In Brief
SOCCER ON TV
UEFA awards Greek rights to ERT and Mega channels State-run ERT and private Mega television have reached a deal to share Greek broadcasting rights for the Champions League over the next three years, the European soccer body UEFA said yesterday. Under the deal starting next season, the free-to-air channels will divide coverage. ERT will broadcast Tuesday-night games and highlights and Mega will have the rights for Wednesdays. Mega currently holds all broadcast rights. UEFA did not reveal how much the deal was worth, but said ERT and Mega offered the highest combined sum. (AP) OUT IN THE COLD DIKKI threatens legal action if left out of Sunday election debates The Democratic Social Movement (DIKKI) yesterday threatened to take legal action against all television channels that fail to invite a DIKKI representative to all political debates broadcast this Sunday, when municipal and regional elections take place. «We ask you to respect your constitutional, legal and democratic obligations by inviting us… to participate on an equal level with… other political parties,» DIKKI told channels in an official warning. «Otherwise… we will take all legal steps to ensure that those responsible are charged under civil, criminal and administrative law,» it added. DIKKI came fifth in the 2000 national elections with 2.8 percent, and is not represented in Parliament. PILOTS’ STRIKE Tuesday protest over Australia route cut Olympic Airways pilots will stage a four-hour work stoppage next Tuesday, from 8 a.m. until 12 noon, in protest over a decision by OA management to suspend its flights to Australia, the Pilots’ Association (EHPA) said yesterday. Chrysochoidis The US government has invited Public Order Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis to visit Washington on October 21-22 for meetings with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Attorney General John Ashcroft, CIA director George Tenet and FBI director Robert Mueller. The two days of talks are believed to be related to Greece’s war against domestic terrorism. Oil talks Cypriot Commerce and Tourism Minister Nikos Rolandis is due in Cairo today to discuss cooperation in the oil and natural gas sectors with Egyptian Oil Minister Sameh Fahmy. Cyprus is in close negotiations with Egypt and Syria on exploiting oil deposits located in the seabed south of Cyprus, to which Turkey has also staked a claim. Omonia station Passengers on the Athens Kifissia-Piraeus electric railway (ISAP) from Monday will only be able to disembark at Omonia using the station’s side platforms, as the central platform will be closed while renovation works are under way, ISAP said yesterday. Migrant smuggling Police at the northwestern port of Igoumenitsa yesterday arrested two German nationals after discovering 10 Iraqi illegal immigrants hiding in their trailer van. Sascha Kiesel, 23, and Franziska Reichert, 18, had been due to board a ferry to Italy. They were charged with attempted people smuggling. Also yesterday, an Armenian and three Chinese nationals faced a Thessaloniki prosecutor after their arrest just outside the northern city. Paparigas ‘critical.’ Journalist Athanassios Paparigas, the husband of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) leader Aleka Papariga, spent a second day in the intensive care department of an Athens hospital last night after being hit by a car in Athens on Tuesday. Doctors said yesterday that they could not yet offer a diagnosis but that the following 24 hours would be critical for Paparigas, who has serious head, chest and stomach injuries. Psomiadis A Financial Crimes Squad (SDOE) inspection of Panayiotis Psomiadis’s business books on Tuesday was conducted as part of an investigation into a suspect Thessaly enterprise, and was not an attempt to discredit the New Democracy prefectural candidate for Thessaloniki, government spokesman Christos Protopappas said yesterday. SDOE officers moved on after establishing that Psomiadis’s business, which they had inspected along with another 11 enterprises, had had no dealings with the business under investigation, Protopappas added. Psomiadis on Wednesday had called the inspection an act of «political shabbiness,» instigated by his opponents.
