In Brief
Public transport
Reduced services on most routes over Easter holiday Commuters were informed yesterday that there will be a reduced service on all public transport networks over the Easter weekend. There will be no ETHEL blue buses in Athens after 11 p.m. on Easter Saturday. On the metro, last trains will leave at about midnight on Good Friday and 10.45 p.m. on Easter Saturday. The last trains on the Kifissia-Piraeus electric railway (ISAP) will leave at around 10.30 p.m. on Easter Saturday and the service will stop at around midnight on Good Friday. Also, trams will be running every 20 to 25 rather than 15 minutes on Good Friday and Easter Saturday. Several trains will be canceled on the Proastiakos suburban railway on Easter Saturday, including three to Athens International Airport. Turkey visit Droutsas off to Ankara Alternate Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas is to conduct an official visit to Turkey on April 7 and 8, the ministry said yesterday. Droutsas is due to meet Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on April 8 in Ankara following scheduled talks with Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios on April 7 in Istanbul. Droutsas had originally been due to start his visit to Turkey yesterday but postponed his trip following a series of transgressions in the Aegean. Cyprus support The Elders, a group of former statesmen, yesterday declared their support for Greek-Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias and Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat and urged them to sustain the momentum in their UN-sponsored reunification talks, which were put on hold yesterday pending a leadership election in the Turkish-occupied north on April 18. «There are already many areas of agreement and the leaders say they can achieve a comprehensive settlement,» said Archbishop Desmond Tutu who chairs the Elders group. «The momentum for reunification is real and it must be sustained.» «The beginning of the work to open the Limnitis/Yesilirmak crossing is just the most recent sign that things are moving in the right direction,» said former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. Abuse probe An internal investigation into March 4 allegations that a resident of a hostel for minors in Perissos, near central Athens, had been sexually abused by a former employee is due to be completed by the end of the week. The employee implicated in the alleged abuse was dismissed on the same day. No details were revealed about the nature of the alleged sexual harassment or its duration. Arms stopped Customs officials at the Kipoi border crossing in Evros yesterday confiscated several shotguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and an electroshock weapon from the back of a minivan stopped for a routine inspection. The weapons had been hidden in a specially designed compartment in the back of the vehicle. It emerged that the goods had been procured in Istanbul and had been destined for sale in Albania. The van driver was detained on smuggling charges.
