A 62-year-old man of Greek background has been charged with murder after a fatal stabbing in Sydney’s inner west last week.
Police have alleged the 62-year-old walked up to an acquaintance on a street in Marrickville and killed him by stabbing him multiple times in the torso.
Following a police operation in nearby Dulwich Hill, the man was arrested. He was taken to hospital under police guard.
As reported by The Greek Herald on Tuesday, the murder victim was a 55-year-old man named Sofoklis, who was battling cancer and has left behind an 8-year-old daughter and his elderly mother, Niki.
Police outside a residence on Denison Road, Dulwich Hill, where a man was located after a stabbing in nearby Marrickville.
Victorian Police are searching a creek on the outskirts of Melbourne for the body of missing Adelaide Hells Angel associate, Kerry Giakoumis, The Advertiserreports.
Detectives have revealed extensive searches of the Jackson Creek in Diggers Rest, northwest of the Melbourne CBD, have been conducted this week after information was received during the inquiry.
So far the body of Mr Giakoumis, 29, has not been recovered but the searches are expected to continue.
Mr Giakoumis was last seen attending the Hells Angels Nomads headquarters in Thomastown on the morning of June 10 last year.
This is just five days after Mr Giakoumis travelled to Victoria from Adelaide with what police believe to be two other Hells Angels associates.
According to The Advertiser, intensive investigations into Mr Giakoumis’ disappearance indicate he may have been lured to Melbourne, but detectives have so far been unable to establish a motive for murder.
Victorian Police Detective Superintendent, Paul O’Halloran, said a task force comprising specialist detectives skilled in missing persons and homicide cases, as well as outlaw motorcycle gang investigations, had been formed to investigate the murder.
An image of a man Victorian detectives are seeking to identify in connection with the suspected murder of Adelaide man Kerry Giakoumis. Picture: Vic Police.
“Police have believed for some time that he has met with foul play and all the information we have received, particularly over the past few months, just confirms that,’’ he told The Advertiser.
“There will be people out there who have information about what happened to Kerry and who is responsible, and again I am appealing for those people to come forward and speak to police. I would also stress that this can be done anonymously.”
Detectives also released an image of a man who was with Mr Giakoumis on the night he was murdered they are attempting to identify as part of the investigation.
Anyone with any information on Mr Giakoumis’ presumed murder is urged to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
In what many people are calling a leading initiative by Sydney’s Greek community, the gymnasium of All Saints Grammar in Belmore opened to the public on Wednesday, August 18, as a pop-up vaccination clinic.
The clinic is running for three days until Friday, August 20 from 10am to 4pm and offers Pfizer vaccines to people aged 16 to 59 from 12 Local Government Areas (LGA) of concern across Greater Sydney. This includes Bayside, Blacktown, Burwood, Campbelltown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Georges River, Liverpool, Parramatta, Strathfield, and some suburbs of Penrith.
Video by Andriana Simos / The Greek Herald.
On the first day of the pop-up clinic, hundreds of people, both from the Greek and wider community, turned out to get their vaccination. Everyone was socially distanced outside in a line before they checked-in via a QR code, had their temperature checked and entered the gymnasium for their vaccination.
Some people who had not booked their vaccine appointment via an online form before they arrived were given assistance by a team of volunteers from NSW Health and former students from All Saints Grammar. Others who had English as a second language were also guided through official procedures by interpreters onsite.
Interpreters were on site to help out. All photos: Andriana Simos.
Hundreds lined up outside the gym.
“It’s great to be able to work with our community partners. I think the community trust the organisations that are part of the community and that helps with people that might be a bit vaccine hesitant,” Renee Moreton, who is the General Manager of Population Health for Sydney Local Health District, told The Greek Herald exclusively on the day.
“Once they see their local community organisation take part in the vaccine response, it brings more people forward from the community, which is really good.
“We’ve got 500 Pfizer vaccines available [per day] for the next three days and we anticipate that we will use all 1,500 over the three days.”
Renee Moreton, General Manager of Population Health for Sydney Local Health District. Photo: Andriana Simos.
‘Everybody has been super grateful’:
Looking inside the All Saints Grammar gymnasium, you can see exactly why NSW Health authorities are anticipating their designated supply of Pfizer vaccines will be used up by the end of the three day initiative.
The clinic is like a well-oiled machine.
People are given numbers before they sit patiently in a ‘waiting area’ to be called to one of the 10 vaccination stations set up around the gym. After receiving a Pfizer jab from a registered nurse, people are then guided to sit in an observation area for 15 minutes before they are allowed to leave with a ‘goodie bag’ which contained 20 masks and some antibacterial gel.
The waiting area. All photos by Andriana Simos.
The ‘goodie bag’ given to people after their vaccines.
Vaccinations being done.
The vaccination area.
Registered nurse, Chloe Gibson, told The Greek Herald the process was made even easier because of the Greek community’s help, as well as that of interpreters and cultural support workers.
“I feel like everybody is a little bit hesitant in times like this. It is a new process and it is a new vaccine, but everybody has been super grateful and super awesome to work with,” Ms Gibson said.
“It’s been really rewarding for us as nurses to be able to come into their community and their spaces and have them come and see us [to get vaccinated].”
Registered nurse, Chloe Gibson, administering the Pfizer vaccine to Ms Szatow. Photo: Andriana Simos.
‘Lovely of them to open their doors’:
Demi Kavaratzis was one of the many people lined up outside the gymnasium and said she decided to visit the pop-up clinic to receive her second dose of Pfizer.
“Be persistent to get the vaccine,” she said. “It’s the only way out.”
47-year-old, Tina Daniels, agreed and said her experience at the pop-up clinic was ‘unreal’ as she’s ‘looking forward to some freedom.’
Tina Daniels. All photos by Andriana Simos.
Demi Kavaratzis.
“It was very good. Everyone is just trying to do their best to keep everyone safe and the nurses were beautiful,” Ms Daniels told The Greek Herald as she sat in the clinic’s observation area after receiving her vaccine.
“I think it’s really good to have pop-up hubs like this. I wish there was more of them. This is a great organisation and it’s really lovely of them to open their doors up to us and allow us in to be vaccinated.”
NSW Minister for Multiculturalism, Natalie Ward, also thanked the Greek community for their role in the state’s vaccine roll-out and said she was “heartened to hear that there has been a strong turnout at the Belmore pop-up clinic.”
Minister Ward.
“My deep gratitude goes to each and every person in our Greek community who has rolled up their sleeve to get the jab. Your contribution in our fight against COVID is crucial,” Minister Ward told The Greek Herald.
“The best vaccination is the first one you can get. Vaccination is our pathway for the future and it’s absolutely critical everyone gets vaccinated as soon as they can.”
A major wildfire northwest of the Greek capital devoured large tracts of pine forest for a third day on Wednesday and threatened a large village as hundreds of firefighters, assisted by water-dropping planes and helicopters, battled the flames.
The blaze in the Vilia area broke out on Monday shortly after another wildfire started to the southwest of Athens. Several other villages and a nearby nursing home received evacuation orders.
On Wednesday, a shift in the winds drove the flames towards Vilia, 60 kilometers from Athens. Greek media said several outlying buildings were damaged, but no injuries were reported and no evacuation order was issued for the village.
An aircraft drops water over a a wildfire in Vilia area some 60 kilometers northwest of Athens. Photo: AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis.
Clouds of smoke obscured the sun, which cast an otherworldly, orange light over the capital.
Local mayor, Christos Stathis, told Open TV that the fire was within a few dozen yards from Vilia, and appealed for firefighting aircraft to be deployed to the spot.
Hundreds of wildfires have burned across Greece this month, fueled by parched forests and shrubland from the country’s most severe heat wave in decades.
The blazes have stretched the country’s firefighting capabilities to the limit, leading the government to appeal for international help, including through a European Union emergency response system. About two dozen European and Middle Eastern countries responded, sending planes, helicopters, vehicles and hundreds of firefighters.
Greece’s fire department said 430 firefighters, including 143 from Poland, were deployed at the Vilia fire on Wednesday, along with 130 vehicles, 19 helicopters and 10 planes. The army, volunteer firefighters and local authorities also provided assistance.
By midday on Wednesday, an estimated 7,500 hectares (18.500 acres) of forest had been destroyed in the area.
A firefighter extinguishes a fire during a wildfire in Vilia. Photo: AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis.
The causes of the fires have not been officially established, although more than a dozen people have been arrested on suspicion of arson.
State ERT TV reported that a 14-year-old boy was arrested Wednesday in central Greece on suspicion of setting at least 13 fires in recent days — including one that raged out of control destroying homes and forest land. Quoting local officials, ERT said the suspect was caught on CCTV cycling away from spots where fires had started. The boy’s parents were arrested for neglect, ERT said.
Aspects of the treatment of aged care residents and details of a year-long investigation into St Basil’s Fawkner were laid bare for the first time in the Coroners Court on Wednesday, The Age has reported.
This comes as the court prepares to hold a month-long inquest into the deaths from September.
During Wednesday’s hearing, the names of 50 St Basil’s Homes for the Aged residents who died during the outbreak in July and August last year – 45 from COVID-19 – were read out.
“As devastating as these numbers are, they don’t tell the whole story,” Peter Rozen, counsel assisting the coroner, said.
“Evidence collected by the court … suggests certain features of the home, its management and the way the outbreak was addressed by external agencies that combined for the tragic outcome that materialised.”
According to The Age, Mr Rozen said St Basil’s manager Vicky Kos and St Basil’s chairman Kon Kontis had declined to take part in investigations and would need to be compelled to give evidence at the inquest.
In early July last year, an employee at St Basil’s Fawkner tested positive for the virus before it spread throughout the facility to a further 93 staff and to 94 residents.
On Wednesday, State Coroner John Cain heard that the staff member returned to work for a further two shifts while awaiting her results following confusion over isolation protocol and company policies.
According to the federal government’s aged care infection control policy, Mr Rozen said, if any outbreaks occurred homes must notify the federal Health Department, which would then implement a case manager and standby replacement staff.
But according to The Age, Mr Rozen said investigators had found that when Ms Kos learnt a staff member had become infected, she allegedly failed to notify the department, instead calling the coronavirus hotline.
On July 20, 2020, records showed that when doctors were notified of the idea of standing down the entire St Basil’s Fawkner workforce and bringing in replacement staff, they warned of a potential “disaster.”
The following day, after staff were sent home following a direction from the state’s Chief Health Officer, health authorities said the facility descended into total disarray, with residents left malnourished and dehydrated and others left lying on the floor, The Age reports.
“Many died during the ensuing week from COVID-19,” Mr Rozen said.
He said the basic needs “of the many highly dependent residents were neglected to a point that a number presented at hospital dehydrated, malnourished, suffering from serious pressure sores and in very poor general health, in addition to being COVID-19 positive.”
The coroner said he planned to examine what policies and procedures were in place during the outbreak, what was followed, the qualifications of staff and how residents were treated in the 10 days after staff were removed.
Greek Australian lifesaver, Peter Anthony Meletopoulo, has been awarded a Commendation for Brave Conduct (CBC) by the Governor General after he selflessly put his life in jeopardy to rescue a man from rough surf at Cronulla Beach in Sydney.
In October 2019, Peter and his fellow surf lifesaving instructor, Glenn Cairncross, were doing a water training activity session with a group of trainees at Cronulla Beach when they noticed a swimmer experiencing difficulties about 100 metres away.
Using his paddle board, Peter made his way to the distressed swimmer and assisted him to a sandbank where the man advised he could stand and make his way to shore. What happened next surprised everyone who was watching on.
“Glenn started pointing exactly back to where I’d just come from but with even more urgency. I was surprised by that and I can’t say that I was really looking forward to it because… it was really quite dangerous,” Peter tells The Greek Herald exclusively.
“I headed back there and this time I found the same person that I’d just literally rescued only minutes before. For some reason, he’d re-entered the water and he’d dived straight back in to where the rip was or he’d lost his footing and this time he was really struggling.”
Peter (left) with his fellow lifesaver, Glenn.
Peter quickly got off his board and held onto the man as they began to dive under the rough waves which were crashing against them. Despite this, the strong rip continued to push the pair closer to the wall of the ocean rock pool and Peter says he instantly became “hyper aware of the situation.”
“It was like a washing machine with these waves just breaking on top of us and the water was milky white and all foamed up. I just knew that we weren’t going to be able to get out of there, that we were headed for the rocks one way or the other,” Peter explains.
“So at this stage, I decided to turn our backs to the waves and just face the danger which was in front of us and that was the rocks and the rock pool.”
As a large set of waves approached, Peter decided to use the momentum of the waves to get the pair over the rock pool wall. Although the first attempt was unsuccessful, as the second wave hit, the distressed swimmer was deposited unharmed into the relative safety of the rock pool and was able to exit the pool unaided.
Peter was trapped between his paddle board and a pole and sustained broken ribs and a back injury.
“My team had started to run towards me by that stage… and I just saw them as I was beginning to see stars and I was literally losing consciousness,” he says.
Peter (far right) received a National Rescue of the Month Award from Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison.
Despite spending four days in the Acute Trauma Ward at St George Hospital, Peter stresses that he feels “no judgement” towards the man for his actions and has actually reunited with him after their ordeal.
“I think there was an error of judgment… and it didn’t pay off for him,” Peter says humbly.
“He followed up with me and I then got his name through the club and the Vice President of the club asked me whether I’d like to make contact with him and I said, ‘yes I would.’ So I phoned him and a few days later, I got out of hospital and I met him at Cronulla, only 50 or 100 metres away from where the whole rescue took place.
“I had a coffee with him and a chat and a really nice exchange with him and you know, he told me at the time he felt very bad about what happened and especially that I’d been injured. He was very grateful for being rescued.”
For Peter, it was just another day at the office and he says being awarded a CBC for his actions really was ‘surprising.’
“It’s a real honour. It’s surprising, humbling. We’re just doing what we think we should do and what we’re trained to do… If the situation was repeated, we would do exactly the same thing again,” Peter concludes, before thanking his fellow trainer Glenn and encouraging others to look into becoming surf lifesavers.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian gave her thanks to The Greek Herald‘s readers and the wider Greek Australian community in NSW for their efforts to contain the spread of the COVID Delta variant.
“I want to take this opportunity to thank all Greek Herald readers and the wider Greek Australian community in NSW for everything you are doing to help us contain the spread of the coronavirus,” reads the Premier’s message.
Earlier this year in a multicultural conference the NSW Premier thanked community and religious leaders for the encouragement in the vaccination program.
“If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to book in for a COVID-19 vaccination. It is free to everyone in Australian and the nsw.gov.au website provides details about NSW health centres, GPs and pharmacies administering the vaccine near you,” reads the Premier’s message.
Archaeologists in Pompeii have discovered a well-preserved skeleton during excavations of a tomb in the east of the ancient city’s urban center.
A skull, as well as bones and fabric fragments, were found in the tomb in the necropolis of Porta Sarno.
An inscription of the tomb suggests that its owner, a freed slave named Marcus Venerius Secundio, helped organise performances in Greek Pompeii.
Experts say it is the first confirmation that the Greek language was used alongside Latin at the time.
“That performances in Greek were organised is evidence of the lively and open cultural climate which characterised ancient Pompeii,” the director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, said in a statement announcing the discovery.
Mr. Zuchtriegel said Marcus Venerius clearly had been able to make a living for himself after he was freed as a slave, given the “monumental” size of his burial tomb.
“He didn’t become super rich, but certainly he reached a considerable level of wealth,” Mr Zuchtriegel said in an interview with the Associated Press.
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD destroyed Pompeii.
Tennis world No.3 Stefanos Tsitsipas hasn’t had his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and neither is he in a rush to get it.
Tsitsipas, 23, says he’s accepted that he will likely be required to roll up his sleeve by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) at some point but that he still has reservations.
“No one has told me anything. No one has made it a mandatory thing to be vaccinated,” he told reporters.
“At some point I will have to, I’m pretty sure about it, but so far it hasn’t been mandatory to compete, so I haven’t done it, no.”
His advocacy for a “carefree” summer also followed his embrace of the perks of lockdowns.
“I actually think they should put us in lockdown once a year – it’s good for nature, it’s good for our planet,” said in an Instagram Live on Eurosport’s page in May 2020.
“I actually think it will be environmentally very beneficial.”
“Life is such a hustle, and you never get the time to spend with your family and connect with them. Now it’s an opportunity to do so,” Tsitsipas said.
He went on to tell reporters that he’s struggled in the ATP Masters 1000 tournament’s ‘bubble’ environments in Cincinnati, Ohio.
This includes non-compliance with consumer dignity and choice, support for daily living, inadequate food, and systems for handling feedback and complaints.
The report included deficits in the review of care and services for residents in relation to falls management, deteriorating mental health, and pain.
The audit also found the service was unable to demonstrate it had implemented an effective COVID-19 outbreak management plan or that staff had access to resources or information to assist communication with non-English speaking residents.
Other grounds of noncompliance included inadequate food with inspectors finding lunch services in a dementia unit consisted of puree with large amounts of gravy.
Residents also gave mixed feedback as to whether they received the personal care and clinical care that was “safe and right for them”.
The inspectors noted the home’s demographic was largely Greek and the facility was part of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia, however the service was unable to demonstrate staff had access to resources or information to assist communicating with residents who do not understand English.
The facility will not be able to receive Commonwealth subsidies for any new care recipients for six months, must participate in fortnightly teleconferences with the ACQSC, and complete fortnightly reports outlining the facility’s steps towards improvement, as part of the compliance action.
According to The Daily Telegraph, St Basil’s Home acting chief executive Spiro Stavis says the facility was committed to addressing the areas of noncompliance.
“At St Basil’s Homes NSW/ACT Randwick we’ve begun introducing adjustments to close the gaps identified across the aged care quality standards,” a statement reads.
“It has been a challenging period in the aged care sector, and we understand that there is significant trust placed in us to meet resident expectations and those of the regulatory system.”
“This is not an outcome that we wanted for our home or our residents because at St Basil’s Homes NSW/ACT we pride ourselves on providing quality services under the values we hold dear, for the health, dignity and safety of our cherished residents.”
Mr Stavis said the facility has appointed Anchor Excellence as advisors to participate in fortnightly reporting and teleconferences with the ACQSC, along with supporting the home’s leadership group to address the sanction issues, and supporting onsite clinical and governance operations.
“Residents and their representatives …. have been very responsive and supportive in assisting us to make improvements to plans relating to residents’ individual care. It is encouraging to have their support in improving our home,” he said.
