Congratulations were sent by the French government as well through the Foreign Ministry spokesman.

Mr. Protopapas stated that Greece will assist in the investigation to determine the causes of the accident and two specialists will depart this afternoon for Cyprus to participate in the investigation.

National Guard Chief Lieutenant-General Evangelos Florakis, Air Force Commander Vasilios Demenagas, aide-de-camp Nikolaos Georgiou and two more people were killed in the early morning hours today when their helicopter crashed at 4:45am in the region of t he village of Kouklia in Paphos. The Augusta helicopter was on its way from Nicosia to the "Andreas Papandreou" Military Base when it crashed at river Diarizos and burst into flames.

match was made with the blood stains found during the investigation on the rocket attack targeting the residence of the German ambassador to Athens.

Mr. Economou gave to publicity pictures of the objects found in the two "17 November" terrorist organization hideouts at 84 Patmos Street in Kato Patisia and 73 Damareos Street in Pangrati in Athens. He said that all the findings are now at the Greek Pol ice laboratories and are being examined, stressing that the briefings on the outcome of the investigation will continue.

Mr. Economou also referred to last night's explosion of a bomb that was placed in a garbage bin in Piraeus. He said that it was a small explosion and did not cause injuries or significant damage. No organization has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Meanwhile, Greek government spokesman Christos Protopapas reacted strongly to the attempts made to turn a major national issue into a spectacle of the worst kind. He made the statement referring to the broadcast by a television station of a picture of th e injured Savvas Xiros while at the intensive care unit. Mr. Protopapas stated that an inquiry is underway to determine when was the picture taken.

Meanwhile, Xiros left the intensive care unit today and was transferred to a high security room in the Evangelismos Hospital.

Of the stocks trading today, 103 recorded gains and 201 had losses, while the value of 73 stocks remained unchanged.

For the record, the deadline for the non binding offers by those interested ends tomorrow. The offers that will be approved in this phase of the bid will be included in a short list and the interested companies will be called to submit binding offers by August 2.

Also, the young Greeks are concerned with the protection of the environment (86%), food safety (97%), the security of the European citizens (96%), immigration and the European Union borders. The conclusions on the views of the young Greeks mentioned abov e were presented by the Eurobarometer and were given to publicity in Brussels.

According to the DNA test results, the blood on Passaris' pants matches the blood of the victims. The authorities believe that this is strong evidence proving that Passaris committed the double murder at the currency exchange office in Bucharest on Novem ber 26, 2001.

According to figures provided yesterday by EUROSTAT, all the EU states, except Finland, showed an increase in their GDP in the first trimester of 2002. Greece comes first with a GDP growth rate of 4.3% compared to the same period last year.

The growth rate recorded is 12-14 times higher than the Euro-zone average, while it is three times higher than the United States' and two times higher than the GDP growth rate recorded in Canada.

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