In Brief
FYROM ties
PM tells Gruevski Athens ready for name solution Prime Minister George Papandreou yesterday met his counterpart from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Nikola Gruevski, on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Brussels as speculation mounted about a breakthrough in ongoing efforts to determine an official name for the Balkan country. According to sources, Papandreou reiterated Greece’s support for a mutually acceptable solution with a geographical determinant but also stressed that aggressive statements by officials in Skopje were not constructive. Last weekend, sources said the two countries looked set to agree on the name of the Vardar River being used to differentiate FYROM from the region of Macedonia in northern Greece. Metro protest Staff to stay home for 3rd day Metro workers, who walked off the job Wednesday and yesterday to protest the nonrenewal of labor contracts for 286 of their colleagues, yesterday called a third 24-hour strike for today in a bid to pressure the Transport Ministry into reversing its decision. Yesterday’s metro strike coincided with a five-hour work stoppage by employees on all forms of public transport, causing increased congestion on the streets of the capital, as Athenians who usually rely on the metro took to their cars. Some 650,000 commuters use the Athens metro daily. Buried corpse The remains of a man discovered beneath a renovated bathroom in the basement of a house in Diakofto, in the Peloponnese, are believed to be those of a businessman from the Ionian island of Zakynthos who has been missing since May 2009, police said yesterday. Working on a tip-off, officers on Wednesday searched the house where an Albanian woman had been living until recently. It is unclear whether the former tenant is suspected in connection with the death of Tasos Tsagaropoulos. According to police, the body had been buried in the space where a bathtub had been before being covered with 10 centimeters of cement and tiles and converted into a shower. The cause of death remained unclear. ISAP disruption Kifissia-bound trains on the Piraeus-Kifissia urban electric railway (ISAP) will not be stopping at Kallithea station as of today due to engineering works. The section of the ISAP route between Irini and Neratziotissa is also closed due to works. Passengers can use the X16 replacement bus service for this section. Lawyer walkout Lawyers are to stage rolling 24-hour strikes from June 23 through July 7 to protest the impact of new tax measures and imminent changes to the pension system, the coordinating committee representing all the country’s bar associations said yesterday. Track death An unidentified young man was killed yesterday after being hit by a train when he tried to cross a section of railway track in Tavros, southwestern Athens, shortly after 9 a.m. The man was hit by a train that had been en route to Piraeus from Kiato, a railway spokesman said.
