West Attica

A gang that was unraveled on Tuesday was manufacturing and distributing contraband cigarettes worth more than 2 million euros, Kathimerini understands.
On Tuesday police raided warehouses where contraband cigarettes were being made in Ritsona, central Greece, and Aspropyrgos, southwest Attica.

The discovery on Thursday by police of new warehouses containing raw materials for the production of contraband cigarettes in Ritsona, central Greece, and Aspropyrgos, southwest Attica, dealt another blow to a major tobacco smuggling racket in the country, according to authorities.

A fire broke out at a warehouse in the industrial area of Aspropyrgos in west Attica on Thursday morning.

The fire service said it had dispatched 25 firemen with eight vehicles to Anexartisias street.

It is not clear what was stored in the warehouse or what may have caused the blaze. 

As autumn showers loom, the Infrastructure Ministry and Attica Regional Authority are scrambling to complete several projects that they hope will prevent the kind of flash floods that killed more than 20 people last November in Mandra, west of Athens.

Police in Athens have cordoned off the area around the Interior Ministry on Vassilissis Sofias Avenue near central Syntagma Square as experts investigate a bomb threat.

Anonymous callers on Friday morning told staff at Efimerida ton Syntakton newspaper that two bombs had been planted in the ministry and were timed to go off at 10.30 a.m. and at 12 noon.

The town of Eleusis in west Attica has officially been named cultural capital of Europe for 2021. The announcement was made by the European Parliament, which approved the list of countries with 606 votes form, 54 against and 6 abstentions, that will host the cultural capitals from 2021 to 2023.

The extreme weather conditions caused problems in Athens. Chaotic images emerged at Mandra, an outer suburb of Athens in West Attica, after Thursday night's heavy rainfall. Streets turned to rivers with people trapped in their flooded homes and stores. In some areas floods reached over a meter. Power was cut.

Eleusis, also known as Elefsina, a town in West Attica Greece will be submitting a bid to be named European Capital of Culture for 2021, the town's mayor Giorgos Tsoukalas announced on Monday.