In Brief
Suicidal tactics
Site boss secures cash by threatening to jump off crane A construction supervisor who climbed to the top of a crane on a building site in the Cretan port of Iraklio yesterday and threatened to jump off unless municipal authorities gave him money to pay his staff, climbed back down after a senior local authority official said his demands would be met. The man, whose name and age were not revealed, reportedly declared that he did not want money for himself but to pay staff employed in a municipal construction project he was overseeing. «I have one employee who has a disabled child and I haven’t paid him for three months,» the supervisor was quoted as saying. Supermarket sweep Robin Hood thieves reappear A group of around 20 youths wearing masks and hoods yesterday stormed into a branch of the Sklavenitis supermarket chain in Kaisariani, eastern Athens, and loaded up several trolleys with food before charging past the cash registers and distributing the goods to passers-by in the street. After distributing the goods, the thieves fled. Such raids became a frequent occurence in some Athens neighborhoods last year after self-styled anarchists promoting the «free distribution of goods» claimed responsibility for the first raid of its kind in May 2008. Pharmacy ransacked Unidentified vandals damaged the building housing the City of Athens’s Social Pharmacy near the capital’s central Varvakeio meat market early yesterday, fleeing with an undetermined quantity of medicines, municipal officials said yesterday. Last Friday, vandals wielding iron bars damaged the facade of the neoclassical building housing the Municipal Homeless Foundation on the sidelines of a protest against the government’s new austerity measures. There were no reports of any injuries. Evia quake A moderate undersea earthquake, measuring 4.3 on the Richter scale, struck the area between the islands of Evia and Skopelos shortly before 5 a.m. yesterday. The quake, which had been preceded by a 4-Richter tremor at around 4 a.m., was felt across the broader region. There were no reports of any damage or injuries caused by the quake which came just a day after a 4.2-magnitude tremor struck the area between Patra and Nafpaktos. Schools closed Dozens of schools in the prefectures of Thessaloniki, Evros and Rhodope remained closed yesterday after heavy snowfall made road travel in the area precarious. In many parts of all three prefectures, motorists yesterday were asked to fit anti-skid chains to the wheels of their cars. Armed raid A young man wearing a mask and a woman wearing a motorcycle helmet held up a convenience store in the central town of Volos early yesterday, threatening the 23-year-old store owner at gunpoint to hand over his takings. The pair fled with the 300 euros they were given without causing any injuries.
