In Brief
INVASION COMPENSATION
Turkey agrees to pay $900,000 to Greek-Cypriot property owner Turkey yesterday told Council of Europe officials that it would pay a Greek-Cypriot landowner $900,000 in compensation for barring her access to her property in Kyrenia in the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus, sources in Strasbourg said yesterday. Titina Loizidou will receive the sum by October, Turkey’s permanent representative in the French town reportedly told council officials yesterday. The European Court of Human Rights issued a landmark ruling in 1998, obliging Turkey to compensate Loizidou, but the Turkish government subsequently procrastinated, fearing that payment would set a precedent for other similar cases. LIGHTNING STRIKES Tourist dies while swimming, N17 suspect’s family home hit Lightning storms over the northwestern port of Preveza yesterday resulted in the death of a 35-year-old German bather and damage to the family home of a November 17 terror group suspect. Marcus Nahweld was struck by lightning just before 3 p.m. as he swam off the coast of Ammoudia. His friends recovered his body from the sea. Nahweld’s is the third death by lightning in just over 10 days. A few minutes later a bolt of lightning struck the home of N17 suspect Costas Karatsolis’s father in the area of Ayia, triggering a fire which caused minimal damage. AEGEAN JOUSTS More air space violations Defense Ministry sources said 20 Turkish warplanes violated flight regulations in the Athens Flight Information Region seven times yesterday and violated Greek air space as many times in the central and northern Aegean. Greek fighters intercepted them and there were seven mock dogfights. Holocaust tribute German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, in Thessaloniki yesterday on his way to the European Union summit in Halkidiki, attended a service in memory of the tens of thousands of Greek Jews deported to die in Nazi WWII concentration camps. Thessaloniki’s flourishing prewar Jewish community was almost entirely wiped out. «I am ashamed and saddened that Germany committed such a huge crime,» Fischer said. Strike illegal An Athens court yesterday declared illegal and excessive a series of three 24-hour strikes by Social Security Foundation (IKA) doctors which ended yesterday. Smugglers jailed A Xanthi court yesterday sentenced two Greeks to nine years and 11 months each in jail after guards at the Turkish border discovered 51 illegal immigrants in a truck being driven by one of the men. The migrants – mostly from Burma and China – told police that construction workers Giorgos Peidis, 30, and Victorias Tantekidis, 22, had collected them from the border to take them to Athens. The court also imposed 165,000-euro penalties on the pair, who can pay off their sentences. Also yesterday, coast guards on Evia detained 26 migrants while six were located on Lesvos. Quake aid The Greek government yesterday handed over 200,000 euros for the victims of the 6.1-Richter earthquake that struck eastern Turkey on January 27. The donation was handed over to Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin by Greece’s ambassador in Ankara, Michalis Christides, in the Turkish capital yesterday. Parliament recess Parliament yesterday ended plenary sessions ahead of the summer recess, during which it will shrink to a third of its size. MPs are to participate in rotating recess sessions until the beginning of October. Frigate returns The frigate Kountouriotis is due to sail into the naval base of Salamina this morning following a four-month stint in the Persian Gulf. It was carrying out patrol and escort duties in the Indian Ocean as part of the US-led military operation «Enduring Freedom,» a navy statement said yesterday.
