Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics

Tensions are high in the Spanish region of Catalonia ahead of more planned protests by referendum supporters.

Overnight, police occupied the region's economy ministry as hundreds of protesters remained outside.

Catalan economy minister Josep Maria Jové was one of more than a dozen senior officials detained by authorities on Wednesday.

Tension in Barcelona after the arrests of the Catalan Deputy Prime Minister and another 13 senior civil servants. They were detained by the authorities in an attempt to stop the referendum on separating Catalonia.

Thousands went out to protest in various cities in Catalonia to support the referendum and were detained by the authorities, informs bTV.

Two police officers have been arrested on charges of participating in a highway robbery against a 47-year-old Syrian man in February by abusing their official capacity.

The foreign national had flown into Athens from Germany and was driving into the city center on the Attiki Odos highway when he was stopped by what appeared to be an official police checkpoint.

Police said Wednesday that a people smuggling operation unraveled last week in Attica used stolen passports and even forged an ID belonging to a member of Eurojust - the European Union agency dealing with judicial cooperation in criminal matters - to fly refugees into Central and Northern Europe.

The situation with the Agia Zoni II tanker, which sank in the Saronic Gulf near the island of Salamina and spilled oil that has now reached all the way down to the beaches of southeastern Attica, is more complicated than it seems at a first glance.

Spanish authorities on Sunday pursued efforts to block an independence vote in Catalonia, seizing campaign materials as the chief prosecutor said jailing the region's top politician could not be ruled out.

Catalonia's powerful business leaders are starting to lose their patience with an increasingly bitter tussle over an independence referendum deemed illegal by Madrid.

A committee of the Attica Decentralized Administration - a state body not related to the Attica Regional Authority - will on Thursday conduct an inspection of part of the plot of the old Athens airport at Elliniko to establish whether a forest exists there.

Catalonia's public prosecutor has ordered the seizure of all ballot papers ahead of a banned independence referendum deemed illegal, reported BBC. 

The vote on breaking away from Spain, planned for 1 October, has been suspended by the constitutional court.
But Catalonia's pro-independence government says it will still go ahead.

Seven tourists were rescued on Saturday when a large fire broke out on the pleasure boat they were sailing in the area between the Ionian islands of Zakynthos and Cephalonia.