Greece’s pharmaceutical companies are preparing to sue the state in a bid to recover some 3 billion euros they claim they are owed, mostly by public hospitals. The pharmaceutical firms held a news conference yesterday to highlight the payment problems they are facing. They said that their invoices are paid on average 23.6 months, or 708 days, after being issued. They also claimed that some hospitals have not paid for drugs since 2004. The firms said that this means they are effectively lending money to the state free of interest.

Authorities in Katerini, northern Greece, were yesterday checking records of all the recent births in the area after a dead baby was found in a plastic shopping bag at the town’s cemetery. A coroner was due to examine the body to determine the cause of death.

Two Romanian convicts, aged 25 and 23, are believed to have been behind dozens of burglaries in the broader Athens area that netted them 700,000 euros, police said yesterday. The two men, in jail since March, are thought to have carried out 88 raids on homes over the past three years, stealing money as well as jewelry and electronic devices that they are believed to have sold for large profits.

A homemade explosive device detonated outside a cafe-bar in Zea Marina, near Piraeus, early yesterday. The device had been planted outside the back of the cafe, according to police, who gave no indication yesterday of who the perpetrators might be.

Rescue workers yesterday transferred to safety the four passengers aboard a small boat that had suffered engine trouble south of Crete. Three of those aboard the boat were taken to shore aboard a Super Puma helicopter. The fourth was rescued by a port authority vessel. All four were said to be in good health yesterday.

The mother of 11-year-old Alex Meshivili, who disappeared in Veria, northern Greece, more than two years ago, yesterday testified for a third and final day before a court hearing the trial of five schoolchildren accused of killing her son. Natela Ichuadze told the court that she was sure her son was dead. There has been no sign of the 11-year-old since his disappearance in February 2006. Four of the five youngsters implicated in the boy’s disappearance were in court yesterday. The fifth, a 14-year-old ethnic Greek from Albania who lives in Athens, was not in court but is expected to be summoned soon.

Seven policemen told a court in Athens yesterday that they did not have any prior information about any of the 27 suspects they arrested in connection to the death of Michalis Filopoulos, a 25-year-old Panathinaikos fan killed during a hooligan clash last year. The officers told the court that some of the suspects were carrying knives and flare guns at the time of their arrest.