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.
NEW YORK — Making good on a pledge to change U.S. posture toward Cuba, President Barack Obama is poised to hold talks with Cuban President Raul Castro for the second time this year.
The meeting is scheduled to take place Sept. 29 on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations. Castro is attending for the first time.
The encounter comes as the Cold War adversaries go about the long and complex process of normalizing relations following decades of animosity.
The U.S. recently eased rules for citizens who want to visit or do business in Cuba, a step aimed at fostering greater economic freedom on the island.
Both leaders surprised the world last December by announcing they had agreed to restore diplomatic relations.
Since then, the two countries have reopened embassies in each other’s capitals. But sharp differences remain, particularly over Cuba’s human rights record and detainment of political prisoners.
Both sides want Congress to lift a longstanding economic embargo against the Communist island nation, but many Republican lawmakers and some Democrats want to keep it in place.
Cuba also seeks the return of land occupied by the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay; the U.S. says that is not in the plan.
In his address Sept. 28 at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly’s annual ministerial meeting, Obama discussed the shift in policy toward Cuba and said he was confident that Congress “will inevitably lift an embargo that should not be in place anymore.”
Ben Rhodes, a Deputy National Security Adviser for Obama, said Castro’s presence at the U.N. gathering is a signal “that we’re in a new era.”
Obama and Castro first spoke in December after the secret process to restore diplomatic relations was revealed.
They met in person in April while attending a regional summit in Panama. Before then, the last time a U.S. and Cuban leader had convened a substantive meeting was in 1958.
Obama and Castro spoke by telephone again earlier this month before Pope Francis visited Cuba and the United States.
Francis was a go-between for the U.S. and Cuba during their secret talks.
(DARLENE SUPERVILLE)
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.