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.
Their protests against austerity measures and social security hikes haven’t worked yet but Greek farmers no Jan. 25 stepped up demonstrations by parking their tractors at a major junction on a national highway, all ignored by the ruling Radical Left SYRIZA-led coalition.
The head of the union representing farmers from Trikala, Apostolos Thomopoulos, told the Athens News Aency said that protesters would reinforce the road block every day, bringing more and more tractors after previously parking them by the side of roads while traffic went by.
Farmers want lower production costs, tax-free oil, better rates for electricity and water, the abolition of value-added tax on agricultural supplies and vehicles, and exemption from the hated ENFIA property tax surcharge that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said he would scrap but continued to impose after reneging on anti-austerity promises.
The blockades have become almost an annual event sideshow ignored by the government even though they sometimes last for weeks and disrupt traffic and the flow of goods out of the country.
The head of farmers’ groups from Karditsa, Vangelis Boutas, earlier said producers would escalate their action. “There is no other path than the path of resistance and unity with other working-class groups,” he said, according to Kathimerini.
They did the same last year but ended the blockades in mid-February without gaining anything while demanding changes to measures including tax and social security hikes they couldn’t stop.
The farmers last year used their tractors and equipment, primarily in northern Greece and along the borders with Bulgaria and FYROM, preventing the movement of cargo to those countries and cutting into Greek exports.
Two years ago in February more than a dozen tractors rolled through Athens, honking horns and flashing lights outside parliament as thousands of Greek farmers thronged the capital’s main Syntagma Square to protest tax hikes and pension reforms.
Bailout lenders demanded that Greece scrap tax breaks for farmers and impose pension reforms that will lead to higher monthly contributions from the self-employed and salaried employees.
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.