NEWS

In Brief

Railway strike

OSE employee action tomorrow to cause disruptions on network Travel on the country’s railway network will be disrupted tomorrow as employees of the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE) launch a 24-hour strike to protest the planned streamlining of the debt-mired company. The workers object to the reforms which will result in hundreds of job losses and forced retirements. They have threatened to continue with rolling strikes until Transport Minister Dimitris Reppas offers them some concessions. Workers killed Two dead in Attiki Odos crash Two road maintenance workers, aged 45 and 23, were killed and a third was seriously injured early yesterday, when a driver lost control of his vehicle near Elefsina and crashed into them, traffic police said yesterday. The third worker and the motorist were taken to the hospital, the latter for treatment to shock. It remained unclear whether the driver had been under the influence of alcohol. Body found Rescue workers yesterday recovered the body of a 37-year-old woman from the Enipeus River in Pieria, northern Greece, which broke its banks due to heavy rain in the early hours of the morning and swept the woman and her car away. The woman’s 40-year-old husband, who had been traveling in the passenger seat, managed to get out of the vehicle and grab hold of the branches of a tree on the bank of the river. Teacher shortages Some 1.3 million pupils are to return to school today but only 160,000 teachers will be available to take their classes at some 15,500 schools across the country, despite pledges by Education Minister Anna Diamantopoulou to boost staff numbers. There are believed to be more than 2,600 vacant spots for teachers at Greek schools. Breast cancer Specialist doctors from Athens’s Metaxa and Ippokrateio hospitals will be available at special kiosks at the Syntagma Square metro station today and tomorrow, offering free breast cancer tests and advice on prevention and early detection. The kiosks will operate on both days from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Water polo medal The Greek women’s national water polo team earned the silver medal in the European Championship after losing 11-6 to Russia in the competition’s final, late on Friday in Croatia. This was Greece’s first ever medal in the competition. The men’s team finished ninth. Teenage burglar Police in Thessaloniki said yesterday that they were seeking an 18-year-old youth believed to have burgled eight homes and an office in the eastern part of the city in the past four months. The suspect is believed to have amassed a large amount of computer equipment as well as valuable jewelry. Exarchia trouble A fire that broke out early on Saturday on the third floor of a tax office in the central Athens district of Exarchia is believed to be the work of arsonists who broke into the building, police said. The fire was extinguished before it could cause major damage and no one was hurt, according to police, who did not say whether they believed the arsonists’ motive to be sabotage or revenge.

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