On the Friday, February 14th edition of the show, after reviewing the day’s newspaper headlines, we hosted seismologist Stavros Tassos to discuss the latest updates on seismic activity northeast of Santorini. Mr. Tassos remained highly cautious about the phenomenon’s evolution, clarifying that while a larger earthquake of around 6+ magnitude on the Richter scale is possible, it is not necessarily more likely than the event remaining minor with limited impact—primarily affecting older buildings. However, he emphasized the urgent need for inspections of public buildings, especially schools constructed before 1985, which may lack proper seismic standards.
In the second hour of the show, we connected with Munich, where, since last night, parents and students from a Greek elementary and middle school have been staging a sit-in protest. The schools are facing serious uncertainty due to the non-renewal of their building lease, leaving around 350 Greek-origin students at risk of losing their school facilities. Maria Bakou, Deputy Secretary B’ of the Munich Parents’ Association, spoke to us about the issue.
Later, Panagiotis Pravitiamos, a member of the Panhellenic Federation of Food & Tourism Workers, discussed the impact of seismic activity in the Cyclades region on tourism workers. He called for financial support for affected employees and the immediate signing of collective labor agreements.
In the final part of the program, we aired an interview with nuclear physicist George Laskaris, president of the DEON Policy Institute, just before his return to the U.S. Laskaris, along with the institute’s executive director, Afroditi Xydi, was in Athens in recent days to present the initiatives of DEON—the first think tank of the Greek Diaspora—aimed at bridging the gap between expatriate Greeks and Greek policymakers. A key focus of the interview was DEON’s proposals for installing small nuclear reactors in the shipping industry and on Greece’s smaller islands, enhancing energy autonomy while significantly reducing their environmental footprint.