Australia’s former Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Nick Coatsworth, said Bourla needed to stop talking about more doses of the COVID vaccine and instead use some of the enormous profits Pfizer has made to help tackle pneumococcal disease.
“Be like Astra,” Dr Coatsworth tweeted on Tuesday.
Hey @pfizer instead of doing press releases about how we all need a 4th dose of COVID 19 vaccine, how about you really surprise us and provide pneumococcal vaccine at cost to all low income nations. Be like Astra. #covid19aus
— Dr. Nick Coatsworth 🇺🇦 (@nick_coatsworth) March 14, 2022
Pneumococcal disease is a bacterial infection which kills more than 300,000 children under the age of five each year, with the majority of deaths occurring in low-income countries.
Dr Coatsworth told news.com.au that the pneumococcal vaccine would have an even greater impact for children globally than the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Pneumococcal disease is a bigger problem than COVID,” he said.
The Australian doctor said Pfizer’s actions were quite the contrast to AstraZeneca which had pledged not to profit from the vaccine as long as it remained a pandemic.
While AstraZeneca has recently announced it is moving to a for-profit model for the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with the University of Oxford, the vaccine will continue to be sold at cost for developing nations.
Turkish Defence Minister, Hulusi Akar, claimed on Wednesday that the co-exploitation of the “riches of the Aegean” was raised in talks with his Greek counterpart, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, during a recent meeting in Brussels.
“We are holding our talks sincerely, openly, honestly and transparently,” Akar told journalists after NATO’s Extraordinary Meeting of Defense Ministers.
“This is important in terms of the prosperity of the people of the two countries and the sharing of the beauties and riches of the Aegean. There are tourism, fishing and many other riches. We are in favour of using these together, we said this.”
Οι δυνατότητες εμπέδωσης ενός κλίματος ηρεμίας και ασφάλειας στην περιοχή του Αιγαίου, αλλά και το ότι δεν τέθηκε θέμα “συνεκμετάλλευσης του Αιγαίου“, ήταν μερικά από τα σημεία στα οποία αναφερθήκαμε με τον Τούρκο ομόλογό μου, στις Βρυξέλλες.https://t.co/R2us3mg3K8pic.twitter.com/J7ymw7F39V
On Wednesday night, Panagiotopoulos denied this issue was even raised during his talk with Akar.
Athens attributed the claim by Ankara to communication manoeuvres by Akar, who, according to sources, is well aware that the content of the talks was mainly about the need to respect the moratorium, especially in the summer, when both countries expect tourism.
Greece has rejected an informal request by Ukraine to send its Soviet-era TOR-Μ1 and Osa-AK missile systems as the country believes they could still be needed by its Armed Forces, according to Ekathimerini.
The Greek media’s sources said that although these systems, owned by the Greek Army and Air Force, would need to be upgraded, “they still serve some of the country’s air defence needs.”
Athens has not yet received a request to send any of its Russian-made S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to Ukraine.
This rejection comes a day after the Chief of Greek General Staff Konstantinos Floros ruled out “any possibility to grant or dispose weaponry that weakens the defence of the country.”
So far, Greece has already sent Kalashnikovs and launchers to Ukraine, along with humanitarian aid.
Ο Αρχηγός ΓΕΕΘΑ Στρατηγός Κωνσταντίνος Φλώρος μετά την αλλαγή Διοικήσεως στην 1η Στρατιά, το μελλοντικό Αρχηγείο Χερσαίων Δυνάμεων: «Κανένα απολύτως ενδεχόμενο παραχώρησης ή διάθεσης οπλισμού το οποίο αδυνατίζει την Άμυνα της Χώρας». pic.twitter.com/wvEBM89Bbv
In the meantime, the evacuation operation for Greece’s Consul General in Mariupol, Manolis Androulakis, is still underway.
According to Ekathimerini, the Greek diplomat resumed his journey westward on Thursday and is heading to Uman in western Ukraine.
The evacuation operation, which includes staff of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and their families as well, started on March 15.
Androulakis had stayed behind to assist some 150,000 ethnic Greeks in Mariupol who wanted to flee.
According to the Greek Citizen Protection Ministry, more than 10,700 Ukrainian refugees, of which 3,478 are minors, have already arrived in Greece since the start of the Russian invasion three weeks ago.
US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, and Greek counterpart, Thanos Dokos, discussed the situation in the besieged southern city of Mariupol in a call on Wednesday, the White House said.
The two national security officials also discussed “Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified aggression against Ukraine, including the ethnic Greek community based in Mariupol,” the NSC Spokesperson, Emily Horne, said in a statement.
The two advisors also reiterated their commitment to international efforts to hold Moscow to account for its actions and to ensure Ukraine has the ability to defend itself.
In Adelaide’s Prospect Primary School, students create avatars to represent them and complete video game quests based on the Greek language, history and culture in order to collect the most points by the end of each academic year.
“To progress to the next stage of the game students have to learn a traditional dance like Kalamatiano or answer a question about history or mythology,” teacher Simone (Asimina) Karanicolas tells The Greek Herald.
“Greek is not easy to learn and the way I see it, students need to enjoy it. Once they leave primary school, I don’t want them to look back and only remember ‘Yiasou’ (yah-soo means hello, goodbye and cheers in Greek).”
Gamification, the concept of using game-like mechanisms to encourage learning, is currently one of the largest trends in education globally and although not a silver bullet for learning, it can make the classroom more exciting and inspire students.
For Ms Karanicolas, incorporating music and producing videos that she uploads on her YouTube channel has also proven effective not only for her students who are primarily of non-Greek speaking backgrounds but also for aspiring learners from around the world.
“I always remind them [the students] that if they learn the language they’ll get to interact with Greek people. Because Australia is such a multicultural country and all the students have come across at least one Greek person in their life or at least know someone who knows a Greek person,” she says.
“In the YouTube channel, I try to film in locations that are local to them [students] so they can connect more and realise that Greek and other languages are integrated with their immediate surroundings.”
With her new YouTube video series, the educator aims to teach basic grammar to upper primary school students.
“Up until this point I’ve transformed popular music into educational videos but now I want to teach the basics of Greek grammar and the structure of the language so I don’t only teach vocabulary,” she says.
Ms Karanicolas says that the school community as well as South Australia’s wider Greek community support her efforts.
“They love the initiatives and they understand they benefit the kids. I’m lucky.”
Now she wants to create “a bridging program between Prospect Primary School and Adelaide’s High Schools that teach Greek to make the connection stronger and encourage more kids to continue studying the language.”
Despite the challenges the pandemic brought for educators, Ms Karanicolas says she keeps learning from her students every day and is more determined to find ways to instil in them the language and culture she grew up with.
“Kids make me happy. They don’t give you a chance to be upset.”
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) could be the answer researchers have been looking for in the search for a way to fill the gaps of ancient Greek texts. After developing a system with the assistance of AI, nicknamed ‘Ithaca,’ researchers revealed the system can pinpoint parts of different texts to when and where they are from.
Dr Thea Sommerschield is a co-author of the research that has been conducted at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and Harvard University, and along with her colleagues developed this ground-breaking system.
Dr Sommerschield has said that the significance of these inscriptions lies completely in the fact that they were written directly by ancient people, and they are evidence of the thought, language, and history of past civilisations.
“Most surviving inscriptions have been damaged over the centuries. So, their texts are now fragmentary or illegible,” said Dr Sommerschield, adding that they may also have been moved from their original location.
According to their writings in the journal Nature, throughout the time of testing ‘Ithaca,’ more than 63,000 transcribed ancient Greek inscriptions were fed into Ithaca, enabling it to pick out patterns in the order of letter and words.
After tuning the system, a further 7,811 inscriptions were fed into it as an experiment to see if it could accurately suggest where they were form and propose a range of letters and words to fill in artificially created gaps.
The journal revealed that ‘Ithaca’ achieved 62% accuracy when used alone and 72% accuracy when the system’s suggestions were interpreted by a historian. The system was also able to date the inscriptions to within 30 years of their established date and correctly identified their provenance 71% of the time.
“Just as microscopes and telescopes have extended the range of what scientists can do today, Ithaca aims to singularly augment and expand the capabilities to study one of the most significant periods of human history,” said Dr Yannis Assael, a co-author of the work conducted on ‘Ithaca’.
It is claimed by the team that the approach could be used for any medium and any ancient written language, from Latin to Cuneiform (a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East – Regions such as the modern Middle East) and It may also be possible to train ‘Ithaca’ to dissect Greek literary texts written on fragments of papyrus.
Professor Peter Liddel is an expert on Greek History and epigraphy at the University of Manchester and he was not involved in this research but said even the source of many of the ‘Elgin marbles’ was unclear.
“The application of AI through Ithaca certainly has the potential to contribute to the toolbox of historians involved in analysing ancient texts and using them to understand processes like the development of imperialism or the nature of cult activity,” said Professor Liddel.
Like many scholars, Professor Liddel went on to warn “AI is only powerful as a tool to help us ask questions about, and make comparisons to, the existing evidence.”
The Kytherian Association of Australia is set to launch its 100th anniversary celebrations on Saturday, March 26 at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour.
The festivities will kick off at 7pm and guests will be treated to entertainment by local band IHO Nyx, as well as deluxe canapes and beverages (excluding spirits).
On the night, guests will also have a chance to take part in an auction of the Collector’s Edition Medallion, which was designed by young Kytherian, Zoe Sophios.
The Medallion not only superimposes the outlines of Kythera, Australia and the Australian flag within the design, but it also includes important symbolic motifs such as ocean waves, olive branches, myrtle branches and seashells.
It’s a collector’s piece you definitely don’t want to miss out on. Tickets to the event can be purchased here.
Eleni Boukoura-Altamoura was Greece’s first great female artist, whose work is considered extremely influential especially as she was the first woman to receive a formal art education at a time when this was off limits for women.
To mark the occasion of her death on this day in 1900, we take a look back at her incredible life.
Early and Personal Life:
Eleni was born on the island of Spetses in 1821 to Ioannis and Maria Boukouris. Her father was an Arvanite ship-owner who always had an interest in the arts, he was well known for opening one of the first theatres in Athens.
The Boukouris family moved to Athens in 1836, a few years after it had become the official capital of the newly founded state, and there Ioannis was able to send his daughters to the Hill School, which was erected following the aftermath of the revolution.
Eleni learned Italian, English and Ancient Greek and showed artistic promise from a very young age. She would make drawings of her school friends who would take turns posing for her between classes.
“Despair,” by Eleni Boukoura-Altamoura.
Career and Life in Italy:
Art schools did not accept women at the time, but Eleni was particularly determined and presented herself as a man under the name Chrysinis Boukouras.
During her studies, she fell in love with Francesco Saverio Altamura, an Italian painter who was of Greek origin from his mother’s side. The couple would have two children out of wedlock together, Sofia in 1851 and Ioannis in 1852.
She converted to Catholicism so that they could get married and in 1853, they wed.
In 1856, they had their third child together, Alessandro.
Her husband grew tired of Eleni’s nostalgia for her home country and 1856, he would abandon her for the English painter, Jane Benham Hay. They left for Paris taking with them the youngest child, Alessandro.
Left: Eleni Boukoura-Altamura, Self-portrait in monk’s attire; Right: Photograph of the Eleni posing as a man
Later life and Death:
Eleni’s later life was full of tragedy with the loss of both her children to tuberculosis.
Her daughter Sofia was diagnosed with the disease in 1872 and died at the age of 18, leaving her mother inconsolable.
Her Son, Ioannis returned to Greece In 1876 and suffered from tuberculosis, ultimately passing away in 1878 in Spetses.
The loss of her children is believed to be the cause of her heartbreak and reason for her secluded life in Spetses until her death in 1900.
Very few of her works survive today, only a few paintings, drawings and busts are found mainly in private collections of her relatives’ descendants.
Member representatives that sit on the Board of Directors of The Hellenic Village Ltd have unanimously agreed to put its 105-acre Kemps Creek property in NSW to tender, according to The Greek Herald‘s sources.
The unanimous approval from the 21 Greek associations in Sydney which make up The Hellenic Village came after an Extraordinary General Meeting was held on Monday, February 21 with over 50 delegates present.
The meeting was held at the Pan-Arcadian Club in Ashbury and chaired by the President of the Hellenic Village George Mpliokas.
Our sources said there was an understanding at the meeting to set up a Future Fund for the proceeds from the sale, however, there was no agreement on how the proceeds of the sale will be used.
In December 2020,The Greek Herald reported that an allocation of profits would be invested back into the Greek community for a cultural building or toward existing Greek Australian initiatives for the benefit of the wider Greek Australian community.
After that: (1) some of the profits would go towards paying the Federation’s debt, which is “more than $500,000,” or (2) a “portion would go back to the associations,” who have shares in the property, in order to reimburse costs relating to the ongoing maintenance of the property.
The Greek Herald contacted the Hellenic Village to ask how the proceeds from the sale will be distributed and invested back into the community. The response received was “Hellenic Village has no further comment.”
He says he has ‘the Nidas touch,’ with everything he puts his hand on turning to ‘sold,’ and gets satisfaction out of delivering results.
“Most people have lived in their home for a long time and have put blood sweat and tears into making it a home. They deserve the maximum result that’s out there,” Leonidas told the newspaper.
But does he have any tips for those considering selling or buying?
“Don’t be afraid to ask local real estate agents questions. Most of us are friendly,” he concluded.
