In Brief
LAVRION CONTRACT
PPC board charged with breach of faith in 194 million tender All 11 members of the Public Power Corporation (PPC) board were charged yesterday with breach of faith in connection with the awarding of a 194-million-euro contract for a section of a new electricity plant at Lavrion, in southeastern Attica. Athens prosecutor Athina Theodoropoulou pressed the misdemeanor charges after a probe found that the terms of the tender for the project had been rigged in favor of the winning company. VOLOS BEHEADING Woman confesses to killing ‘violent’ husband in his sleep A Volos woman was arrested yesterday after confessing to police that she had beheaded her husband with an ax while he was asleep in their home. Officers found the decapitated body of Dimitris Tsiamis, 52, lying on a sofa. Paraskevi Tsiami, 48, told police she killed her husband after he viciously beat her following an intense argument yesterday. ROTTEN MEAT Over 11 tons seized in Piraeus Over 11 tons of meat, poultry and fish have been seized by Piraeus prefecture public health inspectors as unsuitable for human consumption this month, prefect Yiannis Michas said yesterday. Much of the spoiled food was seized at the Rendi meat market, which supplies most Athens butchers. Michas said inspections have been stepped up ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays. Flu alert Hospitals and health centers around Greece are on the alert for outbreaks of the Fujian strain of influenza, which has proved fatal in several cases worldwide, Health Minister Costas Stefanis told journalists yesterday following a conference with public health officials. Ministry officials said that while there has been a recent surge in flu cases in the country no outbreaks of the Fujian strain have been diagnosed. «Nobody knows if, and when, the epidemic will reach our country,» Stefanis said, adding that hospital authorities are obliged to declare all flu cases to the Center for the Control of Special Infections (KEEL). Trash problems A decision by the union of Attica municipalities (ESDKNA) to close the Ano Liosia dump, which takes most of the capital’s rubbish, between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. daily and for 15 hours on Saturdays and 16 hours on Sundays, is expected to cause a buildup of rubbish in Athens over the Christmas holidays, Athens Municipality officials warned yesterday. ESDKNA says it is necessary to close the dump in order to safely compact the garbage. Airport project Greece’s highest administrative court has put a temporary halt to planned works to extend Thessaloniki’s Macedonia Airport, in response to suits by three companies whose bids for the project were rejected. The Council of State found that the Public Works Ministry had failed to clearly explain why it did not accept the bids, and had failed to take into consideration some of the documents filed by the three firms. The 220.1-million-euro project involves construction of a new runway. The tender was called in August 2001. Bomb fantasy? Senior police officials yesterday dismissed as hyperbole and fantasy the claims by a Romanian that he witnessed a Greek selling 44 crates of explosives to two men in a dinghy, who may have been Arabs, in the Greek port of Leonidio. According to the Athens News Agency yesterday, the Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that the Romanian had told Italian police that the incident had occurred on October 27. Italian police contacted their Greek counterparts, who told the Athens News Agency that the Romanian’s claims were fanciful.
