In Brief
Symptoms resembling those of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) displayed by a Korean passenger who arrived at Athens Airport yesterday on a Air France flight triggered an alert but turned out to be a false alarm. Airport health officials reassured flight attendants that the symptoms were no cause for alarm. According to the Center for the Control of Infectious Disease, no case of SARS, which has killed at least 116 people worldwide, has been found in Greece. A similar false alarm occurred last week at the same airport. ROADBLOCKS Residents protest plans for garbage sites The Athens-Corinth national road will be closed at its junction with Aspropyrgos Bridge between noon and 1 p.m. today as residents and municipal authority officials protest against government plans to extend the waste disposal site at Ano Liosia. A similar blockage is also anticipated at the Kapandriti junction of the Athens-Lamia national road this morning, due to a protest by residents of Kapandriti scheduled for 8 a.m. in the center of the eastern Attica town. Protesting residents blocked the Kapandriti junction last Sunday in protest at plans for a new waste disposal facility in the area. LATSIS Shipping tycoon dies at 93 Shipping magnate Yiannis Latsis, one of Greece’s richest men, died yesterday at the age of 93. The Latsis group gave no details of the cause or place of his death. Latsis’s business empire – which included shipping, banks, refineries and construction companies – was estimated to be worth more than $5 billion. Latsis’s son Spyros had taken over management of most of the family business over the last few years. (Page 3) Holiday ferries An extra 424 passenger ferries will leave Piraeus for the Aegean islands and Crete between today and May 4 to accommodate Easter holidaymakers, Merchant Marine Minister Giorgos Anomeritis said yesterday. Extra staff will be on hand to speed up the embarkation of passengers and vehicles over the busy Easter holiday, the minister said. ELA alone Suspected Revolutionary Popular Struggle (ELA) terrorist Christos Tsigaridas told examining judge Leonidas Zervobeakos – who visited Korydallos Prison yesterday – that the left-wing group had always functioned on its own, and had no links with any other organization. ELA is suspected of having maintained close ties with the smaller May 1 group, with which it is believed to have merged in 1990. Tsigaridas, who was arrested in January, has admitted «political responsibility» for the group’s acts up to 1990, after which he claims to have left ELA. 2004 information A total of eight Citizen Information Centers (KEPs) will be handed over for use by the Athens 2004 Organizing Committee by this summer, Interior Minister Costas Skandalidis said yesterday following a meeting with Athens 2004 President Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki. Skandalidis said his ministry foresees a total of 30 Olympic KEPs operating by the summer of 2004. Easter fare Butchers in Attica will be open from 7.30 a.m. to 4 p.m. next Monday and Tuesday, until 9 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, from noon until 9 p.m. on Good Friday, and from 7.30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Easter Saturday. They will be closed on Easter Monday. Bakeries will be closed on Easter Monday and the following Tuesday (April 29). Ferry death A man found dead in the restroom of a passenger ferry bound for Iraklion, Crete from Piraeus, and another man found in a comatose state in the vessel’s third-class seating area early yesterday morning, had apparently taken narcotic substances, the Merchant Marine Ministry said yesterday. The dead man could not be immediately identified, the ministry said, adding that 24-year-old Athenian Ilias Emmanouil was taken to the hospital on Milos. New beehives A total of 1.7 million euros will be spent to subsidize the replacement of 70,000 beehives across the country, the government said yesterday.
