In Brief
PREMIERS MEET
Simitis holds talks with Albania, FYROM counterparts Prime Minister Costas Simitis held successive meetings yesterday with his counterparts from Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Pandeli Majko and Ljubco Georgievski. The talks focused on bilateral relations and regional matters, including the insurgency of FYROM’s Albanian minority. Majko and Georgievski are in Athens to take part in a conference organized by the Economist Intelligence Unit. COKE DIP Three police officers charged with tampering with drug haul Three police officers with the Attica drug squad were charged yesterday with trying to take cocaine from a haul seized in a home in Anavyssos, southeast of Athens last week. Prosecutor Irene Skeparnia, who had been present in the raid, reported to security police chief Vassilios Tsiatouras that she noticed officers opening the parcel of drugs and rummaging through it. According to sources, the investigation is continuing and other charges could be pressed against senior police officers. AGITPROP PASOK communications team A new PASOK committee aimed at setting the ruling party’s communication planning is to meet for the first time next Tuesday, it was announced yesterday. The ad hoc group comprises Prime Minister Costas Simitis and PASOK General Secretary Costas Laliotis, executive bureau member Michalis Neonakis, former party spokesman Nikos Athanasakis, government spokesman Christos Protopappas and his deputy, Telemachos Hytiris, and Simitis aides Nikos Themelis and Giorgos Pantayias. The committee will, on occasion, call on polling expert Stratos Fanaras. Cookie jar The municipal treasurer of Orestiada, northern Greece, has been arrested for allegedly embezzling a total of 880,410 euros (300 million drachmas) from town hall coffers since 1999. Athanassios Malasidis’s scam was discovered earlier this week after he told staff he had no money to pay them. When the mayor, Angelos Papaioannou, asked him to explain, Malasidis was forced to confess that he had taken large sums to gamble with in an attempt to recover earlier «withdrawals.» Over the past 40 days about 586,900 euros (200 million drachmas) had been paid into the municipal account. Ukrainian minister Foreign Minister George Papandreou met in Athens yesterday with his Ukrainian counterpart, Anatoly Zlenko, for talks on bilateral economic relations and Ukraine’s relations with the European Union and NATO. Papandreou said after their meeting that they had also discussed the position of Ukrainian immigrants in Greece and regional issues. Prime Minister Costas Simitis accepted an invitation to visit Kiev on July 2-3. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma is to visit Athens in September. Lesperoglou The Supreme Court hearing of prosecutor Panayiotis Dimopoulos’s call for a repeal of an earlier ruling acquitting Avraam Lesperoglou of charges of armed robbery and resisting arrest is to take place tomorrow. Left-wing organizations, trade unions and the Alternative Legal Intervention group all expressed their support for Lesperoglou at a press conference yesterday. Lesperoglou has been cleared of a series of charges relating to suspected terrorism activities. New courts Prime Minister Costas Simitis and Archbishop Christodoulos yesterday officially opened the new administrative courts in Louizis Riancour Street, Ambelokipi, near central Athens, which opened in January. The building has seven floors above ground and five underground. Apart from the courtrooms, it includes offices, meeting rooms, libraries and archives and a car park for 240 vehicles. TVX protest Local residents near the TVX Hellas gold mine in Halkidiki staged another demonstration yesterday in their ongoing protest at the operation of the mine. Police said demonstrators tried to stop workers from entering the premises. Five people were arrested in a scuffle with police, during which the chief officer was injured. Bad eggs Nearly 3,000 kilos of stale chocolate Easter eggs and other sweets have been seized in Central Macedonia by inspectors from the Unified Food Inspection Service (EFET) as unfit for consumption and over 1,600 kilos of other sweets whose expiry dates had been altered, it was reported yesterday.
