Patra

Promitheas has surprisingly eliminated AEK in the Basket League semifinal series with a win in Athens in the deciding game on Friday, to make its first ever finals where it will face favorite Panathinaikos.

A moderate earthquake measuring 4.3 on the Richter scale rattled parts of western Greece on Tuesday, though there have been no reports of injuries or damage.

According to the Athens-based Geodynamic Institute, the 4.3 tremor struck at 11.58 a.m. off the coast of the port town of Kyllini, southwest of Patra.

Transport authorities in Patra will be launching the trial run of an extension to the western port city's suburban rail network (Proastiakos) to Kato Achaia.

Crew members abandoned their posts, fire emergency plans were mistakenly activated for Deck 3 instead of Deck 4 where the blaze had broken out, and a lifeboat was released into the sea before the evacuation order had been issued or any safety measures taken.

The final two of four concessions for hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation in the Ionian Sea are set to be signed on Tuesday by Energy Minister Giorgos Stathakis, the head of Hellenic Hydrocarbon Research Management, Ioannis Basias, and the contractors. 

Education Minister Costas Gavroglou is pressing on with plans to merge technical colleges (TEIs) with universities despite protests by both teachers and students. 

The move is seen as part of plans by the government to gain popularity in the runup to elections - which are scheduled for October but expected earlier - by appointing new academic staff to the expanded institutions.

The government is raising obstacles in the process for the concession of 10 regional ports through a Shipping Ministry bill that provides for the introduction of a 5 percent levy on the turnover of the contractor that undertakes each port.

Parliament's Commerce and Production Committee is to begin debating the bill on the utilization of Greece's regional ports on Thursday. When the law is voted in, state sell-off fund TAIPED will launch the process to utilize the 10 ports after a long period of discussions.

A buzzer-beating triple by experienced Panayiotis Vassilopoulos allowed Peristeri to escape from Holargos in the closest of the Basket League games on the weekend before the month-long recess for next weekend's All-Star Game and the Cup semis and final later this month.

Almost half (43 percent) of parents in Greece do not limit their children's internet use, according to the results of a study conducted by the Greek Safer Internet Center in November and December last year.

The survey was carried out on a sample of 14,000 children aged between 10 and 17 from 400 schools in Athens, Thessaloniki, Crete, Patra and Larissa.