Subject: Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 17-03-18
From: "HR-Net News Distribution Manager" <dist@hri.org>
CONTENTS
[01] Lefteris Petrounias wins gold medal at Gymnastics World Cup AGF
     Trophy 2017 in Baku
[02] The aim is the final decision to have the best possible results
     for the Greek people, Transport Min. Spirtzis says
[03] KKE leader Koutsoumbas: The solution for the people is not to wait
     for the completion of the review
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[01] Lefteris Petrounias wins gold medal at Gymnastics World Cup AGF
Trophy 2017 in Baku

Olympic champion in gymnastics Lefteris Petrounias was the winner of
the rings final at the Gymnastics World Cup AGF Trophy 2017 adding
another gold medal to his collection.

In his first international outing of the year, Rio rings champion made
an excellent performance collecting 15.466 points at the Milli Gimnastika
Arenasi in Baku.

In the second place was Japanese Kazuyuki Takeda (14.766 pt) and third
was Yevgen Yudenkov (14. 233) from Ukraine.


[02] The aim is the final decision to have the best possible results
for the Greek people, Transport Min. Spirtzis says

We are giving a hard negotiation battle. The aim is not the completion of
the review on whatever conditions as main opposition New Democracy urged
us to do and as it did when it was government, stated Infrastructure and
Transport Minister Christos Spirtzis in an interview with the Saturday
edition of Efimerida ton Syntakton newspaper.

"The aim is the final decision to have the best possible results for the
Greek people. To foresee favourable measures for the weaker and social
justice on the allocation of responsibilities" noted Spirtzis.

He underlined that public works that were stalled for 11 years were
completed and stated that until June the e-ticket will come into
effect. "The bus itineraries are changing as the whole philosophy of
the route planning. Our aim is the citizen to trust the public means
of transport.


[03] KKE leader Koutsoumbas: The solution for the people is not to wait
for the completion of the review

"The solution for the people is neither to wait for the completion of
the review and the new measures nor to wait for the elections that will
bring another memorandum government. The solution will come through the
clash with the monopolies and capitalism to prevent the new antipopular
package and to claim all those we lost in the years of the crisis"
stated Communist Party (KKE) leader Dimitris Koutsoumbas to the Saturday
newspaper "Ependysi".

Referring to the negotiations with the institutions he noted "our
criticism to SYRIZA- Independent Greeks government as to the previous New
Democracy-PASOK government never referred on the way they are bargaining
but for whom they are negotiating. They are all negotiating over the
way the groups' profits will increase" said Koutsoumbas.

On Europe's future, KKE leader supported that "KKE has said that EU is
not a stable and coherent mechanism. Its coherence will be tried even
more in the next period.

Asked if the strident tones between Turkey and Greece over the Aegean
can lead to an incident, Koutsoumbas said that these tones create a
dangerous climate. They express the competition between the Greek and
the Turkish bourgeois in a region that the knives have been unsheathed
between powerful imperialistic countries on investments and over the
transport of oil and natural gas.