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 – Greece's expectations for a rebound tourism summer are fading over surging COVID-19 cases – driven by the Delta Variant – and not requiring workers on islands to be vaccinated.
Prime Minister and New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis so far has mandated shots only for health care workers, although teachers could be next in line, and a plan to vaccinate the entire population of dozens of islands didn't include the most popular, such as Mykonos and Santorini.
After the pandemic and ban or limits by some countries on residents visiting Greece held down arrivals in May and June, they began to jump again in July, with hopes of reaching half the numbers in a record 2019 year.
The increase in cases led the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to warn against travel to Greece, where health officials are worried a jump on islands – which led the European Centre for Disease Control to declare them deep red and risky, could hold down the numbers although there's still no movement to vaccinate tourism workers who make up nearly half the cases there.
Data on bookings for August and September were far better but now a fourth wave of the Coronavirus has kicked in and only half the population – far less tha the 70 percent mark needed to beat back the crisis – has been fully vaccinated.
The biggest number of visitors have come from Germany, some 600,000 of them in a major market for Greek tourism, a 60 percent jump from the May-July period of 2020 when the pandemic raged and fear dominated.
Next are those from Poland, with 280,000 arrivals marking the amount for all of 2020, then the French, with 275,000 and Romanians at 185,000 said Kathimerini, with Americans not coming in the numbers expected after being allowed.
Restrictions set by the United Kingdom, which would require residents who go to Greece to face a quarantine on return, essentially shut down that key market, but bookings are up for August and September, the report said.
Only 125,000 Americans, including the Greek-American Diaspora that was locked out in 2020, have come although they don't face restrictions for doing so although Greece has a number of requirements, including filling out documents and proof of vaccination, a negative PCR test or having recovered from COVID.
It looks better at some regional airports, especially the wild party island of Mykonos where the government, apart from a brief curfew and ban on music, has allowed it to keep going on during the pandemic, spreading the virus.
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
CLOSTER, NJ – The well-attended Greek Independence Day Celebration in Closter, NJ, took place on March 25, beginning with the Flag Raising Ceremony at Ruckman Park in Closter.
ALBANY – New York State Assemblyman Michael Tannousis (R, C-Staten Island/Brooklyn) on March 26 was joined in Albany by His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America to recognize Greek Independence Day and the 50th anniversary of the illegal Turkish invasion and continued occupation of Cyprus.
ATHENS - Historic member of PASOK and passionate advocate of the recognition of Pontian Greek genocide Michalis Charalambidis died on Wednesday aged 73.
ATHENS - While the New Democracy government denied audio files from the 2023 head-on train crash in Tempe which killed 57 had been tampered with, five managers at the state-run OSE railways agency reportedly had access to them.
FAIRVIEW, NJ – The Greek Cypriots of New Jersey under the auspices of the Federation of Cypriot American Organizations, the Consulate General of the Republic of Cyprus in New York and Consul General of Cyprus Michalis Firillas will commemorate the 69th Anniversary of the EOKA Liberation Struggle of Cyprus from British Colonial Rule 1955-1959, with a memorial service at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Ascension, 101 Anderson Avenue in Fairview, NJ, on Sunday, March 31.