Greek interior minister survives Cabinet reshuffle

Greece's embattled leader reshuffled his Cabinet on Wednesday but retained his interior minister, who has been sharply criticized for the government's handling of riots across the nation last month.

The riots, the worst civil unrest Greece had seen in decades, spread to many cities and hurt the increasingly unpopular Conservative government, 16 months after Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis was re-elected. He has a majority of just one seat in parliament, and has faced several scandals and dissent within his own party.

The changes in the Karamanlis' reshuffle included the replacement of Giorgos Alogoskoufis as finance minister by his deputy, Yiannis Papathanasiou. Alogoskoufis has been credited with maintaining relatively high growth as Europe's economy slowed down, but also had to implement unpopular spending restraints.

The prime minister kept several other key posts unchanged, including the ministers of defense, foreign affairs and interior, who oversees the police.

Giorgos Papaconstantinou, a spokesman for the opposition Socialist party, said the reshuffle would not solve any of Greece's problems.

"This does not change financial policy, which has made the (effects of the international) crisis worse. ... This does not change policies in public order, which have left Greeks feeling insecure," spokesman said.

The Interior Ministry was sharply criticized for the government's handling of last month's riots, sparked by the fatal police shooting of a teenager Dec. 6. Many people criticized the police forces' limited reaction to the start of violence, when youths rampaged through city centers, burning and looting businesses.

Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos offered to resign in the first days of the rioting, but Karamanlis asked him to remain, and kept him during the reshuffle.

Instead, the prime minister replaced Pavlopoulos' deputy, who was in charge of public order, with Christos Markoyiannakis who had served as a deputy public order minister in the run-up to the Athens Olympics in 2004.

One of Markoyiannakis' first priorities will be the investigation of a shooting that seriously wounded a riot policeman in central Athens Monday. Police have linked it to a far-left Greek militant group, Revolutionary Struggle, which claimed responsibility for a rocket-propelled grenade attack on the U.S. Embassy in Athens two years ago.

Early Wednesday, a police station in Athens was attacked with petrol bombs, causing minor damage and no injuries.

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Associated Press writer Elena Becatoros contributed to this report.

(UPDATES with attack on police station.)