In Brief
Transport disruption
No trains or metro link to airport today as workers strike There will be no metro service between the capital and Athens International Airport tomorrow due to a strike by Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE) workers. The section of the route between Doukissis Plakentias station and the airport will be affected by the OSE workers’ strike. The suburban railway (Proastiakos) will also be out of service. The 24-hour strike by OSE employees will suspend all national rail services. Heating oil Deliveries to begin tomorrow Deliveries of heating oil to Greek homes are to begin tomorrow as planned after Deputy Finance Minister Dimitris Kouselas reached a consensus with unionists representing the country’s gas station owners. Kouselas satisfied the unionists’ demands for repayment of the special consumption tax they fork out when buying the oil within two days of the submission of invoices to the ministry. Also, a regulation obliging gas station owners to pay the tax in advance will be abolished on January 1. Child found An 11-year-old child reported missing from Anogia, Crete, on Monday, was found safe and sound yesterday in Patra. Police had activated an «Amber Alert» – a notification system for missing children – after Rezai Ali Reza, who is of Afghan descent, was reported missing. According to sources, the child told police that he had gone to Patra to meet a friend who had left Anogia the week before. It was unclear if the two boys had been staying at a hostel for refugees in Anogia. Steelworks fire Four workers were injured, two seriously, after a fire broke out early yesterday at the steelworks plant in Aspropyrgos, west of Athens. One of the three workers was in critical condition yesterday. It was unclear what caused the fire, which started in a garbage dumpster. Joint drill Greece and Israel conducted their first joint military exercise since Athens suspended a drill in May after Israeli commandos killed nine people on ships carrying aid to Gaza. The exercise, involving eight Israeli aircraft and nine Greek aircraft, ends today. Officers suspended Two police officers were suspended from duty yesterday after a 17-year-old Roma youth they had been accompanying from the capital’s Evelpidon court complex to a jail in Nikaia, near Piraeus, on Tuesday jumped out of the police car and fled, despite being handcuffed. The officers had arrested the youth on learning that he was a fugitive from a seven-month conviction for theft. Road fatalities Figures released yesterday by the National Council for Road Safety revealed a slight rise in road accidents this year but a significant drop in fatalities. In the first nine months of 2010, road accidents were up 3.2 percent compared to the same period last year, while the number of deaths fell to 959 from 1,119 in the same period last year, a drop of 14.3 percent. Migrant death Coast guard officers on Samos yesterday were investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of a 23-year-old migrant who was beaten by a group of assailants at the island’s main port.
