PARLIAMENT launches an inquiry into allegations that the statistics agency may have fudged data on the 2009 deficit after board member Zoe Georganta claims that German officials at Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency, pressured Greece into bumping its figures up.
THE APPEALS Prosecutor files criminal charges against all concerned for attempted espionage in connection with a wiretapping scandal revealed in January 2006. The case involves illegal wiretaps on cell phones of phones of senior government officials and politicians in the period just before the 2004 Olympics.
MEANTIME, two independent coroners’ reports suggest the death of a 39-year-old software engineer may not have been suicide, prompting his family to ask for the case to be reopened. Kostas Tsalikidis had allegedly hung himself fearing he might be implicated in the wiretap scandal.
COMMUTERS using public transport in greater Athens will enjoy free Wi-Fi service throughout the metro and electric train network as from December. The free wireless service is currently available in downtown metro stations and terminals.
STUDENTS occupy universities around the country to protest education reforms that would cut state funding for universities and technical colleges by roughly ninety percent. The new law also abolishes academic asylum which banned police from entering university grounds–a rule aimed at safeguarding freedom of expression.
MEANTIME, schoolteachers plan strikes to protest education reforms and the lack of textbooks as the school year opens with severe shortages. The Education Ministry says textbooks will be made available online for download and copying.
VASSILIS XIROS is released from the Kassandra jail after completing three-fifths of a twentyfive sentence for participating in the November 17 terrorist organization. Xiros, thirtynine, had been arrested in 2002 after his brother Savvas Xiros was arrested in a botched bomb attack. A third brother, Christodoulos Xiros, has also been arrested, tried, and sentenced on similar charges.
ALEKOS PANAGOULIS, the anti-junta activist jailed after a botched 1968 assassination attempt on then-dictator George Papadopoulos, will be memorialized in a statue. A culture ministry statement said the two-meter high statue would be placed off Panepistimiou street in central Athens.
PARLIAMENT considers reforms to family law that would also include spousal rights to homosexual couples living together under the same terms extended to heterosexual couples who conclude cohabitation agreements.
THE GOVERNMENT opens public consultations on the construction of a fence along the Turkish border at Evros.