A bomb explosion at the Greek ministry in charge of police could be an ominous show of strength by militants in a nation suffering austerity cuts that have sparked street protests and scared off tourists.
Thursday night’s blast, which killed one official, suggested that a tiny violent fringe with a bent for bombings remains active despite the arrests in April of six suspected members of its most militant group, the leftist Revolutionary Struggle.
“This is the last thing that Greece needed,” said George Kassimeris, a Greek expert on terrorism at Wolverhampton University in England. “All the implications are extremely negative for Greece.”
“The financial crisis is exacerbating the country’s tendency towards protests, violence and dissent,” he said.
In May, Greece won a 110 billion euro (US$147.6 billion) EU and IMF loan in return for draconian austerity cuts.
A close aide to Greek Citizen Protection Minister Mihalis Chrysohoidis died in the blast of a booby-trapped package while the minister, who was in an office nearby, escaped unhurt. The ministry runs the police force.
No one claimed responsibility for the bomb and police were investigating how it could have passed security checks at the very heart of the police force without help from the inside.
“I wouldn’t like us to start speculating that there was a Trojan horse in the Greek police headquarters, inside the ministry,” police spokesman Thanassis Kokkalakis told state TV channel ET3. “It seems there was a security deficit.”
“Greek society disapproves of this criminal act,” Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou told parliament. “Greek society will not be terrorized.”
Greece has been rocked by a series of bomb attacks claimed by leftist militants since its worst riots in decades in 2008.
Three people died in a petrol bomb attack on an Athens bank during an anti-austerity demonstration in May.
Newspapers expressed wide concerns after the latest blast, which added to a deluge of bad news about debts and austerity. Unions plan a one-day strike on Tuesday, the fifth this year.
“Terrorists wanted to prove with this attack that they still have power despite recent arrests and arms confiscations,” the center-left Ethnos wrote. “And they proved it.”
The government is monitoring online rumors that a pneumonic plague outbreak has spread from Russia into China, and it might enhance quarantine measures, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During a legislative meeting, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said that rumors had circulated that the disease had spread across several Chinese provinces. He asked Cho whether the government was prepared to prevent the disease spreading to Taiwan, given the volume of traffic between the two sides, and how concerned the government was about the alleged outbreak. The Ministry of Health and Welfare had implemented border quarantine measures after briefing the Executive
EAST OF GUAM: Tropical Storm Champi is forecast to strengthen into a typhoon, but its effect on Taiwan is uncertain due to the presence of a high-pressure system Tropical Storm Champi formed yesterday and has the potential to increase in strength, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Forecasters are closely monitoring a Pacific high-pressure system that would dictate whether the storm turns north or moves toward Taiwan next week, the CWA said. The most likely scenario is that it turns northward after passing the Ryukyu Islands, CWA forecaster Cheng Chieh-jen (鄭傑仁) said. As of 8pm yesterday, Champi was east of Guam moving west-northwest at 20kph, CWA data showed. It had maximum sustained winds near the center of 72kph and gusts of up to 101kph, the data showed. If the Pacific high-pressure system
RIGHT TO DIPLOMACY: Under the UN Charter, every state has the right to conduct foreign policy free from external pressure, Belize said in a statement Belize and Paraguay on Monday condemned Beijing sanctions over their countries’ ties with Taiwan, saying China’s actions create unnecessary tensions. Earlier on Monday, Beijing announced sanctions against Paraguayan Minister of Information and Communication Technologies Gustavo Villate and Belizean Minister of Foreign Affairs Francis Fonseca. The Paraguayan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it rejected the sanctions, writing on X that they created unnecessary friction. It added that it reaffirmed its support for Taiwan and its commitment to democratic values and principles. Villate told the Spanish-language Paraguayan daily ABC Color the sanctions were “predictable” and linked them to several cooperation projects between Taiwan and Paraguay. The projects
Sanctions imposed by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) on a firm owned by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) father are an egregious attempt to pressure Taiwanese society and interfere with Taiwan’s democratic elections, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. Hong Kong’s Ta Kung Pao (大公報) and Wen Wei Po (文匯報) on Tuesday reported that VWAY Co — a company owned by Shen’s father, Shen Tu-cheng (沈土城) — was still earning money in China after Sicuens International Co (兆億), also owned by Shen Tu-cheng, was sanctioned in June last year. VWAY trade totaled about US$700,000 in about 10 months
RSS