In Brief
PROTEST- Anti-globalization group plans ‘anti-war’ demonstration The Genoa 2001 Initiative is holding a rally at the Propylaia, central Athens, tomorrow against war, blind attacks and the Bush government’s reprisals. The rally, which begins at 6 p.m., is planned to conclude with a protest march to the US embassy and includes representatives of labor unions and the Association of Palestinian Doctors and Pharmacists. The organizers of the rally, in an announcement yesterday, said they were against Greece’s involvement in any military operations, or making facilities available at Greek military bases for the use of US forces in their war against international terrorism. HEIRESS Athina Onassis called to ride for Greek national team Athina Roussel, the 16-year-old granddaughter of the late shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, has been invited to ride with the Greek national equestrian team, the Hellenic Equestrian Federation (HEF) said yesterday. The invitation is for the World Cup Athens 2001 competition on October 4-7. Roussel lives in Switzerland with her father and stepmother. Flight aborted Lufthansa plane hit by asphalt A Lufthansa passenger plane was forced to abort its departure from Thessaloniki yesterday after being struck by a piece of asphalt on the runway which damaged the fuselage, Agence France-Presse reported airport authorities as saying. The 100 passengers on the flight, from Thessaloniki to Munich, were transferred to other flights. Lufthansa is sending a team to Thessaloniki to investigate the incident. Bus strike. Blue bus drivers of the Athens Urban Transport Organization (OASA) are holding a four-hour work stoppage today between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. so that staff can participate in a union general assembly at that time. Parmenion exercise. The military exercise Parmenion 2001, scheduled to take place September 26-Ocober 2 is to go ahead as planned, the National Defense General Staff announced yesterday. The large-scale exercise, involving all three branches of the armed forces, is to cover the entire country, with emphasis on the Evros area and the island of Lesvos. ‘Harvest’ in. Greece’s contingent in NATO’s Essential Harvest operation is preparing to return home from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as of October 4, according to NATO officials. On Friday, the final cargo of weapons gathered from ethnic Albanian rebels is to be destroyed at the Halyvourgiki steelworks near Athens. Hymettus. The Council of State yesterday rejected a suit by the Hellenic Society for the Protection of Nature against the Environment and Public Works Ministry, in which it accused the ministry of a series of omissions after it refused to carry out a study for a tunnel for the Hymettus peripheral highway. The country’s highest administrative court said that the accusations of omissions had not been substantiated, since no administrative act had been issued on the highway’s location from which it might be deduced that the area’s ecosystem was endangered by the highway currently being built. Le pen in Greece? French ultranationalist Jean-Marie Le pen, according to reliable sources, is to attend a meeting of ultrarightists from around Europe that begins today on the island of Rhodes. The island’s police have imposed strict security measures to protect the visitor. Runaway horse. A young man was killed and another seriously injured when the motorcycle they were riding on collided with a runaway horse on the Komotini-Asomati road, northern Greece, yesterday. Mehmet Ahmet, 22, was killed and his passenger, Bijan Hussein, 18, injured. It was not clear how badly the horse was injured. Ancient coins. The owner of a souvenir shop in central Athens has been arrested for allegedly possessing a large number of Byzantine, Roman and Greco-Roman coins and other ancient artifacts. Anastasios Klitsas, 54, had 228 bronze and 11 silver coins and a quantity of jewelry in which coins had been embedded. Guardsman’s suicide. A 43-year-old national guardsman apparently committed suicide at an ammunition depot in Stylida, Fthiotida. Giorgios Boyiatzis shot himself with his service rifle and died instantly.
