Thessaloniki

The election process kicked off at 7 p.m. on September 20, with most voting centers being eerily empty.

Highlights from election day:

* Pollsters were worried that people would prefer the beach over the voting booth. One man chose both:

A man has shot himself after firing against his sister and a police officer, Saturday in the city of Thessaloniki, Northern Greece. It is not clear what his motives were that lead to bloody incident. According to reports by local site “Seleo.gr”, the armed man took his sister hostage and shot her in the foot, before turning his firearm against the officer who had rushed to protect the woman.

The ancient trade roads that linked the city of Thessaloniki and Macedonia of the Roman era with the cities of the wider region of the Black Sea have been revealed by the coins found in the archaeological excavations at the under construction stations for the Thessaloniki metro.

The “freshest” opinion poll on Wednesday shows conservative New Democracy party gaining 30 percent of respondents’ preferences to leftist SYRIZA’s 29.5 percent, days ahead of the Sept. 20 snap election in Greece.

The poll was conducted by the Thessaloniki-based University of Macedonia and presented by the Skai television station.

Former counter-intelligence head Vladimir Pisanchev is due to head the Bulgarian Consulate in Thessaloniki, Greece, several media outlets have reported, citing sources.

The Foreign Ministry has submitted no official information as of Thursday morning, but some reports cite "a well-informed source" working for the institution.

The police in the Greek city of Thessaloniki detained a Bulgarian citizen for illegal trafficking of immigrants with a truck carrying 103 people, 19 of whom children.

According to media reports, each of the refugees had paid EUR 2000 for being transported across the border.

New Democracy leader Evangelos Meimarakis on Monday kicked off the center-right party’s pre-election campaign from the city of Patras, saying the mainstream political formation is the one that supports unity among the Greek people.

“Others want to divide us with their rhetoric,” he told supporters at an indoor sports arena.

Serbian and Albanian prime ministers Aleksandar Vucic and Edi Rama will "confront their positions" during a TV debate later this month.

The 60-minute broadcast will be staged by the regional production network "Okruzenje", ran by the Thessaloniki-based NGO Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeastern Europe (CDRSEE) and the European Fund for the Balkans (EFB).

The Panhellenic Exams for university entry will be held for the children of Greeks living abroad and children of Greek officials serving abroad from September 7 to September 11 at examination centers in Athens and Thessaloniki.

The following exam program is being offered:

Transport to the Athens International airport will be disrupted due to a 5-hour strike Monday from the Suburban Railway and the Athens Metro from 10am to 3pm. The Athens to Thessaloniki railway lines will also stop due to industrial actions, as will the suburban line. More specifically the following lines will stop: