In Brief
COMMUTER DISRUPTION
No public transport between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. today There will be no public transport in Attica today between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. – except for the Proastiakos suburban railway and taxis – as employees stage a work stoppage to protest the government’s austerity measures. Service on city buses, the metro, tram, Piraeus-Kifissia electric railway (ISAP) and trolley buses will run as usual before 11 a.m. and after 5 p.m. Protesting workers are due to stage a rally in Kotzia Square in the morning. Later in the day members of the civil servants’ union ADEDY are to start a protest march at 6.30 p.m. outside Athens University. FUGITIVE FRAUDSTER Escapee caught in Sparta Police in Sparta said yesterday that they had detained a 35-year-old Greek man believed to have escaped from a police precinct in Piraeus before traveling to the Peloponnesian city where he allegedly applied for an identification card using someone’s else’s personal details. Police at the Sparta precinct where the 35-year-old applied for an ID card said their suspicions were raised by his edgy behavior. The suspect, who had been in detention in Piraeus for a series of thefts, was reportedly transferred back to the port city yesterday to face a prosecutor there. China uncovered Following a two-week trip to China, a team of Kathimerini journalists share their impressions of the country and report on the rapid rise of Chinese shipping company Cosco. Grigoropoulos trial Two policemen who trained with the two special guards implicated in the death of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos in December 2008, told a court yesterday that the first thing they were taught in training was to only use their gun as a last resort if they were under threat. The policeman charged with shooting dead Grigoropoulos, Epaminondas Korkoneas, insists that he and his colleague, Vassilis Saraliotis, came under attack by a group of youths and that he fired warning shots into the air. Billboards demolished Work teams yesterday began dismantling illegal billboards at the junction of Kifissias Avenue and Spyros Louis Street in northern Athens, as part of a new drive by the Transport Ministry. Deputy Transport Minister Nikos Sifounakis said that most of the billboard structures that have been installed on sidewalks are illegal and vowed that the government would see through the project of tearing them all down. Coach death The 55-year-old driver of a Romanian coach that was transporting tourists from the Balkan country was arrested in Kyparissia, in the western Peloponnese, after the vehicle struck and killed a 65-year-old man. Police said the victim, whose identity was not revealed, was fatally injured because the handbrake had not been activated and the coach began to roll backward as he placed his luggage in the hold. Glyfada closure The Municipality of Glyfada in southern Athens will be closed due to a protest by employees at the nonrenewal of some workers’ contracts. Strike canceled A scheduled strike today by employees of the Culture Ministry was called off yesterday…………………………………….
