A prosecutor in Athens yesterday named four of the men arrested in connection to one of the allegedly biggest child pornography rings ever discovered in Greece. Panayiotis Poulios named the suspects after Justice Minister Sotiris Hatzigakis said on Friday that the law allowed for them to be identified because it was in the interests of public safety. The four suspects are Vassilis Georgiadis, Yiannis Karahalios, Antonis Hiotakis and Spyros Nikoloudakis. Another eight people have been arrested in connection to the case and one of them, a 41-year-old Greek American, was remanded in custody in Thessaloniki yesterday. He denied the charges.

Government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos said yesterday that Greece has done all it can to safeguard its national security in its agreement to sell 3 percent of its stake in OTE telecom to German firm Deutsche Telekom (DT). His comments were in response to reports in Germany linking DT to a phone-tapping scandal. Roussopoulos said the matter was “serious and especially interesting.”

OTE Q1 profit seen rising 6.3 percent...

Secondary school pupils will henceforth be asked to return their textbooks “in mint condition” at the end of the academic year in a new Education Ministry drive aimed at cost-cutting. The ministry sent a circular to all state secondary schools today, telling teachers to ask for books to be given back “so that money can be saved and invested in improving school infrastructure.” The drive is also aimed at putting a stop to the tradition of pupils tearing up their textbooks at the end of the year.

The Hellenic Food Authority (EFET) said yesterday that it had received data from around 85 percent of Greek food manufacturers and retailers showing that products containing sunflower oil pose no health risk to consumers. According to this data, only 1,000 tons of the imported sunflower oil found to be tainted with mineral oil was used in the manufacture of food products and only in very small quantities.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis pledged yesterday that Greece would live up to its Kyoto Protocol commitments despite being suspended from the treaty’s emissions-trading system. Karamanlis made the comments as he met the two Greek scientists, Christos Zerefos and Alkiviadis Bais, who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize as part of their work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The investigating magistrate handling the investigation into the alleged blackmail of former Culture Ministry general secretary Christos Zachopoulos yesterday summoned two unidentified lawyers to testify in connection with the case. Last Friday lawyer Christos Nikoloutsopoulos, a key witness in the alleged blackmail of Zachopoulos, was remanded in custody.

Police said yesterday they have arrested a woman in Ioannina, northern Greece, for pretending to collect money on behalf of charity groups. Police said the woman was found in possession of 100 euros’ worth of receipts issued from a booklet that had not been validated by the tax authorities, as required by law.

A 42-year-old woman accused of killing her husband in Thessaloniki and burying him in a nearby forest has been remanded in custody, awaiting her trial. The woman, who has denied all charges, has been accused of shooting her husband at point-black range at the end of last month with a hunting rifle before burying the body with the help of a male friend, according to police.

The trial of a former Competition Commission director, a customs official and a wheat merchant accused of colluding to demand a 2.5-million-euro bribe from the Mevgal dairy firm so the watchdog would not fine the company, was postponed yesterday until June 10 as one of the defense lawyers was unable to attend the hearing.