NEWS

In Brief

Taxi strike – More buses, trains to be laid on in Athens today Extra buses, trolleys and metro trains will be laid on to compensate for the expected lack of Athens taxis due to a 24-hour strike by cab owners starting at 5 a.m. today, the Ministry of Transport said yesterday. Metro and electric railway train schedules will be more frequent than usual, while the service will close an hour later than normal. Also, buses serving the airport, the port of Piraeus, central train stations and intercity bus terminals will be boosted by 30 percent. Strikers want the government to approve higher fares. Taxi drivers have said they will try to ply their trade normally. Identity mix-up Gypsy compensated for mistaken imprisonment A Thessaloniki court yesterday acquitted a local Gypsy of car theft after it emerged that the guilty man was his cousin with whom he shared the name Dimitris Georgis. The innocent, 26-year-old Georgis, who was detained in prison for one year despite pointing out that his parents’ names did not match those of his wanted cousin, was awarded compensation of 3,000 drachmas for every day of his detainment at the Diavata prison – where his 22-year-old cousin is already serving for other offenses. Revenge Village killing points to vendetta A man was shot dead yesterday near the northwestern Peloponnesian village of Limnohori in apparent revenge for the 1999 murder, by the victim’s brother, of the suspected killer’s own brother. Although Thanassis Lotsaris surrendered to police yesterday claiming responsibility for the killing of Andreas Dimitropoulos, 60, police said they suspected Lotsaris’s 24-year-old son, Giorgos. In 1999, Dimitropoulos’s brother, Angelos, had murdered Giorgos Lotsaris’s 23-year-old brother, Dimitris, who had been having a relationship with Angelos Dimitropoulos’s daughter – to the great disapproval of the Dimitropoulos family. Casino jinx. Attempts to attach tow lines to the hulk of what used to be a Soviet aircraft carrier that came adrift during a storm near the island of Evia on Sunday resulted in the death of a Dutch crew member of the tug boat Haliva Champion yesterday. Aries Lima, 43, was trying to tie a tow line onto the Varyag when he fell to his death from a height of 9 meters. His body was taken to Kymi medical center. The Varyag was made secure yesterday and was to be taken in tow again by the three tugs that are lugging it from Ukraine to China where it will serve as a casino. Ecstasy bust. Finance police (SDOE) have arrested three people, according to Athens News Agency sources quoted yesterday, including a Greek and an Albanian in possession of 10,000 ecstasy pills concealed in candy wrappings. The three allegedly brought the pills into Greece from the Netherlands. Immigrants drown. Five people drowned when a boat carrying 27 illegal immigrants capsized just off the coast of Turkey yesterday. The boat was heading for the Greek island of Kos from a beach near Bodrum, Turkey. There were five known survivors, two Nigerians and three Somalis. Twelve people were missing. According to The Associated Press, Turkish police said the five who had drowned were all Sudanese. Hasikos visit. Cypriot Defense Minister Socrates Hasikos arrived in Athens yesterday for talks with his Greek counterpart, Yiannos Papantoniou. Peace demo. Thessaloniki labor, local government and non-governmental organizations are holding a protest against the war on Afghanistan this afternoon in Aristotelous Square. German connection. Greece is seeking the extradition of German national Jurgen Mike Windrath, 32, of Wuppertal, who has reportedly confessed to the armed robbery in September last year of a bag containing 105 million drachmas outside a bank in Drama, northern Greece. The money, which had just been withdrawn by primary school officials, was to pay the salaries of primary school teachers in the prefecture. Albanian archbishop. Archbishop Anastasios of Albania yesterday met Foreign Minister George Papandreou and other Greek officials during his ongoing visit to Athens.

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