Public transport organizations yesterday announced changes to schedules over the Easter period. Tomorrow and Tuesday, buses and trolleys will operate according to a Saturday timetable, while a Sunday timetable will apply on Easter Sunday and Monday. Trains on the Athens-Piraeus urban electric railway (ISAP) will run every 10 minutes with services terminating 90 minutes earlier on Saturday. Metro trains will operate run every 10 minutes with services ending an hour earlier on Saturday. Trams will operate every 20 minutes tomorrow, and every 32 minutes on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and his visiting Australian counterpart John Howard yesterday agreed to boost cooperation in the economy and tourism sectors. “We agreed there is ample room to further improve our relations, mainly in the economic sector and tourism,” Karamanlis said. After the talks, Karamanlis asked for Howard’s continued support in attempts to solve the Cyprus problem. A protester in a sheep costume was briefly detained after protesting against Australia’s export of live animals.

Australia seeks trade...

Raids in Thessaloniki and Patras yesterday led to the confiscation of more than 120,000 firecrackers, police said. In Thessaloniki, a 32-year-old man and a 53-year-old woman were detained after police seized more than 65,000 firecrackers from their stores. In Patras, police arrested two people after seizing around 60,000 firecrackers from a convenience store. On Tuesday night, a 51-year-old man was arrested after Athens police seized 21,000 firecrackers from a store in Peristeri. In recent years, police have stepped up action against the illegal tradition of letting off fireworks during Easter celebrations.

Archimandrite Iakovos Yiossakis, a priest thought to have been at the heart of a trial-fixing ring, yesterday testified before an Athens prosecutor. Yiossakis, who is being remanded on charges of stealing religious antiquities, allegedly claims to have done nothing illegal.

A Thessaloniki policeman and another two men were yesterday detained for allegedly trying to smuggle eight Albanian immigrants into the country, police in Grevena said. Two cars, including one allegedly belonging to the unidentified policeman, were used to smuggle the would-be migrants.

A 67-year-old Cretan pensioner, who allegedly paid a 31-year-old woman for sexual favors from herself and her 12-year-old daughter over two years, faced a prosecutor yesterday on charges of molesting a minor. The man allegedly paid between 30 and 40 euros for sexual favors from the woman, who eventually allegedly allowed him to molest her daughter — now 14 — for money. The mother was detained on charges of complicity and procurement.

Two workers were injured yesterday following an explosion at an ink-producing factory in Aghios Dimitrios. The extent of the workers’ injuries was not clear.

A mild earthquake, measuring 3.4 on the Richter scale, yesterday struck the area of Nea Santa in the prefecture of Kilkis. The tremor was probably an aftershock following two stronger quakes, measuring 4.1 and 3.8 on the Richter scale, that struck the same spot last Wednesday, seismologists said. There was no damage or injuries.

Top law enforcement officials from across Europe are to convene in Nicosia on May 25 to 27 for an Interpol summit on crisis coordination and cross-border crime, the organization said yesterday.