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 — Defaulted loans are a prime economic issue for Cyprus, which since a 2013 financial crisis has seen overdue payments weigh on consumers and banks. Yet a government scheme to ease the problem has not been embraced by borrowers as hoped.
Just over 5,600 applications to the ESTIA scheme were submitted by the Dec. 31 cut-off date, about half of what authorities had expected. Of those, only 1,200 applications were complete.
That accounts for 1.7 billion euros ($1.9 billion) in bad loans, compared with the 9.8 billion euros overall saddling the banking sector – almost a third of all loans.
The sum is still not insignificant for a country like Cyprus, which has the second highest private debt level in Europe.
The government came up with the relief scheme to deal with the toughest batch of the banks’ bad loan portfolio, loans collateralized with the debtor’s home.
Those seeking help are given the chance to save their homes – with an estimated value of 350,000 euros and under – from foreclosure.
The Cypriot finance ministry said the low number of applications was possibly owed to a perception that the government would come up with a “more generous” scheme down later, though officials have repeatedly denied they would.
Another reason is a reluctance by ‘strategic defaulters’ to disclose their financial information, like their income and assets both domestic and abroad so as not to enable banks to go after them.
Some banking and government officials said that the scheme had the upshot in weeding out debtors who are purposely shirking their obligations – so-called strategic defaulters – from those who really want government help.
“We will not, and should not, protect strategic defaulters, nor should we protect those who free ride on the plight of the undeserving to protect their lifestyle by living beyond their means,” Panicos Nicolaou, the chief executive of the country’s largest bank, Bank of Cyprus, told The Associated Press.
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.