Joanna Kakissis
Joanna Kakissis is an international correspondent based in Kyiv, Ukraine, where she leads NPR's bureau and coverage of a conflict that has upended millions of lives, affected global energy and food supplies and pitted NATO against Russia.
Kakissis began reporting in Ukraine shortly before Russia invaded in February. She covered the exodus of refugees to Poland and has returned to Ukraine several times to chronicle the war. She has focused on the human costs, profiling the displaced, the families of prisoners of war anda ninety-year-old "mermaid" who swims in a mine-filled sea. Kakissis highlighted the tragedy for both sideswith a story about the body of a Russian soldier abandoned in a hamlet he helped destroy, and sheshed light on the potential for nuclear disaster with a report on the shelling of Nikopol by Russians occupying a nearby power plant.
Kakissis began reporting regularly for NPR from her base in Athens, Greece, in 2011. Her work has largely focused on the forces straining European unity — migration, nationalism and the rise of illiberalism in Hungary. She led coverage of the eurozone debt crisis and the mass migration of Syrian refugees to Europe. She's reported extensively in central and eastern Europe and has also filled in at NPR bureaus in Berlin, Istanbul, Jerusalem, London and Paris. She's a contributor to This American Life and has written for The New York Times, TIME, The New Yorker online and The Financial Times Magazine, among others. In 2021, she taught a journalism seminar as a visiting professor at Princeton University.
Kakissis was born in Greece, grew up in North and South Dakota and spent her early years in journalism at The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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For decades, the Turkish-occupied north lagged far behind the independent nation to the south, with its strong ties to Greece. Now, it's the Turks in northern Cyprus who have the roaring economy, as Greek Cypriots await the terms of an EU bailout. -
The small island nation of Cyprus is drilling under the Mediterranean Sea for natural gas. It is facing opposition from Turkey, which has occupied part of the island since 1974.
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When Golden Dawn arrived on the political scene three years ago, many Greeks dismissed the party as neo-Nazi thugs. But in June, Golden Dawn won 18 of the 300 seats in Parliament, after campaigning on an anti-immigrant and anti-establishment message. Polls now show the party would double its share of seats if elections were held today. -
Just days ago, Kostas Vaxevanis published the names of Greeks who may have sent billions to Swiss bank accounts. Within hours, police issued a warrant for his arrest on charges that he violated data protection laws. Greeks angered by the case say they are paying the price for austerity while the rich continue to live large. -
The Iron Curtain fell more than two decades ago, but one capital in Europe remains divided: Nicosia, in the tiny island-nation of Cyprus. A 1974 war between Cyprus and neighboring Turkey left the two ethnic populations on the island — Greek and Turkish Cypriots — separated and embittered. -
The government is set to present a new austerity budget Monday to its troika of lenders. Greeks, meanwhile, are getting desperate in the fifth year of a deep recession. Some struggle to make ends meet for their families, and others rally in protest against the cuts. -
People are not getting much work done in parts of Europe. Tuesday night there were violent protests in Spain. And in Greece Wednesday, a nationwide strike to protest government austerity measures closed businesses and schools.
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Facing their country's worst recession in a half-century, many young Greeks are leaving for jobs abroad. But an eco-commune on a Greek island is drawing visitors who learn to forage for nuts, plant herbs and blaze their own paths.
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Greece is trying to raise cash by reviving an ambitious program to privatize state assets. Lenders hope the sell-off will cut Greece's enormous debt, but critics worry a fire sale will sell the country short.
