The British newspaper The Independent wrote that British sources have said that the Obama Administration is fearful of the fall-out on the U.S. economy if Greece tanks and the ripples affect the Eurozone and world markets.

Representatives from the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) and the European Commission are due to arrive in Athens next month to assess Greece΄s reform efforts as the country attempts to make another $14.16 billion in cuts to insure the continuation of rescue loans.

They are expected to make a report in time for an Oct. 8  meeting of the Eurozone finance ministers which is expected to decide whether to release a $38.8 billion installment, the last in a first series of $152 billion in rescue loans, without which Greece would not have enough money to pay workers and pensioners. The country has already stopped paying its bills. For the long-term, the Troika is withholding a second bailout, of $173 billion, until the uneasy coalition government led by New Democracy Conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras makes the cuts and imposes more austerity.

Samaras said Greece needs two more years to reduce the country’s deficit from 9.3 to 3 percent and get a privatization program going. American officials are understood to be worried that if they decide Greece has not done enough to meet its deficit targets and withhold the money, it would automatically trigger Greece΄s exit from the Eurozone close to the Nov. 6 President ballot.

The Independent said American officials are urging Eurozone governments to hold off from taking any drastic action before then. European leaders are thought to be sympathetic to the lobbying fearing that, under pressure from his party in Congress, Republican Mitt Romney would be a more isolationist president than the Democratic Obama.

The President discussed the Eurozone crisis with British Prime Minister David Cameron during a conference call on Aug. 22, and both welcomed statements by the ECB that it was “standing firmly behind the euro.” The ECB is expected to present a plan in the next few weeks to help indebted countries like Spain and Italy by buying their government bonds to keep the Eurozone from becoming more fragile.

(source: The Independent, Capital)

Olga – co-founder of critically-acclaimed Noiti Grammi theatrical company in Athens – presents Noiti Grammi: When the Red Toyota Went off The Road and Sank in Black Water. The story has eerie parallels to the incident at Chappaquiddick Island off Massachusetts in 1969 in which a young campaign aide, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned when a car driven by then U.S. Teddy Kennedy of Massachusetts went off a narrow bridge after the two left a party together.

Pozeli puts her story this way: “A prominent politician meets, at a party, a young woman who works for his party’s campaign. After several drinks and a solitary walk on the beach, the politician expresses his interest in the woman. Towards the end of the evening they leave the party together. While driving his car, the politician loses control and the car falls into a dark swamp and immediately sinks into black water. He manages to escape the sinking vehicle, leaving the woman to drown.”

The story is followed through the eyes of the young woman, an impressionistic jumble of memories and voices from the past intersected by images from the day of her death. These images, stretched in time and constantly repeated, try to give an explanation for the tragic accident that leads to her slow and agonizing death. It’s performance on the corruption of power, as well as attitudes about the absurdity of a violent and unjust death.

Pozeli  has directed original devised works as well as plays by Berkoff, Bennett, Mamet, Ives and more. This show is supported by the Greek Ministry of Culture. To find out more about the schedule, the artists and their performances visit:

www.betweentheseas.org

This special exhibit is displayed in conjunction with the museum’s annual car show, “Packards Abroad.” Constantinos Valantasis, pastor of St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, will give the invocation, and James Maropoulakis Denney, national legal advisor of the Pancretan Association of America, will present the exhibit.

PAA President Giannis Manos gave a book titled “Historical Album: Elftherios Venizelos” written in English and Greek, published under the auspices of PAA, to the Packard museum.

Venizelos and his wife, Elena, survived an assassination attempt June 6, 1933 amid the political turmoil, when they were attacked while traveling in the suburbs of Athens in their 1929 Packard automobile. Bullets pierced the steel body of the Packard, but none reached the couple.

Greek-Americans and everyone interested can visit the museum to admire the historical exhibit and travel with their imaginations back to the Greece of the 1940s.

The 2,500-year-old water vessel, or kalpis, has been on display at the Ohio museum since 1982, when it was purchased from an antiquities dealer out of Switzerland. It will be displayed in the museum’s Libbey Court until it leaves for Rome, probably in late summer.

“The right thing to do is to return this object,” museum Director Brian Kennedy told The Blade newspaper. “We knew we’d likely lose this. We’ll miss it.”

Italy has pressed an aggressive campaign to win back ancient Roman, Greek and Etruscan vases, bowls, statues and other artifacts prosecutors contend were looted from the country. The campaign was set in motion after a police raid on a Swiss warehouse of an Italian art dealer found a trove of artifacts and photos of antiquities, many of them still covered with dirt from being hastily excavated by antiquities hunters in Italy.

Black painting on the orange clay vessel at the Toledo museum depicts the Greek tale of Dionysos, the god of wine and drama. The late museum curator Kurt Luckner had recommended Toledo buy the kalpis for $90,000, and its acquisition was a coup for Toledo because the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York had also wanted it at the same time.

Authorities believe the 50-centimeter artifact was probably illegally excavated in Italy, smuggled to Switzerland and given a forged record of ownership. To clear the way for its return to Italy, federal prosecutors filed a complaint Wednesday in U.S. District Court asking a judge to order the jug as forfeited.

Source: www.naharnet.com

Hours are from 3 to 10 p.m. Friday; noon to 10 p.m. Saturday; and noon to 9 p.m. Sunday.

The church sponsors two Greek festivals each year, explained Rev. Steve Denas. The one beginning Friday will be indoors, he said, at the community center across the street from the church at 401 12th St.

Festival admission is free, but the church charges for dinner and la carte items. The food will all be made on-site, said the Rev. Denas, and will include gyros and souvlakia, which is shish kebab made with pork or lamb. Salads and desserts also will be available. Beverages will include beer, wine and Greek coffee.

Rev. Denas said the festival serves two purposes: to welcome the community in to experience Greek culture and to raise money for the church.

Monastic nuns from Saxonburg, Pa., are expected to display religious icons and artifacts, he said.

Youth dancers will perform traditional dances at 5, 6 and 7 p.m. Friday; 4:30, 6 and 7 p.m. Saturday; and 3:30, 6 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday.

(Source: Vindy.com)

Can you sense the sarcasm in my voice? Don’t get me wrong I have lived the whole “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” story with my father working at four different Greek diners and my mother telling me every day of my life to find “a nice Greek boy to marry.” But I don’t think, I can say that every Greek-American reading this believes the same thing, that this is not the way to promote Greece. The person responsible for this brilliant idea is the deputy minister of tourism and culture Mr. George Nikitiadis. His idea goes as follows, to grab a bunch of Greek artists put their work on these placemats, which as well know that these very same placemats get crumbled, doodle and wipe off everybody’s spills and leftover food daily. The sad part is not just the idea but that commercial sponsors from Greece, like ΟΠΑΠ and the restaurant association are giving money for this idea to blossom and come alive.

About 6 million euro’s are being given for 7 million throwaway placemats to be printed and distributed to diners across America. It doesn’t end here also plastic throwaway cups are going to be given to the customers of these diners as well. What happened to posters, art exhibits with various Greek or Greek-American artists, concerts and dance festivals to raise money to promote Greece? You can just shoot a commercial in Astoria, Queens in New York City and you have your promotion right there.

I might be the only one angry and annoyed about this “awesome”, “brilliant”, “extraordinary”, and “wonderful” tourism idea but I believe Greece deserves better than throwaway placemats and plastic cups, especially in the times that we are in now.

This year’s festival features a memorial service Sunday marking the 10th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The service will be conducted by the Rev. Aristotle Damaskos and the Rev. Chris Hadgigeorge. Remarks will be delivered by local dignitaries, and members of the American Legion, Chris Dunberger Post No. 537 will fire a 21 gun salute and play taps.

She indirectly sent another message to the Skopian Republic with the option of using the term “Makedonia”, referring to the northern neighborhood.  Clinton has strongly supported the Greek “2014 Agenda” for the accession of the whole Balkan network of Serbia, Bosnia, and Kosovo into the E.E.

In 1967 he was appointed to a judge in the Federal Court and became the first Greek-American in the federal courts. On January 16, 1990 he was sworn in as chief judge of the District Court for the Northern district of Ohio.  Chief Justice of U.S. Supreme Court Warren Burger, praised the work of Thomas Lambros who was honored with the Award from the Center for Public Resources for: “the most outstanding achievements in alternative dispute resolution.”  On April 30, 1996 U.S. President Bill Clinton signed a decree of the American state, which included the name of the Greek-American judge who was then practicing in the federal building and courthouse in Youngstown, Ohio.