Athens News Agency: News in English (PM), 99-06-07

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

NEWS IN ENGLISH

Athens, Greece, 07/06/1999 (ANA)

MAIN HEADLINES

• Greece upbeat on NATO-Yugoslav talks
• U.S. marines ready to put ashore
• Kranidiotis in Lisbon for talks
• Suspected serial rapist confesses to murder
• Intruders kidnap three-year-old in southern Albania
• Pit bull terrier injures two
• Weather
• Foreign Exchange

NEWS IN DETAIL

There is no impasse and peace is on the way, despite the complications in the talks between the military representatives of NATO and Yugoslavia in FYROM, Greece's Foreign Minister George Papandreou said today. Papandreou said after a government meeting chaired by prime minister Costas Simitis that technical matters were the focus of the talks in FYROM, while the G-8 was discussing the details of a UN resolution on the issue in Bonn, and Finnish president Martti Ahtisaar was holding contacts with Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. Papandreou himself had consultations on the phone over the weekend with his Russian and German counterparts and the US alternate secretary of state.

U.S. marines ready to put ashore

A contingent of US marines aboard three ships outside Litochoro, northern Greece, are awaiting permission from the Greek government to disembark in Thessaloniki and then head by truck to FYROM, Foreign Minister George Papandreou said. "As soon as the technical process is completed and there is a request on the part of the allied forces, then all the peace forces will advance immediately to their destination so that there will not be a vacuum in protection and security," Papandreou said.

Kranidiotis in Lisbon for talks

Alternate Foreign Minister Yannos Kranidiotis began a visit to Portugal on Monday with talks on bilateral issues and the Yugoslav crisis with Portuguese European Affairs Minister Seixas da Costa. Both men udnerlined the need for the European Union to assume its obligations and play a substantial role in the reconstruction of Yugoslavia and the wider region. Also on the agenda of the talks was the EU's expansion, Cyrpus' bid for full membership and Turkish-EU relations. Kranidiotis said that Cyprus had to become a member of the EU as soon as accession procedures were completed and independent of progress on resolving the division of the island.

Suspected serial rapist confesses to murder

Greek police said on Monday a 37-year-old man arrested on Saturday had confessed to the brutal murder of a Ukrainian woman earlier this year. Christoforos Moraitis, 37, who is suspected of a series of rapes and sexual assaaults in the Ilisia area, told police he killed Svetika Patsenko, 28, to not have to give her 50,000 drachmas ($166) he owed her. Patsenko was found dead in her home in Piraeus on April 2. She had been beaten, strangled and stabbed. Moraitis is also to be charged with the robbery and murder of a 67-year-old man in August 1998. The man died of injuries sustained during the robbery two weeks later.

Intruders kidnap three-year-old in southern Albania

A three-year-old child was kidnapped by intruders in the Albanian village of Pano Dropolis, Gjirokaster, near the border with Greece, an ANA dispatch reported on Monday. The dispatch said the girl, a member of the ethnic Greek minority in southern Albania, was abducted from her grandparents' home after masked intruders bound and gagged the elderly couple. The girls' parents, migrant workers in the U.S., are reported to be presently working in Greece. Albanian police are investigating the kidnapping.

Pit bull terrier injures two

A pit bull terrier attacked and killed another dog and injured two young Greeks in the city of Thessaloniki, police reported on Monday. The pit bull terrier apparently escaped from its owner, Haralambos Ioannidis, and savaged the other dog, being walked by Elpida and Yiannis Pavlides, 16 and 18, before turning on the Pavlideses. The Pavlides siblings were reported to have suffered slight injuries and have filed a complaint against Ionnidis who was detained and will be brought before a prosecutor.

WEATHER

FOREIGN EXCHANGE

Monday's rates (buying)
U.S. dollar          311.438
Pound sterling       501.258
Japanese yen (100)   255.549
French franc          48.998
German mark          164.334
Italian lira (100)    16.599
Irish Punt           408.104
Belgian franc          7.968
Luxembourg franc       7.968
Finnish mark          54.057
Dutch guilder        145.849
Danish kr.            43.273
Austrian sch.         23.358
Spanish peseta         1.931
Swedish kr.           36.049
Norwegian kr.         39.043
Swiss franc          202.284
Port. Escudo           1.603
Can. dollar          211.098
Aus. dollar          202.909
Cyprus pound         557.504
Euro                 321.408

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