In Brief
ARCHBISHOP RECOVERING
Christodoulos due to be moved out of intensive care today Archbishop Christodoulos, the head of the Church of Greece, will remain in intensive care at the Aretaion Hospital in Athens for an extra day, doctors said yesterday. The hospital’s director, Christodoulos Stefanidis, told Kathimerini that the archbishop was being kept in the intensive-care unit solely for precautionary reasons and is due to be moved to a regular room today. Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios, Christian Orthodoxy’s spiritual leader, is due to visit Christodoulos today. The archbishop underwent surgery for an intestinal problem on Tuesday. Stefanidis said that it is normal for patients who have undergone this procedure to stay in the hospital for at least eight days. POLICEMAN WANTED Officers hunt colleague after he allegedly fired gun while drunk Officers were yesterday seeking to arrest the chief of police in Megara, west of Athens, after he allegedly fired in the air outside the local police station while drunk. The unnamed officer had allegedly been drinking at a taverna on Thursday and later had an argument with an officer at the station before firing his gun. The police chief did not report for work yesterday and a warrant for his arrest was issued. CYPRUS FORCE UN extends stay of peacekeepers The Security Council yesterday unanimously voted to extend the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force in divided Cyprus for another six months and to urge the rival Greek and Turkish sides to revive stalled settlement talks. In extending the mandate of the UNFICYP force until next December 15, it called «upon all parties to immediately engage constructively with the UN efforts… to demonstrate measurable progress in order to allow fully fledged negotiations to begin and to cease mutual recrimination.» (AFP) GMO segregation In a first for the European Union, Cyprus adopted legislation yesterday that obliges retailers to put products with genetically modified (GMO) content on separate shelves from other food. The law had been tabled by the Green Party two years ago and requires any products that contain a GMO content of more than 0.9 percent to be placed in a different display. The USA warned Cyprus in 2005 that if it passed the law, it could contravene the island’s obligations as a member of the World Trade Organization. Opera appeal A group including artists and museum directors yesterday sent a letter to Culture Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis asking him not to allow the Greek National Opera (GNO) to fire Stefanos Lazaridis as its cultural director. The GNO’s board said on Tuesday that it wanted to dispense with Lazaridis’s services after a falling-out over the authority of various directors within the opera. Voulgarakis, who has the final say, has suggested he will back the board’s decision. Swindlers sentenced A 45-year-old petrol station owner in Thessaloniki was handed a 24-month suspended jail sentence and a 10,000-euro fine yesterday after being caught cheating drivers out of fuel. A device was found on petrol pumps that gave customers less fuel than they paid for. A 30-year-old employee, who was caught activating the device, was handed the same sentence. The scam is believed to have cheated drivers out of fuel worth 26,500 euros. Greeks abroad Greeks living abroad will be able to complete a larger number of transactions with Greece’s Foreign Affairs Ministry through KEP (citizens’ information and service centers) terminals operating at their local embassy as of Monday. Users of the terminals will also be able to obtain birth certificates and military service documents. Father’s Day Greece’s Association for Male and Paternal Dignity is organizing an event at Syntagma metro station between noon and 2 p.m. tomorrow to mark Father’s Day.
