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.
SELCUK, Turkey — Black-eyed Nirvana and Mr Isa, two male camels from the western Aydin province of Turkey and wearing colorful saddles, circled the grounds with their owners and then wrestled fiercely as thousands cheered.
They were competing as part of 80 pairs or 160 camels in the Efes Selcuk Camel Wrestling Festival, the biggest and most prestigious festival of its kind, which celebrated its 40th run Sunday. The wrestling grounds is a few miles away from Ephesus, the site of ancient Greek ruins. Smaller festivals are held across Turkey’s Aegean and Mediterranean provinces.
The games take place during the camels’ mating season. Because the males are more aggressive during this time, especially when they are withheld from mating, they are primed to fight.
The score system is complicated for outsiders but a camel who gets its opponent to scream, flee, fall or push its embroidered saddle to the ground wins.
Spectators and fans enjoyed a cold, sunny day of music, traditional dances, barbecue, with camel sausage and meat, as they imbibed “lion’s milk,” Turkey’s anise-flavored spirit raki.
The day before, camels were paraded in a beauty pageant, decked out with colorful beaded muzzles, fabrics, pompoms, bells and Turkish flags. A jury judged them as they strutted through the town.
The Federation for Camel Culture and Camel Wrestling says there is no exact date for when the tradition began in Anatolia but it is thought to date back to the 19th century among competing nomadic groups.
Animals rights groups say camel wrestling should be banned and amounts to abuse. Even though Turkey’s law for the protection of animals bans animal fights and an amendment last summer introduced financial punishments and prison sentences, it allows traditional folkloric shows without violence. The Istanbul Bar Association criticized the law for not banning camel wrestling, saying they are violent and have no folkloric roots.
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.
ALBANY – New York State Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris, Senator Andrew Gounardes, and Senator James Skoufis honored Greek Independence at the State Capitol on March 26, welcoming His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros, who offered an invocation before the Senate.
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S.
LOS ANGELES – The UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture presents a captivating evening with acclaimed singer-songwriter Alkinoos Ioannidis, who will perform at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall on Saturday, April 27, 7:30 PM, in a solo concert.
ATHENS - The "OLYMPOS - Global Spiritual Center" Association presents on Saturday, April 6, at 6:00 pm, at the "Antonis Tritsis" Amphitheatre of the Cultural Center of the Municipality of Athens, 50, Acadimias Street, the truly ingenious funding proposal for the construction of Heptapolis in the wider area of Delphi, entitled "World Green Taxation Fund".