In Brief
Staff sit-in
Sanitation workers occupy Piraeus City Hall over pay Sanitation workers yesterday occupied Piraeus City Hall, demanding unpaid wages for weekend and overtime work over the past four months and complaining that only four garbage trucks are serving all of Piraeus. The protesting workers began the sit-in at 6 a.m., barring municipal staff and citizens from entering the premises, and were still there late last night. Bomb hoax Courthouses targeted again Thessaloniki’s main court complex was evacuated for the second time in two weeks yesterday after an unidentified caller phoned in a bomb threat to the media. Police cordoned off the streets around the building and ushered out staff, lawyers and citizens after a local newspaper and private television channel informed them of the warning. Sniffer dogs inspected the building but found no suspect device. Airport metro AMEL, the company that operates the metro, said yesterday that trains to Athens International Airport will be running as normal today. It had been expected that the Line 3 section between Doukissis Plakentias and the airport would be closed during the three-hour work stoppages by Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE) employees. OSE workers are due to walk off the job today and tomorrow between 6 and 9 a.m., 2 and 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. and midnight. The stoppages are expected to affect the metro service to the airport tomorrow. Big-haul burglary Police in Thessaloniki yesterday were seeking three burglars who allegedly broke into the home of an 89-year-old man near the eastern suburb of Asprovalta and forced him to hand over 50,000 euros in cash. It remained unclear yesterday why the man had 50,000 euros in cash in his home. Rape charges Three Britons were in detention in the Cretan resort of Malia yesterday after a female compatriot alleged that they tried to rape her early on Sunday. The young woman, who had been drinking in the same bar as the three men earlier that morning, managed to escape and report the alleged attack to police. Fatal beating A Syrian man died in a hospital in Iraklio, Crete, yesterday after being beaten by two unidentified assailants. According to the testimony the Syrian gave before his death, two strangers attacked him in the area of Kaminia. They then bundled him into their car and drove him to a remote part of Rethymno prefecture where they abandoned him. The man was found by a passer-by and taken to the hospital where he died a few hours later. Cable thieves A former employee of the Public Power Corporation (PPC) and an accomplice, both 34, have been arrested for allegedly breaking into more than 200 power substations in Attica and stealing cables which they then sold, police said yesterday. Officers made the arrests after a theft at a substation in Glyfada, southern Athens. US Embassy The US Embassy’s consular section in Athens will be closed tomorrow, for internal administrative reasons, as is normal on the last Wednesday of every month, an embassy statement said yesterday.
