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.
After reports that Cyprus was selling Golden Visas that came with European Union passports to wealthy relatives and allies of Cambodian Premir Hun Sen among others, with critics saying the program isn’t properly vetted for money laundering and criminal activity, Finance Minister Haris Georgiades acknowledged mistakes were made.
That came after the government had strongly defended its program to sell residency permits to rich foreigners with President Nicos Anastasiades saying other EU countries had even worse records, and as bloc officials said the Golden Visa programs could be subject to misuse.
“We have to acknowledge that in the early years mistakes were made. Isolated albeit, but not insignificant,” Georgiades told a business conference in Nicosia, said Reuters, which first reported the sales that triggered a backfire.
“Substantive corrective measures related to the program have come into effect since the beginning of this year,” he said without revealing what they were and after the government said the visas and residency permits could be withdrawn if they were found to have been given to people who weren’t eligible.
Local media have subsequently reported on other beneficiaries of the scheme that benefited more than 3,200 investors and family members between 2013 and 2018, the news agency said and the newspaper Politis published an image of what it said was a Cypriot passport given to Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho, who is accused of a multi-billion dollar theft from a state fund. He has denied wrongdoing and his location is unknown.
The Cypriot program began in 2013 and gives residency and EU passports to rich people who invest at least 2-million euros ($2.22 million) and get visa-free travel in the 28-country bloc while even those with Cypriot heritage in the Diaspora have to wait.
Reuters’ disclosures triggered demands from Cypriot opposition parties for some real answers. The main AKEL opposition party repeatedly asked how passports could be given to individuals “who probably couldn’t find Cyprus on the map.”
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — More than 100 long-finned pilot whales that beached on the western Australian coast Thursday have returned to sea, while 29 died on the shore, officials said.
BAYSIDE, NY – Daughters of Penelope (DOP) Ilion Chapter 135 continues to keep the light shining bright within.
NEW YORK – Mike Labatos, AHEPA District 6 Lt.
Cretans are known for loving their guns but the island has the dubious record of having the highest rates of suicide in Greece over the last 25 years, averaging 2.
ATHENS - Forgetting the 2010-18 economic and austerity crisis that saw people so desperate they were picking food out of rubbish and supermarket bins, Greeks are among the European countries with the ignominious title of food wasters.