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.
NICOSIA – Fighting a reputation as a money haven for tax cheats and criminals, new anti-money laundering regulations are working on Cyprus but led wealthy Russians to pull their money with foreign deposits falling some two-thirds, the financial news agency Bloomberg said.
The value of bank accounts held by foreign nationals from outside the Eurozone plummeted from 21.5 billion euros ($24.78 billion) to 7.1 billion euros ($8.18 billion) at the end of November, 2017, the Central Bank of Cyprus reported.
The regulations, along with US sanctions against Russia and high-profile businessmen are having an affect, but costly to Cypriot banks who nearly went under in 2013 with bad loans to Greek businesses and big holdings in Greek bonds that were devalued 74 percent.
That led then newly-elected President Nicos Anastasiades to seek a 10-billion euro ($11.53 billion) international bailout and renege on promises, authorizing banks to confiscate accounts over 100,000 euros ($115,270), which hit many wealthy foreigners hiding their money but also the life savings of many Cypriots and small businesses.
“Russians are downsizing in Cyprus,” said Kyriakos Iordanou, General Manager of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Cyprus.
Bloomberg reported that the En+ Group plans to move to Russia from Jersey rather than to Cyprus as previously planned. En+ is the main shareholder of aluminum giant United Co. Rusal, a company of billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who is on the US sanctions list.
Accounts belonging to Viktor Vekselberg, who’s also on the US list and whose Renova Group is the largest shareholder in Bank of Cyprus, were frozen, according to the bank.
In November, a directive from the Central Bank of Cyprus kicked in, giving lenders less leeway to work with shell companies. That’s making many Russian companies “non-bankable,” said the news agency.
“Amid sanctions and tightening compliance, Cyprus banks prefer not to deal with Russian money and Russian clients, even those who’ve had accounts in Cyprus banks many years,” said Evgeny Kogan, former director of the Center for Protection of Shareholders and Investor Rights of Cypriot Banks set up in 2014. “Russian clients are becoming toxic.”
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.
ATHENS - The tragedy of the Tempi train collision is a much greater issue than an opportunity for parties to table a motion of censure against the government, but the opposition parties used it anyway "to turn society's pain into a tool to strike at the government and me personally," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday night in parliament.
ATHENS - PASOK-KINAL leader Nikos Androulakis, speaking at the Hellenic Parliament on Thursday, emphasized that there is "an established belief among the Greek people" that the government "operates as a well-oiled machine of corruption, cover-up, and propaganda.
ATHENS — Greece’s center-right government survived a motion of no-confidence late Thursday that was brought by opposition parties over its handling of the country’s deadliest rail disaster a year ago.
ASTORIA – Greek Minister of the Interior Niki Kerameus offered an informative presentation on postal voting in the upcoming European Union elections for Greek citizens in a well-attended event held at the St.