In Brief
Transportation disruption
Strike to halt metro, ISAP services on New Year’s Day There will be no services on the Athens metro and the Piraeus-Kifissia urban electric railway (ISAP) tomorrow, New Year’s Day, after the drivers of both modes of transport decided to stage a 24-hour walkout in protest at the government’s plans to streamline public transport as part of a broader cost-cutting drive. Other modes of public transport are scheduled to operate normally, apart from the tram, which will be suspended between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. Sports violence Fan held hostage by rivals Police in Thessaloniki yesterday rescued a sports fan who had been taken hostage by supporters of a rival club following clashes that followed a basketball match on Wednesday night. The 18-year-old PAOK supporter had been beaten before being dragged into a supporters’ club of rival local team Iraklis and locked up there, according to police. Officers arrested 22 people following the clashes that erupted after Wednesday’s basketball match between PAOK and Olympiakos. The PAOK and Olympiakos fans had been thrown out of the stadium after a referee was hit by an object hurled from the stands. Inspector attacked Police in the central town of Volos yesterday were seeking the owner and manager of a local metal processing plant after a regional labor inspector visiting the site on Wednesday was attacked by a plant worker who doused him with gasoline and threatened to set him on fire if he and three colleagues did not leave the premises immediately. The three inspectors had been dispatched to visit the plant following the serious injury of a 38-year-old immigrant worker in an explosion there earlier in the week. According to sources, the assailant who threw petrol over one of the inspectors said, «If you don’t leave now, there’ll be another accident.» Police found no one at the site yesterday. Turkish violations A formation of six Turkish fighter jets violated Greek air space over the eastern Aegean shortly after 1 p.m. yesterday, according to defense officials who said the aircraft were chased off by an equal amount of Greek aircraft. The six F-16s entered the Athens Flight Information Region at 1.05 p.m. and subsequently flew over several small islands including Farmakonisi, Agathonisi and Fournoi. Name talks The United Nations envoy mediating between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) in a bid to resolve a longstanding bilateral dispute over the Balkan nation’s name is likely to invite diplomats from both countries for talks in the next few days, FYROM’s Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki was quoted as saying yesterday. Milososki said Skopje was open to a new meeting. There had been no official response from officials in Athens by late last night.
