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 – After what the developer said was 4 ½ years of foot dragging by the former ruling Radical Left SYRIZA, another obstacle to starting the 8-billion euro ($8.88 billion) master plan for the abandoned Hellenikon International Airport was lifted, this by the Central Archaeological Council (KAS) that had put up a roadblock.
With a newly-comprised board, KAS unanimously agreed to change a ministerial decision – taken by SYRIZA government – loosening previously restrictive licensing procedures and paving the way for acceleration of the development.
The unanimous decision scraps the requirement that every study and construction plan at the Helleniko property development project also receive approval by the Culture Ministry’s archaeological service, the business newspaper Naftemporiki said.
The consortium that won an international tender to develop the site, led by Greece’s Lambda and including China’s Fosun and Abu Dhabi’s Eagle Hills, had protested the previous decision, saying it put the whole project at risk and added more red tape.
The site now is a weed-covered area of abandoned airplanes, deteriorating airport buildings and has sat untouched for some 18 years, but also includes the coastal Aghios Kosmas sports park.
Unable to meet his first priority of immediately starting the development on Athens’ coast, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with Spiros Latsis, the billionaire head of the consortium that’s been eager to get started.
Mitsotakis said he’d give the go-ahead his first week in office after winning July 7 snap elections but the project’s start now has been pushed back at least until the year’s end because of unstated bureaucratic delays that have hampered it for for years.
Earlier, Development Minister Adonis Georgiadis said his ministry would accelerate the licensing process so that Lamda can lease the property from the state and start construction. A series of approvals from several ministries and a tender for the construction of a casino are pending but it wasn’t said why neither he nor Mitsotakis didn’t mandate immediate licensing be done.
The consortium plans are to turn the old airport into a complex of luxury residences, hotels, a yachting marina and casino after the original plans to create the largest urban park in Europe were set aside during an economic crisis, the government preferring cash instead.
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
BERLIN (AP) — At least five people were killed Wednesday when a bus headed from Berlin to Switzerland came off a highway in eastern Germany and ended up on its side, authorities said.
ΒΟSTON - The newly-elected Metropolitan Iakovos of Mexico, who was enthroned on Saturday, March 16th at the Cathedral of Aghia Sophia in Mexico City, gave his first interview as Metropolitan to The National Herald, which he described as a "historic newspaper," one he has known since childhood, as have his close relatives.
BALTIMORE - Authorities have released the identities of the two people recovered from the water Wednesday morning at the site of the Baltimore bridge collapse.
ATHENS — Police in Greece clashed late Wednesday with Communist-backed demonstrators who tried to prevent a concert by U.
ATHENS – Greece recorded a huge improvement in the business environment rankings of The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) among 82 countries worldwide.