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.
ATHENS – With half a dozen No Smoking laws ignored in Greece over the last decade – Alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis smokes IN the Health Ministry – plans are being made to make Vagia Beach on the island of Serifos a no-smoking haven.
It wasn’t explained how it would be policed or enforced, but the municipality and the A.C. Laskaridis Charitable Foundation said they want to create the country’s first smoke free beach and ban people from lighting up in the open air.
It wouldn’t exactly be entirely smoke-free, with the idea being to have a designated area for smokers and ashtrays and environmental messages urging people not to stub out their butts in the sand, which creates further pollution.
“The [long-term] aim of the effort to make Vagia the first smoking-free beach in the Cyclades is to raise awareness in all of us and to prevent marine pollution,” said the foundation’s Executive Director Angeliki Kosmopoulou, who said it worked in France as well as Italy.
The smoke-free beach initiative is part of the Sea Change Greek Islands project, which last year, starting in Sikinos, launched a drive to phase out the use of plastic bags and plastic straws.
With one of the world’s highest smoking rates and the laws unenforced, with no political will to take on smokers by politicians, Greeks pretty much light up where they want, including in hospitals, workplaces, public buildings and workplaces that are also allegedly smoke-free areas.
There was no indication yet whether Serifos would employ inspectors or smoking police to go around and tell smokers on Vagia Beach to either stop smoking or move to the designated smoking area somewhere.
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (AP) — An international team of doctors visiting a hospital in central Gaza was prepared for the worst.
NICOSIA - A meeting between the ministers of energy for Cyprus and Israel - George Papanastasiou and Eli Cohen - led to an agreement that the countries would make an underwater electric cable link a top priority, linking them to Europe.
LONDON (AP) — The British Museum on Thursday appointed National Portrait Gallery chief Nicholas Cullinan as its new director, as the 265-year-old institution grapples with the apparent theft of hundreds of artifacts and growing international scrutiny of its collection.
ATHENS - The European Union needs to get involved in the case of the two-year jail sentence given ethnic Greek Fredi Beleri who was elected Mayor of the seaside town of Himare and said the trial was a farce to get him and protect Prime Minister Edi Rama’s business friends.
Brace yourself for what could be another scorching summer in Greece as scientists are anxious that a warm winter - the warmest January recorded - and climate change will continue to bring weather anomalies.