Athens - Greek police destroyed a bomb which was set to go off outside a policy research institute which is affiliated with the European Union, reports said Tuesday.

The bomb outside the Economic and Social Council building near central Athens was destroyed by bomb squads.

Police rushed to the scene after receiving three calls by an unidentified individual. No-one claimed responsibility and officials said no-one was hurt.

Gela, Sicily  - An ancient Greek ship returned to surface Monday some 2,500 years after it sank in the Mediterranean Sea and two decades after its wreck was discovered by divers off Sicily.

Ship sirens wailed and Italian culture officials and other onlookers applauded as a crane lifted from the waters what remains of the 21-metre-long wooden vessel, the ANSA news agency reported.

The ship's 11-metre-long keel and part of the stern, both of which were preserved as the vessel lay buried for 25 centuries under clay below the sea floor, are to be transported to the Sicilian port of Gela.

Athens - In the ongoing influx of illegal immigrants, a further 179 people were picked up on Friday morning on three islands in the eastern Aegean Sea, the Greek Coast Guard reported.

Athens - Five people were reported dead and another three missing from an explosion at a shipyard near Athens, reports said Friday.

The blast occurred during repairs on a Panamanian-flagged Friendship Gas tanker at the Perama shipyard, located just west of the Greek capital.

The Ministry of Merchant Marine said rescue crews were still searching the ship for three more people believed to be trapped inside.

Officials said another four people were injured in the blast which occurred in the late hours Thursday.

Nicosia - The two leaders of the ethnically divided island of Cyprus were set to meet again on Friday to decide whether the conditions were favourable to launch direct reunification talks.

Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat have held several meetings to discuss progress made by working and technical groups striving to set the groundwork for the start of peace talks to end the decades-old division of the island.

The working and technical groups from both communities are trying to narrow the divide on a number of issues ranging from environmental protection, health, security, power-sharing, culture, ways of linking the island's two economies as well as property and territory disputes.

Athens - Firefighters battled to contain a forest fire that has been burning out of control on the Greek island of Rhodes for the third straight day, forcing the evacuation of at least two villages, reports said Thursday.

Authorities declared a disaster on the island, where dozens of homes have been burned and at least 2,500 acres of forest destroyed.

At least two mountain villages in the region of Laerma have been evacuated after the fire began destroying homes.

A number of other fires which blazed throughout the night in the Varymbobi area, approximately 20 kilometres from Athens, and in Mani in the southern Peloponnese were brought under control on Thursday.