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 – A strike by Greek garbage collectors has coincided with summer-like weather in October to have thousands of tons of rubbish overflowing out of trash bins that typically are on nearly most every street corner and otherwise picked up daily.
The stink is evident across the Greek capital, the major cities of Thessaloniki in the north, Patra in the west and across the country with the garbage going uncollected as worker protest a measure from the new New Democracy government moving toward privatizing their jobs, along with some lighting and parks and recreation projects.
Current laws allow private operations but the new measure would let ease them, which workers don’t want, fearing their jobs will be at risk as Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said it’s part of his plans to bring growth to help accelerate recovery from a more than 9 1/2-year fiscal crisis.
There will be a 24-hour national strike of workers on Oct. 24 when Parliament takes up the bill, as a demonstration against the new government which won the July 7 snap elections, ousting the former ruling Radical Left SYRIZA which vowed to help workers but diluted their rights.
The POE-OTA municipal workers’ union said the new provisions will also lead to an increase in municipal levies, said Kathimerini in a report on the action although some mayors promised not to fire any workers.
But Michalis Stavrianoudakis, General Secretary at the Interior Ministry, said with needs varying over different times of the year, a contract with a private firm to boost staff during busier months could help, especially in areas popular with tourists.
Despite efforts by workers to block access to the capital’s main landfill, 70 percent of garbage trucks deposited their loads at the dump site but dumpsters are still overflowing in many neighborhoods and municipal authorities appealed to citizens not to take their garbage out until it’s over.
(Material from the Associated Press was used in this report)
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.
NICOSIA - A meeting between the ministers of energy for Cyprus and Israel - George Papanastasiou and Eli Cohen - led to an agreement that the countries would make an underwater electric cable link a top priority, linking them to Europe.
LONDON (AP) — The British Museum on Thursday appointed National Portrait Gallery chief Nicholas Cullinan as its new director, as the 265-year-old institution grapples with the apparent theft of hundreds of artifacts and growing international scrutiny of its collection.
ATHENS - The European Union needs to get involved in the case of the two-year jail sentence given ethnic Greek Fredi Beleri who was elected Mayor of the seaside town of Himare and said the trial was a farce to get him and protect Prime Minister Edi Rama’s business friends.
Brace yourself for what could be another scorching summer in Greece as scientists are anxious that a warm winter - the warmest January recorded - and climate change will continue to bring weather anomalies.