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 – Greek passports, rated sixth best in the world based on how many countries can be visited with needing a visa – but still subject to forging – are due for an upgrade along with plans for more security identity cards for Greeks.
The Greek Police (ELAS) are seeking bids for a new electronic system that will issue new, safer ID cards to meet the standards and technical specifications of the European Union, said the state-run Athens News Agency.
Bidders will have to show they have issued similar security documents to at least two more EU states. With the new system, the new ID’s and other documents will meet the recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the EU.
The EU is pushing for an overhaul of ID issuing system to target terrorism and curb the spread of fake documents. As a member-state of the EU, Greece has been obliged since 2000 to upgrade its ID cards but has yet to overhaul the current system.
The cost of upgrading existing ID cards is estimated at around 80 million euros ($89.87 million) it was also reported.
Despite the strength of Greece’s passports, so many were being forged that Greeks in 2017 flying into German airports were taken out of line for further scrutiny and checks, including New Democracy Conservative leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Mitsotakis, leader of the New Democracy Conservatives, said he and fellow passengers from Greece were put under severe scrutiny just because they were Greeks as Germany continued screening even though both countries are part of the Schengen agreement allowing free travel between European Union countries.
“I felt humiliated as a Greek when I was taken into a different terminal and waited for 20 minutes to have my passport checked,” Mitsotakis then told an event at the Bruegel think-tank in Brussels on Responsibility to Reform Europe.
A German newspaper said stepped-up security checks of passengers from Greece were being done because of an increasing number of forged passports and documents allegedly being used by refugees and migrants trying to reach other European Union countries which closed off their borders to them.
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.