In Brief
DANGEROUS IMPORTS
EU figures show that products from China are most risky, watchdog says The Greek Consumer Center (ELKEKA) said yesterday that according to the number of alerts sent out by EU authorities this year, China exports the most faulty products identified by officials. Some 44 percent of the goods classified as dangerous and then withdrawn from the market were made in China, ELKEKA said. Electrical goods proved the most dangerous items, as a third of alerts were in reference to them, while toys accounted for just over a quarter. ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS Trafficker caught on Samos after chase as Turks open fire on Greek smugglers Coast guard officials said they detained 29 illegal immigrants on the island of Samos yesterday and arrested the captain of the ship that transported them into the country. After a six-hour manhunt, officials located the boat and man in charge of the vessel, a Turkish national. The illegal immigrants, from different countries, were taken to the island’s migrant detention center. Meanwhile, two Greeks were arrested in Turkey after being fired at by coast guards while attempting to smuggle 30 migrants to Greece. PATRIARCH SUPPORT Jordan adds its backing to Theophilos Jordan has issued a royal decree approving the election of Theophilos as Greek Orthodox patriarch for Jerusalem to replace the ousted Irinaios, the state-run Petra news agency reported yesterday. Under Church law, Theophilos’s August election must be approved by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. (AFP) Feta fight Deputy Agricultural Development Minister Alexandros Kontos yesterday asked for the help of the Foreign Ministry in following up allegations that some cheese from Bulgaria and other Balkan countries is being labeled as feta and sold within the EU. Kontos called feta «one of our most important agricultural products» and said every effort would be made to protect it. The EU has assigned Greek feta cheese with Protected Designation of Origin status so that cheese from another country cannot use its name. Market traders Inspectors found 354 offenses at open-air markets in Greece over the last three months, the Development Ministry said yesterday. Most of the offenses were for technical matters, such as the absence of delivery notes for goods (79 cases) or not registering an employee (95 cases). Athens clinic A new municipal medical clinic opened on 78 Solonos Street in the center of Athens yesterday, providing doctors specializing in 10 different fields. The Kalfopoulio Clinic, which is available to all Athenians, is open between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. from Monday to Friday. Closet thief After searching all over Greece for a 22-year-old Albanian national wanted for at least seven bank robberies over the last 18 months which allegedly netted him some 100,000 euros, police in Ptolemaida, northwestern Greece, found him hiding in his girlfriend’s closet early yesterday. The suspect hid behind clothes and bed linen after police raided the house he had been staying in with two Bulgarian women. All three were arrested. Trafficking hostel Thessaloniki will open a hostel as of next year for victims of human trafficking, said Prefect Panayiotis Psomiadis yesterday. The center will house the victims, who are mostly women, rather than having them sent to a prison. They will receive support services, participate in a Greek language course and receive professional training in order to be inducted into the community, officials said. Priest blackmail Three Georgian-Greek men were detained by Cypriot police yesterday for allegedly trying to extort thousands of pounds from an Orthodox priest by threatening to make public a video of his «homosexual acts.» The trio were arrested after a 43-year-old priest from the southern city of Limassol complained to police that two men had bundled him into a car and driven him to a remote spot where they forced him to undress at gunpoint. He was sexually molested while another man taped the event from nearby bushes, he told police. (AFP)
