In Brief
TOURISTS INJURED
Turkish catamaran strikes pier while docking at Kos Twenty-five tourists were injured, five of them seriously, when a Turkish-flagged catamaran struck a pier as it was docking at the southeastern Aegean island of Kos yesterday morning, the coast guard reported. The Aegean Cat was carrying 209 passengers, most of them British, and a crew of six from the Turkish coastal town of Didim to Kos when it crashed yesterday morning. Coast guard officials are investigating the possibility of a mechanical failure having caused the accident. The injured passengers are all being treated at a hospital on the island. CRANK CALLER Man nabbed for bomb threats A 39-year-old crank caller, who has kept police stations around the country on alert for the past 10 days, was arrested by Attica police yesterday. The unnamed suspect is believed to have placed over 20 calls to the police’s 100 hotline, the fire department and radio and television stations, claiming that he had planted a bomb at a mobile telephony store in a mall in the northern Athens suburb of Maroussi. Police believe the man made the calls because he owed money to the store and was refused more purchases. Prostitution ring Officers from Greece’s vice squad believe they have cracked a major international prostitution ring with the arrest of two Russian women aged 24 and 34. The women, who have not been identified, were traced by investigators via an Internet site promising «dates» with models at fees ranging from 250 to 1,000 euros. Investigators arranged to meet the two women at a luxury hotel in central Athens yesterday afternoon and arrested them after paying upfront for their services. Briton arrested A 54-year-old Briton was being held on charges of attempted rape against a 28-year-old compatriot in the tourist resort town of Malia on Crete, yesterday. Police arrested the unnamed suspect after the woman, who was allegedly a friend of his, told officers he had tried to rape her after an argument turned violent. Mobility Week Panepistimiou Street and Syntagma Square will be closed to traffic on Saturday between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. to make way for events organized on the occasion of European Mobility Week, which begins today and runs to September 22. The City of Athens and other local authorities have organized a campaign to raise awareness of road safety regulations and boost the use of public transportation. Ambushed Two employees of the intercity KTEL bus network in Lamia, central Greece, were ambushed by unidentified assailants yesterday while carrying 80,000 euros in employees’ wages. The employees were driving to the KTEL depot on a scooter after having withdrawn money from a bank when a hooded man threw a metal rod into the street in front of them, obliging them to stop. The assailant was joined by another man and, after forcing the pair to hand over the money at gunpoint, the perpetrators rode off with the scooter. More strikes In protest at government plans to privatize the Hellenic Railways Organization, railway workers announced yesterday that they would be holding work stoppages from September 21-23 and 28-20.
