Catsimatidis Doesn't Lack Ideas For New York

Andrew Grossman - Wall Street Journal

(AP Photo)
While other prospective candidates for New York City Mayor try not to stay anything original or that might cause a flap, John Catsimatidis says what's on his mind, and a lot of people like that, even if critics deride some of his proposals as too far-fetched.

NEW YORK - The contenders for New York City Mayor can be a predictable, cautious lot, sticking to familiar scripts at candidate forums that take place night after night. Then there is billionaire businessman John Catsimatidis, a Republican who has developed a habit of suggesting new, often off-beat policy proposals in response to questions. Some are made up on the spot. Sometimes they leave the audience puzzled, booing or laughing. Others get a better reception. Mr. Catsimatidis has suggested that police ride tricycles to improve their mobility (his campaign later clarified to say he meant three-wheeled vehicles). He wants the city to consider allowing casinos in hotels and would like to launch a program to give free pet food to people who adopt homeless animals. He would like a police officer in each of the city's public housing projects.

Greece Gambles On OPAP's Privatization

Andy Dabilis

(Photo/Andy Dabilis)
A customer at the Greek gambling agency OPAP fills out a card. Everything from lotteries to betting on sports, including American professional teams, is controlled by the monopoly but the government has sold its interest under pressure from international lenders who want a sell-off of state entities and properties as well.

ATHENS - Greece Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said the sale of gambling monopoly OPAP shows that Greece is serious about making reforms as a condition of rescue aid. The deal, which will give Czech-Greek consortium Emma Delta a 33 percent stake in the gambling monopoly, will bring in 712 million euros, about $915.48 million. "It is important as a signal to the international community and markets that the privatization program is moving (forward,)" Aggelos Tsakanikas, Research Director for the Athens-based Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE,) told Southeast European Times. He noted, however, that, "It is also a privatization that did not have a political cost, as it involves lotteries and betting industry … there was no huge foreign interest in this."

U.S. Blames Golden Dawn For Anti-Semitism

The election last year of 18 members of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party to the Greek Parliament has caused an increase in anti-Semitism in the country, the U.S. State Department said in a report on international religious freedom. The party's popularity is continuing the soar the more it is criticized for its stance, which is also anti-immigrant, anti-Gay, nationalist and ultra-religious, although it had pagan leanings. It has risen as high as 13-14 percent in some recent polls and now is the third biggest party in the country, surpassing the once dominant PASOK Socialists who have fallen to as low as 5 percent for supporting austerity measures that Golden Dawn opposes. The report identifies Golden Dawn as “a political party openly espousing anti-Semitism and racism and linked to violent attacks against individuals perceived to be immigrants, were elected to Parliament.”

Crews Search Rubble Of Oklahoma Tornado For Survivors

Nomaan Merchant and Tim Talley - Associated Press

(AP Photo/ The Oklahoman, Chris Landsberger)
Gene Tripp sits in his rocking chair where his home once stood after being destroyed by a tornado hit the area near 149th and Drexel on Monday, May 20, 2013 in Oklahoma City, Okla. The death toll has mounted with discoveries of more bodies.

MOORE, Okla. (AP) — Spotlights bore down on massive piles of shredded cinder block, insulation and metal as crews worked through the night lifting bricks and parts of collapsed walls where a monstrous tornado barreled through the Oklahoma City suburbs, demolishing an elementary school and reducing homes to piles of splintered wood. At least 51 people were killed, including at least 20 children, and those numbers were expected to climb, officials said. The storm stripped leaves off trees and left scores of blocks in Moore barren and dark. Rescuers walked through neighborhoods where the powerful twister flattened home after home, to listen for any voices calling out from the rubble. A helicopter buzzed above, shining lights on crews below.As Monday turned into Tuesday, the town of Moore, a community of 41,000 people 10 miles south of the city, braced for another long, harrowing day. "As long as we are here ... we are going to hold out hope that we will find survivors," said Trooper Betsy Randolph, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

WWII War Claims Divide Greece And Germany Again

Mark Lowen - BBC

The Nazis execute a Greek man in the village of Kalavrya, one of nearly 1,200 massacred on Dec. 13, 1943 in one of the many atrocities committed during the war, along with other damages, for which Greece still wants Germany to pay.

High up in the Peloponnese, above the town of Kalavryta, Giorgos Dimopoulos reads through the names chiselled into a stone monument. At one, he stops. “Dimitrios Dimopoulos. My father.” He pauses to catch his breath before continuing through the list of 498 men. At this spot on 13 December 1943, one of the worst crimes of World War II took place: the massacre of the town’s entire male population over the age of 12. The atrocity was a reprisal for the killing of German soldiers. Almost everything in Kalavryta was burnt down, except for the school, where the women and children were held. Seventy years on, it is one of the many war crimes for which Greece is seeking compensation from Germany.is seeking compensation from Germany. Giorgos Dimopoulos as a child with his father Dimitrios who was a victim of the Kalavryta massacre. Today, the school building has become a museum, exhibits of pocket watches and identity cards found on the victims stand in glass cases.

AHI in Athens, Honors Amb. Smith, Arvaniti

Aris Papadopoulos

(Photo/Aris Papodopoulos)
U.S Ambassador to Greece Daniel Bennett Smith (2nd from left) was honored at the American Hellenic Institute's annual dinner in Athens. At his left is AHI President Nick Larigakis. At far left is AHI Greece President Ilias Malevitis. Next to him is AHI Athens President George Economou. Speakers said they feel some optimism for Greece.

ATHENS – Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Greece Daniel Bennett Smith and philanthropist Isabella Arvaniti, who has built shelters for needy children and is known for her charitable works, received this year’s Hellenic Heritage Achievement awards from the American Hellenic Institute before a packed audience in the capital city. This year’s event was characterized by optimism for Greece in contrast to the last two years as the country continues to undergo a crushing economic crisis and would stay in the Eurozone. Smith is set to be transferred after spending three years in Greece as the country was suffering a crushing economic crisis and oversaw assistance for Greeks as well. Arvaniti arranged for the renovation of a building complex and fully equipped it to offer hospital to 50 children for the Smile of the Child agency which works to help abused children and combat exploitation and work in the campaign to find children who go missing.

New York Pontians Remember The Genocide

Constantine S. Sirigos

NEW YORK – The Pontian Genocide is one of the most painful moments in Hellenic history, yet for most of the past 100 years knowledge of the catastrophe has been locked up in the hearts of its victims and in dark archives, sealed away both by governments motivated by expediency and parents wishing to spare their children. Events such as the commemoration held under the auspices of the Consulate General of Greece and organized by numerous Pontian organizations in Manhattan on May 17 have a dual purpose: to draw away the veil of ignorance and to honor the memory of its victims.

Canada's Museums Could Learn From Greece

AndrewCohen - Ottawa Citizen

In early morning, when disheveled revelers stumble home after another all-night bacchanal, the Archeological Museum of Thessaloniki is open. It opens at 8 a.m., as it does every day between April and October (except Mondays, when it opens at 1: 30 p.m.) Astonishingly, it remains open each day until 8 p.m. That means operating the museum 12 hours a day for six days a week, as well as for six and a half hours on the seventh. That's a lot of time for an institution to serve the public, particularly in a country that is broke. On a recent Sunday morning, there were more curators than visitors. But the collection, which is overseen by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, is staggering. From prehistoric Macedonia to Alexander the Great and beyond, it groans with antiquities. The Greeks take pride in their past and present it here, in the country's second-largest city, with style and care. Given the financial crisis, you would have expected them to close this museum, or cut its hours.

Holocaust’s Dark Corner, The Jews Of Greece

Aileen Jacobson - The New York Times

Leo Mallah, a concentration camp survivor, around 1946, one of the relative few who made it out of the Holocaust alive as most of Greece's Jews were killed.

GLEN COVE, N.Y. - The photographs of proud Greek Jewish families in the early 1900’s and the richly decorated artifacts from centuries past on display at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County reflect a vibrant community. But images from the 1940’s, of sobbing people on their way to Nazi death camps and of postwar commemorations of the murdered, document a darker era. Portraits of Our Past: The Sephardic Communities of Greece and the Holocaust, on view through Aug. 15, is an exhibition about a little-known sector of the Holocaust that Beth Lilach, Senior Director of Education and Community Affairs, said she had long wanted to bring to the center. “When most people think of the Holocaust, they think about Germany, Poland, Auschwitz, the camps,” she said. In Greece, however, 87 percent of the Jewish population perished, she said. That represented about 67,000 people, a relatively small share of the six million Jews killed throughout Europe during the Holocaust.

Gazprom Plays Hardball With DEPA Bid

ATHENS, May 21 (Reuters) - Gazprom is squeezing Athens for better terms to buy DEPA, Greece’s sole retail gas distributor, a Greek official said, as the Russian gas export monopoly leverages its strength position as the only major player in the running. Binding bids are due to be submitted on May 29 for DEPA, which posted a net profit of 106 million euros ($136.33 million) last year. Gazprom last year made a non-binding bid of 900 million euros ($1.2 billion). Gazprom is already DEPA’s main supplier, providing about 60 percent of its gas last year. It cut its supply prices by about 7 percent in 2011, but Greek energy players say prices are high compared with what Gazprom charges in other parts of Europe with more competition.

FOTOGRAFIA - Pass The Tzatziki

(AP (Photo/Houston Chronicle, Nick de la Torre)

As anyone who’s been in Greece just a little while knows – and anywhere enough Greeks live for them to open a restaurant – there’s nothing like what Americans call a “gyro,” that delicious meal-in-a-hand, pita bread stuffed with lamb or pork or chicken and onions, tomatoes, spices, and tzatziki, the yogurt-cucumbers-garlic spread. They can be had for anywhere from $1-$2.50 and are a favorite of Greeks and tourists alike. One is usually plenty for anybody and two is enough to make you lose your appetite until the next day because you’re so stuffed. So how did Joey Chestnut (C) wolf down 22 ½ of the ½-lb. gyros in one sitting? Make that standing. The world’s number one ranked competitive eater and winner of the Coney Island hot dog eating championship (a world record 68) took his voracious appetite to Houston’s Greekfest and the Sixth Annual Niko Niko World Eating Championship on May 19. The event was held at St. Basil’s The Great Greek Orthodox Church where Chestnut, 29, a 6-foot, 218-lb. resident of San Jose, Calif., wowed the crowd with his prodigious skill.