In Brief
CHECHNYA BLAST
Attack that killed president reviled Government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos condemned yesterday’s bomb explosion in the Chechnyan capital of Grozny which killed Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov and more than 20 others in a stadium where dignitaries were gathered to celebrate the 1945 Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. «Violence and terrorism have no homeland. We condemn unequivocally, and in the most categorical way, today’s terrorist attack in Chechnya,» Roussopoulos said. Top brass The Government Council on Foreign Policy and Defense yesterday appointed Nikolaos Douvas as the new chief of the army’s staff after last week’s resignation of Panayiotis Harvalas following a string of fatal accidents in the armed forces over the past month. Lieutenant-General Douvas was formerly commander of the first army. Immigrants Coast guards in the southern Peloponnese yesterday detained a group of 124 illegal immigrants who had been dropped off near the village of Lageia, in the Mani, the night before, the Merchant Marine Ministry said. The migrants, whose nationalities were not made public, said they had been brought to Mani on a 20-meter wooden fishing boat from Turkey, the ministry said. Over the last two weeks, more than 300 illegal migrants have been detained on Crete. Istanbul train Transport Minister Michalis Liapis yesterday announced a new railway connection between Thessaloniki and Istanbul, due to start operating from September, following a meeting in the Turkish city with his counterpart, Binali Yildirim. The trains serving the route will also carry cars and offer sleeper cabins with hotel-style conveniences, Liapis said. Swimming bronze Government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos congratulated Greece’s synchronized swimming team for winning the bronze medal yesterday at the European Championships in Madrid. Drugs arrest Police in Thessaloniki on Saturday arrested a 29-year-old foreign national after finding more than two kilos of heroin in his possession. Officers, who had been investigating the unnamed man as a suspected drug dealer, discovered 578 grams of heroin upon him during a body search in the city’s Kalamaria district before finding another 1.59 kilos of the drug in his home.
