S O C V st ΓΡΑΦΕΙ ΤΗΝ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΑ W ΤΟΥ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΣΜΟΥ E 101 ΑΠΟ ΤΟ 1915 The National Herald anniversa ry N www.thenationalherald.com A wEEKly GREEK-AmERIcAN PUblIcAtION 1915-2016 VOL. 20, ISSUE 1011 February 25 - March 3, 2017 c v $1.50 An Interview with Troika Stefanie Kasselakis of Returning Vassilaros Coffee to Athens By Stefanos Kasselakis interview you can find online, in for Reform which we cover everything from NEW YORK – I had never met the origins of Vassilaros Coffee to anyone with my last name out - advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. Talks side my native lands of Chania, So I suggest you get a cup of cof - Crete. Then I moved to New York, fee and enjoy! and people kept asking me if I TNH: Stefanie, thanks for was related to a certain Stefanie joining The National Herald for Media Minister Kasselakis. I thought this could this profile. You run a business Nikos Pappas ruled not be possible – that it would be that delivers millions of cups of in New York I would find a rela - coffee a week to New Yorkers. out further austerity tive with the same last name – How does that feel in terms of and one with my exact (female the responsibility you have every for Greece version) first name no less! As if day managing a business so crit - this coincidence were not ical to the New York daily life? enough, she too earned her SK: It is a huge responsibility. TNH Staff stripes in the investment banking It affects the happiness of people and shipping worlds. every day because we’re produc - ATHENS – Greece’s Troika of As it turns out, Stefanie is one ing their morning coffee, which European lenders said they of the most eloquent and is an important part of every - would resume negotiations over thoughtful business leaders I have body’s day. It’s a great thrill be - terms of a delayed third bailout ever met. She is at the helm of cause I can’t imagine any other of 86 billion euros ($91.41 bil - Vassilaros Coffee, a century-old business that can touch so many lion) after the beleaguered gov - coffee roasting company that has people in such an important way ernment agreed to more tough been central to New York’s daily so directly – our product has a EUROKINISSI measures after 2019. lifeline as well as to the local direct connection to the bodies Prime Minister and Radical Greek-American community. The of other people. Delivery Ceremony of the SNFCC to the Greek Society Left SYRIZA leader Alexis following is an excerpt of the full TNH: Interesting. Tell us a lit - A special event marking the handover to the Greek state of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Tsipras reneged again on an tle bit about how it all started a Cultural Center’s spectacular new facilities and park on Athens' southern coast of Faliron took anti-austerity promise, agreeing hundred years ago. place on Thursday, Feb. 23rd. The event included music, dancing and many other festive activ - to likely additional pension cuts SK: My great grandfather ities, and was live streamed via the SNF website at www.SNF.org/live. and dilution of workers’ rights WITH THIS ISSUE John Vassilaros was from the is - in return for the European land of Ikaria and immigrated to Union-European Central Bank- the United States with nothing, European Stability Mechanism just like his fellow immigrants, (EU-IMF-ECB) to release more with his wife and his young child Yancopoulos Parade Grand Marshal monies from the rescue pack - Antony. He did not speak English, age. he was a waiter, he held down Less than half the money has two jobs, he taught himself Eng - TNH Staff munity. Leonard Schleifer. Among his been disbursed since a July, lish at night at the nearby public The American-born Yan - honors, Yancopoulos was 2015 agreement after Tsipras library. At one point, he became NEW YORK – President and copoulos grew up in Woodside. awarded Columbia University's sought and accepted a bailout ill and was out of work for a cou - Chief scientific officer of the He was the valedictorian of both Stevens Triennial Prize for Re - after swearing he never would. ple of months, and he realized pharmaceutical company Re - the Bronx High School of Sci - search and its University Medal But that came with more of that it was a very insecure finan - generon, Dr. George Yancopou - ence and Columbia University, of Excellence for Distinguished the brutal conditions he cam - cial position to work with his los is the Grand Marshal for the and received his MD and PhD Achievement. In 2004, he was paigned against but swiftly im - body for an employer. His wife Greek Independence Day Pa - degrees in 1987 from Columbia elected to the National Academy plemented, driving his popular - encouraged him to become a rade on March 26 in New York. University’s College of Physi - of Sciences and the American ity down to the 10 percent level restaurant supplier. At the time Dr. Yancopoulos, as noted in cians & Surgeons. Yancopoulos Academy of Arts and Sciences. and leading critics to complain there was a budding Greek com - the pages of the National Her - worked in the field of molecular The President of the Federa - he had betrayed his party and munity in the restaurant business. ald, is one of the leading scien - immunology at Columbia Uni - tion of Hellenic Societies of Greeks, particularly workers, He went out on his own, bought tists and heads one of the versity with Dr. Fred Alt, and Greater New York Petros Gala - pensioners and the poor he said beans, roasted them in his largest pharmaceutical compa - received the Lucille P. Markey toulas made the announcement he would protect. kitchen with his wife Sofia and nies listed on the New York Scholar Award for his efforts. In on February 16 at the His new concessions mean her sister Frosini, and they deliv - Stock Exchange. His achieve - 1989, he left his academic ca - Stathakion Cultural Center in envoys from the Troika will re - ments have honored and con - reer and became the founding turn to Athens to pick up talks Continued on page 4 tinue to honor the Greek com - scientist for Regeneron with Continued on page 3 as Tsipras agreed to new mea - sures after the country’s three bailouts of 326 billion euros ($344.64 billion) expire in 2019, but said they would be Greek-American Couple offset by countermeasures. SYRIZA and its partner, the marginal, far-right, pro-auster - Marries after 5 Years, and ity, jingoistic Independent Greeks (ANEL) called the new deal as one of “neutral fiscal bal - 45 Minutes in Traffic ance” and explained that for every euro saved in new mea - TNH Staff George, once the head caterer sures there would be cuts in at the Blair House in Washing - other areas. NEW YORK – Elena Sarkissian ton had passed away only Media Minister Nikos Pappas and Demetrios Orfanoudis mar - months before Demetrios met ruled out further austerity for ried on January 21 at the Arch - Sarkissian in 2011. During the Greece, saying that an agree - diocesan Cathedral of the Holy long-distance relationship with ment with Eurozone ministers Trinity on East 74th Street in Sarkissian, his mother began the previous day was for “zero Manhattan. showing signs of dementia. Mrs. sum fiscal interventions,” in an - Sarkissian, 44, a real estate Orfanoudis' illness progressed other of the euphemisms Prime broker was sitting alone in the and she now uses a wheelchair Minister Alexis Tsipras’ leftists back seat of a rented Bentley. “I at age 93 which helped her at - use each time they make more ended up spending 45 minutes tend the wedding. Orfanoudis concessions to international circling the cathedral,” she told told the Times, “I wanted to lenders. the New York Times. What she kind of move things along so Pappas, one of Tsipras’ clos - was experiencing instead was she could be a part of every - est advisers, told Antenna TV: the pandemonium of Manhattan thing.” “Everything will happen at in the grip of the Women’s Sarkissian, accepted Or - once… the measures and coun - March, held one day after Pres - fanoudis’ proposal after he trav - termeasures that will come into ident Trump’s inauguration, a eled to her hometown, Bloom - force after 2019 will be voted protest that drew hundreds of field Hills, MI, to ask for her together,” in trying to explain thousands, choking the city with parents’ approval. She also what happened to a bewildered traffic. wanted her mother-in-law to be electorate. The bus, carrying friends and AP PhOtO/PEtROS KARAdjIAS family, who came from as far as Continued on page 2 Continued on page 9 Akinci Walks Away from Cyprus Unity Talks Re-Start Athens did not make it for 40 minutes or more. A tourist couple pass across the UN-controlled buffer zone in Nicosia, Cyprus. Talks to reunify “I married my best friend,” the island split since a 1974 Turkish invasion were called off when Turkish-Cypriot leader Sarkissian said after an hour- Mustafa Akinci said he wouldn’t attend in a dispute over a 1950 Enosis referendum marked in long traditional Greek Orthodox the Cypriot Parliament. See related story on page 9. ceremony. Sarkissian and Orfanoudis met in September, 2011 after a months-long telephone courtship set in motion by a Tsavalas: US’s First Greek Iconographer friend of hers, Dr. Mary Vouyiouklis Kellis. “My parents always wanted By Penelope Eleni sion. the Greek Orthodox churches me to meet someone I could (Gaitanis) Katsaras About Theodore Tsavalas, his that were built in North America happily spend my life with,” said nephew (my great uncle) An - in the early 20th century.