CENTRAL POWER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21604, 5 January 1945, Page 3

CENTRAL POWER

PREMIERES POSTS NEW GREEK CABINET

E.A.M. NOT REPRESENTED (10 a.m.) ATHENS, Jan. 3.

General Plastiras has formed a new Government, in which he will hold tne portfolios of War, Navy, Air, and Merchant Marine. The Cabinet consists of seven Ministers, with five Under-Secretaries. The other Ministers include the Socialist, M. Sofianopoulos, as Foreign Minister, and the Liberal, M. Sidens, as Finance Minister. The full Cabinet list is not yet available, but the E.A.M. does not appear to be represented.

General Scobie’s communique reports that (good progress as being made in clearing the insurgents from the centre and east of Athens. A number of insurgents have been taken prisoner. The British in the Piraeus nave liberated further sectors. The Greek National Guard is assisting the British in holding the cleared areas.

General Plastiras’ Cabinet wa„ sworn in before Dr. Damaskinos, Regent of Greece, Ibis afternoon, says Reuter’s Athens correspondent. General Plastiras stated that the aims of his Government were firstly, to restore the meaning of the State by imposing legal order; secondly, to recall all public servants to a full 1 sense of their duty; thirdly, to punish all who had collaborated in crimes during the German occupation; fourthly, to meet the urgent needs ot the population for food, shelter and communications; and fifthly, to stabilise currency and come to the help of the working classes

General Plastiras added that ht hoped he would have the help of the great Allies in the accomplishment oi nis tasks.

MM. Papandreou, Sofoulis, and Kafandaris have announced their support for the new Government. Hundreds of Athens people in the morning shopping crowd panicked when an E.L.A.S. mortar threw six bombs within a minute into Constitution Square, reports the British United Press' Athens correspondent. The volley exploded before the people could find cover from the flying fragments, which hit the sides of the Grand Bretagne Hotel which is the British headquarters in Athens. A number of people were killed and wounded.

British artillery last night and early to-day fired 1001) rounds against the roads leading into Athens from the north. The artillery laid down two smoke-screens, and fired 300 shells containing safe-conduct pamphlets, telling the E.L.A.S. troops that the British were notv facing them everywhere.