In Brief
IMMIGRANT RIOTS
Brawl involving 200 in Chios refugee center causes 15 to be hospitalized Fifteen illegal immigrants were sent to a Lesvos hospital Saturday following riots involving around 200 residents of a refugee center on the nearby island of Chios which started Friday night. The reason the brawl started was yesterday unclear, but one report referred to a disagreement between rival factions over which had the upper hand in running the center in Chios’s Lagada district. Police broke up the fighting early on Saturday morning. PPC PROTEST Staff announce two-day strike Employees of the Public Power Corporation (PPC) are to begin a 48-hour strike on Wednesday, unionists representing workers announced after meeting on Saturday. PPC workers are protesting against draft legislation which they say threatens their jobs and destabilizes their sector following unsuccessful negotiations with Development Ministry officials. Prostitution ring A member of a suspected prostitution ring – believed to have been selling foreign women to Greek men as prospective brides – has been arrested following a tip-off by a potential groom, police in Thessaloniki said on Saturday. The alleged racketeer, identified only as V.S., was caught after a man to whom he offered a 23-year-old Russian woman as a bride in exchange for 30,000 euros informed police. Officers arrested V.S. and another man and are seeking another three suspected ring members. V.S. admitted to keeping foreign women in a Thessaloniki apartment against their will and forcing them to work as prostitutes, police said. Cypriot fishermen Turkish-Cypriot authorities on Friday detained two Greek-Cypriot fishermen off the coast of Paralimni near the Turkish-occupied town of Famagusta, the Athens News Agency reported yesterday. The two men, who have not been named, told a fellow villager – who spoke to them by cell phone – that they were were being held by Turkish-Cypriots in Famagusta and were due to face a court today, the ANA said. Cypriot memorial A service in memory of Cyprus’s army and air force commanders and three other officers who died in a helicopter crash near Paphos last July was conducted at the site of the accident yesterday morning. The service – attended by Greek Armed Forces Chief Lieutenant General Giorgos Antonakopoulos – was held near the village of Kouklia where a monument to the victims has been erected.
