In Brief
Kiosk strike
Owners to strike on Sept 9, 10, protesting losses to business The union representing the country’s kiosk owners said yesterday that its members would launch a 48-hour strike on September 9 and 10, adding that some kiosk owners were planning to begin a hunger strike outside the premises of the Finance Ministry in central Athens on September 8. The kiosk owners are staging the action to protest the damage that has been done to their business by the rise in the special consumption tax on cigarettes. They are asking the Finance Ministry to protect their profit margins. Detainee escape Man, 29, flees in handcuffs Police in Larissa, central Greece, were yesterday scouring the area for a 29-year-old detainee of the city’s local jail after he managed to escape from a police vehicle during his transfer back to the prison from the hospital on Monday night. The man was taken to the hospital under police guard, after complaining of feeling unwell on Monday evening. He managed to escape from the officers escorting him back to the van following a checkup by doctors. He was in handcuffs when he fled. College closures The Education Ministry said yesterday that it intends to shut down the Hellenic American University as it does not have a license to operate. The announcement comes just 24 hours after the ministry said it would be shutting down the American University of Athens (AUA). In July, the ministry approved licenses for 30 private tertiary colleges and rejected another 10 in a bid to establish order in the tertiary education sector, where franchises of foreign universities had been operating in a legal limbo. Psomiadis standoff Thessaloniki Prefect Panayiotis Psomiadis, could be taken off the New Democracy ticket in November’s local elections if he insists on including his brother as part of his team, conservative sources said yesterday. ND leader Antonis Samaras is thought to have made it clear to Psomiadis, a colorful character who stood for the party leadership last year, that if he puts forward his brother as a candidate for deputy head of the Macedonia Regional Authority, then he will not be allowed to stand as a conservative hopeful himself. Psomiadis intends to run for the position of head of the regional authority. Voula cleanup Employees of the Attica Regional Authority yesterday started cleaning up the area of a former campsite in the southern suburb of Voula yesterday. The site, long out of use, has become an unofficial dumping site and is piled high with trash and rubble. Workers are to continue the cleanup until the end of the week. Suicide averted Officers from the police force’s electronic crimes unit said yesterday that they had averted the suicide of a 45-year-old Belgian on vacation in Crete. According to police, who worked with their counterparts in Belgium, the man had uploaded messages in Internet chat rooms expressing his intention to take his life. Tourists rescued An air force helicopter yesterday rescued three New Zealand tourists who had lost their bearings off the island of Santorini after going out on jet skis. One of the three tourists had sustained minor injuries.
