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 — Main opposition SYRIZA has yet to learn the lessons from its previous term in governance and its defeat in the general elections, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in Parliament on Friday, replying to SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras during prime minister's question time.
"Mr. Tsipras I discerned a tension and shortness in your first speech. It seems the air in Thessaloniki did not help your psychological mood, perhaps because there were not just backdrops to greet you at the metro but a real work site," Mitsotakis said, in response to Tsipras' question on "Effectively dealing with the consequences of the healthcare crisis on the Greek economy."
Mitsotakis accused Tsipras of continuing to "dress up" the state in the economy when he handed over governance and failing to answer the key question, which was why he had lost the elections in July 2019 by such a wide margin if things were going so well.
"And if things today are going as badly as you claim, why do the polls reflect an optimism index that is completely different from that you present. I fear that you have not yet learned the lessons from your previous governance and the verdict of the ballot box," he added.
Mitsotakis noted that the credibility of an economy can be measures in many ways. "I do not need to tell yout that the economic confidence index skyrocketed after the elections. There is also a very objective measure of comparison. How the markets rate the course of the economy. Markets lend to us and must lend to us at a reasonable rate, so that we can finance a very large debt that increased during your term. You accessed the markets at a rate of 3.9 pct. The Hellenic Republic in conditions of pandemic borrowed at an interest rate of 1.57 pct. This is the best answer to your claims regarding the overall course of the economy," Mitsotakis said.
The prime minister also pointed to the Eurogroup's praise of Greece's handling of the pandemic and said that "everyone has drawn their conclusions on whether the country came together behind this effort. The support of the EU and the credibility that Greece has managed to gain in Europe is credited to us over the long term and reflected in the fact that we secured a very large sum."
He also rebuffed Tsipras' claim that the economy had fallen into recession before the pandemic lockdown, noting that it had grown by 1 pct in the last quarter of 2019, and had shrunk by only 0.9 pct in the first third of 2020, as opposed to an average of 3.6 pct in Europe.
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.
BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) — It was in the den that Karen Goodwin most strongly felt her son’s presence: On the coffee table were his ashes, inside a clock with its hands forever frozen at 12:35 a.
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.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — A bus carrying worshippers on a long-distance trip from Botswana to an Easter weekend church gathering in South Africa plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass Thursday and burst into flames as it hit the rocky ground below, killing at least 45 people, authorities said.