AHEPA e-News! - Vol. 11 Issue 11  - Wednesday, March 15, 2017  

Deadline Extended | Journey to Greece Program | Apply Today
Study abroad this summer and earn 6 college credits in Greece.  AHEPA, in partnership with Webster University, is sponsoring 20 students to visit locations like Athens, Delphi, Meteora, Hosios Loukas, Arachova, and Crete -- all while earning college credits!
 ICYMI | Honoring Our Veterans - Please Register 
AHEPA appreciates its districts and chapters for honoring Ahepans who are Veterans with the AHEPA Medal for Military Service and certificate. To keep a proper accounting, and for archival purposes, the AHEPA Veterans Committee is requesting all Veterans who have received this honor to register with the Committee's database (preferred method). Registration can also be facilitated through a downloadable PDF. If your district or chapter has held an event to honor our Veterans with the medal, please ensure they are registered with the AHEPA Veterans Committee.

The act of honoring AHEPA family members with the AHEPA Medal for Military Service was acknowledged by the U.S. Senate as part of a concurrent resolution passed March 20, 2000, with the lead of then U.S. Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-MD), on the occasion of the 2000 AHEPA Biennial Salute Banquet.  The banquet's theme was "Salute to Veterans."
Call for Applications | 2017 AHEPAcademy Session
Join a select group of Greek American students from across the country for AHEPAcademy, June 25 - July 1, 2017, at George Mason University, outside Washington, DC.   learn more
 Book Your Room! | 2017 Supreme Convention!
REBUILD SAINT NICHOLAS SHRINE CAMPAIGN


 
THANK YOU!

AHEPA is determined to meet its Saint Nicholas Capital Campaign fund raising goal of $1 million. Donations--large and small--keep pouring in for AHEPA's #RebuildStNicholas capital campaign.  

AHEPA Chapter 41, Brooklyn, N.Y. announces its $20,000 donation for the campaign to help rebuild Saint Nicholas.

Visit our #RebuildStNicholas campaign webpage.
TAKE ACTION

Has your district or chapter organized a fundraiser for the campaign to #RebuildStNicholas?  Take action and support AHEPA's campaign today! Please tweet about your fundraising activity by using #RebuildStNicholas to share your work with the broader community!


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Latest St. Nicholas Appeal Video
AHEPA has produced its latest appeal video to help #RebuildStNicholas. 

PROJECT UPDATE
 
A look at Tower 1 at the World Trade Center through the dome of St. Saint Nicholas National Shrine at the World Trade Center. (Photo credit: Theo Nicolakis, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese)

Live Webcam!
Thanks to a live webcam, you can watch progress being made with a first-hand look at the site where Saint Nicholas National Shrine will be build.
WASHINGTON UPDATE



It's a New Congress! Help Grow the Hellenic Caucus!
The 115th Congress is well underway. And with it, the work renews for the Congressional Caucus on Hellenic Issues, led by Co-chairs U.S. Reps. Gus M. Bilirakis (R-FL) and Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY).  The Hellenic Caucus begins the 115th Congress with 120 members.
The Hellenic Caucus has been an active, bipartisan group in Congress since its founding in 1995. 

DC Think Tank Holds Discussion on Cyprus
The Atlantic Council held a discussion on the topic, "Strategic & Sustainable Development for a Unified Cyprus," March 8, 2017.  Among the panelists were: Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Jonathan Cohen, Special Adviser of the UN Secretary General on Cyprus Minister Espen Barth Eide, and Ambassador Andreas Mavroyiannis, who is the special negotiator for the settlement talks for the Republic of Cyprus.   Webcast
Upcoming Events & Deadlines

March
26 | New York City Greek Independence Day Parade
31 | Deadline to apply for an AHEPA National Educational Foundation      
       Scholarship

April
1 | Early Deadline: AHEPAcademy Application
2 | Philadelphia Greek Independence Day Parade
15 | Final Deadline: AHEPAcademy Application
30 | Chicago Greek Independence Parade

May
3 | AHEPA Family Capitol Hill Day
Greek American News Digest 
 
Editor's Note: Editorials, Commentaries, and Opinion pieces are shared for information purposes only and do not necessarily reflect the views or policy positions of the Order of AHEPA, its affiliated organizations, and members.
 
 
Kotzias-Tillerson discuss Greece's role in region, stability, energy projects  ANA-MPA  (Mar. 13) Greece's role in the stability and security in Southeast Europe and Turkey's "nervousness" were discussed in a meeting between Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Washington D.C. on Monday. Asked by journalists after the meeting, Kotzias said Tillerson "wanted our analysis on how there can be stability and security in the region, which forces are active and how."  Concerning Turkey, the minister said he discussed "Turkish nervousness" and explained Greece's position on the importance of security and stability in the Eastern Europe and the Balkans.  read more



Cyprus: EU opposes peace deal giving Turks key freedoms ABC News (Mar. 11) European Union member states have rejected Turkey's demand that its citizens be granted the freedom to relocate and transfer money, services and goods to EU member Cyprus under any deal reunifying the ethnically divided island, the Cypriot president said Saturday. Nicos Anastasiades said all EU leaders consider it a "bad precedent" for Cyprus or any other country to breach bloc rules and grant such key freedoms to third-country citizens.  read more 
 
 
Italian energy major to increase its own exploration portfolio in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea New Europe (Mar. 8) Italian energy major ENI announced on March 7 that has finalised a farm-in agreement with France's Total to acquire 50% Participating Interest of Block 11 Offshore Cyprus.  The agreement, by which Total remains the Operator of the Block, has been approved by Cyprus' Council of Ministers, ENI said in a press release.  With this transaction ENI further reinforces its own position in the Mediterranean island, acquiring the right of exploring an area of 2,215 square kilometres, nearby the "super giant" Zohr discovery in the Egyptian offshore, the Italian company said.  read more 
 
 
Onassis Cultural Center brings to vivid life the emotions of the people of ancient Greece Art Daily (Mar. 14) The Onassis Cultural Center New York brings to vivid life the emotions of the people of ancient Greece, and prompt questions about how we express, control, manipulate, or simulate feelings in our own society, by presenting its groundbreaking exhibition A World of Emotions: Ancient Greece, 700 BC - 200 AD. On view through June 24, 2017 exclusively at the Onassis Cultural Center New York, where admission is always free, the exhibition brings together more than 130 masterpieces from some of the world's leading museums-including the Acropolis Museum, Athens; National Archaeological Museum, Athens; Mus�e du Louvre (Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities), Paris; British Museum, London; and Musei Vaticani, Vatican City-to explore the ideas and attitudes of people in classical antiquity toward emotion and the ways in which the emotions were depicted, revealing how some are strikingly familiar to us and some shockingly alien.  read more 

 
Greece offers ancient archaeological wonders in exchange for Elgin Marbles Independent (Mar. 14) Greece has called for the return of the so-called Elgin Marbles from the British Museum as a symbolic act in the fight against anti-democratic forces seeking "the dissolution of Europe".  The Athens government, which decided against taking legal action against the UK last year, will instead renew diplomatic efforts with an offer to regularly loan some of the wonders of Ancient Greece to British institutions in exchange.  read more



Twelve promising Greek startups traveling to SXSW conference in Texas Phantis  (Mar. 13) Twelve dynamic Greek startups will have the opportunity to present their products and services in the "Greek Booth" of South By Southwest (SXSW), one of the largest and most important innovation and technology conferences and festivals held annually in Austin, Texas, on March 10-19.  Greece's participation is supported and funded by The Hellenic Initiative (THI) and the U.S. Embassy in Greece, with a grant of 50,000 euros.  read more 



Emirates new Athens-Newark route raises ire of big U.S. carriers Wall Street Journal via MarketWatch (Mar. 10) Emirates Airline is launching a new route between Athens and Newark, N.J., intensifying a fight with U.S. rivals that say the Middle Eastern carrier is unfairly subsidized by its government.  Emirates President Tim Clark defended his airline's expansion plans on Thursday at a conference in Berlin. "We have breached no terms of the air-service agreement that allows us to do that," he said.  read more

Princeton's Hellenic Studies Center gets new Athens home Ekathimerini (Mar. 13) Dimitri Gondicas speaks passionately but modestly when discussing the new branch of Princeton University's Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies in Athens.  Gondicas has been at Princeton since the 1970s, first as a student of physics and then as a lecturer in Modern Greek, going on to become the director of the Seeger Center of Hellenic Studies in 2010.  
"The first foreign students to attend Princeton on a scholarship were Greeks. They were brought from Cephalonia in 1825 and presented to the university as descendants of Pericles and Plato," says Gondicas.  read more




 
 
 
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