Police bomb disposal experts conducted a controlled explosion on an explosive device that unidentified assailants had planted under the car of an employee of the Piraeus Port Authority (OLP). According to police, the bomb had comprised the motherboard of a cell phone, four cell phone batteries, a SIM card and a sponge. Officers deemed that the device had been planted by someone who had had a personal dispute with the owner of the car.

Vassilis Papageorgopoulos, the mayor of Thessaloniki and vice president of the Central Association of Cities and Communities of Greece (KEDKE), said yesterday that the union is giving the government 40 days to finalize its reforms of local administration. PASOK has announced a plan, known as “Kallikratis,” to overhaul local government by slashing the number of municipalities. “KEDKE’s position is that if these 40 days pass, then the dialogue will stop and we will call an emergency meeting with the aim of starting direct action,” said Papageorgopoulos.

The US State Department yesterday issued a statement condemning the recent arson attacks on Crete’s only remaining Jewish monument, the 17th-century Etz Hayyim Synagogue. “This attack was clearly intended to intimidate and terrorize Greece’s Jewish community and is only the latest of several incidents of anti-Semitic vandalism throughout Greece over the past few years,” the statement said. It added, “We applaud the Greek government for condemning these attacks and taking a strong stand against anti-Semitism and racism.”

A municipal nursery in the northeastern Athens suburb of Halandri was temporarily shut down yesterday after a child was found holding some rat poison that had been placed on the school grounds. Halandri Mayor Grigoris Zafeiropoulos ordered an internal investigation to find out who was responsible for placing the poison there.

An undersea quake measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale occured shortly before noon yesterday off the coast of Cephalonia, in the Ionian Sea. The quake was felt on several of the neighboring islands but no injuries or damage were reported.

Would-be thieves attempted to dislodge a bank ATM from its base in the Thessaloniki suburb of Stavroupoli yesterday but were thwarted when the cable they had tied around the machine and attached to their truck snapped. Bank cash machine thefts are frequent in Thessaloniki and in many parts of Crete.

Coast guard officials in Patrida, in the northern prefecture of Veria, yesterday were questioning two immigrants after discovering 18 kilos of cannabis in their possession. No details were given about the ethnic origin of the migrants.