In Brief
CHILD CRITICAL
Girl, 5, undergoes surgery after being hit by falling plaster in gym A 5-year-old girl from the Macedonian village of Meliki last night underwent surgery at Thessaloniki’s Papanikolaou Hospital after being struck on the head by chunks of plaster falling from the roof of her municipal gym hall. Doctors said the next 24-hour period would be critical for the girl, who was identified only as Antonia. The 5-year-old had been training with a another 17 young gymnasts when chunks of plaster fell from a 2-square-meter section of ceiling. The building was constructed in the late 1970s. WORK SITE DEATH One man electrocuted, second injured in Thessaloniki freak accident A 30-year-old subcontractor was fatally electrocuted and a 42-year-old Albanian workman seriously injured in a freak accident on a construction site in Nea Halkidona, Thessaloniki. The two men were hit by falling electricity cables that were severed after being accidentally struck by a pressurized cement pipe being used on the site. SOUDA MURDER Soccer player implicated in shooting Police investigating the murder of a 31-year-old interpreter for the local US army base in Souda Bay last Sunday are seeking a 22-year-old Olympic-level soccer player in connection with the crime. Police said Anastasios Dagounakis – who has played for second and third division clubs as well as Greece’s Olympic soccer team – is believed to have been the accomplice of 22-year-old Christos Lefakis, who has been charged with killing Dimitris Karinakis. Archbishop visit The archbishop of Canterbury is due in Istanbul on Monday for a three-day visit to Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios, the patriarchate said yesterday. It will be Archbishop Rowan Williams’s first visit to Vartholomaios since he was appointed leader of the 77-million-member Anglican Communion in February. The two churchmen are to attend a meal on Monday, hosted by Turkey’s top Islamic cleric Ali Bardakoglu, to break a dawn-to-dusk fast held by Muslims during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the Patriarchate said. Olympic briefing «No Greek would disapprove» of using the stadium at Ancient Olympia as part of next year’s Games, Athens 2004 organizing committee President Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki said yesterday after briefing President Costis Stephanopoulos on the progress of Olympic preparations. Angelopoulos-Daskalaki was responding to a reporter’s question about whether the president supported Athens 2004’s surprise proposal to stage next year’s Olympic shot put event at the ancient stadium. Angelopoulos-Daskalaki also briefed Stephanopoulos on plans to ensure the smooth operation of the capital during the Games. Military talks Britain’s navy chief Admiral Sir Alan West is to arrive in Athens on Sunday for a three-day visit to discuss bilateral issues with his top Greek military officials. Mitsotakis discharged Former Prime Minister and opposition New Democracy’s honorary chairman Constantinos Mitsotakis was yesterday discharged from Athens’s Evangelismos Hospital. He had been hospitalized on Monday with a salmonella infection. No statistics Staff of the National Statistics Service’s general secretariat on Monday enter their seventh week of strike action over pay. Because of the strike, the service has not released economic data for the third quarter of 2003. The legality of the staff’s strike action has yet to be ruled upon due to a lawyers’ strike over the last two days. Dead cows State vets in Xanthi yesterday confirmed that they had discovered the corpses of several cows along the banks of the River Nestos in reaction to press reports about the presence of dead animals in the area. The corpses were in various stages of decomposition with some having been buried years ago, according to the vets who said that farmers use the area to dump their dead animals. The corpses have been hygienically buried in Xanthi’s landfill and the area disinfected, the vets added.
