A court in The Hague yesterday barred Dutch authorities from deporting asylum seekers who entered Europe via Greece, citing serious flaws in the Greek asylum procedure, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. According to AFP, the district court ruled in favor of a Somali plaintiff, noting that the Greek asylum procedure may be unable to meet its international obligations due to “so many shortcomings.”

Local authority representatives from Thessaloniki yesterday voted to allow the city’s saturated Tagarades landfill to remain open until the end of the end of the year in a bid to solve the area’s chronic garbage management problem, reversing an earlier decision to close it. A new landfill at Mavrorachi, which opened a few weeks ago, was quickly blocked by locals. Officials are due in Athens tomorrow to discuss the problem with Deputy Interior Minister Thanassis Nakos.

Authorities at the agricultural prison of Tyrintha in the Peloponnese were yesterday looking for two inmates who failed to return from their furloughs last Friday as scheduled. The inmates are a 27-year-old foreign national serving a six-year term for robbery and a 47-year-old Greek serving a 15-year sentence for illegal detention and robbery.

A corpse in an advanced state of decomposition was retrieved yesterday from a ditch in Varibobi, at the foot of Mount Parnitha. A coroner did not give any details yesterday about the identity of the body or cause of death.

More than 500 imitation stethoscopes are feared to be in use by doctors in Greece, it was revealed yesterday after authorities in Thessaloniki raided a medical equipment warehouse in the city. A batch of 560 of the phony stethoscopes, which are copies of more expensive models but do not work as well, were imported to Greece from China. Only 77 were found at the warehouse so officials have warned that up to 483 of the stethoscopes may be in the hands of Greek doctors. A 59-year-old woman has been charged.

Residents on the island of Santorini have raised a 40-meter banner on the hillside over the port of Athinio demanding the removal of the wreck of the Sea Diamond, which sank there last year. Louis Cruise Lines, the company that owns the ship, has so far refused to salvage the vessel or pump the remaining fuel from its tanks.

Piraeus Prefecture revealed yesterday that it has fined 176 taxi drivers more than 75,000 euros this year following complaints from customers. The most common gripe, from just over a quarter of those who filed complaints, was with drivers who refused to pick up customers because of their destination.