Natural gas supplies from Bulgaria to Greece resumed yesterday after repairs to a section of the pipeline damaged by an explosion earlier this week, Bulgarian authorities said. A pipeline carrying gas from Russia to Greece exploded on Monday near Blagoevgrad, southwest Bulgaria, but caused no casualties. The pipeline supplies some 2.7 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Greece through Bulgaria every year.

Conservationists on Rhodes have asked visitors to the Dodecanese island to take care not to harm sea turtles after 16 of the animals were found dead in the island’s waters this year. The Rhodes Hydrobiological Station said that six of the dead sea turtles were found in July, the highest figure recorded for a single month on the island. This has prompted fears they were killed after being struck by speedboats or jet skis.

There were long delays for travelers crossing between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia due to technical problems at the Evzones and Eidomeni border posts. The problem was caused when telephone wires were cut during excavations in nearby Pefkodasos. The border control points were shut down and all passport checks were conducted at the Doirani post, which resulted in long lines being formed.

An 18-year-old male has been arrested in Patras accused of supplying prison inmates with heroin, police said yesterday. The suspect was allegedly caught using a wooden slingshot to launch small packages of heroin into the prison courtyard. Police believe he is part of a gang that supplies narcotics to inmates.

The Piraeus Prefecture confiscated yesterday 22 tons of kiwi fruit imported from Chile that was unfit for consumption. The fruit, which had been transported via ship container, will be destroyed, authorities said. Since the start of the year, Piraeus Prefecture inspection teams have kept more than 200 tons of bad fruit from being brought into the country.

About 2.3 million euros in government funds will be allocated to covering damage from this summer’s forest fires in Messinia, southern Greece, local prefect Dimitris Drakos said yesterday. Some 800,000 euros of this amount will go toward repairing road networks and other areas damaged by the fires, added Drakos.

An Iraqi man drowned and another was reported missing after a boat carrying 21 illegal immigrants to the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos from Turkey sank. The boat went down in Turkish waters off the town of Ayvalik in Balikesir province. The Turkish coast guard rescued 19 migrants, including a woman who was eight months pregnant.

A Turkish-Cypriot man was jailed for life yesterday after a Cyprus court found him guilty of raping and strangling his Slovak former girlfriend and burying her body on the outskirts of the capital, Nicosia. The court in the southern coastal town of Larnaca described Panicos Netzadi, 32, as a “cold and calculated murderer” whose only motive was to exact revenge on 20-year-old Slovak waitress Janka Kovacova after she ended their relationship when she discovered Netzadi was married. She was last seen on August 17, 2006, being bundled into a white van outside a five-star hotel in the resort of Ayia Napa where she worked. Her body was found with a belt around her neck and her arms and legs bound with rope. (AFP)

The Thessaloniki Prefecture imposed 632,000 euros in fines on restaurants, supermarkets, gas stations and cafeterias in July for breaching trading regulations. Eleven of the business owners will also be called before the prefecture’s trade committee and could face further penalties, while a prosecutor will investigate 26 of the cases involved.