Former AC Milan and Socceroo goalkeeper, Željko Kalac, has been hired as head coach by Croatian side, NK Urania Baška Voda.
The move comes after his release from Greek side, Xanthi FC. He told croatiaweek.com it was difficult for him to return to Australia due to the COVID-19 restrictions.
“It is a good opportunity for me to have a look around what is happening here in Croatia. There is a lot of football happening so I will use the time for education and see what is next in store,” Kalac told the paper in February.
Former AC Milan and Socceroo goalkeeper, Željko Kalac, has been hired as head coach by Croatian side, NK Urania Baška Voda.
Kalac now has a big job on his hands at NK Urania Baška Voda. At the time of his hire, Urania had only registered one point in the first seven rounds of play.
The situation has not improved under Kalac’s first two matches in charge, with the former Socceroo seeing his team lose twice in the last two weeks.
The 48-year-old has had a long playing career both in Australia and Europe, featuring for a number of clubs including Sydney United, Leicester City, Perugia and AC Milan.
Zeljko Kalac.
He also represented Australia and received 54 caps. At 2.02 meters tall, he remains the tallest player to have played for the Socceroos.
Since his retirement from playing, Kalac has built a decade long career in management, largely serving as a goalkeeping coach for a number teams. His first head coaching position occurred last year with Sydney FC.
He stepped down from the position and followed Tony Popovic to Greece and joined Xanthi FC until he was recently released.
A former fire chief will be prosecuted for trying to cover up responsibility for the deadly fire in Mati in July 2018, which left 102 dead and at least 32 seriously injured.
According to Ekathimerini, Vassilis Mattheopoulos, who was deputy fire chief when the fire occurred, will face prosecution for breach of duty and attempted unlawful violence.
Last week, a prosecutor proposed that a total of 27 people should stand trial for criminal negligence and omissions of state mechanisms and local authorities in relation to the fires.
Giorgos Patelis, a jailed former member of the now defunct neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, was released from prison by a parole board on Monday after serving just one year of his 10-year prison sentence.
Patelis, who was the leader of Golden Dawn’s Nikaia chapter in Piraeus, was convicted on charges of accessory to murder for ordering a group of Golden Dawn supporters to attack and kill anti-fascist rapper, Pavlos Fyssas, in 2013.
The Greek Appeals Court granted Patelis parole, stating that he was a “model prisoner” and that it was unlikely the criminal would commit crimes in the future as his illegal acts were committed under the specific environment cultivated by Golden Dawn.
Golden Dawn member, Giorgos Patelis, has been granted parole after only one year in prison.
The leadership of Golden Dawn was sentenced to 13 years in prison on October 2020, imposing the near-maximum penalty for running a criminal organisation blamed for numerous violent hate crimes.
Eleven other former parliament members were jailed for between five and seven years for membership of a criminal organisation, while a party associate was given a life sentence for the murder of Fyssas.
Greek politician, Dora Bakoyannis, revealed on Monday that she has been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the white blood cells, but says she intends to continue working, Ekathimerinireports.
“It’s never easy to hear that you have cancer,” the 67-year-old said in a post on social media, adding that she is undergoing treatment and remains optimistic about a satisfactory outcome.
“I have never in my life backed down from a fight. I will continue to work and fight for the country which I love so much, while undergoing treatment.”
Who is Dora Bakoyannis?
Bakoyannis is the sister of Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. She is the eldest of four children of the former PM of Greece, Konstantinos Mitsotakis.
Prominent Greek politician, Dora Bakoyannis.
From 2006 to 2009, she was the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Greece, the highest position ever to have been held by a woman in the Cabinet of Greece at the time; she was also Chairperson-in-Office of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 2009.
Bakoyannis also served as the mayor of Athens from 2003 to 2006, being the first female mayor in the city’s history.
The Beijing 2022 Olympics flame was lit at Greece’s ancient Olympia on Monday, just over 100 days before the start of the Games in February, as a handful of Tibetan protesters attempted to protest inside the ancient site.
The Chinese capital will become the first city to host both the Winter and Summer Games when it stages the February 4-20 event.
With the public excluded amid pandemic safety measures, and a cloudless sky over the verdant site of Ancient Olympia, the flame was ceremoniously kindled using the rays of the sun before being carried off on a mini torch relay.
Greek actress Xanthi Georgiou, playing the role of the High Priestess, hands an olive branch to the first torch bearer, Greek alpine ski racer, Ioannis Antoniou. Photo: AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris.
Three human rights activists entered the site of the ancient Greek stadium and temple where the flame for the Olympic Games is traditionally lit, despite a strong police presence, and attempted to unfurl banners just after the torch was lit. They were stopped by security and led away.
Four other protesters had been detained by police outside the stadium an hour before the ceremony.
Rights groups and US lawmakers have called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to postpone the Games and relocate the event unless China ends what the United States deems ongoing genocide against Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups.
But despite widespread international criticism of China’s human rights record, the International Olympic Committee has shied away from the issue, saying it falls outside its remit.
In his speech during the ceremony, IOC President Thomas Bach stressed that the modern Games must be “respected as politically neutral ground.”
The Olympic flame will now be taken to Athens and handed over to Beijing organisers on Tuesday at the renovated stadium where the first modern Olympics were held in 1896.
Stories of survival in the face of persecution and investigative reports about scams targeting diverse communities are among the winners of the 2021 Premier’s Multicultural Communications Awards.
Minister for Multiculturalism Natalie Ward revealed early last week the successful entries across 12 categories.
Among the winners was The Greek Herald’s own digital journalist, Andriana Simos, who won Best Audio-Visual Report and was named Young Journalist of the Year.
The Greek Herald was a finalist in the Publication of the Year category together with four other finalists.
“These awards recognise the vital role our multicultural communicators play in delivering critical information and connecting with our diverse communities,” Mrs Ward said.
“Our multicultural media professionals have been tireless in sharing crucial health messages throughout the pandemic and have been instrumental in helping to keep our community safe.
🎉Congratulations to all the winners of the 2021 Premier’s Multicultural Communications Awards! The work done by multicultural media and multicultural marketers this year has been lifesaving. You can view a full list of the winners here https://t.co/imUjWMSGpXpic.twitter.com/27cPRevyZm
“I commend this year’s winners and finalists and would like to thank them for their ongoing support in communicating with diverse audiences across NSW.”
Minister Ward congratulated the winners and finalists for bringing a voice to topics such as racism, migrant exploitation and the impact of COVID on the state’s diverse communities.
“I am delighted that the NSW Government is the only state in Australia to recognise multicultural communicators with a stand-alone awards program,” she said.
Young journalist, Andriana Simos, said she is incredibly honoured and proud of this recognition.
“When NSW Minister for Multiculturalism, Natalie Ward, first called me to tell me I had won Young Journalist of the Year and Best Audio-Visual Report in the 2021 Premier’s Multicultural Communications Awards, I was in complete disbelief,” Miss Simos said.
“Since the beginning of my journalism career, I have always believed in the power of a community and its people, so to be given an award for my reporting on the Greek community is an absolute honour and something I will always cherish and not take for granted.”
Miss Simos applauded all nominees and fellow Greek Australian, Mikala Theocharous, who was finalist for the Alan Knight Student Award, and thanked her family and colleagues.
“This award would not be possible without the continuous support of my amazing family, my work family at The Greek Herald, friends and members of the Greek community who I have interviewed in my nearly two years at the newspaper,” she said.
The achievements of the 2021 winners will be recognised at the Premier’s Harmony Dinner next year.
Australian referee, Joanna Charaktis, was sitting in lockdown in Melbourne when she saw over the news how the Taliban rapidly took control of Afghanistan after capturing its capital city, Kabul.
Speaking with the ABC’s Samantha Lewis, she says she instantly reached out to a Facebook friend from Afghanistan who was heavily involved in football and ended up helping her find a way out of the country.
Assistant referees Joanna Charaktis (right) and Danielle Andersen (second right) walk onto the pitch for a W-League game. Photo: Football Victoria.
“I spoke to my mentor, [referee] Allyson Flynn, and told her the story. She had just been included in a mentoring program with Women Onside and had been paired with [former Matilda] Moya Dodd,” she told ABC News.
“She [Flynn] reached out to Moya, who said to her, ‘There’s this whole rescue mission happening for the national football team, so maybe we can get these people on that list’.”
Did you know the Oxford Dictionary says that on average there is about 470,000 English words with more than 150,000 having Greek roots?
This fun fact, and many more, were on full display in Canberra on Saturday as the capital city held it’s first ever Celebration of Languages event.
During the online event, people had the opportunity to learn about a number of languages including the Slavic languages (Croation, Serbian, Polish and Czech), the Romantic languages (Romanian, French, Italian, Spanish and Portugese), and the German language.
The Greek lecture given by Mr Loukadellis. Photo supplied.
Of course, the Greek language was also on full display with the President of the Greek Orthodox Community & Church of Canberra, John Loukadellis, giving a lecture titled ‘Greece is the Word.’
During the lecture, Mr Loukadellis spoke about the Greek influence on the English language for about 7 minutes before people were given a chance to ask questions.
Mr Loukadellis spoke about the influence of the Greek language on the English vocabularly.
“I was proud to deliver the message of the value and influence of the Greek language to the people in attendance… I wanted to show that you don’t have to be Greek to learn to speak Greek,” Mr Loukadellis, who is also Principal of the Community’s Greek School, told The Greek Herald after the event.
Last year, the inaugural Celebration of Languages at Gungahlin Library was postponed due to COVID-19 restrictions. This year’s event was changed to a virtual celebration – again due to the pandemic – but it is expected to continue as an annual ‘real life’ event from next year.
The recently announced vaccination popup hubs being run by the Greek Community of Melbourne (GCM) in Prahran and Brunswick have received support and encouragement by the Federal Minister for Health and Aged Care, the Hon Greg Hunt.
“In collaboration with Melbourne Primary Health Networks and the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne, the Australian Government is proud to be supporting a mass vaccination activity in the coming weeks,” Minister Hunt said.
“We anticipate that some 2,000 people will be vaccinated over the coming month at these pop-up clinics in key locations in Melbourne. This activity forms a part of the Government’s commitment to ensuring timely vaccinations for all people, including some of our most vulnerable communities including people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
“I would like to commend and thank Mr Bill Papastergiadis OAM and the Victorian and Melbourne Greek Orthodox Community for their support and leadership in this life saving effort to ensure as many people as possible are vaccinated in their community.”
Bill Papastergiadis (left) with Federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt.
Following the success of the vaccine pop-up at the GCM’s St George Church in Thornbury, the GCM sought further support to extend its vaccinations program aimed in part at vulnerable community members.
Two Pfizer programs have been supported by the Australian Government’s Department of Health via the PHN:
Wednesday, October 20 to Saturday, October 23 at St Demetrios church in Prahran; and
October 30 and 31 at St Eleftherios in Brunswick.
The vaccination hubs aim to help Victoria reach its vaccination goals faster by targeting local communities.
The President of the GCM, Mr Bill Papastergiadis OAM said: “We are working with the Federal Government and Minister Hunt on bringing vaccinations closer to our communities. This is an important step in protecting lives and opening up society so that we can once again spend time with our loved ones here and abroad.”
Greg Hunt MP has praised the GCM for pop-up vax hubs in Prahran and Brunswick.
“We thank Minister Hunt for working with the Greek Community of Melbourne on this initiative. At all times the Minister has been accessible and friendly in his dealings with us. He has demonstrated a real commitment on making this initiative happen. He has personally involved himself to ensure it’s success.”
The Windsor hub is being run by medical staff from the Port Melbourne Medical Centre, who also run a pop up centre at the Port Melbourne Football Club.
As with the GCM’s earlier Thornbury effort, the Hellenic Medical Society of Australia (HMSA) will once again be supporting the Prahran and Brunswick initiatives by provide Greek speaking doctors at each location.
The president of the HMSA and GCM Board member, A/Prof Marinis Pirpiris, encouraged the community to get vaccinated saying “vaccinations have never been more accessible.”
“The Federal Government initiative is aimed to provide culturally and linguistically diverse communities an ability to get vaccinated in a hub that is convenient. The community hubs provide information in a format that addresses concerns in a culturally inclusive manner by addressing cultural and social concerns in a patient centered approach,” he noted.
A pop-up vaccination clinic will also be set up at St Eleftherios Greek Orthodox church in Brunswick.
“The Greek Community of Melbourne and the Hellenic Medical Society of Australia are committed to providing information and access to vaccines for the members of our community to make informed and timely decision related to their health.
“Please book and come and visit the hubs. There will be health care workers and doctors to answer your questions and concerns. The vaccines help provide everyone with an ability to protect your families, loved ones, friends and colleagues from serious illness and death from COVID-19.”
The Windsor vaccination pop-up hub at St Demetrios Church Hall at 380 High Street, Prahran, will be held on Wednesday, October 20 to Saturday, October 23.
Bookings are essential and can be made via the following link: https://bit.ly/GOCVaxHub or by calling 03 9662 2722 (Mon – Fri).
Please note that walk-ups will not be accepted.
Information and registration details about the Brunswick vaccination pop-up at St Eleftherios church hall on Saturday, October 30 and Sunday, October 31 will follow.
Australians travelling overseas will finally be able to download an international COVID-19 certificate to prove their vaccination status before they board a plane.
Fully vaccinated travellers with a valid passport will be able access the certificate, which will be recognised internationally, from Tuesday through their MyGov account or Medicare.
The International COVID-19 Vaccination Certificates work in a similar fashion to existing vaccine certificates, but they have added QR codes that can be scanned by foreign border officials.
Australians travelling overseas will finally be able to download an international COVID-19 certificate to prove their vaccination status.
“If you travel overseas, and that overseas country requires proof of your vaccination status, you will have a copy of it,” Employment Minister Stuart Robert said.
“You may not have to use it — there may be many countries you’ll visit that have no requirement to demonstrate you’ve been vaccinated.
“But the last thing the government wants for Australians when they travel overseas is to be stuck overseas because they can’t prove they’ve been vaccinated.”
The documents are linked to a physical passport, with people asked to provide their passport details when they request the document from Medicare.
Scott Morrison announced international travel restrictions would start to ease from the beginning of November for fully vaccinated Australians.
The certificate is then sent to the person who requested it, and they can print it off or store it as a file on their smartphone.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced international travel restrictions would start to ease from the beginning of November for fully vaccinated Australians.
In NSW, international travel to and from Sydney will resume for Australian citizens, permanent residents and their immediate family members from November 1 with no quarantine requirements for those who are fully vaccinated.
