Athens  - The Greek government is considering punishing demonstrators who wear hoods or masks as part of its effort to battle the ongoing wave of violence that has plagued the country since the police shooting of a teenager in December, officials said Tuesday.

"The Greek citizen does not hide and is not afraid of showing his face, especially when he is protesting," said Justice Minister Nikos Dendias.

Athens - Experts from the British police organization Scotland Yard are to aid Greece in battling an ongoing wave of violence and crack down on radical leftwing underground organizations, the Kathimerini newspaper reported Sunday.

The help from Scotland Yard, the first of which is to arrive in Greece on Monday, comes after contacts at the highest level between the governments in Athens and London, the report said.

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.