In Brief

SUMMERTIME

Clocks to spring forward by an hour early Sunday Clocks will move forward by one hour on Sunday, marking the official beginning of summer. The time – which should be changed from 3 a.m. to 4 a.m. – will change back on the last Sunday in October. MILITARY SHAKEUP Government approves armed forces restructuring The Government Committee on Foreign Policy and Defense, chaired by Prime Minister Costas Simitis, yesterday confirmed plans to restructure Greece’s armed forces by decommissioning 25 percent of existing units while rendering others more mobile, hiring professional soldiers and reducing costs. MUNICIPAL STRIKE 48-hour garbage strike next week Municipal employees – including rubbish collectors – held a 24-hour nationwide strike yesterday, calling for better pay and permanent jobs for contract workers. A union protest in Stadiou Street caused massive traffic jams throughout the city center. A 48-hour strike will be held on Wednesday and Thursday. Teachers’ strike The state secondary school teachers’ union decided yesterday to hold a 24-hour strike on April 11, in pursuit of a 25-percent pay rise and better pension rights. Chinese visitor Defense Minister Yiannos Papantoniou yesterday discussed bilateral cooperation on military matters and Olympic Games security with his visiting Chinese counterpart, Chi Haotian. Chi was the senior Chinese army general who supervised the June 1989 Tienanmen Square massacre of pro-democracy student protesters. Minefield death An illegal immigrant was killed and three others injured after straying into a minefield near the village of Gemisti, near the border with Turkey, army sources said yesterday. The immigrants were part of a group of six from Algeria, Morocco and Iraq. They were not identified further. A week ago, two other people died in another minefield near Kastanies, on the same day the Greek Parliament voted to ratify the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines. Citizens’ Advocate In this year’s annual report, the Citizens’ Advocate reported a 15-percent increase in the number of complaints lodged compared to the previous year. After submitting the report to Prime Minister Costas Simitis on Wednesday, the ombudsman, Professor Nikiforos Diamandouros, said the 12,000 additional applications for assistance mainly concerned complaints about construction, taxation, insurance policies and local government. A press conference on the new report will be held on Monday. Taking the heat Police arrested two foreign nationals yesterday after the water heater in their apartment exploded, totally wrecking the apartment and damaging two more, along with two cars parked outside the building in Aegaleo, western Athens. The water heater had apparently been left on for seven hours. The force of the explosion caused the dividing wall between the building and the one next door to collapse. Murder The body of an unidentified man was found in a forest near Kapandriti, north of Athens on Thursday, bearing multiple stab wounds. The man was aged about 25, about 1.85 tall, heavily built with straight, dark brown hair. Police believe the murder was a settling of accounts. International Court Greek Parliament this week ratified a treaty drafted in Rome in 1998 providing for an International Criminal Court (ICC), the 57th country to do so. Only another three countries are required to ratify the charter in order to establish the court, a permanent tribunal to try cases of genocide, war crimes and other crimes against humanity. The court will be located in The Hague, also the base for the UN’s International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. NATO hopes Foreign Minister George Papandreou hosted a meeting of his counterparts from Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria in Athens yesterday in talks aimed at NATO members Greece and Turkey helping the two former East Bloc countries move closer to the Western Alliance.