In Brief
TRAVEL DISRUPTIONS
Olympic Airlines to cancel flights; work stoppage on metro and railway Olympic Airlines (OA) said yesterday that due to a three-hour work stoppage by its employees, starting from noon today, it will cancel 18 flights to destinations including Kos, Rhodes, Crete and Thessaloniki. OA also said that it will change the departure times of another 23 flights. Public transport in Athens will be interrupted today due to work stoppages. The metro will not run between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m., the Athens-Piraeus electric railway will stop between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. but buses, trolleys and trams will operate as normal. EXAM RESULTS Grades of entrance exams to be displayed at country’s schools today The results of university entrance exams taken by senior high school students earlier this summer will be posted around the country’s schools as of today. Some 98,000 students sat exams in the hope of gaining one of the 67,684 places that are available at universities and technical colleges around Greece. AEGEAN WETLANDS WWF warns of disappearing areas Two in three wetlands in the Aegean are being severely polluted, the World Wildlife Fund said yesterday after conducting a two-year study. WWF said that 84 percent of the wetlands had undergone degradation and that if the situation continued, 40 wetlands of the 303 studied would disappear. The environmental group said that although most of the wetlands were in protected areas, only two were adequately protected, Koukouniares on Skiathos and Psalidi on Kos. Pakistani protest The head of the Unity of Pakistan organization in Athens, Javed Aslam, vowed yesterday to keep up his fight to discover the truth about the alleged abduction of Pakistanis in Greece last year, despite the arrest of his brother in Pakistan. Speaking at a press conference, Aslam alleged that his brother had been taken into custody two days ago and was told by Pakistani authorities that he was being held in connection with the investigation into Aslam’s activities in Greece. Aslam has appeared repeatedly at press conferences with some of the migrants who claim they were abducted. Hit and run Police said yesterday that they were looking for a driver who was behind the steering wheel of a car which hit and killed a 3-year-old boy on Tuesday night in Kolonos, central Athens. Witnesses said the men in the car failed to follow the ambulance which took the woman and her child to hospital. Officers said the driver has not reported the incident to any authority. Witnesses, however, noted down the make, model and color of the car as well as its license plate, police said. Nazi salute A Greek man was one of four people arrested in Munich after giving the Nazi salute while celebrating the German national soccer team’s victory in the World Cup, police said yesterday. The man was not named but officers said he was part of a group of drunken fans aged 20 to 28 who began shouting «Sieg Hiel» after watching Germany’s 3-0 victory over Ecuador in a Munich bar. German law bans the display of Nazi symbols and the use of Nazi salutes. Extortion attempt Police arrested a 22-year-old women yesterday in Rethymnon, Crete, accused of extortion. Police said that the woman, who was not identified, allegedly demanded 5,000 euros from her doctor after claiming he had diagnosed her incorrectly and given her the wrong medical treatment. The suspect had threatened to announce her claims to the press. Injured policeman A 47-year-old police officer, Giorgos Pentarakis, suffered injuries to his head and lungs late on Tuesday in Hania, Crete, after being knocked off his motorbike in a car collision while he was indicating to a motorbike rider to pull over. Police inspected the site of the accident yesterday with the help of sniffer dogs as Pentarakis lost his gun in the accident. Divine retribution? A man suffered broken bones on Tuesday when he fell 12 meters off the roof of the Aghia Marina Church in Ekali, northern Athens, as he tried to break into the building, police said yesterday. The 26-year-old man has been hospitalized and is under police guard, authorities added.
