UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged the leaders of the two communities in Cyprus to make decisive steps towards a final agreement on the Cyprus problem, noting that at this state of the talks, to maintain the momentum and continue negotiations, even in an intensive manner, is not enough. Speaking after talks at the Greentree Estate in Long Island, New York, with President of the Republic of Cyprus Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu, Ban said that at the end of March he would be hearing about the process from his Special Adviser on Cyprus Alexander Downer and, ''if his report is positive, consistent with the relevant Security Council resolutions and following consultations with the two sides, I intend to call a multilateral conference in late April or early May.''

Negotiations with the private sector over a Greek bond swap programme (PSI) are entering their final stages, Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said here on Tuesday. Speaking to reporters after an Ecofin meeting in Brussels, the Greek minister said: “We have the approval and the support of the Eurogroup to complete talks with the private sector in the next few days”. He noted that the goal was to complete the form of the PSI within the next eight days and a Greek public offer to private creditors to be made by Feb. 13. “It will take a few days between completing the talks and the official announcement,” Venizelos said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday referred to the thoughts for interim financing of Greece in case negotiations with private creditors for a debt swap will not be completed stressing that “the question of a bridge loan isn’t on my agenda”. Merkel made the comments in a joint press conference with Belgian prime minister Elio Di Rupo after their meeting here, underlining that there is enough time until March to “work on a new Greece program”.

The tourism industry can help in the recovery of the Greek economy, Culture and Tourism Minister Pavlos Geroulanos said on Monday. Addressing an event, organized by HATTA (the Association of tourism and travel agencies) to present the Eos Code, a new working tool for travel agencies, the Greek minister underlined that the country’s participation in large international tourism fora, saying that Greece was recognized for its productive forces.

New Democracy (ND) leader Antonis Samaras and the party's economic officers met on Saturday evening with the EU-IMF troika at the ND headquarters in central Athens. During the one-hour meeting, which was held in a "good climate", the two sides discussed, inter alia, the issue of cuts in auxiliary pensions, although the discussion was not in-depth, according to ND sources. The same sources said that an issue of cutting the Christmas and holiday bonuses was not discussed during the meeting, and opined that there is no specific proposal on the matter, but just thoughts and discussions at this time. The ND sources further said that the discussions focused on substantive and also technical matters, and that the ND side presented its firm positions on the issues of taxation and growth.

The second book of the trilogy "The Ancient Roots of Medieval Europe (5th-15th century", titled "The Pan-Europeanism of Ancient Greek Medical Science in the Middle Ages", has just been released by the Museum of the Hellenic Nobel Collection's (MHNC) publications, in a luxurious large size (33x24), 302-page tome.
Hailed abroad as a unique literary, scientific and artistic work, a collectors' item, the treatise has received an Outstanding Distinction from the Academy of Athens and other organisations in the US, Britain and Italy.