In Brief
EMERGENCY PHONE CENTER
Callers to 112 will be transferred to right service by multilingual operators An Olympic emergency telephone call center will be providing a comprehensive, multilingual service on the number 112 until October 4, the Interior Ministry said yesterday. Instead of calling 100 for police, 199 for the fire service and 166 for an ambulance, citizens and visitors will be able to call the center which will connect them to the service they need without delay, the ministry said. The center will be staffed by 30 English-speaking operators, with German, French, Italian, and Spanish speakers available. RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE Ecumenical patriarch and archbishop call for peace at Maroussi summit Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios yesterday criticized the exploitation of religion for violent ends at a conference on religious tolerance in Maroussi, northern Athens, which was attended by Archbishop Christodoulos, religious officials and politicians. «Every crime committed in the name of religion is a crime against religion itself,» Vartholomaios said. «Our participation in the Olympic Games constitutes a unanimous response to and condemnation of terrorism and violence,» Christodoulos said. The clerics, who dined together yesterday, are to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on Friday. OLYMPIC NIGHTLIFE Decision sanctions 24-hour partying Bars and nightclubs will be allowed to remain open until 4.30 a.m. from Sunday to Thursday, and all day on Friday and Saturday, on national holidays and the eve of saints’ feast days during the Olympics, according to a joint decision by the Public Order and Labor ministries made public yesterday. Bar and nightclub owners will be allowed to reopen their premises at 6 a.m. on days that the restrictions apply, according to the decision which applies until the end of September. Olympic lanes Work to complete demarcating Athens Olympic lanes – for the exclusive use of Olympic-related traffic between 6.30 a.m. and midnight – with orange lines resumed yesterday on major roads and will continue until Friday. The works, to be conducted between midnight and 6 a.m., will affect Kifissias Avenue, a large section of coastal Poseidonos, the section of Kifissou Avenue between Attiki Odos and Poseidonos, much of the Piraeus road network and Vari-Koropi Avenue. Mexicans chided Mexico’s ambassador to Greece, Alejandro Diaz, yesterday called upon media employees from his country to respect the journalists’ code of honor following a spate of incidents involving Mexican TV reporters or cameramen and the police over the past week in Athens. «Mexico enjoys a very good image in Greece which we would like to maintain, and so we have asked Mexican journalists to behave… with full respect for Greek laws, and with particular attention to security measures,» Diaz said. Sweatshop protest Women wearing masks work at sewing machines on an Athens rooftop yesterday, in protest at the sweatshop conditions in which workers in the sportswear industry are often obliged to work. The protest was part of the «Play Fair at the Olympics» campaign, which aims to win support for changes to working practices in the sportswear industry. Muslims The government denied a report in Ta Nea daily yesterday that police have detained 10 Muslims in Greece as part of the Olympic security effort.
