His work produced the ARGUS-IS or the Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System, a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) project.

According to DARPA, the mission of ARGUS-IS program is to provide military users a flexible and responsive capability to find, track and monitor events and activities of interest on a continuous basis in areas of interest.

The overall objective is to increase situational awareness and understanding enabling an ability to find and fix critical events in a large area in enough time to influence events. ARGUS – IS provides military users an “eyes-on” persistent wide area surveillance capability to support tactical users in a dynamic battle space or urban environment.

This innovative program consits of a big number of high definition cameras which cover almost 50 square kilometers of territory from a height of 17,500 feet.

The image can be divided in at least 65 windows from which the user can observe in real time and in detail the movements of passer-by and vehicles. The Boeing A160 Hummingbird was to eventually be used as a platform for the airborne video sensor and processor.

A Guardian report from Athens sheds light on how extensive the problem really is: “The drug of preference for thousands of homeless Greeks forced onto the streets by poverty and despair, shisha is described by both addicts and officials as a variant of crystal meth whose potential to send users into a state of mindless violence is underpinned by the substances with which the synthetic drug is frequently mixed: battery acid, engine oil and even shampoo.”

The deadly drug is a favorite among poor substance abusers and homeless costing only two euros per shot. It is an easy to make drug, which allows it to spread like wildfire. Expensive drugs including heroine and cocaine are hard to find nowadays in Greece due to the ongoing crisis, which made dealers turn to synthetic and cheaper forms of addiction products that can be sniffed or injected.

The UK daily also refers to other side effects of the crisis, such as the increased rates of alcoholism, depression, suicides, crime, prostitution and HIV infections. The crisis and austerity measures imposed by the EU/IMF/ECB leave little hope that such problems can be mastered without funds and staff.

Tony Atkins, Glen’s best friend, who was with him at the time of the crash, told Dorothy that the lorry driver was driving dangerously. Konstantinou left Glen on the road, drove off without calling for help.

After British and Greek authorities refused to re-open the case, Dorothy, mother-of-three and also a grandmother, decided to launch her own investigation. She uncovered one by one Stefanis lies and persuaded Greek prosecutors to reopen the case.

Finally, Stefanis was convicted of negligent homicide and fleeing the scene of the accident, and was sentenced to 23 months imprisonment. Konstantinou is to pay the court about £500 for each month of sentence.

However, Dorothy Daly told BBC: “I realize he’s not going to get a jail sentence, even though he has been convicted, because the system is different to ours. But how is that fair? This hasn’t destroyed his life, but it has destroyed ours – life will never be the same for us again.”

International writers join up with their British counterparts to bring their experiences to the Royal Court. The project is about what life really is like for those experiencing austerity in our days. Daily dispatches from Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain will invade the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs.

For a week, from June 25 to 29, the chosen author of each country is invited to express through his own theatrical creation this experience. Greece and particularly the Greek crisis, as perceived by Andreas Flourakis, will be hosted on Friday, June 28.

His work will be translated in English by the famous English playwright Alexis K. Campbell, who stressed: “With the unemployment in Greece reaching almost 30%, soup kitchens popping up everywhere and immigrants being physically assaulted by neo-Nazis on a regular basis, it seems that it was about time for the Royal Court Theater to draw its attention to the lives of those people who are most affected by the Eurozone crisis. In collaboration with writers from countries that are actually in the forefront of austerity, “PIIGS” are to bring a week of tragedy, comedy and rage to the heart of London.”

The works will be filmed and are to be presented in a live broadcast from the following Royal Court Theatre’s website: http://www.royalcourttheatre.com.

Almost all foreign diplomats who serve in the city, representatives of the British Foreign Ministry and journalists from all around the world attended the ceremony. More than 100 diplomats who served during the last years were candidates; only 10 were distinguished in the respective number of categories.

Sir Christopher John Rome Meyer, former British ambassador to the United States, presented the ceremony. He is one of the most prominent members of the diplomatic corps in Great Britain and a well-known writer in his field.

Meyer praised the Diamantis’ work serving his country as well as Vice President of the Diplomatic Press Attachés’ Association of London (DPAAL). Meyer pointed out that, in the framework of his duties at the Greek Embassy’s Press Office, Diamantis has offered his country an excellent service, “during a really difficult juncture.”

Diamantis noted: “I feel great honor for the prize I was awarded. It is an extreme satisfaction, particularly at an important post that London is and during a particularly difficult but extremely interesting conjuncture.”

He added: “It reflects the great effort that the Press Office and the Greek Embassy in London in general has made, in order to respond to a difficult task, towards Mass Media of global reach.”

In a five-year study, working with original scripts, Kennedy has observed how Plato (427-347 BC) used a regular pattern of symbols based on the 12 notes of the Greek musical scale, inherited from the ancient followers of Pythagoras. Using computer technology, he discovered that some key phrases, themes and words occurred during regular intervals, which matched the spacing of the 12-note scale. ‘It’s a musical code’, says Kennedy. ‘Plato and the Greeks believed music was the key to mathematics and the cosmos. What we didn’t know was that he used Greek musical scales to give his works a hidden structure and then built layers of hidden meanings beneath that.’

Kennedy, a researcher at Manchester University’s Centre for the History of Science Technology and Medicine, explains the reason Plato concealed his views in a hidden code: ‘Plato’s own teacher was executed for religious heresy and Plato and the other followers of Pythagoras were known for hiding their doctrines’.

This is just the start, admits Kennedy: ‘In antiquity, many of Plato’s followers said the books contained hidden layers of meaning and secret codes but this was rejected by modern scholars. It will take a generation to work out the implications. All 2,000 pages contain undetected symbols’.
(source: classical-music)

“I am not a businessman. I am not the owner of any restaurant. My job is in the kitchen. I am just making the menu,” he emphasized.

The menu of the restaurant will include exclusively Greek food and will be based on top gastronomic products that Greece produces. Fish roe (avgotaraho) from Messolonghi in Western Greece, is produced primarily from the flathead mullet caught in Greek lagoons; Prosciutto from Drama, town in northeastern Greece; Greek giant beans (gigantes) from Prespes, a municipality in the Florina regional unit in Greece. All this gastronomical delicacies will be included among others in Skarmoutsos’ menu for the new restaurant.

Skarmoutsos was born in Athens. He studied Economics at UCLA in the USA and at the Culinary Institute of America. He took his first professional steps in 1993 and from 1996 he worked in big hotels in the USA.

In 2005 he became chef in a Cretan restaurant in Athens that was awarded with a Golden Cap (Chrysos Skoufos award) and Gourmet Awards. In 2013 he moved to Thessaloniki, where he worked in a restaurant. He became famous after participating in the Greek TV show Master Chef.

Charalambous was born and grew up in the island of Cyprus. Seven years before, after he completed his military service, he went to London to study Marketing.

“I always knew I wanted to be an actor. I was playing theater since I remember my self. My goal was to finish my first degree and to go to the school of the National Theatre in Athens. I passed the exams there but at the same time I was accepted to another one school, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) in London, which did not say to me anything at the time,” he says.

After he had passed six auditions, he asked about the school and was informed that it is one of the best in the world. He managed to pass along with other 29 students among 4,000 candidates. He continued his studies at Drama Center, from which graduated Colin Firth, Michael Fassbender and others.

After this, he went to the fabled National Theatre of London. “It was an experience that made me understand you can open every door you want and you deserve. I enjoyed the moments there, from the auditions until the last performance. Working with the best in one of the most qualified theater in the world it’s a useful school for every new actor. It was one of the most important experiences that I will always remember,” he says.

He’s now working alongside the likes of Maggie Smith in the fourth season of Downton Abbey. But Cyprus is always in his plans. After the shooting for Downton Abbey’s next season, his plans include a theatrical monologue in the autumn, studying scripts for cinema movies for the next year for a monologue he wants to present in Greece and Cyprus.

I asked the owner of the life goddess store Nikos Nyfoudis to give me an interview on what made him take advantage of Greece’s natural food produce and to come to London and open the store, as well as the story behind it all.

What made him to believe that Greeks in the diaspora have open minds that lead to this kind of innovation and what made him to take the risk. When interviewed he mentioned how he felt there was a lack of “High quality Greek delicatessens in Central London” and he wanted to provide “High quality produce only from Greece”.

The main aspect of the store that I myself admire, is the concept that everything must be produced in Greece and then imported here in UK. This was an amazing idea that went very well as he describes.

“People think differently about Greek produced food. What makes our store unique is the way we don’t operate like big supermarkets, we keep things simple and high quality.” Keeping things simple in my view was a good way of portraying the business, customers love the thought of knowing the products they bought have come from Greek farms, and that they are helping Greek producers,” he said.

He explained how he came up with the idea with his brother George and friend Ilia’s, and how family members gave their full support in the opening of the store and hoping it would portray a family run friendly atmosphere that people would feel comfortable with. The employment of his own family members he describes makes the workplace more “relaxed”.

Niko said to me the method he is using, is an amazing example of how Greeks of the Diaspora can benefit financially by using their local knowledge in UK and in Greece, as well as helping Greek farmers by exporting more in EU. Being in Central London, it’s rare to find a shop that sells just Greek products.

The owners of the store spent time traveling from Thessaloniki, down to Create, covering the whole stretch of Greece just to find the best products for their store, to taste them before putting them on the shelf. You could say travelling Greece just for food would be exhausting, but he describes it as a “beautiful way to taste food, and to explore the country more.” That quote to be honest, made me jealous.

He told of a myth he considers “unique” and “different” to others. To say that a store is selling myths sounds a bit different,  but according to ancient Greek legend, the foster-mother of Zeus, a sacred goat named Amalthea, nurtured the infant Zeus with her divine milk into being the strongest entity of his time and the later “king and father of the gods”.

Amalthea was a descendant of the Sun and her horns had the godly power to produce unlimited sustenance of superior quality for gods and mortals alike. The goat Amalthea is a symbol of nourishment, abundance and life.

It’s not every day you walk in to a British supermarket, and discover a myth is behind its products. This is an amazing way of referring back to history, and teaching people that in many things a Greek does, there is always a story behind it.

His philosophy is that good quality products, and most of all “Greek” products, are the key to healthy and happy life, that is, The Life Goddess.

One of the major representatives of the ‘Thirties Generation’, Yiannis Tsarouchis, leads Bonhams Greek Sale on April 24 at 101 New Bond Street. 

Born in the Athenian port of Piraeus in 1910, Tsarouchis, is regarded as one of the greatest Greek painters of the 20th century. During the 1930s he travelled widely, absorbing influences from Renaissance art, from Impressionism and from his friendship with Matisse and Giacometti which he fused with his grounding in the Byzantine tradition to establish a specific Greek painterly identity. Tsarouchis defined 20th Century Greek Art and is often referred to as the painter of ‘Greek people’. He was described by the Nobel Prize poet Odysseas Elytis as being simultaneously a revolutionary and a classical artist.

He drew much inspiration from the working class youth of his home town and the Greek sailors and soldiers he encountered during his service in the Greco Italian War in the early 1940s. He is now credited with having elevated his models into symbols of the modern Greek spirit. In 1967, however, he was forced into political exile by the military dictatorship which objected to the strong homoerotic content of his work. He settled in France where he met Dominic, one of his favourite male models, who is portrayed in many of his masterpieces of the 1970s including ‘The Four Seasons’ (1972) and ‘Autumn’.

The painting depicts Dominic in an allegorical representation of Autumn. Clothed in russet and brown, clutching a glass of wine and flanked by a basket of fruit and three peaches the young man stares without emotion into a space over the viewer’s left shoulder. The picture displays the artist’s close familiarity with the Western tradition – there are, for example, clear echoes of Caravaggio and Velasquez in the rendering of the basket, the fruit and the wine glass – but conveyed with a specifically Greek sensibility.

Another, earlier, work by Tsarouchis featuring in the sale dates from 1954 and depicts a footballer from the famous club Olympiacos. The player adorned with the wings of victory (a Tsarouchis trademark) is standing, foot on ball wearing the Olympiacos strip of red and white stripes – based on the Arsenal football colours of the 1920s. The work is estimated at £80,000-100,000.

A stand-out work ‘The burning of a Turkish battleship’ by the great 19th Century master of Greek seascape painting and one of the dominant figures of the Munich School, Constantinos Volanakis, is also among the highlights in the sale. The painting depicts a pivotal moment in the Greek Battle of Independence (1821-1929). More precisely, it shows the moment on May 27 1821 when a Greek fireship aimed by one of the Greek’s ablest commanders, Dimitrios Papanikolis, destroyed a Turkish vessel anchored in the bay of Eressos. The success of the venture boosted Greek morale and drove the Turkish fleet back to the Dandanelles, ceding the Aegean to the Greeks. It is estimated at £100,000 – 150,000.

The painting belongs to the great tradition of 19th century European battle painting and is one of three works by Volankis on the theme of epic naval engagements. It has been described as representing his highest achievement in the depiction of naval themes.

The sale overall draws together an extraordinary array of art, with important examples by some of the most influential Greek artists from the 19th century through to the post-war and contemporary periods. Significant works by Theofilos, Theodore Jacques Ralli, Constantinos Maleas, George Bouzianis, Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika, Nikos Engonopoulos, Yannis Gaitis, Thanos Tsingos, Alexis Akrithakis and Alekos Fassianos populate the sale.

Some of the paintings in this sale have been donated by the artists themselves and the proceeds will go to further the work of Greece Debt Free, a not for profit organisation which aims to buy Greek Government Bonds and cancel them, thereby reducing the national debt.

For more information on the sale, please visit the official web page of the Greek Sale at Bonhams.

Bonhams was founded in 1793 and is one of the world’s largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. The present company was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son & Neale. In August 2002, the company acquired Butterfields, the principal firm of auctioneers on the West Coast of America. Today, Bonhams offers more sales than any of its rivals, through two major salerooms in London: New Bond Street and Knightsbridge; and a further three in the UK regions and Scotland. Sales are also held in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Carmel, New York and Connecticut in the USA; and Germany, France, Monaco, Hong Kong and Australia. Bonhams has a worldwide network of offices and regional representatives in 25 countries offering sales advice and valuation services in 60 specialist areas. For a full listing of upcoming sales, plus details of Bonhams specialist departments go to www.bonhams.com.