Doctors warned yesterday of a growing number of cases of measles in the last two months, especially among those aged 15 to 35 who had not received the right vaccination at a young age. Medical authorities also instructed pediatricians to step up injections against the disease to children from as young as 2 years old.

President Moshe Katzav will make the first visit of an Israeli head of state to Greece between February 14 and 16, the office of the Greek president confirmed yesterday. Katzav will begin his visit in Athens, where he will be received by his counterpart Karolos Papoulias, before continuing the next day to the northern port city of Thessaloniki, where the two men will visit the Jewish Museum and the Holocaust Memorial.

Police in northern Greece yesterday continued their search for an 11-year-old boy who disappeared from his hometown of Veria on Friday, but were hindered by persistent snowfall in the area. Russian-born Alex Meshisvili was last seen at his basketball practice on Friday evening. Police have been scouring the prefecture of Imathia, and other regions of northern Greece, since then.

Former priest Iakovos Yiossakis and monk Kyrillos Stavropoulos yesterday dismissed the accusations of antiquities theft against them yesterday as being the product of the imagination of another monk, Seraphim Marcelo. The two are being held in connection with the alleged theft of 22 items from a monastery in Kythera. Yiossakis told the Piraeus appeals court that Marcelo was a “storyteller” who had influenced the testimony of 45 islanders against him. The trial is due to continue on Friday.

Appeals court prosecutor Kirakos Karoutsos yesterday charged former judge Antonia Ilia and former head of the administration of the Athens First Instance Court Gerasimos Dionysatos with breach of duty in relation to a case involving the Greek representative of the Belgian chocolate firm Leonidas. Ilia had presided over the trial and Dionysatos was allegedly responsible for allocating her the case. Karoutsos also charged lawyers Giorgos Nikolopoulos and Sakis Kehayioglou with breach of duty. Ilia, Kehayioglou and Nikolopoulos are alleged to be part of a trial-fixing ring.

The Greek police said yesterday that centers for the issuing of national identification cards will open until late on Wednesdays from now on to provide services to people who work during the day. The offices will be be open from 2 p.m. until 8.30 p.m. on Wednesdays. They will be open during the morning on other weekdays. The centers will also be open between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Saturdays but will deal only with applications from schoolchildren.

Judges hearing the appeal of members of the November 17 terrorist group said yesterday that they would reserve judgment on whether to admit testimonies gathered during a preliminary investigation into the organization. Some of the group members had claimed that they were pressured into testifying. The court said that it would include the testimonies in the case file and rule later in the trial on whether the evidence was admissible.

Several Athens schools will be closed today due to defects in their heating systems, Athens Prefect Yiannis Sgouros said yesterday. The schools affected include two secondary schools and technical colleges in Galatsi.

A toy mobile phone and an electric tomato strainer have been withdrawn from the market, the European Union’s Rapid Alert System for Non Food Products (RAPEX) announced. According to RAPEX, the noise made by the toy mobile phone was above the allowable limit while there was a danger of electrocution from the tomato strainer. Neither of the products meets EU guidelines.