Athens - Police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd of 100 hooded youths who went on a rampage in an upscale shopping district in central Athens Friday, destroying shops and banks.

The hooded youths, many carrying iron bars and huge pieces of marble, smashed up 40 shops and banks and destoyed dozens of cars along Skoufa Street, causing panicked shoppers to run for cover.

Police retaliated by firing tear gas into the crowd. There were no injuries or arrests.

Athens  - Revolutionary Struggle, a Greek left-wing militant group, claimed responsibility on Thursday for two recent bomb attacks against Citibank branches in Athens, media reports said.

The left-wing group sent a statement to the weekly Pontiki newspaper saying it was behind two incidents last month, in which one bomb exploded outside a Citibank branch in the Greek capital while a second failed outside the city's Citibank headquarters.

Athens/Nicosia - Rival Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot leaders met for renewed unification talks on Wednesday, focussing on European issues, officials said.

The Mediterranean island has been divided since a Turkish invasion in 1974, with peace talks only resuming in September last year after being broken off in 2004.

The talks, in the buffer zone of Lefkosa in Cyprus, are being held under the aegis of the United Nations.

"The leaders have referred to technical experts who are in particular legal experts because there are some legal questions to be addressed," said UN special advisor Alexander Downer.

Athens - The European Commission Tuesday approved the sale of Greece's national carrier Olympic Airlines to the Marfin Investment Group after years of failed privatisation attempts.

The deal involving Marfin, a Greek-based investment holdings company, comes a month after the conservative government made a last- minute appeal for investors to rescue Olympic, after an international tender failed to produce satisfactory offers.

Bids by two other companies for the ailing airline, Aegean Airlines and US-based Chrysler Aviation, were rejected.

Athens - The Greek coast guard officials Monday detained 31 illegal immigrants who had crossed the Aegean Sea in inflatable rafts from neighbouring Turkey.

The immigrants, among them two women, were picked up alive by the Greek coast guard after they were found swimming near the small island of Innousses, along the Greek-Turkish border.

The immigrants told officials they decided to destroy their raft and jump into the water once they were detected by coast guard officials.

They were taken to a hospital on Chios.

Athens  - A bomb exploded outside a Citibank branch in Athens on Monday, causing damage but no injuries, Greek news reports said.

Reports said the bomb went off behind the building in the Athens suburb of Filothei.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but police believe far-left militant groups to be behind the bombing.

It would the second time that militant leftists targeted Citibank.

Last month, police managed to defuse a car bomb that contained hundreds of kilograms of explosives.