In Brief
Hellenic Telecommunications Organization (OTE) CEO Lefteris Antonakopoulos yesterday announced his intention to shut down the telecom firm’s money-losing mobile telecommunications operation in Romania, CosmoRom. OTE acquired CosmoRom earlier this year as part of the deal giving it a majority in Romania’s fixed-line monopoly, Romtelecom. CosmoRom had just a 2 percent share of the local market. Although Antonakopoulos said OTE planned to hold on to its mobile telephony license, the Romanian government said this would not be possible. PIRI REIS Turkish vessel approaches Greek islets without surveying, retreats The Turkish oceanographic vessel Piri Reis yesterday came within 9.5 nautical miles of the group of Kalogeroi islets in the central Aegean after setting sail from the Turkish port of Cesme. The Piri Reis turned around and headed back to Cesme without conducting any surveying work on the continental shelf, according to navy officials monitoring the area. Earlier this week, Foreign Ministry spokesman Panayiotis Beglitis said Greece would not permit any attempt by the Piri Reis to enter Greek waters following reports that the vessel would be surveying 26 points in the Aegean. IRAQI CHILDREN 5-year-old girl dies in hospital A 5-year-old Iraqi girl, being in treated in Athens’s Aghia Sophia children’s hospital since last Friday, died yesterday, the Greek office of the Doctors of the World organization said. It was unclear what Tayeba Nafea was suffering from. Another 11 children, who were flown to Greece from Iraq last week, are in Athens’s Aghia Sophia, Geniko Kratiko and Ippocrateio hospitals. Three of the children recently underwent surgery for heart and brain ailments and landmine injuries. All are in stable condition. Kos conference «Alternative proposals exist, economic policy is no one-way street,» Foreign Minister George Papandreou said on Kos yesterday at the conclusion of a conference on transatlantic ties and the post-September 11 situation. «It is possible to tackle international problems with a progressive approach,» he added. The event was attended by Former US President Bill Clinton, former US special envoy for Cyprus Richard Holbrooke and Turkey’s former ministers of foreign affairs and economy, Ismail Cem and Kemal Dervis. Aegean Rally Dozens of yachts set sail from the Bay of Faliron yesterday afternoon in the 40th International Aegean Rally. They headed out to sea in a light wind for Rethymnon, on the island of Crete, where the first yachts are expected to arrive early on Sunday. There they will be joined by 13 local craft which will take part in two shorter sections of the race. Roadwork Traffic on Ippocratous Street in central Athens will be severely disrupted from today until Friday as work gets under way to resurface the road which is to form part of next year’s Olympic cycle race route. Works are to be carried out between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. daily but disruptions are likely around the clock. Erdogan in Halkis? Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had visited the Greek Orthodox Theological School on Halki while he was training to become an imam, according to an article in yesterday’s Turkish daily Hurriyet. Erdogan’s visit must have been before 1971, as the school was closed in that year, the article noted, adding that the Turkish premier supports the reopening of the school. Journalists defended The prosecution of two newspaper journalists, accused of allegedly thwarting the arrest of a November 17 suspect by leaking depositions taken during the N17 police investigation, is a «direct attack on freedom of the press,» the board of the Athens Journalists’ Union said yesterday. Eleftherotypia’s Panayiotis Stathis and To Vima’s Despina Brousali face charges in connection with «harboring a criminal.» November 17 Confessed November 17 group member Constantinos Telios was yesterday moved to another section of Korydallos Prison due to pressure from fellow detainees to revoke his admission of involvement in N17’s activities.
