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.
ISTANBUL — Turkey’s president has fired the head of the Turkish Statistical Institute, which is responsible for posting official inflation statistics, among other data, at a time when prices have skyrocketed in Turkey.
Tukish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision was announced Saturday on the Official Gazette. He replaced Sait Erdal Dincer less than a year after his appointment with Erhan Cetinkaya, who served as vice president of Turkey’s banking regulation agency. No reason was given for the move.
Turkey has experienced economic turmoil with an unstable national currency, triggered by massive interest rate cuts. Erdogan stands strongly against high interest rates, claiming they cause inflation, a stance that contradicts established economic theory. Since September, the Central Bank has cut rates by 500 basis points to 14%, but stopped its cuts in January.
Turkey relies heavily on imports for its energy needs and consumer goods. Inflation on consumer prices for December was officially announced at 36.08%, up from 21.31% in November.
But opposition parties have questioned the Turkish Statistical Institute’s independence and its data is being challenged. Independent experts at Inflation Research Group, or ENAG, say Turkey’s actual annual inflation for December was 82.81%.
On Saturday, Erdogan acknowledged the effects of high inflation, blaming it on “artificial fluctuations” of the Turkish lira in December. He said Turkey had taken precautions and stabilized the currency.
“You know our fight against interest rates. We will lower interest rates and we have done so,” he told supporters in northern Giresun province. “Know that inflation will also drop, it will decrease more.”
Turkey’s Central Bank revised its inflation predictions this week to 23.2% by the end of 2022 and down to 5% by the end of 2024. The statistics agency will announce the next round of inflation data on Feb. 3.
Erdogan also announced that former Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag would return to his post, replacing Abdulhamit Gul, who had served as minister since 2017 but resigned without saying why.
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.