In Brief
CYPRUS CRASH
Fatal helicopter was forced to land, says defense minister A helicopter accident on Wednesday which caused the deaths of the commander of the Cypriot National Guard, the island’s air force chief, and three Cypriot officers, was probably the result of a crash landing following a fire or malfunction, Cypriot Defense Minister Socrates Hasikos said yesterday. A committee of pilots and aircraft engineers is to determine exactly what happened, Hasikos added. National Guard Commander Lt. Gen. Evangelos Florakis, 59, Vassilis Demenagas, 50, Paris Athanasiades, 31, Michael Shakalis, 24, and Nikos Georgiou, 29, died when the Bell 206 landed and then rolled into a ravine. Florakis will be buried in Paphos this morning. ILLEGAL GAMBLING Parliament approves law banning slot machines Parliament yesterday unanimously approved a law banning the use of slot machines in public places. An article allowing slot machines in casinos was voted through despite opposition by the Communist Party and Synaspismos Left Coalition which claimed it encouraged a gambling mentality. Deputy Finance Minister Apostolos Fotiades confirmed that annual rates on tables for card games would be cut by 30 percent after two New Democracy MPs requested leniency for villages whose elderly populations regularly play cards in local cafes. ANTI-IMMIGRATION Border guards threaten blockade Border guards will stage a countrywide strike and blockade customs houses along the Turkish border unless the government cracks down on illegal immigration, leaders of the Panhellenic Federation of Police Workers said yesterday following their general assembly in Alexandroupolis. Excessive police resources are being allocated to tackling the influx of illegal immigrants when a more effective solution would be to «lock» Greek borders, unionists say. Border guards also claim they are exposed to infectious diseases, according to unionists who also insist on the creation of more reception centers. The guards, who were hired to patrol borders, did not clarify what they want the government to do. Flight disruptions Olympic Airways flights were delayed yesterday as around 800 staff on short-term contracts started performing their duties slowly and to the letter in protest at not having been granted permanency in accordance with an EU directive transforming short-term fixed contracts into open-ended ones. OA managers terminated the contracts of 70 protesters yesterday, claiming that their leisurely approach to work was illegal and particularly disruptive during the busy tourist season, saying they cannot fulfill the workers’ demands. Falcon trial The pilot of a government jet, in which seven people died in a freak accident in September 1999, yesterday told an Athens court that the manufacturers of the jet and the automatic pilot mechanism – Dassault and Honeywell – were to blame for the disaster. Yiannis Androulakis, defending himself yesterday, also blamed Olympic Airways’ technical unit. Last month a flying instructor told the court that Androulakis had been inadequately trained to handle an aircraft malfunction. Deputy Foreign Minister Yiannis Kranidiotis and his son were among those killed on the Falcon. Weapons cache Port authorities on Corfu yesterday unearthed a cache of weapons, including three Kalashnikov assault rifles and 20 Russian F1 hand grenades, from a rocky section of Kondoyialos Beach on the Ionian island’s western coast. Authorities believe the weapons may belong to a smuggling gang. Belgrade visit Parliament Speaker Apostolos Kaklamanis was in Belgrade’s war-ravaged Yugoslav Parliament building yesterday where he inaugurated two rooms – to be named «Democracy» and «Government» – for whose refurbishment Greece donated $800,000. Soccer defector Turkish-Cypriot soccer player Sabri Selden, who caused controversy when he moved to free Cyprus to play for AEK Larnaca in May, yesterday confirmed rumors that he had returned to his hometown in the Turkish-occupied north. Selden, 23, said he had missed his family.
