In Brief
DOG ASSASSIN
Piraeus man arrested after shooting dead four strays on city’s streets Just one week after the government unveiled plans to remove stray dogs from the streets of Greece’s major cities, a Piraeus man was arrested early yesterday after a pre-dawn killing spree in which he shot dead four strays. Police said that when confronted by officers, Antonis Papadopoulos, 57, got into his car and drove away, firing twice in the air with an unlicensed shotgun he had allegedly used earlier to kill the four dogs on the city’s streets. He was finally run to ground on Pireos St in Moschato and arrested after a brief scuffle. TRAIN STRIKE Athens electric railway will not run for four hours today, Monday Athens’s electric railway train services will not be working between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. today and Monday as drivers hold a work stoppage. They are demanding more pay, beyond that foreseen in their collective wage agreement, and other benefits. ORTHODOXY FOR ALL Archbishopric speaks in languages The Athens Archbishopric introduced services in Albanian, Romanian and Russian for Orthodox faithful at three churches this Christmas. Services were held in Albanian at the Aghios Constantinos Church in Omonia and in Romanian at Aghios Nikolaos Pefkakion in Neapoli. They will also both celebrate the Epiphany on January 7, while the Omonia church will hold a New Year’s service in Albanian. The Aghios Panteleimon Church on Acharnon St will hold a Christmas service on January 7 and an Epiphany service on January 19, as Russians, Ukrainians and Georgians follow the Julian Calendar. Conflict of interest A draft Presidential Decree that would ban people who, due to their religious beliefs, would be unable to carry arms or undertake other police duties from being hired as special duty officers does not contravene the Constitution, the Council of State has found in a decision made public yesterday. The draft decree considered by Greece’s highest administrative court defines the criteria for hiring special duty officers. Aggressive pedestrian A mentally disturbed man was charged with assault yesterday after being arrested on Christmas Day for allegedly throwing a bottle from a sidewalk on Athens’s high-speed Syngrou Avenue at a passing motorcyclist. Police said Andreas Christodoulidis, 38, hit Anastassios Constantopoulos, 28, in the back, but neither injured him nor caused him to crash. Officers are now investigating the possibility of Christodoulidis having been behind a series of stone-throwing attacks last year on motorists at the southern end of Syngrou Avenue. Prestige captain Two coast guard officers were to leave yesterday for Spain to visit the captain of the Prestige tanker, Apostolos Magouras, who has been held since November 11, before the vessel sank and fuel it was carrying devastated parts of the Spanish coast. Merchant Marine Minister Giorgos Anomeritis ordered the visit. He and the Union of Greek Shipowners have protested at the captain’s ongoing detention. The ship was Liberian-flagged and registered in the Bahamas. Power protest Members of the Doctors of the World humanitarian organization and Kurdish refugees living in a camp on Mount Pendeli, on the northern outskirts of Athens, held a protest outside the central Public Power Corporation offices in the city center on Christmas Eve demanding that PPC restore the camp’s electricity. Doctors of the World say PPC cut the link two months ago, complaining that the refugees were not paying their bills. Incompetent? Nearly 90 percent of Greek medical graduates from foreign – mainly Balkan – universities have failed the state DIKATSA exams they sat on November 23 and 24 to have their degrees recognized in Greece, and which would allow them to practice in the country. DIKATSA officials told Kathimerini that 88-90 percent of candidates failed to get a passing mark.
