NEWS

In Brief

Borderline behavior

Germany concerned about how Greece is treating refugees The German government has warned Greece about its treatment of refugees after German police units that are part of a European Union border force helping patrol the country’s northeastern border with Turkey reported that the conditions immigrants were being kept in were very poor. According to a report in Der Spiegel magazine, German officers that are part of Frontex’s Rapid Border Intervention Teams were ordered to refrain from some of the tasks they had been assigned because they were deemed to contravene German law. The Germans also reported Greek officers using physical force, firing warning shots and causing people to retreat onto mined territory. «Germany is watching the developments with concern and has already demanded that Greece improve the situation of refugees,» an Interior Ministry spokesman told the magazine. ELTA swindle Worker wanted to fund surgery More than 217,000 euros is missing from the Hellenic Post (ELTA) branch in Keramoti, near Kavala in northern Greece, reports said yesterday. A 55-year-old man, the post office’s only employee, is facing accusations of embezzlement after allegedly admitting that he stole the money to cover the cost of an operation he planned to undergo at a foreign clinic. Greek-Hungarian ties Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban yesterday expressed solidarity with debt-ridden Greece during talks with his counterpart George Papandreou in Athens. As the «source of European civilization,» Greece is very important to Hungary, Orban said, noting that «without Greece, there can be no stability in Europe.» Papandreou, for his part, reiterated his support for the accession of Bulgaria, which next month assumes the European Union’s rotating presidency, to the Schengen group of countries. Buses discontinued The Athens Urban Transport Organization (OASA) yesterday announced the cessation of two bus routes – the 408 that does a round trip of the northern Athens suburb of Aghia Paraskevi and the 901 that links the southern suburb of Neo Faliro to the port of Piraeus. The two lines are being discontinued due to very low passenger traffic. Registering land Ktimatologio SA, the company that has been charged with creating Greece’s first comprehensive land register, has started registering plots of land in 19 prefectures, it emerged yesterday. Once all plots of land in these prefectures – which cover 263 different regions – have been registered, the company will proceed to register the country’s remaining 32 prefectures. A spokesman for Ktimatologio said yesterday that the project was due for completion by 2020. Winter weather Heavy snowfall in northern Greece yesterday led to the closure of all schools in the regions of Macedonia and Thrace as travel on many roads was precarious. Meanwhile on the island of Rhodes, prefectural workers sought to repair the damage wreaked along the island’s west coast by heavy rain and choppy seas.

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