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FRONT PAGE NEWS |
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 The Cartoon Of The Day |
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| Strike to bring country to a halt |
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| Public transport and state services will shut down today, while hospitals will operate on emergency staff due to a 24-hour strike launched by union groups in opposition to the government's planned pension reforms.
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| Call to clean up city center |
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| Round-the-clock police surveillance of Athens's historic center is the only way to curb spiraling crime such as drug dealing and prostitution, Supreme Court prosecutor Giorgos Sanidas told police chiefs yesterday.
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| The net is closing on ATM gang |
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| Police are expecting to have a clearer picture by the end of the week about who is responsible for carrying out a series of raids on cash machines on Crete, as they continue to sift through the records of some 3,500 mobile phone calls, sources said yesterday.
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| Parnitha renewal to take time |
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| The regeneration of Mount Parnitha, a large section of which was ravaged by fire last June, will be time-consuming and expensive due to the susceptibility of the area, forestry service officials and scientists told a seminar yesterday.
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| Prehistoric bear bones discovered in Pella |
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| More than 15,000 bones of fossilized cave bears have been found on the Iridaias mountain, in northern Greece's Pella area, as experts uncover evidence of large bear populations existing in the area some 40,000 years ago.
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TO OUR READERS
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| Kathimerini English Edition and the International Herald Tribune will not be available in Greece, Cyprus and Albania tomorrow due to a 24-hour general strike. We will be back on Friday.
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IN BRIEF |
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Task force says competitiveness is waning, calls for wage restraint
: An International Monetary Fund (IMF) task force that visited Greece recently has advised the Economy and Finance Ministry that the country's economic competitiveness is waning... |
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Archbishop's health worsens as he also suffers kidney problems
: Archbishop Christodoulos has been in a critical condition over the last few days, according to his doctors. The 68-year-old archbishop, who was diagnosed with cancer in the summer, is believed to also be suffering kidney problems... |
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Karamanlis to visit Moscow Dec 17
: Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis will visit Russia from December 17 to 19 after being invited to Moscow by Russian President Vladimir Putin... |
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Alex book
: Alex Meshivili, the 11-year-old schoolboy who disappeared in Veria in February 2006, was not murdered by five schoolboys but was kidnapped, according to psychologist Christina Antonopoulou, who unveiled her book on the subject yesterday... |
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Counterfeit currency
: Police in Hania, Crete, yesterday charged a 37-year-old man with producing and trading in counterfeit currency... |
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Ferry grounded
: A ferry bumped into a pier on the island of Myconos yesterday but none of the 131 passengers aboard were injured, the Merchant Marine Ministry said... |
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Readers' prize
: The National Book Center (EKEBI) said yesterday that author Andreas Mitsou has been awarded its 2007 for his novel «Mr Episkopakis»... |
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Police trust
: Greeks are more satisfied with the level of policing in the community than they were last year but their level of satisfaction remains lower than the European Union average... |
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EDITORIAL |
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Reforms that are just dried ink
In a nutshell, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) report on Greece says that while there is plenty of talk about reforms, reforms are not actually being implemented. Even those reforms that are made into law end up remaining just on paper and are never put into practice.
A typical example is a law on the financial shake-up of state companies, which the government is openly and vocally very proud of. |
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COMMENTARY |
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The right politician
Over the years I have come to the conclusion that there are three types of politicians. The first are complacent politicians who tend to avoid hot potatoes. They never do anything before first considering the political cost. Many of Greece's transport politicians fall into this category. They took charge of Olympic Airlines and the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE), two of the most troubled state-owned companies, only to see debts grow. |
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OPINION |
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News from the corruption front
Great. We can rest easy now that the newly founded rural police force has spent 100,000 euros on «confidential expenses.» The war against corruption, launched in 2004, is bearing fruit, because we can be certain that these secret funds were spent on paying informers for tips on corruption in the countryside. We can also rest easy because the secret funds from the Ministry of Public Order have been increased tenfold. According to Ta Nea daily, though the 2007 budget had put aside 7 million euros, 77 million had been spent by September. With Greece's terrorists behind bars, we can only assume that this money was spent on battling corruption. |
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