In Brief
SCHOOLTEACHERS
Gov’t refutes reports of understaffing, says 9,500 supply staff will fill gaps Government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos and Education Minister Marietta Giannakou yesterday refuted reports that there will be insufficient teachers in classrooms when pupils go back to school on Monday. «Any gaps will be filled by supply teachers,» Roussopoulos said. Press reports yesterday referred to shortages of around 7,500 full-time schoolteachers. Giannakou said 9,500 supply teachers would fill gaps, adding that full-time teachers would be appointed where there were serious problems. TRAFFIC DISRUPTIONS Restrictions in Neo Faliron tonight and in central Athens tomorrow Traffic will be banned around the Karaiskaki Stadium in Neo Faliron from 6 p.m. onward today ahead of the national soccer team’s World Cup qualifying match against Turkey, which is due to begin at 9.45 p.m. Tomorrow, restrictions will be enforced along the route between the Temple of Hephaestus and the Herod Atticus Theater as the Paralympic Flame is to be lit. There will be no parking or stopping along the route from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. and no access from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. FERRIES SAILING Normal service resumes as winds drop All passenger ferries were sailing from Piraeus and Rafina as normal from 5 p.m. yesterday after port authorities lifted a ban imposed due to high winds. The ferry route connecting Aghios Constantinos and Aidipsos on Evia was also operating as normal from 10 a.m. yesterday. Escape thwarted A Sudanese detainee and a Greek police guard were both hospitalized yesterday after a violent attempt by the detainee to escape from the Kallithea police station he was being kept in. The Sudanese national, who faced deportation following his arrest for robberies, had asked to make a telephone call before lunging at the guard and trying to disarm him. The resulting scuffle caused the gun to go off twice, smashing the windows and injuring both men. They were in a stable condition yesterday, doctors said. Beslan aid A C-130 transport aircraft is to leave for Moscow today with medical supplies for the hundreds of survivors of Friday’s massacre in Russia’s southern town of Beslan, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday. The provision of aid has been organized with the help of the Church of Greece, the ministry said. ELA trial The lawyer representing Christos Tsigaridas in the ongoing trial of suspected members of the Revolutionary Popular Struggle (ELA) group yesterday appealed for her client to be exonerated, stating that the charge of his participation in a criminal organization had expired under the statute of limitations and that there was insufficient evidence to support the remaining charges. Disabled card The issuance of a special card for disabled citizens has been proposed in a joint decision by the Interior and Health ministries and made public yesterday. According to the decision, a project management team would be established to develop the card, whose launch would take place about a year after the team starts work. It was unclear whether the primary function of the card would be to secure benefits for disabled citizens. Presidents’ guards Of the 224 police bodyguards assigned to President Costis Stephanopoulos, only 24 are for the president’s personal safety, the Athens News Agency reported yesterday, a few days after Kathimerini published details of a confidential list of bodyguards assigned to politicians and other public figures. The remaining 200 officers guard the Presidential Palace and other properties, the ANA said, adding that these bodyguards are also assigned to provide security to foreign heads of state. Hash plantation Police in Crete have uprooted a plantation of 1,305 cannabis plants in the prefecture of Hania, the Athens News Agency reported yesterday. Officers visited the plantation in Innahorio after monitoring it for 10 days and spotting no one, the ANA said. It is the 15th plantation to be found in the prefecture this year, the agency said.
