with the Head of the mission Theofilos Rozenberg, I was informed of the incident and I must admit that this is unprecedented and dictatorial behavior", stressed Mrs. Parthenopoulou, according to whom, along with the "Doctors of the World" were a group if Italian MPs and a group of activists, who were dealt with violently by the security forces at the airport.

"We will lodge a complaint about the incident, as we were stopped from doing our work and helping people", added Mr. Parthenopoulou.

It should be noted that two weeks ago, "Doctors of the World" faced the same problem, when they wanted to send medical supplies, and were not allowed to.

The Minister of Culture also stressed that the citizen who turned the find in to the Archeological service will be rewarded. "I am not in a position to reveal the amount of the reward at present, because I want to evaluate all the facts of the case, taki ng into consideration the response of the KAS, and it is a great pleasure for me that the object known as the King of Minos, as it is known in the bibliography - because there is always an element of myth involved - will be turned over to its natural owne rs, the people of Crete, the people of Heracleon. It will be turned over to the Archeological Museum of Heracleon, which is entering a new period as an autonomous unit of the Ministry of Culture. Thus, this is a development strengthening the prestige of t he Heracleon Museum", added Mr. Venizelos.

This amount mainly originates from debts of the public sector to the national airliner, while, as mentioned in press publications, deputy Minister of Finances Giorgos Floridis agreed to pay a further amount of 20,542,920 euro to OA last week. If these de bts are paid, then Olympic Airways will be able to take a deep breath and look to the future with more optimism.

The Church's moves are placed within the framework of the efforts to manage and exploit its property based on business criteria.

In the meeting, Mr. Papadopoulos will brief his counterparts on the Balkan Committee activities, its goals and the need for the participation of Bulgarian regions.

Meanwhile, it was made known that the Balkan Committee Political Office will meet tomorrow.

In his letter to the Israeli ambassador, he rejects the invitation refusing to agree with the logic of the Israeli Prime Minister and the extermination methods used on the Palestinian people.

The above were stated by Minister of Macedonia-Thrace Giorgos Paschalidis underlining that the whole issue is watched closely. Mr. Paschalidis will be in Skopje today for meetings with the FYROM president, the Prime Minister and government ministers amon g them, the Minister of Environment.

In those meetings, Mr. Paschalidis will raise the issue of the Axios River pollution in FYROM as such incidents take place frequently. He will propose an inter-border cooperation and a joint anti-pollution policy for Axios River, while he will also raise

the issue of Lake Doiran which is divided between Greece and FYROM.

Mr. Papandreou announced that Greece is ready to protest against the deportation of Greek Doctors of the World and added that he has already spoken to his Israeli counterpart and the Israeli ambassador.

Mr. Papandreou briefed the Parliamentary Committee of Foreign Affairs and Defense this morning on the developments in the Middle East and the Greek initiatives for the de-escalation of the crisis. He pointed out that only with the intervention of a third

party and through a political solution, not with the use of force, can the tension in the region de-escalate.

On Greece's position, he stressed that Athens is against violence and terrorism and faces the crisis in the Middle East with realism because there are no easy and magical solutions. He stated that his latest tour of the Middle East and his visit to Cairo

led him to the conclusion that the Arab world is very concerned with the developments in the wider region.

Mr. Papandreou said that the Arabs speculate that the situation can take uncontrolled dimensions if there is no immediate intervention by the international community which they accused of inactivity. He also characterized as very significant the fact tha t the Arab world calls for the immediate involvement of the US within the framework of the efforts to reach a political solution based on the UN decisions and proposals.

Of the stocks trading today, 133 recorded gains and 170 had losses, while the value of 73 stocks remained unchanged.

Specifically, Mr. Simitis pointed out that the UN Security Council called on Israel to withdraw its forces from the Palestinian territories and the same call was issued by the EU as well, adding that the EU has decided to send representatives to the regi on to exert pressures toward this direction.

The Greek Prime Minister stated that based on the latest EU decision in the Barcelona Summit meeting, Chairman Arafat is recognized as the representative of the Palestinian community and for this reason he should be free to move and make decisions.

From his side, the Dane Prime Minister called on Israel to withdraw its forces from the Palestinian territories, stressing that Yasser Arafat should do the best he can to combat terrorism. Mr. Rasmussen stated that the only solution is to safeguard a sta te of Israel with guaranteed and secure borders and create an independent, sovereign Palestinian state with secure borders.

Referring to Cyprus' EU accession, the Dane Prime Minister stated that Denmark backs the view that Cyprus must become an EU member and stressed that the solution of the Cyprus problem is not a precondition for Cyprus' accession. He also called on the two

sides to work for the solution of the political problem.

On the likelihood to open EU accession negotiations with Turkey, Mr. Simitis stated that in the talks he had with his Dane counterpart a reference was made to the issue and stressed that such negotiations should start when the preconditions set by the EU

on Turkey's candidature are met.

The meeting of the Prime Ministers of Greece and Denmark was also dominated by the developments in the European Union and the Danish EU Presidency in the second half of 2002. The two Prime Ministers discussed bilateral cooperation on issues concerning th e EU accession negotiations, the rejection of the Euro by certain European Union countries and environmental problems, in view of the Greek EU Presidency in the first half of 2003.

As Mr. Kavaklis stated to NET state television that Israeli soldiers attacked protestors with nightsticks and firing plastic bullets, while using teargas. One of the canisters fired hit him on the head, and he was then transferred to the hospital for sti tches.

"At the hospital I saw a man hit by a bullet, and hit by a bayonet, and from what I learned they used chemicals", he added.

Dozens of slightly wounded protestors were transferred to Jerusalem hospitals, most of them suffering from breathing difficulties, but many with marks from being beaten by Palestinian soldiers.

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