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 — Cyprus cut compulsory military service Feb. 25 from 24 months to 14 months, fulfilling a campaign promise after years of deliberations.
Defense Minister Christoforos Fokaides said professional soldiers will be hired to make up the shortfall in the standing force’s numbers, which will be created as soldiers are discharged earlier. He said the move will improve the mostly conscript force’s operational readiness, thanks to the skills and experience that professionals will bring.
“This decision is a significant step toward transforming the National Guard into a modern, semi-professional military,” Fokaides said.
Soldiers inducted last summer will only have to serve 18 months. Deputy government spokesman Viktoras Papadopoulos put the number of professionals to be hired at 3,000.
Ethnically divided Cyprus relies heavily on its reserves to bolster its small standing force that faces over 35,000 Turkish troops in the island’s breakaway Turkish Cypriot north.
The tiny eastern Mediterranean island with an overall population of 1.1 million was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup aiming at union with Greece.
Previous governments had vowed to look at ways of reducing military service but never followed through.
Opposition parties criticized the government, saying the announcement was a ploy to clinch votes ahead of a parliamentary election in May.
Fokaides said the military service reduction is part of a three-pronged approach to modernize the Cypriot military, which also includes new equipment for the island’s small naval and air forces.
European Union member Cyprus aims to become a regional search-and-rescue hub in a volatile region and wants to patrol areas off its southern coast where gas deposits have been discovered.
MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS, 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.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (AP) — An international team of doctors visiting a hospital in central Gaza was prepared for the worst.
LONDON (AP) — The British Museum on Thursday appointed National Portrait Gallery chief Nicholas Cullinan as its new director, as the 265-year-old institution grapples with the apparent theft of hundreds of artifacts and growing international scrutiny of its collection.
ATHENS - The European Union needs to get involved in the case of the two-year jail sentence given ethnic Greek Fredi Beleri who was elected Mayor of the seaside town of Himare and said the trial was a farce to get him and protect Prime Minister Edi Rama’s business friends.
Brace yourself for what could be another scorching summer in Greece as scientists are anxious that a warm winter - the warmest January recorded - and climate change will continue to bring weather anomalies.
Mykonos’ run has been going on for a long time, bringing hordes of tourists, but it’s being cut down by its reputation for being rowdy, expensive, overcrowded and gouging diners while businesses evade taxes.