News archive of November 2014

BELGRADE - Water polo Champions League match between the Serbian Partizan and the Turkish Galatasaray has been postponed for security reasons at the initiative of both sides, who agreed that it is too early to hold such a high-risk match, Serbian Minister of Youth and Sports Vanja Udovicic said Friday.

The man at the heart of allegations that he tried to bribe an Independent Greeks MP on Friday denied any connection with New Democracy.

Giorgos Soukouras has been accused by lawmaker Stavroula Xoulidou (photo) of calling her and contacting her via Facebook to tempt her to vote for the government’s presidential candidate in February in return for up to 3 million euros.

The daughter of former Defense Minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos was released from prison on Friday after serving 2.5 years in custody. “I want to return to my children,” said Areti Tsochatzopoulou upon her release. “I still cannot believe it.”

KOSTOLAC - Archeological digs in Viminacium, capital of the Roman province of Moesia Superior between 1st and 4th centuries AD, revealed exquisitely carved marble statues and a gold necklace from the Roman period.

The Council of State is being called on to solve a potential problem caused by the government’s decision to relax restriction on student transfers between universities.

A total of 115 academics from Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University have filed an appeal with the Council of State arguing that the transfers are unconstitutional and will result in overcrowding in some departments.

BELGRADE - Serbia's Deposit Insurance Agency (AOD) Friday issued a call for expressions of interest for international firms wishing to become the joint financial adviser to the AOD in drawing up and executing a plan to sell an 83 percent stake in Komercijalna banka a.d. Beograd, which is open until December 26.

A former New Democracy MP who is alleged to have been part of a gang that forged rich people’s wills to obtain their assets after their deaths on Friday denied any involvement in the gang.

An Athens court on Friday ordered fashion entrepreneur Lakis Gavalas to pay a debt of 70,000 euros to the state in 36 installments with the first payment due on January 15.

The businessman, who was arrested for the seventh time in connection with unpaid taxes earlier in the day, was recently handed a five-year suspended sentence.

Police in Thessaloniki have arrested two men in connection to two illegal vodka distilleries they discovered operating in the areas of Pentalofo and Kordelio.

A third person, a Georgian national sought for the murder of a Halkidiki businessman, was also arrested at the Kordelio distillery.

Pope Francis on Friday called for interfaith dialogue and religious tolerance and urged more help for refugees from Syria and Iraq.

In a speech in Ankara the pontiff also called for renewed efforts to bring peace to the Middle East, which "for too long has been a theatre of fratricidal wars".