General News
Meropi Kyriacou Honored as TNH Educator of the Year
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
With 79 people already declared dead, 11 in intensive care and dozens missing, the apparently arson fires sweeping seaside regions of Greece will almost certainly surpass the 84 killed in 2007, which also destroyed two million olive trees and burned 670,000 acres of forest and farmland.
The fires were in the Attica region outside Athens and appeared to be set, Citizens Protection Minister Nikos Toskas said, a common act so that developers can later build on the land as there’s law against doing so once it’s cleared, and with frequent unlawful construction, particularly along the seaside. The government allows it if people pay a fine.
The fires struck two coastal resorts popular with vacationers from Greece’s capital and caused at least 187 injuries, including 23 children, a fire department spokeswoman said in televised comments.
The fires are worse than in 2007, when record-high temperatures led to a series of blazes across the country. This week’s fires concentrated around Mati, a coastal settlement in northeast Attica, and were stoked by heavy winds, which spread the flames in the dry conditions, but there were others, including the beach area around Kineta along the national highway in Corinthos.
“Greece is going through one of its hardest moments,” Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in a televised address, declaring a three-day period of national mourning. “Today Greece is in mourning, but we cannot allow grief to overcome us.”
Other countries were sending help for overwhelmed Greek firefighters, including 60 from Cyprus, two water-bombing planes from Spain, the fire department’s spokeswoman said. “Europe will stand by our Greek friends in these difficult times. Help is on its way from several EU countries,” European Council President Donald Tusk said in a tweet.
The government held an emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss the situation and organize compensation for damages but no word yet on trying to find out if any of the fires were set and who was behind it.
Tsipras spoke by phone with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and got a pledge for whatever help is needed.
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Filipino villager has been nailed to a wooden cross for the 35th time to reenact Jesus Christ’s suffering in a brutal Good Friday tradition he said he would devote to pray for peace in Ukraine, Gaza and the disputed South China Sea.
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S.
LOS ANGELES – The UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture presents a captivating evening with acclaimed singer-songwriter Alkinoos Ioannidis, who will perform at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall on Saturday, April 27, 7:30 PM, in a solo concert.
ATHENS - The "OLYMPOS - Global Spiritual Center" Association presents on Saturday, April 6, at 6:00 pm, at the "Antonis Tritsis" Amphitheatre of the Cultural Center of the Municipality of Athens, 50, Acadimias Street, the truly ingenious funding proposal for the construction of Heptapolis in the wider area of Delphi, entitled "World Green Taxation Fund".
ATHENS - Disregarding the recommendation of a prosecutor who said there wasn’t enough evidence, an Athens Mixed Jury Court found a 55-year-old man guilty of raping a 12-year-old girl but found her mother innocent of pornography.