In Brief
AIRPORT TRAVEL
Metro ticket down to 6 euros, new 48-hour return for 10 euros The cost of a metro ticket to the airport from Athens (or vice versa) drops to 6 euros from 8 euros today, while a new 48-hour return ticket for 10 euros goes on sale. Groups of two or three people can buy single metro tickets for the airport at a reduced cost of 10 and 15 euros respectively. FYROM NAME Talks in New York on Monday The permanent representatives of Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the United Nations – Adamantios Vassilakis and Igor Dzundev – are to meet with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special representative, Matthew Nimitz, in New York on Monday to discuss a commonly acceptable solution for FYROM’s official name, Athens said yesterday. Contract workers Experience gained by contract workers in the public sector will account for as much as half of the marks required to pass an examination for a full-time post in the civil service, according to reforms made public yesterday that aim to give a boost to contract workers seeking permanency. Workers’ experience will account for as much as 55 percent of their final marks, according to the Interior Ministry reforms. Strike off Security staff at Athens International Airport yesterday called off strike action after the airport’s management guaranteed in court that the 350 employees would keep their jobs when a new contractor takes over the baggage inspection process at the beginning of next year. Passengers had suffered flight disruptions for four days in a row after workers staged successive strikes. Salonica blast. A homemade explosive device, comprising two gas canisters bound together, caused damage to a post office in Thessaloniki’s Neapoli district when it detonated in the early hours of yesterday morning. White lion A rare white lion yawns inside a cage yesterday at the private Attica Zoological Park in the town of Spata, near the new Athens Airport, on the capital’s eastern fringes. The zoo also hosts a hippopotamus. Today, there are around 35 white lions in the world, all of them born in captivity. Traffic disruptions Work that got under way yesterday on the section of Poseidonos Avenue between the Peace and Friendship Stadium in Faliron and the Vari-Koropi junction will disrupt traffic for the next 20 days between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Work beginning today on Kifissou Avenue will disrupt Piraeus-bound traffic between the Rossignol and Lenorman bridges over the next week during the same hours. Illegal immigrants Border guards in Rhodope yesterday intercepted 65 illegal immigrants and their 29-year-old suspected smuggler following a truck inspection near Komotini. The 29-year-old, whose ethnic origin was not revealed, had been paid $130,000 to smuggle the migrants – mostly Iraqis and Indians – over the Turkish border, police said. Police were seeking another Iraqi who eluded arrest. Landfill closed Representatives of the councils of three eastern Thessaloniki municipalities yesterday voted to block access to the Tagarades landfill today when the Council of State is expected to rule on appeals against the construction of a new dump near Langadas. Road accidents Last September saw a 19.8 percent increase in serious injuries from road accidents and a 1.9 increase in road fatalities compared to September 2003, the National Statistics Service said yesterday. A total of 266 people were seriously injured and 161 died on Greek roads this September as compared to 222 serious injuries and 158 deaths in September 2003, the service said.
