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European soccer Champions Greece will take control of their Euro 2008 qualifying group if they can win their home clash with Moldova tomorrow.

A 2-0 over win over Hungary on Saturday, coupled with second-placed Turkey’s 3-2 defeat in Bosnia, has left Greece two points clear in Group C. With Turkey not in action this week, that lead could be stretched to five points.

The Greeks played arguably their best first half in nearly three years when they scored twice and created numerous other chances. Coach Otto Rehhagel made several changes, bringing in Bundesliga top scorer Fanis Gekas, central midfielder Vassilis Torosidis, who played left, and striker Yiannis Amanatidis for a three-pronged attack with Angelos Charisteas.

“That win gave us three points but there is still a long way to go,” said midfielder Costas Katsouranis. “Theoretically, the Moldova match is easier than Hungary but we have to be serious, focused and play in the same style.”

Tourism Development Minister Fanni Palli-Petralia announced that 16 new golf courses will be added to the existing ones, which include this 18-hole course at Hersonissos on Crete.

Greece will soon add many more golf courses to its existing ones, as the government is promoting 16 investment programs toward this end, Tourism Development Minister Fanni Palli-Petralia announced yesterday.

The Minister spoke of the significance the government attributes to the development of modern golf courses through procedures that secure the protection of the environment. The 16 international-standard courses will be created at Pota in Messenia, in the southern Peloponnese (7), at Cavo Sidero, the Minoan Lines investment (5), at Porto Karras (1), at Kilada Hills (1) and at Atalanti Hills (2).

Palli-Petralia was speaking on the occasion of the award ceremony for the 2nd Aegean Airlines Pro-Am tournament at the Hersonissos course in Crete. This was only the second time an international contest has been held with the support of the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) of Europe and of the Greek PGA. The Chairman of Aegean Airlines and head of the organizing committee of the tournament, Theodoros Vassiliakis, referred to a recent survey by the KPMG consultancy on the expansion of golf into other countries. He said that there is a significant number of courses in all the tourism markets Greece is interested in drawing to its shores.

In Scandinavia, there are over 900 courses with up to 1 million golfers, in the UK and Ireland there are more than 3,000 courses with over 1.5 million players, while in the Mediterranean countries, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, that are potential rivals to Greece, there are more than 1,150 courses and 600,000 players.

The tourism markets of Europe account for 80 percent of arrivals to this country and golf is a great attraction for many visitors. New golf courses will mean many more hotels and will allow tourism companies to operate 12 months a year.

There is considerable growth in neighboring countries, such as Cyprus, which has three courses and plans to build another 11. The CEO of Navarino Resorts, Achilleas Constantakopoulos, said it is very important that the Pro-Am tournament took place for a second straight year. He added that the Mediterranean, including North African countries, has 500 golf courses in operation, combined with hotel installations or rental units and that in the near future this number will soar to 8,000. Andreas Metaxas, the Chief Executive of Cretan Golf, thought it encouraging that environmental concerns are taken into account when creating golf courses in Greece. Thus not only are essential measures taken but also the nature of the neighboring areas can be conserved.

ABP Plus International, of the Cyprus Paraskevaidis Group, will invest over 210 million euro in a major tourism project called Apollo Resort at Soros, near Volos in central Greece. The complex, to be ready in 2012, will include a five-star hotel, a marina and an 18-hole golf course.

Today is World Environment Day, a day of mourning, that is, but fortunately that has nothing to do with us. For here we have never had that insidious killer, smog, in Athens, Thessaloniki, Ptolemaida or Megalopoli… We have never had a capital where two great rivers have been filled in by the state or built upon by private interests, as the state turned a blind eye. We have never had any problem with drought; our coastlines have not been fenced off just 20 minutes away from the Environment Ministry or on once picturesque islands that are now in an unimaginable state.

We have never been inundated by the first heavy rainfall, commonly referred to as an “act of God”, only to wash our hands of the problem. We have no problem with a climate change that makes trees blossom in January.

Predictions by scientists that some of our islands will be under water by the end of the century do not concern us, for the simple reason that we won’t be alive then.

We are at the bottom of the list in Europe in recycling, just 8 percent of our waste, but first in the per capita consumption of electricity, according to the latest environment policy report from the European Commission that reminds us of our obligations, clearly forgotten in the wake of the Olympic Games upheaval, to construct urban waste treatment plants in dozens of towns.

That is why today, at 10 p.m., we Greeks will not be turning off our lights for 10 minutes, as the environmental organizations would like us to do.

For our environmental credentials are irreproachable; it is unreasonable to expect people to turn out the lights in the country that gave, and still gives, its light to the world.

Rising temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea have created appropriate conditions for the migration of a puffer fish from the Red Sea that can be lethal to humans, authorities said yesterday.

According to researchers, the Lagocephalus sceleratus carries potentially deadly toxins in its liver, skin and reproductive organs which are capable of causing muscle paralysis, breathing and blood circulation problems if consumed.

“Our health inspection office has alerted all associations of fishermen and fish merchants,” the Athens prefecture said in a statement.

The grey fish, which has a beak-shaped mouth and four large teeth, has been sighted in waters off the Dodecanese islands of Rhodes and Symi as well as off Crete.

The extension of the Athens Suburban Railway, Proastiakos, to Piraeus, which creates a rail connection between the country’s main port and Athens International Airport, was inaugurated yesterday.

The route from central Athens to Piraeus, experienced by Transport Minister Michalis Liapis yesterday during a test run, covers 7.5 kilometers, takes 18 minutes and costs 70 cents.

But the route that has triggered the most enthusiasm is the service between the airport and Piraeus which takes 50 minutes and costs 6 euros. The service runs once every hour, with the frequency of trips set to increase.

The station at Piraeus and three new stops, Lefka, Rendi and Rouf, all facilitate access for the disabled.

Related Links > http://www.proastiakos.gr/index.php

Compost plant opens after 10-year delay

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis promised yesterday to step up government efforts to oversee and implement programs that can help to fight the greenhouse effect in a bid to close the gap separating Greece from its EU peers regarding environmentally friendly programs.

“We are continually enriching our planning based on new facts from research and the new possibilities offered by technology,” said Karamanlis in a message for today’s World Environment Day. The Prime Minister added that consumers need to help with efforts to improve the country’s poor track record on environmental issues.

On the recycling front, Greece is some 13 years behind the rest of Europe. According to the Environment Ministry, some 14 percent of rubbish was recycled in 2006 and it is hoped that this figure will rise to an ambitious 20 percent this year. The respective EU average stands at around 33 percent.

The government yesterday launched a composting plant in Ano Liosia, northwestern Athens, that will process 50 percent of waste from the city’s landfill. “It is one of the biggest in Europe, offering high technology for the recycling and biological processing of waste,” said Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos. Plans for the compost operation had initially been prepared in 1997 but were delayed due to the lack of political will power and transparent procedures, Pavlopoulos added.

A survey commissioned by environmental group WWF recently showed that Greeks recognize that human behavior is responsible for problems in the environment but that the majority continue to use their cars on a daily basis and rarely recycle.

Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said that even small changes to our daily behavior that do not affect our lifestyles can contribute to a reduction in the greenhouse effect. “A crucial factor in implementing effectively an environment policy is increasing knowledge and awareness,” he said.

Former United States president George Bush arrived at the Megas Alexandros, Alexander the Great, Interational Airport of Chrysoupolis, near the coastal city of Kavala in northern Greece, on Monday, accompanied by his wife Barbara, their twin granddaughters and friends, to begin a vacation in the region.

Former US President George Bush arrived in Greece yesterday for a sailing holiday as a guest of shipping tycoon Spiros Latsis. The former president and his entourage flew by helicopter to a cruiser anchored at the port of Nea Peramos the previous day under tight security. A smiling George Bush briefly walked on the vessel’s deck with his wife and grandchildren before going inside the yacht, which sailed off into the northern Aegean Sea at noon, accompanied by a coast guard vessel.

Bush’s weeklong stay is scheduled to include a tour around the northern Aegean islands of Thasos, Lemnos and Samos as well as the Sporadic Islands. Bush is expected to also visit the all-male Orthodox Monastic community of Mount Athos, as he has done in numerous previous visits to Greece.