The European Constitution is to be discussed by a 70-member cross-party parliamentary committee prior to its ratification, Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis said yesterday following an Inner Cabinet debate chaired by Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis. The committee will debate the constitution - due to be tabled in Parliament soon - before handing it over to the plenary session, Molyviatis said.

The state owes 200 million euros to the Athens Water and Sewage Company (EYDAP) and 40 million euros to Athens transport organizations, sources at the General Accounting Office said yesterday. The state is already paying off a 400-million-euro debt to the Lawyers' Pension Fund that was uncovered a few months ago, the sources said.

Attica residents are to stage a rally outside the Transport and Communications Ministry at Ethniki Amyna at noon today, calling for the removal of mobile telephony masts for health reasons. Protesters are due to meet with Deputy Minister Anastassios Nerantzis ahead of the debate in Parliament of a bill which, they say, will facilitate the installation of mobile antennae. Around 150 such masts operate in Attica despite rulings revoking their licenses.

Turkish police stand in front of the Greek Consulate during a protest march by Turkish Kurds in Istanbul yesterday. Officers dispersed hundreds of Turkish Kurds trying to approach the consulate to denounce what they see as Greece's role in the capture of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan in Kenya in February 1999. Turkish agents caught Ocalan after he was forced to leave the Greek Embassy in Nairobi.

Police clash with pro-Ocalan Kurdish protesters across Turkey

A tomb dating to the fourth century BC has been unearthed in the Thessaloniki district of Stavroupolis by workmen installing an underground water pipe, it was revealed yesterday. The contents of the tomb, measuring 1.5 meters by 2 meters, included a gold necklace, gold earrings and a gold ring.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis yesterday awarded the main prize of the 2004 state literature awards to writer Costas Stergiopoulos. Antonis Fostieris, Vassilis Alexakis and Achilleas Kyriakidis received the poetry, novel and short-story prizes, respectively.

A meeting between President Tassos Papadopoulos and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Ledra Palace Hotel in Nicosia's buffer zone would not be out of the question, Cypriot government spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides said yesterday. He was speaking after a briefing by Cypriot opposition leader Nikos Anastassiades, who met with Erdogan in Ankara.

Telecom Italia Mobile, the Italian mobile telecommunications company, is reportedly at an advanced stage of negotiations to sell its Greek subsidiary, TIM Hellas, to a global investment firm.

TIM Hellas up for sale; talks at advanced stage

A 19-year-old woman who allegedly killed her newborn son was yesterday under observation in a hospital in Yiannitsa. The woman, who was not named, is believed to have stabbed her son with a sharp instrument shortly after giving birth at her home in the village of Arachos, Imathia.

A motorist pulled into a gas station off the Ioannina-Kozani road near Eleousa, shot his female passenger dead and then fatally shot himself, police said yesterday without naming the couple.