As diplomats from Athens and Skopje prepared to meet from today in New York for yet another round of talks on the Macedonia name dispute with United Nations mediator Matthew Nimetz, Greece’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Giorgos Koumoutsakos admitted that the current climate “does not justify any optimism.” Nimetz is first to meet the two diplomats for three-way talks, before holding talks with each separately tomorrow.

New excavations at a rich ancient cemetery in northern Greece have yielded gold jewelry, bronze and iron weapons and pottery, authorities said yesterday. Archaeologists digging in part of a vast burial ground near Pella, the ancient Macedonians’ capital, unearthed 43 new graves dating from 650-279 BC, a Culture Ministry statement said. The dead included 20 warriors who had been buried in the Archaic period, between 580 and 480 BC, with bronze helmets, iron swords, daggers and spearheads. Ornaments of gold foil – specially made for funerary use – covered their mouths, eyes and chests, the statement said. (AP)

Staff at the capital’s main landfill at Fyli, northwest of Athens, yesterday closed the site for the day and threatened further protest action unless stalled plans for the construction of two new dumps in eastern Attica are pushed forward. The head of the Association of Municipalities and Communities of Attica Prefecture (ESDKNA), Nikos Hiotakis, warned that authorities would face heavy fines as well as losing out on some 250 million euros in European Union funding if the two landfills are not built in accordance with its obligations as an EU state.

A magistrate in Halkida yesterday ordered the pre-trial detention of a 77-year-old former Japanese ambassador and his 67-year-old Greek wife charged with murdering their 36-year-old daughter at their villa on Evia. Masami Tanida and his wife Maria were arrested last Friday after police found the body of their daughter Amphithea wrapped in a sheet in one of the bathrooms. Officers raided the villa after the dead woman’s partner and father of her 3-year-old daughter reported her missing. The parents claim their daughter committed suicide.

Some 1.5 million children and almost 200,000 teachers will return to classes today for the start of the new academic year as arguments continue about the shortage of teaching staff. It is estimated that Greece’s 15,750 schools are short of 2,000 to 5,000 teachers.