Greece’s President, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, has expressed her support for the Greek diaspora in Ukraine amid rising tensions with Russia over the last few days.
In a post on Facebook, Sakellaropoulou wrote that Greece’s “thoughts are on the Greek communities of Ukraine,” which include those “cities and villages where our language is still heard, the schools where lessons are taught under the Greek flag, and the expatriates of all ages who keep alive in their hearts the bond with their Greek roots.”
The female President then gave a number of examples to stress the continued resistance of the Greek diaspora in Ukraine despite constant tensions with Russia.
“The proud spirit of our expatriates, as expressed in their thousand-year presence in the region of Ukraine, remains strong during these difficult times. We honour their strength, we are close to them and we support them,” Sakellaropoulou concluded.
Tensions between Russia and Ukraine continue to rise. Photo: AFP.
This statement comes after a tumultuous 24 hours in which Russia mobilised its tanks and artillery into east Ukraine and Western nations, including Australia, hit back with unprecedented sanctions, travel bans and restrictions.
Amid these rising tensions, Greece has also made plans for additional gas supply with government spokesman, Giannis Oikonomou, confirming the news on state television on Wednesday.
Mr Oikonomou said that Greece will try to get as much gas as it can via a pipeline which runs from Azerbaijan to Italy.
On Thursday, the Greek National Tourism Organisation (EOT) launched a new advertising campaign showcasing Greece’s national treasures as the perfect weekend getaway – well in their words, a ‘Greekend.’
As a part of this new campaign, Athens and Thessaloniki are promoted as ideal destinations with good weather and easy flight connections. The campaign highlights the many offerings of both cities from the local cuisine to the art galleries and shopping destinations.
Athens Monastirki Centre (left), Thessaloniki by the water (right)
Greek Tourism Minister, Vasilis Kikilas, told Ekathimerini: “Hotels in our cities, particularly Athens and Thessaloniki, have suffered due to the pandemic. This campaign is the first in a series of initiatives we will carry out, inviting visitors to safely enjoy an authentic Greek weekend in our largest cities.”
EOT General Secretary, Dimitris Fragakis, added: “The pandemic has negatively impacted urban tourism. In many cases, disproportionately to our other tourist destinations.”
Navaiyo, Zakynthos.
“The Greekend campaign seeks to promote a complete tourist product, one that is equal to other established European weekend destinations,” Mr Fragakis added.
The campaign is due to run for two months and in ten countries including France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Sweden and Israel.
Young students from SOFIA UNSW and Hellsoc UNSW teamed up on Tuesday to create thoughtful and creative cards for young patients at the Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick.
50 cards in total were created on the day in the bright colours of yellow, green, pink and blue, and every single one had affirmational messages such as “You are a hero” and “Get well soon.”
Associate Professor Socrates Dokos from the UNSW School of Biomedical Engineering also contributed to the initiative with his own card.
The President of SOFIA UNSW, Maria Papadopoulos, tells The Greek Herald that members of the Orthodox Christian fellowship decided to make these cards because many have had personal experiences with sick kids in hospital.
“Some friends that we know work at Sydney Children’s Hospital and they’ve shared some stories about the kids and we were really moved,” Ms Papadopoulos says.
“A lot of us also work in occupational therapy or physio and some of us are medical students, so we’re just really interested in helping out kids and of course, they’re little heartthrobs.”
This help has not gone unnoticed.
Community Relations Officer at the Hospital, Jessica Cooper, tells The Greek Herald they are “always so grateful to the community for their support of our patients and their families.”
“The card making event organised by UNSW SOFIA and Hellsoc UNSW is such a thoughtful gesture and we’d like to thank everyone who contributed to this project,” Ms Cooper concludes.
“These cards will definitely help bring some extra happiness to those visiting the Hospital.”
Demi Georgiou has won the Healthy Development Adelaide (HDA) and Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation (CRF) PhD Excellence Award for 2022.
Georgiou is a PhD candidate within Medical Biochemistry, College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University.
Her research project, ‘Elucidating the biological importance of Pregnancy Zone Protein (PZP),’ will provide much needed insight into the functions of PZP, a major pregnancy-associated protein.
Georgiou is a PhD candidate at Flinders University.
The project will also increase our understanding of the role of damaged proteins in Preeclampsia, a leading cause of pregnancy-related morbidity and mortality.
After the award announcement, Georgiou said she was “incredibly honoured and grateful” to have won.
“This award will support me in my research and the knowledge gained from my project has the potential to be used as the foundation for developing novel therapeutic strategies for preeclampsia,” she added.
Georgiou’s project was one of two to win the PhD Excellence Award, with Joshua Robinson from the Adelaide Medical School at The University of Adelaide also being recognised for his work on the impact of asthma during pregnancy.
Each winner will now receive $5,000 per annum for three years to augment their scholarships.
Professor Tim Parkin from the University of Melbourne will present a lecture entitled ‘Ancient advice on when to marry and have children,’ on Thursday, 3 March 2022, 7pm, at the Greek Centre, as part of the Greek History and Culture Seminars offered by the Greek Community of Melbourne.
In his lecture, Professor Parkin asks, ‘What’s the best age to get married?’ and ‘When should I have children?’ by looking at ancient Greek (and a few Roman) opinions.
Greek Centre in Melbourne
As one might expect, there is no single answer so Professor Parkin also takes into consideration what motivates different people (especially Aristotle) to come up with the answers they do.
Who is Professor Parkin?
Professor Tim Parkin joined the University of Melbourne in 2018 as the inaugural Elizabeth and James Tatoulis Chair in Classics. Tim is a New Zealander by birth who was awarded a D.Phil. at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and who, since 1989, has worked in universities in New Zealand, Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
One of Tim Parkin’s published books.
Tim’s teaching covers both ancient history and classical languages. His main research is in Roman social, cultural, legal, and demographic history.
Among Tim’s publications are Demography and Roman Society (1992), Old Age in the Roman World: A Social and Cultural History (2003), Roman Social History: A Sourcebook (2007), and The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World (2014). He is currently working on a book on ancient sexual health and is co-editing a six-volume world history of old age.
Event Details:
When: Thursday, 3 March 2022, 7pm.
Where: Greek Centre (Mez, 168 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne).
More information: 9662 2722 or info@greekcommunity.com.au
Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis made waves at this year’s Australian Open when they walked away with a title in only their fourth grand slam together. The duo, known famously as the “Special Ks,” spoke about their friendship during an interview with Stellar.
The pair caught up with each other after their first Grand Slam victory for another milestone event, a joint photoshoot. Although some might say one achievement outweighs the other, Nick Kyrgios tells Stellar: “My perspective on life is I don’t take anything for granted.”
“We don’t have to say much. We just know“:
Kokkinakis recalls the tournament in Canberra that he met Kyrgios at: “I saw this big boy play, and his dad was wearing all [Michael] Jordan gear, and I thought, this is my type of guy.”
Their love for the game, mutual outside hobbies and their Greek heritage laid the foundation for a friendship that has seen them both through the highs and lows of a career in sport and the spotlight.
“I don’t really click that well with too many other Australian tennis players; not that I don’t necessarily like them,” Kyrgios says in the Stellar interview.
“I just don’t get along with them as well. But with Kokk, its easy. We don’t have to say much. We just know.
“I always feel comfortable opening up to him and telling him if I’m struggling. I don’t do that often. I don’t like telling people who I don’t trust.”
When asked about their tennis future, Kyrgios confidently admits: “We are changing the game of tennis, and I think Thanasi has realised he’s part of that too. He’s one of the select few players who can do it.”
By Georgia Pandelios, Accredited Practising Dietitian and Owner at Nutrition Prescription.
Cholesterol is one of those things about health that most people, if not everyone, will have heard of in their lifetime. It’s so common that 1 in 3 Australian adults have high total cholesterol levels and / or high LDL (bad) cholesterol levels.
Although cholesterol is essential to bodily processes like making hormones and creating new cells, when we have high levels of LDL cholesterol, a build up of plaque can occur in our arteries – making it difficult for blood to flow. Eventually, this can lead to blockages that result in heart attacks or strokes. Fortunately, we also have something called HDL (good) cholesterol. HDL actually helps with removing LDL from the arteries, therefore reducing the risk of plaques forming.
Can diet help improve cholesterol levels?
Hippocrates “let food be thy medicine” comes to mind. Essentially, sufficient intake of good fats in our diet will benefit our good cholesterol, whilst consuming bad fats influence the bad cholesterol.
Our healthy fats include those unsaturated (mono and poly) fats that are found in nuts, seeds, olive oil and oily fish. Whilst our bad fats (saturated and trans fats) are found in fatty meats, processed foods, takeaway, full fat dairy palm oil and coconut oil.
There is also dietary cholesterol found in eggs, crustaceans and offal (e.g. liver). The reality is there is some fear around eating these foods because of past misinformation advertised. Unlike saturated fat, these don’t have a significant impact on our LDL cholesterol levels, so please enjoy these as part of a balanced diet.
The matrix of digestion is a bit more complicated, and things like fibre and natural plant chemicals actually interact with LDL cholesterol – helping to reduce it further. These include wholegrains, legumes, pulses, and fruits and vegetables with skin left on.
The general foundation of a cholesterol friendly diet involves the following 6 actions:
1: Trim the fat off your meats, remove the skin and use leaner cuts of meat in your cooking. So put the petsa down if you have elevated LDL cholesterol levels. The crispy skin of the spit roasted Easter lamb for example, is a rich source of saturated fat – obviously this is why it tastes so good but generally it won’t do you any favours when it comes to your cholesterol.
2: Swap out full fat dairy for low fat dairy. Before the argument about sugar in milk comes up, please have a read of the nutrition label of low fat vs full fat milk. The difference in carbohydrates is negligible but the difference in fat (and energy) is significant – particularly useful if you are also trying to lose weight.
3: Eat oily fish or seafood two to three times a week. These are a great source of omega3 fatty acids, which are protective for our cholesterol levels, as well as an abundance of other health benefits.
Is diet the only way?
In short, no. Losing some weight if you are overweight or obese can also help improve cholesterol levels, as well as blood sugar levels, blood pressure, joint pain, systemic inflammation and even helps improve cell health (e.g. your sperm or oocytes) – just to name a few. Consider increasing your physical activity to help reduce cholesterol and weight at the same time.
Smoking also impacts cholesterol levels. I suggest talking to your doctor about quitting. Similarly, if you have difficulty controlling your alcohol intake, make sure to ask the doctor for support with this too.
Nutrition Prescription accredited practising dietitians offer nutrition consultations that are specially designed for the whole family – from infants to adults and elderly, through to highly specialised fertility-preconception, paediatric, sports nutrition and food reaction services. We can assist with all your nutrition needs, including complex and chronic conditions – in English, Greek and Portuguese.
Disclaimer: The information in this article is generalised and is not intended to replace medical or dietetic advice, nor directly manage any medical conditions. For personalised advice, please speak with your doctor or contact us via info@nutritionprescription.com.au to make an appointment with one of our Dietitians.
Jess Sergis has played for NSW and Australia in the centres, but the Sydney Roosters plan to give her more opportunity to follow her attacking instincts.
According to The Daily Telegraph, Sergis will get a shot at switching to the fullback position in this season of the Women’s Rugby League competition.
Roosters coach, John Strange, confirmed the potential change and said her speed and instincts to hit holes “is really exciting.”
Corban Baxter, Jess Sergis or Isabelle Kelly?@sydneyroosters coach John Strange has a big call to make around who will play fullback while confirming Raecene McGregor has secured a last-minute deal. 🐓#NRLWhttps://t.co/Il8m3qE1JP
The Prespa Agreement (17.6.2018) was a bad deal, but it was much better than the lack of a specific policy, the untimely political improvisation, the sloppiness, the lame diplomatic acrobatics that have existed since 1913. Let’s look briefly at this development.
With the Treaty of Bucharest (1913) and the double exchange of populations, which followed the Balkan-Turkish War (1912-1913) and the Greco-Bulgarian War (1913), those with a Bulgarian-Slavic conscience moved from the regions of Macedonia and Thrace under Greek sovereignty and settled in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.
Later, in 1945, the recognition of Southern Serbia as “Macedonia”, and an indispensable state of Yugoslavia, removed from Bulgaria the dream of claiming the “Bulgarians” of Yugoslavia and thus forming a Greater Bulgaria on the back of Greece.
However, despite the exchange of populations, a small number of Bulgarian-speakers of Greek Macedonia with a purely Bulgarian conscience and language, remained or even hatched on our northern borders, demanding autonomy, and secession from Greece. Many of them, along with Bulgarian-speaking Greeks of Macedonia, emigrated after 1913 to the USA and after 1924 to Canada and Australia.
In Australia, from 1931, they founded their own Bulgarian church and their own Bulgarian clubs in Perth and later in Melbourne and Sydney, in a polemic move against Greek Macedonians who had already founded their own club in Perth in 1930, Alexander the Great.
During and at the end of the Second World War, the Bulgarian-conscious separatists began to discover their national consciousness and from “Bulgarians” who had been declaring themselves until then, they began to identify themselves simply as “Macedonians”. Their Bulgarian Church in Melbourne, from a Bulgarian Church, was transformed into a “Macedonian Church” and their language, which until then, even among them they called “Bulgarski“, “Starkski” and “Ponasi”, now also became “Macedonian“.
During the late stages of the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) the leftist leaders of the Greek Democratic Army allied with Bulgarian-speaking separatists from Skopje and Greece and included them militarily in their forces against the Greek Army, promising that if the outcome of the war was to be victorious, they would secede part of Greek Macedonia and integrate it into an autonomous Bulgarian-Slavic Macedonia.
However, the defeat of the Bulgarian-Macedonian separatists in 1949 in Grammos and their exodus from Greece, Yugoslavia, and the countries of Eastern Europe, was followed by their numerous settlements in Canada and Australia. In the new countries where they settled (it is estimated that 35,000 settled in Australia), they first sowed hatred against Greece among their children and grandchildren, the hatred against the Greeks, who supposedly deprived them of their homeland and their villages, and eighty so many years they continue their irridentist struggle against everything that is Greek.
Greece, no longer having Bulgarophiles, former Greeks, on its territory, never saw the problem as a political and diplomatic priority. For Greece this problem has always been administrative. It was never taught in schools, it had no emphasis on interstate and bipartisan meetings, it was a degraded, nebulous, undefined, and largely unknown subject, a taboo.
On the contrary, in Skopje and their Diaspora, the Bulgarophiles taught their irredentism, published unhistorical books against Greece, taught that they were descendants of Alexander the Great, gave their monuments a Hellenic genre (they were also philhellenes, therefore), appropriated Aristotle, Philip, Hellenic ancient history, even though they knew very well that their ancestors never lived in the Balkans until 1000 years after the Macedonian Kings of the Greeks.
In Australia, where they live, they pre-empted the Greeks, both in life and in death (desecrating their tombs with revolutionary slogans on their tombstones in the Bulgarian dialect, with Greek logos and signs), they desecrate Greek churches, they write slogans of violence and terror on walls, they burn Greek flags, they teach their children about their great ancestor Alexander the Great, the Inskender, they organize groups with the sun of the Greek Macedonian Royals, they terrorize the Greeks in the stadiums and workplaces.
For Greece this problem has always been a conjectural and speculative; for the Greeks of Australia, Canada and the USA had been a concrete and practical, a problem of trenches. The Greeks of Australia cohabitate with the Bulgarophiles and their brothers, the citizens of Severna Macedoniya, they live together in the same suburbs, their children attend as students the same schools, they share in collaboration the same offices; in Greece the political world and the Greeks did not experience any problematic activity; hence, they did not appreciate it as real.
A solution had to be found to make things peaceful. The younger generations, who may not have been infected by the germ of Bulgromanic hatred, should have the opportunity to live in harmony, as Balkans, as neighbours, as like-minded people of the same religion and as fellow human beings. And the difficult political decision was slow because it wanted boldness, it needed tolerance in the negotiation, it wanted progressive motives.
Compromise has no winners; everyone is to lose. The decision on a give-and-take agreement also needs to have an internationalist mindset, when negotiating national issues. It rightly came because of the leftist forces, the sufficiently internationalists, at a time when they both ruled their two countries in Athens and Skopje.
The agreements must be applied as they should: ‘pacta sunt servanda’, to have credibility; so that there can be agreements; this is the fundamental principle of international law. With the signing of the Prespa Agreement only by Nikolaos Kotzias (17.6.2018) and its ratification by the Greek Parliament (25.1.2019) the nomenclature issue was solved, as-like, with the use of the term “Severna Makedonija” (North Macedonia); with this name the Skopje joined the UN and became the 30th member of NATO in March 2020. This nomenclature “Severna Makedonija” has been accepted as a constitutional name both for external and internal use. However, this name is not a single word; it is two words, which means, whoever wants, can easily use only the second one.
Thus, after the debacle suffered by the social democrat Zoran Zaev in the municipal elections of Sunday, 31 October 2021, he directly announced, the same evening, that he would resign (then change his mind) from the position of Prime Minister of “Macedonia”, as we all heard in the news. He obviously wanted to join here, for electioneering reasons, with the nationalist party VMRO-DPMNE, the leader of the main opposition, Christian Mitskoski, who, already in the run-up to the elections, called his country simply “Macedonia” and stated that, as a government, he will not respect the Prespa Agreement and will not use the nomenclature “North Macedonia” within his country, as the revised Constitution of his newly established country clearly states.
The Agreement also explicitly states that the North Macedonians have nothing to do with the culture and historical life of ancient Macedonia, which is purely Greek, that they will not use Greek symbols, the Sun of the Macedonian Kings, and that they will rewrite the books of their history, according to the historical truth and not the propaganda of the past.
However, in Australia, members of their diaspora, Bulgarophile, ex-Greeks and their communal organizations are accustomed to disobeying their Constitution, of trampling on the agreements signed by their leaders, of showing disrespect for their own history, accepting as their supposed own, everything that still has to do with Greece and the Greeks.
Perhaps it will take time for them to understand that the game is now over. And, it is in everyone’s interest to implement what has been agreed, so that the people can live together in an atmosphere of calm and cooperation. This is their common interest.
*Professor Anastasios M. Tamis taught at Universities in Australia and abroad, was the creator and founding director of the Dardalis Archives of the Hellenic Diaspora and is currently the President of the Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies (AIMS).
Mr Adgemis’ hospitality group wants to raise roughly $40 million via secured convertible notes. The proposed structure of these notes has been outlined in an information memorandum seen by The AFR.
Jon Adgemis. Photo: Peter Braig.
Convertible note holders will have all asset security of a vehicle known as the Public Unit Trust. There will be a separate operating company, Public Hospitality Operating Co Pty Ltd. The aim is a June quarter listing of the stapled securities in Public (i.e. a unit in the Public Unit Trust and a share in Opco).
Former Crown Resorts heavyweight, Peter Crinis, has been hired by Mr Adgemis to help with the operations.
Peter Crinis will help with operations. Picture: Nicole Cleary.
The hospitality group consists of 15 venues (14-owned, one operated), including the Kurrajong Hotel in Erskineville and The Exchange Hotel in Balmain.
Mr Adgemis says the aim is to create a “lifestyle hospitality brand” with boutique accommodation and vibrant bars that will bring life into unloved buildings and return them to their original roots.
