In Brief
MIGRANT CLASHES
Riot police quell fighting in Patra port and city An altercation between migrants of African and Balkan origin living in a makeshift settlement in the port of Patra spread to other parts of the city on Sunday evening. The flare-up began at 10 p.m. on the Akti Dymaion seafront and spilt over to the Church of Aghios Andreas, where a wedding had been under way. Later in the evening, more scuffles broke out by the port’s northern entrance and riot police were called in to quell the violence at the makeshift camp. The cause of the altercation is not known. The Peloponnesian port has been at the center of migrant-related violence in the past. SEAMEN PROTEST Unions appeal to prosecutor Representatives of seamen participating in ongoing protests at the port of Piraeus met with Supreme Court prosecutor Yiannis Tentes yesterday to object to court decisions deeming their actions illegal. They also said they would be continuing their blockades during Thursday’s general strike. Tentes responded that striking is one thing and becoming engaged in illegal action another, referring to the workers’ blockade of outgoing ferries and inbound cruise ships. Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos yesterday lashed out at the actions of the Communist Party-affiliated PAME group that has been behind the seamen’s blockades, saying that they are tarnishing Greece’s reputation «among every tourism market in the world.» Shop heists Police in Athens reported three armed robberies in less than 24 hours yesterday. The first involved two armed men storming an eatery on Patission Street in central Athens at 2.30 a.m., firing a shot into the air and making off with money snatched from the till. Later in the day, during the late morning rush hour, a lone armed robber made off with 47,000 euros from a lingerie store in Alimos, south of Athens. About an hour later, a supermarket in Metamorphosi, western Attica, was held up in a similar manner by a lone assailant who got away by motorcycle with an undetermined sum. ND deputies Opposition New Democracy party chief Antonis Samaras officially appointed his two deputies yesterday. The head of the main conservative opposition party announced that he would be placing Dimitris Avramopoulos in charge of a range of portfolios, including foreign policy, tourism and education, while Stavros Dimas, the former European environment commissioner, was put in charge of policy regarding the economy and development. Attica firebombs Unknown assailants doused a parked car with petrol and set it alight in the northern Athenian district of Halandri early yesterday morning, police said. Meanwhile, in central Athens, at 5.30 a.m., an eatery was torched by two unidentified men, though the fire was quickly put out by local residents and did not cause any injuries or major damage. Illegal bets Police yesterday arrested four people, two on the island of Lesvos and two in the northern city of Kilkis, on charges of making illicit profits by organizing illegal bets on World Cup soccer games.
