11.00 News in brief

Police will be out in force in Athens today in a bid to prevent violence from breaking out after a march marking the anniversary of the fatal shooting of teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos by a police officer in 2008.

As of 5 this morning, stopping and parking is forbidden in most main streets of the city center. Measures will be lifted tomorrow morning at 7.

The PANEPITSIMIO metro station will be closed. Moreover, the Athens Economic University will not be operating today.

Two rallies have been planned at noon and 6 pm starting at Propylaia. More than 4 thousand police officers will be patrolling the city center.

Greek police are on the hunt for two armed robbers who stormed the town hall in Acharnes, in northern Athens, on Friday morning.

The robbers, who were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, tried to hold up the town hall’s financial department.

It was not clear if the suspects had succeeded in extracting any money before they fled. There were no reports of injuries.

Turkey’s parliament on Thursday endorsed a controversial deal on maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean reached between Turkey and Libya’s UN-supported government.

Legislators approved the agreement which would give Turkey access to an economic zone across the Mediterranean, brushing aside objections by Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and the rival and competing power base in Libya.

Finance Minister Christos Staikouras on Thursday evening announced a 700-euro social dividend that will be distributed to some 250 thousand households while addressing a parliamentary session discussing the government’s taxation bill.
The dividend will be distributed to vulnerable groups, such as long-term unemployed people, large families and families with disabled children.

Applications will be submitted via an electronic platform from December 17th to the 26th, with the aim of all eligible to receive the aid before the end of the year, the minister clarified this morning at Antenna TV.

The Prime Minister will make statements on the taxation bill at 1 pm.

A quake measuring 4.6 on the richter scale shook Sfakia on the island of Crete a little after 11 am.

More than 800,000 people have marched in cities across France as railway workers, teachers and hospital staff held one of the biggest public sector strikes in decades against Emmanuel Macron’s plans to overhaul the pension system.

Trains, metros and bus services were severely hit, some flights were cancelled and many schools were closed in the biggest challenge to Macron’s reform agenda since the yellow vest anti-government protests erupted last year.

And the weather forecast…

Partly cloudy in Attica today with the temperature expected to reach a high of 15 degrees Celsius.

More news in brief Monday morning at 9.