Australian ambassador to Greece Arthur Spyrou met with Kythera mayor Efstratios Harhalakis in Greece on Monday.
They met to discuss the opening of a Migration Museum in Kythera.
The Kytherian Association of Australia will celebrate its 100-year anniversary next year.
A group of Kytherian expatriates in Sydney formed the Association in May 1922 to “function like a substitute family” for the diaspora, the Association’s Facebook page reads.
The founder of Greece’s first school for professional fishermen and an activist for cleaner seas and healthy fish stocks, Lefteris Arapakis, has been bestowed the honorary title of ambassador for the Mediterranean coast for 2021-22 by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
Awarded in the context of UNEP’s Mediterranean Action Plan, Arapakis says the title is “a recognition of the team’s work and shows us that we are on the right path, doing something that is having an impact.”
“It is a recognition of all the professional fishermen and all our associates in the battle against marine pollution from plastic.”
At just 26 years of age, Arapakis became the founder of Greece’s first professional fishing school, Enaleia. The school trains, strengthens and motivates the local fishing community to collect plastics from the sea, allowing fish stocks and the ecosystem to recover.
In 2020, he was also named one of seven ‘Young Champions of the Earth’ by the United Nations.
READ MORE: Lefteris Arapakis: The Greek named the UN’s ‘Young Champion of the Earth’.
“It is a very important award, because it shows us that we are on the right path, that we are in the right direction for a more sustainable future,” Arapakis told The Greek Herald at the time of the award announcement.
“It is a recognition of the efforts of the whole team and the organisation. It also creates a very strong sense of responsibility. Now I feel we need to step up our efforts for a more sustainable planet, inspire more people and make a bigger impact.”
Pfizer’s Centre for Digital Innovation (CDI) and Centre for Business Operations and Services have opened new facilities in Thessaloniki.
Thessaloniki-born Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla opened the centres on Tuesday.
“We have expanded our footprint by bringing our operations center here,” Bourla told the crowd.
“Our country has human capital and a knowledge-based economy.”
The centres will contribute €650 million to the local economy, employ 700 workers, and cover nine thousand square metres of land.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mistotakis told the crowd that it was a “very special moment” for the city on Tuesday.
“More than 50 young people, 15% of the staff [hired by the centre], are Greeks returning for work after several years,” Mistotakis said.
He added that the company’s expansion will “increase public wealth” in Thessaloniki.
Mr Bourla first announced plans for the hubs in December 2020.
Source: Ekathimerini
The Civil Defense Ministry in Greece has sent emergency response personnel to assist Crete after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit the island’s southeastern coast on Tuesday.
Police, firefighters, and other responders are busy counting the damage of the second powerful earthquake to hit the island in just over two weeks.
A small church in Xirokambos is reported to have collapsed and Sitia mayor George Zervakis says cracks have formed in the town hall building.
The quake prompted a “small tsunami” in the island’s south and widespread rockslides, triggering an evacuation alert.
The Civil Defense Ministry says there are no reports of casualties or injuries on Crete and surrounding islands.
The Geodynamic Institute in Athens says the quake was felt as far away as Cyprus.
Crete has been rattled by numerous aftershocks since a 6.0-magnitude quake hit on 27 September.
Experts say they don’t believe Tuesday’s tremors were related to the September quake which caused extensive damage, killed one person, injured scores, and left countless homeless.
Source: Ekathimerini
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.3 on the Richter scale hit Crete on Tuesday afternoon, the National Observatory of Athens’ Geodynamic Institute has reported.
The tremor’s epicenter was located some 23 kilometers off the southeastern coast of the island, which is still recovering from an earthquake of 5.8 Richter in late September.
It struck at 12.24 p.m. and was felt across the broader region, rattling the islands of Kasos, Karpathos and Rhodes, and has been followed by a succession of aftershocks.
The fire service says there have been no reports of injuries so far.
Local media report that the church of Agios Nikolaos in Xirokampos, Sitia has collapsed due to the earthquake.
The seismic tremor was also felt in all the islands of the Dodecanese and mainly in Kasos, Karpathos and Rhodes, but also in Santorini.
Seismologist Efthymis Lekkas, who heads Greece’s Organization of Earthquake Planning and Protection (OASP), told state broadcaster ERT that Tuesday’s earthquake did not come from the same epicenter as that in Arkalochori, in the region of Iraklio, on September 27.
One person died in that earthquake and hundreds of homes and businesses were badly damaged.
A Year 12 student from St John’s College in Preston, Victoria, has tested positive for COVID-19 and the school has now been listed as a Tier 1 exposure site.
In a statement, the school said they are “currently following all advice from the Victorian Government State Government, the Department of Human and Health Services as well as Independent Schools Victoria in responding to the COVID-19 positive case within the school.”
From a billiard table to comfortable chairs where people can chill and listen to music, the new youth centre at Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Liverpool, Sydney, will not disappoint.
Parish priest, Father Asterios, came up with the idea for a new youth centre as he wanted to provide a place for young people to connect and socialise on the grounds of the church.
“The response has been very, very positive. We’ve had many people wanting to support this initiative,” Father Asterios tells The Greek Herald, adding that he’d like to thank the Australian Byzantine Choir for their generous donation towards the centre.
“It’s a prototype here in Australia… because it’s a facility where young people can come to be in a safe, fun environment.”
With the aim of opening this new youth centre by the beginning of the summer school holidays, Father Asterios decided to reach out to 3D visualiser and designer, Maria Georgiou, to help make his dream a reality.
Mrs Georgiou tells The Greek Herald that Father Asterios sent her a few ideas and images of what he had in mind for the centre, and she was able to work off those to create a ‘multi-purpose space.’
“The main feature of the space is the joinery section with the three circles, which have a couple of meanings,” Mrs Georgiou says.
“One is the Holy Trinity, the three areas there, as well as connecting, it’s circular, it creates some community, and I wanted it to be a space where the youth can come and have fun and relax and make it their own.
“So the furniture and everything in there is all moveable because youth like to move things around and kind of create their own space.”
Mrs Georgiou says she’s really happy to see her design for the youth centre come to fruition and she encourages all youth to attend.
“I think this is such a great initiative… and it’ll be great to see other parishes follow because youth are our future. So hopefully this might spark a bit of a trend and have other parishes look into it and have something that will bring people together.”
Father Asterios agrees and says his personal long-term goal for the Liverpool centre is to have a youth worker on the grounds providing support through various workshops. As a former educator, he also hopes to offer cultural and fine arts programs as an extension of the youth centre one day.
“I just want to thank the committee and everyone for their willingness and support to embrace this initiative and program for the future of our youth and our church,” Father Asterios concludes.
NSW Premier, Dominic Perrottet, is being urged by his top bureaucrats to push for a staggering boost in net migration over five years.
READ MORE: Sydney restaurant owner Jim Kritsotakis facing brunt of staff shortages.
According to NSW government advice seen by The Australian Financial Review, the new Premier has been urged to push for a “national dialogue on an aggressive resumption of immigration levels as a key means of economic recovery and post-pandemic growth.”
“An ambitious national immigration plan similar to Australia’s post-World War II approach would ensure Australia would benefit from skills, investment and population growth,” Mr Perrottet was told in the advice.
The top-secret, politically sensitive document was prepared by the NSW government’s top mandarins as part of an incoming premier’s brief put together by the Department of Premier and Cabinet.
READ MORE: Alex Hawke MP announces increased flexibility for citizenship applicants.
In a sign Mr Perrottet is taking the advice seriously, he said on Monday that the borders need to be opened up amid a “general labour” shortage to ensure a healthy economic recovery.
“If we lose this opportunity, those skilled migrants will go to other countries,” he said. “We won’t get those engineers, those accountants, they’ll commit to other projects.”
Mr Perrottet is pushing to end NSW’s 14-day hotel quarantine system and replace it with a shorter period of home-based isolation, and is also revisiting inbound passenger caps.
“I think by next year we’ll see a very different sort of immigration policy, and I hope we’ll start to see more people coming in and filling those jobs.”
This news comes as the Federal Government delivered the 2020-21 Migration Program in September, including the largest Partner Program in over 25 years by processing in excess of 72,000 places for couples seeking to reunite.
Source: The Australian Financial Review.
Greece’s Foreign Minister, Nikos Dendias, spoke over the phone on Monday with Australia’s Foreign Minister, Marise Payne.
The talks between the two top officials focused on their shared commitment to the International Law of the Sea, to the protection of the environment and to regional developments, Mr Dendias wrote on Twitter.
The two ministers also reaffirmed the two countries’ historic ties on the basis of common values and the Greek Australian diaspora as a bridge between Greece and Australia.
In a 2019 statement announcing Australia’s new Ambassador to Greece, Arthur Spyrou, Marise Payne praised the strong relations between both countries.
“Australia and Greece have an enduring relationship built on strong people-to-people links and bonds forged during both world wars,” Payne wrote in the statement.
“400,000 Australians claim Greek heritage, and this community has made a special contribution to developing and enriching contemporary Australia.”
The recent telephone conversation between the Foreign Ministers is set to only deepen these relations.
In cool, wet conditions on Monday, New South Wales took its first steps out of lockdown, with gyms, cafés and hairdressers opening to the fully vaccinated.
But the weather did not stop people flocking to what they’d missed for nearly four months: gyms were busy, cafés were pumping and there were lines out the door for barbershops.
John Lapouris, who manages Against the Grind in Sydney’s Neutral Bay, told The Australian Financial Review there had been a lot of anxiety ahead of reopening but it was great to be back.
“I think this [rainy] weather has been helping us. It’s a little quieter than what we expected,” he said. “We thought about not reopening, but we ultimately chose to open back up again.”
Mr Lepouris said he had almost gotten used to lockdown and wasn’t sure how he would handle a return to “full tempo.”
His staff were quick to get vaccinated, but there had been nerves about what to say to unvaccinated customers.
“We didn’t want to become police officers, figure out if someone’s been vaccinated or not been vaccinated and chasing away customers we’ve had for years,” Mr Lepouris said.
Luckily though, there were no problems on Monday morning.
For five-year-old, Paris Sarkis, this lockdown has felt like “a million gajillion days” as she welcomed friends to her home.
To celebrate the end of lockdown, she hosted a kids’ high tea party at her home at Condell Park in Sydney’s south-west.
Her mother, Sophia, told ABC News the girls were “over the moon” to be finally reunited.
“Last night my daughter couldn’t sleep, she was counting the hours and was like, ‘Mummy, is it time yet? I can’t wait to see my friends’,” she said.
“This morning when they showed up at the door, they were jumping and hugging each other, screaming out loud.
“It was happy chaos!”
Billy Diacos, who owns the Billy the Greek restaurant in Sydney’s north west, told A Current Affair on Monday night it was ‘fantastic’ to have customers again because it was ‘a long time coming.’
But he said that while he’s back open for business, he’s not yet at full capacity because of lingering COVID-19 restrictions.
“We’ve got to stick to the four-square metre rule,” Mr Diacos said.
“So at the moment we’ve got about 14 people here and that’s about all we’re allowed inside, and outside we’ll most probably have about 10 to 12 people.”
Mr Diacos’ wife built a special reception area at their Dural restaurant, which is where she does all the check-ins for customers who enter.
“We have the QR codes, we have the sign-in books, and we got the customer here showing my wife (his) vaccination certificate,” he said.
The restaurant owner went on and said he’s not concerned about having to turn away people who aren’t vaccinated because he believes his community will “do the right thing.”