This Week
MONDAY Prime Minister Costas Simitis meets with Health Minister Alekos Papadopoulos, following the minister’s decision not to seek reelection. – Foreign Minister George Papandreou attends an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg. To Tuesday. – Main opposition New Democracy party leader Costas Karamanlis is in Washington D. C. to attend a meeting of the International Democratic Union. – President Costis Stephanopoulos continues his official visit to New Zealand. – Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios in Venice, will sign with Pope John Paul II (via a television link) the «Venice Commitment» on environmental ethics. – Social Security Foundation (IKA) doctors stage a 24-hour strike demanding permanency for 5,500 colleagues on short-term contracts. – Substitute teachers stage a protest rally outside the Education Ministry demanding the recruitment of more of their number and changes in the system of evaluating their performance. TUESDAY Spanish PM Jose Maria Aznar, whose country heads the EU, is to visit Athens. – British special envoy for Cyprus, Lord Hannay, is to meet with President Glafcos Clerides, Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash and UN special envoy Alvaro de Soto in Nicosia. – Athens Academy holds the official welcome of its new Corresponding Member, Edmund Keeley, who will lecture on «Cavafy’s Legacy in America.» – Archaeologists stage a 48-hour strike to protest a draft law on antiquities. WEDNESDAY – Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios to be awarded the Norwegian Sophie Prize 2002 for his work in raising environmental awareness. – ELTA postal workers stage a 48-hour strike demanding the recruitment of more staff. Through Thursday. THURSDAY Justice Minister Philippos Petsalnikos and Interior Minister Vasso Papandreou are to travel to Luxembourg for the meeting of EU justice and interior ministers meeting on immigration. – Social Security Foundation (IKA) doctors stage another 24-hour strike. – State hospital doctors in Athens hold a 48-hour strike. – The 49th Acropolis Rally begins. To Sunday. SATURDAY Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios arrives at Iraklion for a six-day private visit to Crete. To June 20. SUNDAY Itea hosts the prize-giving ceremony at the end of the Acropolis Rally.
