In Brief
FIREBOMBING
Turkish consulate targeted in dawn raid but no one is hurt A group of around 15 people gathered outside the Turkish Consulate in Thessaloniki in the early hours of Saturday and attacked the guard post with homemade explosive devices, police said. The assailants, who had their faces covered, evaded capture by running into the grounds of Aristotle University. Police could not pursue them as they are prohibited from entering universities in Greece under an asylum law. No one was injured in the attack, which investigators believe to have been aimed at the policeman on duty rather than the consulate. BOMB DEFUSED Device neutralized in Hania Bomb squad officers in Hania, Crete, defused an explosive device placed outside a cafe on Saturday morning. According to reports, the police received a telephone call earlier in the day informing them that there was a suspect package lying in the entrance of the establishment. After cordoning off the area, bomb experts managed to deactivate the device, which was found to be homemade. UN talks Prime Minister George Papandreou and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had »constructive» talks in New York yesterday covering foreign policy issues as well as the government’s initiative for curbing climate change, to be outlined at an international summit in Athens on October 22. The two men discussed UN-mediated talks on the Cyprus problem and ongoing negotiations between Athens and Skopje regarding the official name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Stabbing arrest Athens police on Saturday arrested a 33-year-old Greek man in connection with the murder of a Nigerian woman who was found stabbed in the middle of a street in Ilion, western Athens, early on Friday morning. According to the police, the victim lived with the man in an apartment close to where her body was found. An investigation revealed that the man stabbed the woman with a 40-centimeter bayonet during a violent argument. The woman managed to drag herself into the street, where she was found. She died a few hours later in hospital. Knife fight Two men were killed and another injured in a knife fight that broke out among a group of Chinese nationals in the central Athenian neighborhood of Kolonos on Saturday night, police said. Police are investigating the causes behind the fight which took place in an apartment and soon became violent, with the arguing parties drawing knives. Robbers nabbed Police in Iraklio, Crete, announced late on Friday that, following a months-long investigation, they had arrested six men believed to be at the core of a gang responsible for a string of robberies on jewelry stores in Iraklio and Rethymno. The six men, all aged between 22 and 28, are Albanian nationals who have lived in Greece for several years. OSE disruption In protest at government plans to privatize the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE), railway workers announced yesterday that they would be holding work stoppages from tomorrow through Thursday and September 28-30.
