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.
SKOPJE, FYROM (AP) — Former FYROM’s Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who fled his country to avoid a two-year prison term for corruption, has requested asylum in Hungary, the Hungarian government said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, FYROM’s Prime Minister Zoran Zaev called on Hungary to extradite Gruevski, his bitter political rival.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s office said it considers Gruevski’s asylum request “solely a legal issue” and views FYROM as “an important ally.”
“The Macedonian government of the day is a partner of Hungary in interstate relations, and therefore we in no way wish to intervene in the internal affairs of sovereign countries,” Orban’s office said.
For his part, Zaev said he expects the Hungarian government to respect international law by returning Gruevski.
“What will be (FYROM’s) motivation to join the European Union if one of its member states becomes a shelter for criminals?” he said during a news conference in Skopje with visiting Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.
FYROM’s justice ministry spokesman, Vladimir Delov, told The Associated Press that the ministry is preparing the necessary documentation for Gruevski’s extradition.
Gruevski, prime minister from 2006-2016, fled after FYROM’s police tried to arrest him to serve the prison sentence. He was convicted in May of unlawfully influencing interior ministry officials over the purchase of a luxury vehicle.
Delov said the formal extradition request will take some time as the documents need to be translated into Hungarian. FYROM has no extradition agreement with Hungary, but can seek application of the European Convention on Extradition that binds members of the Council of Europe — to which both countries belong.
In Hungary, left- and right-wing opposition parties called on the Orban government to extradite Gruevski.
Earlier Wednesday, FYROM’s authorities temporarily jailed two former government officials on trial for corruption following Gruevski’s flight.
A criminal court on Wednesday ordered former transport minister Mile Janakieski and former government secretary-general Kiril Bozinovski to be held for 30 days. Prosecutors sought their detention amid fears they could also try to flee the country.
They are on trial on charges including corruption over public contracts and election fraud.
Gruevski’s flight marks the latest dramatic episode in a volatile confrontation between his conservatives and Zaev’s Social Democrats.
The two sides remain bitterly at odds over a proposed deal to change the republic’s name to North Macedonia and end a dispute with neighboring Greece that would allow FYROM to join NATO and start accession talks with the European Union.
Western leaders provided Zaev’s government strong backing in supporting the deal, while Russia argued that it was the target of the alliance’s expansion eastward.
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By KONSTANTIN TESTORIDES and PABLO GORONDI , Associated Press
Pablo Gorondi reported from Budapest, Hungary.
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.