In Brief
RAIL DISRUPTION
Rolling strikes to halt train services for four days this week There will be no train services today, tomorrow, Wednesday and Friday as employees of the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE) resume strike action in protest at the government’s privatization plans. Trains are to run as normal on Thursday, which is a national holiday. Workers on the Proastiakos Suburban Railway will also be joining the rolling strikes and there will be no metro service between the capital and Athens International Airport, as trains will be terminating at Doukissis Plakentias station. Aircraft accident Pilot and passenger hurt The pilot of a private lightweight aircraft was forced to conduct an emergency landing in Megara, west of Athens, early yesterday. It appears that the aircraft suffered a mechanical failure. The pilot and a passenger, who both sustained minor injuries, were transferred by a Super Puma rescue helicopter to a military hospital. Mountain search Rescuers yesterday continued their search for a 37-year-old French environmental researcher who went missing in the region of Mount Olympus, northern Greece, earlier this month. The last sighting of the scientist, who has been conducting research in the area, was reported in mid-October by a shepherd who saw her climbing a footpath leading up the mountain. Singer dies Kaiti Homata, a popular singer and proponent of the New Wave genre of Greek music developed in the 1960s, died at the age of 64 yesterday. Homata had been battling with cancer for several years. She is to be buried tomorrow at the cemetery in Ilioupoli, southern Athens. Heating oil Unionists representing the country’s gas station owners yesterday reiterated threats to suspend deliveries of heating oil to Greek homes, complaining that the government had failed to make good on its pledges to repay suppliers the special consumption tax they pay when buying the oil within two days of the submission of invoices. The unionists said they would give the government until November 1 to satisfy their demands. Tanker seized A Greek-owned, Singapore-flagged tanker carrying 150 tons of liquefied petroleum gas has been seized by Somalian pirates off the coast of Kenya, Greek coast guard officials said yesterday. A spokesman for the vessel’s operating company, Interunity Management Corporation, confirmed the incident to Agence France-Presse but had no news about the vessel’s 17 crew members – a German captain, 14 Filipinos and two Ukrainians. Murder probes Police in Halkidiki, northern Greece, were questioning a 33-year-old Albanian man on Saturday over the fatal knifing of his 34-year-old wife, also Albanian. The man had telephoned a local clinic claiming to have found her wounded at their home. She died on the way to hospital. Meanwhile on Corfu, police are awaiting the extradition from Albania of a 44-year-old Greek man whose ex-wife’s body was found in the trunk of a car in a remote spot on the Ionian island on Friday. The woman’s body bore gunshot wounds.
