The granting of equal professional rights to graduates of state technical colleges (TEIs) and universities violates Greek law and the Constitution, the fifth section of the Council of State ruled yesterday. The decision, which was approved by three votes to two, is now to be considered by the council’s plenary session.

Provisions in the Constitution, regarding the participation of media owners in state contracts, violate European law, according to a Council of State councilor who yesterday proposed forwarding the matter to the European Court. The proposal followed a discussion by the court’s plenary session of an appeal by construction firm Aktor against the state broadcasting watchdog’s refusal to grant it access to a state contract.

An anarchist group yesterday condemned the December 31 murder of a police officer guarding a British diplomat’s house in a note left at the scene of the Athens shooting. The declaration by the group, calling itself Mavro kai Kokkino (Black and Red), said it had not been involved in the attack on 32-year-old Haralambos Amanatidis. It referred to the perpetrators as a “criminal gang.”

Armed robbers made off with 5,000 euros after raiding a taverna in the Athenian district of Ilioupolis at 2.30 a.m. yesterday, traditionally the busiest night of the Carnival season. The intruders, believed to be foreign nationals, locked the taverna owner and customers in the toilets before fleeing with the night’s takings. An armed robber who swiped 3,000 euros from a post office in Thessaloniki’s Ilioupolis district yesterday was less lucky. He dropped the loot when getting into his car to evade police.

Two sisters, aged 88 and 87, died on Monday night within half an hour of each other at the home they had shared on Rhodes, relatives revealed yesterday. The elder sibling, Iouliani Kasou, died first and her sister Evdokia died half an hour later in the adjacent room, Iouliani’s son said, adding that the second sister had died without knowing that the first had passed away.

Unidentified vandals hurled a Molotov cocktail at a road surveillance camera on Iera Odos in the Athenian district of Kolonos early yesterday morning, causing serious damage.

Traffic will be disrupted on the underground section of Kifissias Avenue between Adrianou and Taygetou streets until March 14 after work started yesterday. The work is being carried out daily between midnight and 6 a.m. From Monday, traffic will be disrupted on the section of the Athens-Corinth national highway between Dafni and the ELPE refinery. Work is to be carried out between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. daily for the next 10 days.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and his visiting Albanian counterpart, Fatos Nano, yesterday discussed bilateral ties and the situation in the Balkans.

The trial of two men convicted for the November 1997 murders of businessman Giorgos Nikolaidis and his companion Soula Kalathaki opened at an Athens appeals court yesterday. Panayiotis Krambis had received two life sentences plus 25 years for his role as instigator of the kidnapping and murders, while Marios Asimakis got a 25-year sentence for complicity. The court heard testimonies from prosecution witnesses, including Nikolaidis’s sister.