Three people have died in a house fire at Britain’s military base in Akrotiri, southern Cyprus, a British official said yesterday. Cyprus state radio said that a man and his two young sons had died in the blaze but this report could not be confirmed by British army officials who said they had to make a formal identification and brief the next of kin. The cause of the fire at the Royal Air Force Akrotiri compound was not clear yesterday.

Unidentified protesters wearing helmets burst into the premises of Aristotle University’s law school in Thessaloniki early yesterday, hurling Molotov cocktails at Cypriot students who had been in the process of electing a student union committee. Disturbances continued outside the university premises for some time before police arrived and dispersed the troublemakers. No injuries or arrests were reported.

Teachers at the National Technical University of Athens and at the Athens Technical College (TEI) are due to return to work today after some three months of protests against education reforms. These teachers have decided to ignore a decision by their union POSDEP on Friday which advised its members to continue their strikes for an 11th week.

Police in Thessaloniki said on Saturday that they have received crucial information on an international prostitution ring after a 21-year-old foreign woman was arrested at a hotel in the northern city. Police traced two websites and an e-mail address which, they believe, are used by potential clients to arrange meetings with models working as high-class escorts. The 21-year-old woman had in her possession a diary suggesting that she has visited Thessaloniki and three French cities this month.

A Greek tanker carrying 40,000 tons of fuel that has run aground about a kilometer off Gibraltar poses a potential risk to Spain’s southern coastline, ecological associations said yesterday. Greenpeace and the Verdemar ecological group demanded authorities take action to extract fuel from the Samothraki tanker that was towed to a port on Saturday in the British dependent territory. The Gibraltar government said inspection of the vessel had shown it to be in good condition and that its cargo posed no risk of leakage or danger to the environment.