In Brief
Flight disruption
Strike to ground services between 8 a.m. and noon A four-hour work stoppage by air-traffic controllers at Athens International Airport today is expected to lead to the disruption of all scheduled incoming and outgoing flights between 8 a.m. and noon. Olympic Airlines said it will cancel more than 30 flights and Aegean Airlines is to cancel 20 flights and reschedule another 40. Protesters have threatened a similar work stoppage on Saturday. Sex ring Nigerian linked to global racket Police in Athens yesterday were questioning a 39-year-old Nigerian national believed to be a member of an international sex-trafficking ring pushing Nigerian women into prostitution in Greece, Italy and other countries in Europe and in some cases obliging them to deal in drugs. A total of 30 suspected ring members have been detained across Europe. Weather damage Local authorities in many parts of northern Greece yesterday were assessing the extent of damage caused to local crops by two days of heavy rainfall and hailstorms. The worst-hit areas are Serres, Florina, Grevena, Kavala and Thessaloniki. Swine flu Another nine people have been diagnosed with swine flu in Greece, bringing the number of those afflicted with the virus to 67, health authorities said yesterday. The cases diagnosed were people who had returned from the USA, Australia and the UK. Surrogate granny A 50-year-old Greek woman yesterday was said to be recovering in Athens’s Areteion Hospital after giving birth to her daughter’s twins. The 50-year-old had offered to bear her grandchildren as her daughter is unable to conceive. The 50-year-old gave birth to the twins prematurely, by Caesarean section, after a seven-month pregnancy but the infants were both said to be in good health. Family tragedy Police in Corinth yesterday detained a man who allegedly admitted to shooting his son, and fatally injuring him, following an argument at their home in Loutraki, west of Athens. According to police, who did not reveal any details about the alleged perpetrator or victim, the father drove his injured son to the hospital after the attack, with the help of his other son, but the former died of his wounds. Fugitive caught A convicted robber and murderer who had been at large since August 2007 when he failed to return from a furlough to the Domoko jail in central Greece was tracked down in Nafplion yesterday, police said. The suspect, who had been serving a life sentence fo robberies and murder, also served time in the 1970s after being found guilty of strangling his newborn child. Three Greek men were detained on charges of harboring a criminal. Forced begging Two Bulgarians alleged to have been bullying child compatriots, and their mothers, into begging on the streets of Thessaloniki and handing over the proceeds to them were detained yesterday. The suspects, aged 34 and 44, allegedly approached children aged between 8 and 11 and used violence to force them into begging from motorists.
