In Brief
ACROPOLIS MUSEUM
Over 500,000 people visited new building in last two months More than half a million people have visited the Acropolis Museum since it opened to the public just over two months ago, the museum’s management said yesterday. More specifically, a total of 523,540 visitors have viewed the museum’s exhibits since June 20. Of these, 60 percent are foreign visitors, museum officials said. During the same two-month period, 409,000 hits by different users from 180 countries were recorded by the museum’s website, www.theacropolismuseum.gr. Hunger strike ‘Rioter’ free after 49-day protest Theodoros Iliopoulos, the only person remanded in custody after last December’s riots in Athens, was released from temporary detention yesterday following 49 days on hunger strike. A misdemeanors council approved the release of the 29-year-old who had lodged two appeals for his release. Iliopoulos, who was last week transferred to the intensive-care unit of an Athens hospital, was said to be in an extremely fragile but stable condition. Olympiakos draw Greek soccer champion Olympiakos was given a favorable draw yesterday for the group stage of the Champions League. Having qualified on Wednesday night after beating Moldovan side Sheriff Tiraspol 1-0 in Athens (3-0 on aggregate) thanks to a Kostas Mitroglou goal, Olympiakos was drawn in Group H and will face Arsenal of England, AZ Alkmaar of the Netherlands and Standard Liege of Belgium. This means that the Reds avoid European soccer powerhouses such as Inter Milan, Juventus and Real Madrid, who were in the group of second seeds along with Alkmaar. Store raids Robbers held up three supermarkets in different parts of Attica yesterday morning in what appeared to be separate raids. The first raid was carried out by two gunmen on a branch of Marinopoulos in the central Athens district of Kypseli. The second holdup took place around half an hour later and involved a branch of Veropoulos in the northeastern district of Halandri. And the third raid targeted a branch of Promitheftiki in the northern suburb of Maroussi. It was unclear how much was netted in the raids, each carried out by two armed robbers. Larco demonstration As the parents of a 25-year-old worker killed at the site of the Larco factory in central Greece prepare to bury their son today, employees of the mining and metallurgical company are set to block the Athens-Lamia national highway, at the junction of Martino in central Greece, to protest the alleged absence of safety standards at the plant. The workers also reportedly object to a government decision to suspend the operation of the company’s furnaces in Larymna where two employees have died this month. The employees reportedly fear that the suspension of the furnaces’ operation might be the first step toward the company’s sell-off. Hashed up Police in Thessaloniki yesterday were questioning three foreign nationals and a Greek on drug-related charges after confiscating more than 7 kilos of cannabis from the forest of Seikh Sou. The suspects are believed to have hidden the drugs in the forest ahead of its planned distribution.
