State broadcaster ERT President Christos Panagopoulos yesterday gave Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis a check for just under 15 million euros - the proceeds of ERT's telemarathon and of donations to cash boxes set up at Syntagma and at Athens International Airport - for victims of the tsunami. Mobile phone donations as well as the proceeds of two auctions, a charity concert and CD will follow, Panagopoulos said. Molyviatis said that a special committee, to be monitored by the General Accounting Office, would be set up to manage the donations.

The Athens Water and Sewage Company (EYDAP) yesterday announced the names of seven firms and consortia bidding to undertake the removal of 200,000 tons of waste that has built up on its recycling plants on the islet of Psyttaleia, off Piraeus, and at its Metamorphosis sewage plant. The company that wins the tender will also be obliged to shift an extra 200,000 tons of sludge expected to build up per year on the two plants, EYDAP said. The tender is the first concrete step that has been made to reduce the waste mountains.

Coast guards yesterday discovered a plastic life raft northwest of Chios and a circular dinghy off the Kalogeroi islets, both bearing the name «Lady O,» the Merchant Marine Ministry said yesterday. Six crew members of the Lady O freighter, which sank off Psara, west of Chios, on Monday, were still missing yesterday. Two seamen drowned when the North Korean-flagged vessel sank. An empty life raft was also found off the island of Andros early yesterday.

A member of the Revolutionary Popular Struggle (ELA) terror group, Christos Tsigaridas (file photo), exited Korydallos prison yesterday following his release on grounds of ill health. Tsigaridas, 64, had served three months of his 25-year jail sentence for his role in the extreme left-wing group. A court on Monday accepted his appeal for release on the condition of an 8,000-euro bail payment. Tsigaridas will also be barred from leaving the country and will have to appear at his local police station twice a month.

An Athens misdemeanors court yesterday convicted three motorists who had been taking part in illegal car races along Vouliagmenis Avenue early on Saturday. Nikos Mitsotakis and Panayiotis Papalexis received 15-month suspended jail sentences and were told their cars would be impounded. Dimitris Papadopoulos received a 15-month sentence which he can buy off.

A decision by Greece's Supreme Court last week to ban the Turkish Union of Xanthi is «worrying,» the Turkish Foreign Ministry said yesterday. Ministry representative Namik Tan expressed concern that the Greek court had decided to ban the Muslim minority association because it has the word «Turkish» in its title.

A 20-year-old Cypriot motorcyclist who caused the deaths of a brother and sister after crashing into them on a sidewalk in Nicosia last week while attempting to do a wheelie faces life in prison after a county court charged him with manslaughter yesterday. Marios Vassileiou hit Vassilis and Argyro Michail after trying to overtake a car on one wheel of his motorcycle but losing control.

Police in Rio were yesterday seeking the owner of a horse which bolted out in front of a car in the village of Kastritsi, resulting in the death of a 16-year-old student during the ensuing crash. Costas Thanopoulos had been in the passenger seat of the car, being driven by his 21-year-old friend, when the horse appeared in front of them. The horse's fate was unclear.