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 – Growing speculation about when Greece’s 2023 elections will be held – which promises to be a Battle Royale – indicates that it will come shortly before the April 16 Easter, when many families will be in their villages where they vote.
Greek election law requires voters to cast their ballots where they are registered and many families keep their home place, requiring them to travel across the country to make their decisions.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ New Democracy government has seen its lead cut in half to just under 7 percent in recent surveys with the party he defeated – SYRIZA – sniping about his handling of the pandemic, the economy, Turkish provocations and a spyware scandal.
The main fight will be between them but in its last days before being ousted in July, 2019 snap elections, the Leftists passed a law taking away a 50-seat bonus for the winning party in elections to thwart an easy New Democracy return, although a coalition would be possible with a rival.
That means an almost certain second ballot with a lesser threshold that would still give a winning party 30 extra seats in the 300-member Parliament, but which could mean needing a coalition partner.
That has set up all kinds of wild scenarios about what would develop, as the rising PASOK-KINAL center-left movement has doubled its popularity to near 14 percent and could be a catalyst or kingmaker in elections.
If two elections are needed, seen as a month apart, it would require a caretaker government at the same time that Turkey will have Presidential elections on June 18, leaving a new Greek leadership open to more tensions.
Talk has been about New Democracy bringing in the ultra-nationalist jingoistic Hellenic Solution, which is virulently anti-immigrant and bring its leader, a strident TV pitchman, into a position of power despite winning only 3.7 percent of the vote in 2019, barely above the 3 percent needed to get into Parliament where it has only 10 seats and no power.
Capital.GR, operated by Forbes magazine, noted how Greece will soon enter a hotter preliminary campaign period that’s already essentially under way and said the simple proportional representation system put in place by SYRIZA could also see the Leftists regain power in a partnership with PASOK, the marginal MeRA25 and even the KKE Communists in an odd ball coalition after a first vote.
That’s a remote chance at best and the report said that SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras may be jockeying for a coalition with PASOK or other elements in a second election to oust New Democracy.
The Conservatives term doesn’t end until July 7 and Mitsotakis has repeatedly said he would stay the course until then although that would create a longer toxic campaign period that could set aside everything for politics.
For now, he is engaging in the traditional campaign gimmick of essentially trying to buy votes – a tactic of each government – with handouts and raising the minimum wage, ending a hated solidarity tax, raising pensions and pumping in state aid for electricity, gasoline, fuel oil and pushing supermarkets to set fixed prices on 51 essential staples out of reach for many.
The campaign would almost certainly affect Mitsotakis’ push to get more foreign investors who could wait to see the outcome and as Greece is trying to lure even more tourists in 2023 to further accelerate an economic recovery.
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Three Russian missiles slammed into a downtown area of the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv on Wednesday, hitting an eight-floor apartment building and killing at least 13 people, authorities said.
It was a close brush with death but a 40-year-old British tourist bitten by a deadly viper while at a yoga retreat on Cyprus is recovering after getting swift hospitalization to counteract the venom.
ATHENS - After Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system - with help from French, American and British fighter jet pilots - knocked Iranian missiles and drones from the skies during an attack, Greece is looking to create a similar protection method.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Three Russian missiles slammed into a downtown area of the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv on Wednesday, hitting an eight-floor apartment building and killing at least 13 people, authorities said.
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — Visitors to Disney's California parks could one day walk through the snow-covered hamlet of Arendelle from “Frozen” or the bustling, critter-filled metropolis of “Zootopia” under a park expansion plan approved by the Anaheim City Council.