In Brief
Flights grounded
OA pilots continue go-slow protest, grounding 17 domestic flights Pilots on some Olympic Airlines domestic flights continued their go-slow protest yesterday, resulting in the cancellation of 17 flights. The pilots are working a maximum of five hours a day. Further delays and cancellations are expected today. The protest action has already cost OA 120,000 euros in compensation to passengers, which it has been paying out since Friday, when the pilots began the go slow. The Union of Propeller Airplane Pilots (EEXA) is due to hold elections on May 12 and protests by its members are expected to continue until then. Siemens investigation Prosecutor due to wrap up probe into alleged bribes by end of June Panayiotis Athanassiou, the prosecutor investigating the alleged payment of bribes by Siemens to Greek politicians, is expected to conclude his work by the end of June, when he will also issue charges, sources said yesterday. Two more former employees of OTE telecom were yesterday called to give evidence, taking to 16 the number of people that the prosecutor is treating as suspects in his investigation. Myanmar aid Athens donates 129,000 euros Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis said yesterday that the government had approved the immediate release of 200,000 dollars (or 129,000 euros) for the victims of cyclone-hit Myanmar. «The Greek people and government cannot remain unmoved by this incredible humanitarian disaster,» Bakoyannis said as officials in the Southeast Asian nation put the death toll at 22,000. Greece will also send an aircraft with medicine and supplies as soon as the country’s airports reopen, Bakoyannis said. Census A population census will be held in Greece in 2011, according to a draft Presidential Decree submitted to the Council of State yesterday. The National Statistics Service is also due to carry out an inventory of all the buildings in Greece in 2010. Corrupt officials Police said yesterday they arrested two municipal employees in Kozani, northern Greece, for allegedly handing out forged residency documents to immigrants for a fee. Police tracked down the two suspects, a 59-year-old woman and a 44-year-old man, after catching an illegal immigrant with forged certificates he claimed to have received after paying the woman 500 euros. Doping denial Christos Zafiriou, the doctor for Greece’s weightlifting team, was the latest official to yesterday submit a written statement to prosecutor Andreas Karaflos denying any part in the doping of 11 athletes. Zafiriou said that he was never involved in administering illegal substances to the weightlifters but did recommend on two occasions, once in 2006, and once this year, that they be given amino acids. But he clarified that this had nothing to do with the allegedly tainted batch of supplements given to the athletes earlier this year. Bus driver buried The 59-year-old bus driver who was shot dead by an escaped detainee in Thessaloniki on Saturday was buried in the northern city yesterday. Panayiotis Pyxopoulos, who was shot at point-blank range, is believed to have attempted to disarm the suspect. Members of the local bus drivers’ union staged a work stoppage during the funeral. Child abuse Police in Trikala, central Greece, were yesterday seeking a man believed to have sexually abused his 13-year-old stepson following the arrest of the child’s mother. The boy’s mother already has been convicted for putting her child in danger and faces an eight-month jail sentence. The boy will either be put in a home or entrusted to foster parents, police said. Suicide A 32-year-old man committed suicide yesterday by setting fire to himself in Thessaloniki, authorities said. The incident took place shortly after 9 a.m. when the man doused himself with petrol at an office building in the Aghialo area. He died shortly afterward when he was taken to a nearby hospital. Authorities did not give any reasons why the man killed himself.
