In Brief
MUSEUM NIGHTS
Free after-dark concerts to be staged at three sites per month A Culture Ministry initiative to stage free nocturnal concerts at three museums across the country once every month will come into effect on June 8, the ministry said yesterday. The Moscow Virtuosi Orchestra is scheduled to play at the Byzantine and Christian Museum in central Athens at 9 p.m. next Wednesday. Concerts are also scheduled for the same time at the Archaeological Collection of Kifissia and at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. DOCUMENTS BURNT Forgery ring to blame, officials say A fire that broke out early yesterday in a building in Holargos, where the Athens Prefecture’s transport department archives are stored, was an arson attack by a ring producing forged drivers’ licenses and customs documents, Athens Prefect Yiannis Sgouros said. The files destroyed in the blaze exist in electronic form, he added. Prefectural officials gave police a closed circuit television tape showing two individuals setting fire to the storeroom. «It is clear that organized rings… are trying to cover their tracks,» Sgouros said. Forest fires Air force chief Giorgos Avlonitis, Deputy Defense Minister Yiannis Lambropoulos and Deputy Public Order Minister Christos Markoyiannakis yesterday attended a ceremony at the military airport in Elefsina, western Attica, to mark the start of the forest fire-fighting season. Samina trial Lawyers defending eight ship’s officers, seamen and ferry firm officials on trial for the deaths of 80 people in the September 2000 Express Samina disaster objected yesterday to civil suits brought as part of the process by relatives of the victims. The relatives have already been compensated by civil courts, the lawyers told the naval court in Piraeus. Foreign affairs «There is, thankfully, a broad political consensus regarding the strategic goals of our foreign policy,» Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis said yesterday after briefing members of the cross-party National Foreign Policy Council. Topping the agenda of talks was Cyprus, the French referendum on the European Constitution, Turkey’s EU bid and Greek-US ties. Chinese crackdown Teams of inspectors from the Economy and Development ministries – backed up by police officers and employees of the Labor Inspectorate and Social Security Foundation (IKA) – are to launch checks on Chinese businesses in 212 locations across Attica, officials said yesterday. The inspections are aimed at determining which businesses are violating fair competition regulations. Student indicted An unidentified student arrested at the end of March, following violent clashes with riot police in Thessaloniki, was yesterday indicted to trial on charges of the manufacture and possession of explosives. More than 100 anarchists went on the rampage on March 27 following a concert at Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University, throwing firebombs at cars and ATMs. Ancient Greek As of September, secondary school students are to have an extra hour of Ancient Greek per week – up to five hours from the current four hours – and one hour less of foreign language tutoring, the Education Ministry said yesterday. Obese children Crete has one of the worst records in Europe for obesity, with more than a third (35 percent) of local children aged between 13 and 17 categorized as obese, according to statistics made public at a European conference in Athens yesterday.
