In Brief
ELEFTHEROS TYPOS
After 26 years, newspaper closes as owners pull out The Eleftheros Typos daily newspaper, which has been published since 1983, went out of business yesterday after billionaire businessman Theodoros Angelopoulos and his wife Gianna Angelopoulou-Daskalaki, the former head of the organizing committee for the 2004 Athens Olympics, decided to end their involvement in publishing. In an unexpected development, a statement was issued yesterday in which the couple, who bought Eleftheros Typos in 2006, said they were pulling out of all media activity, meaning the closure of the City 99.5 radio station, which is also owned by the couple. In the statement, the couple blamed «continued losses» for their decision. The shutdown of the newspaper and the radio station will leave up to 500 people jobless. Karavellas appeal Suspect’s wife ‘a flight risk’ A public prosecutor recommended yesterday that the wife of former Siemens Hellas executive Christos Karavellas, who is on the run from Greek authorities, should not be released from custody as she is a flight risk. Martha Karavella was arrested upon return from a trip to Rhodes earlier this month and was remanded in custody on suspicion of being an accomplice to bribery. The prosecutor believes she went to Rhodes to prepare her family to flee Greece and is likely to make another attempt to leave the country if she is freed. A council of judges is due to rule later this week on Karavella’s appeal against her detention. Omonia murder Police in Athens yesterday were investigating the murder of a 50-year-old Albanian national who was shot dead late on Sunday night while sitting in a cafe in the central district of Omonia. According to witnesses, the victim was sitting at the cafe when two unidentified assailants approached and opened fire on him. The assassins then fled by motorcycle. Swine flu The number of swine flu cases in Greece rose to 51 yesterday after another three people were diagnosed with the virus. The three new cases were a 9-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl from Australia and a 25-year-old woman from Argentina. Eighteen of the 51 people diagnosed with the flu have been treated and discharged from the hospital, according to authorities, who stressed that in all cases the strain of the H1N1 virus is a mild one. Self-immolation A 45-year-old man was in a Thessaloniki hospital with serious burns all over his body yesterday after setting himself alight outside the northern city’s main railway station. A passing taxi driver stopped when he saw the blazing figure and used a fire extinguisher to put out the flames, police said. No details were released about the identity of the man nor the reasons for his act. Relaxed robber A woman who held up a branch of Eurobank in the Athens district of Holargos yesterday at lunchtime walked out of the bank with some 10,000 euros in loot and hailed a cab, according to witnesses. The female robber reportedly approached a cashier with a piece of paper that said, «I have a gun, give me the cash.» Police said they believe the woman, who they describe as short and fat, is behind two similar robberies carried out recently in Halandri and Kifissia.
