Thessaloniki

Self-styled anarchist collectives have intensified their violent attacks on university campuses. At the same time, they have taken their campaign beyond the country's capital.

Around 10 hooded men ransacked the Thessaloniki offices of the Union of Newspaper Journalists of Macedonia and Thrace on Thursday.

The assailants barged into the building at 5 Stratigou Kallari Street in the city center around noon and headed up to the union's offices on the second floor, where they smashed computers and furniture.

The contract for the concession of 67 percent of Thessaloniki Port Authority (OLTH) to the South East Gateway Thessaloniki consortium was finally signed on Thursday, after numerous postponements.

The German-French-Greek venture will pay 231.92 million euros to the state and make investments of 180 million.

Around 10 men with their features hidden by hooded jackets on Thursday ransacked the Thessaloniki offices of the Union of Newspaper Journalists of Macedonia and Thrace.

The assailants barged into the building at 5 Stratigou Kallari Street in the city center around noon and traveled up to the union's offices on the second floor, where they smashed computers and furniture.

A prosecutor recommended to the Council of Appeals Court Judges in Thessaloniki on Wednesday that two men arrested in Greece on suspicion of being involved in a wiretapping scandal in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) should be returned to their homeland to stand trial.

The Thessaloniki fire service on Sunday was investigating the causes of a blaze that broke out in an apartment block in the suburb of Katerini, killing three people.

Firefighters recovered the charred remains of a 78-year-old man from his first-floor apartment where the blaze is believed to have started.

"They're selling it? Ah, this brings back memories..." Silence followed. "They are doing the right thing, given the state it is in. They had just left it to rot." Drita Djomo, aged 96, had trouble hiding how moved she was.

Academic chiefs meeting in Athens for the 86th Rectors' Summit on Friday condemned the most recent acts of vandalism at a university by anti-establishment and anarchist elements.

The attack occurred on Wednesday at Thessaloniki's University of Macedonia, when a group of hooded men smashed doors, windows and equipment with tire irons, scaring students and teachers.

Construction of the Holocaust Museum in Thessaloniki will begin in January, the mayor of Greece's northern port city Yiannis Boutaris has said, while revealing plans to build a Jewish school in the old Jewish quarter.

Police in Thessaloniki have arrested the former chief of the northern port city's transport authority for running up debts to the EFKA social security funds of more than 2.35 million euros.

Christos Stefanidis, 74, stands accused of delaying social security payments due by the OASTH company. The period under question appears to be February 2017, according to the ANA-MPA news agency.