In Brief
NIKOS KESSANLIS
Leading painter dies of heart attack Artist Nikos Kessanlis, one of the first Greeks to blend photography with painting, died of a heart attack yesterday at the age of 74. Kessanlis, former dean of the Athens School of Fine Arts, was one of a generation of artists considered to have pioneered postwar modernism in Greece. Synaspismos Left Coalition party leader Nikos Constantopoulos described Kessanlis as «a pioneering creator, an inspired teacher… and a good person.» Migrants detained Coast guards in the eastern Aegean yesterday detained a total of 96 illegal immigrants, the Merchant Marine Ministry said. A group of 83 migrants were intercepted on the islet of Agathonissi, near Patmos, which they had reached aboard a wooden rowboat from neighboring Turkey. Later yesterday, another 13 illegal immigrants, from Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast, were intercepted on Samos, the ministry added. Triplet birth A 57-year-old woman on Saturday gave birth to triplets in Thessaloniki’s Ippocrateio hospital. The woman, whose name was not made public, bore her two daughters and a son by Caesarian section following fertility treatment, doctors said. Mother and children were all in good health yesterday. Fores More than 45 firefighters contained a forest fire yesterday in the eastern Attica area of Vravrona, the fire department said. The operation involved several ground units and 15 fire trucks. The firefighters battled with the blaze for over an hour as strong gales hampered their efforts. False alarm Passengers were yesterday evening evacuated from a bus on central Athens Vassilis Sofias Avenue, next to Parliament, after the bus driver alerted police to an abandoned suitcase in the vehicle. Traffic was blocked off from the area for nearly an hour, as bomb disposal experts searched the case, but all they found were clothes, police said. Lefkada quake A moderate undersea quake measuring 4.3 on the Richter scale shook the Ionian island of Lefkada on Saturday evening but no injuries or damage were reported. The quake’s epicenter was off the island’s southwestern coast.
