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No vaccines, no dinner: Greek restaurants accepting only vaccinated customers

The Greek Herald
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No vaccines, no dinner: Greek restaurants accepting only vaccinated customers

Restrictions allowing only people vaccinated against coronavirus to be served at indoor restaurants, bars and cafes went into effect in Greece on Friday, with diners broadly in favour of the measure as the country grapples with a surge in infections.

Customers at indoor restaurants, bars and cafes have to prove they have been vaccinated. It is the latest in a series of curbs aimed at saving the summer tourist season and includes foreign tourists. It does not apply at outdoor venues.

People who have been vaccinated say the restriction is the price those refusing to get inoculated will have to pay.

“I agree that the vaccinated (people) should have some privileges,” said Yiannis Kamalakis, a customer seated at an indoor cafe in Athens. “Whoever does not want to get vaccinated, it is their choice, but they will have to live with certain restrictions.”

More than 5,000 anti-vaccine protesters, some waving Greek flags and wooden crosses, rallied outside parliament in Athens on Wednesday to oppose the government’s vaccination programme.

So far about 41% of Greeks aged over 15 years are fully vaccinated. Earlier this week the government ordered mandatory vaccinations for healthcare workers and nursing home staff.

“I believe the vaccinated should have advantages over the unvaccinated,” said Leonidas Chalaris, a customer at an indoor cafe. “Since I am vaccinated, I would prefer if others (around me) are also vaccinated.”

The government has launched COVID FREE GR, an application that can scan European digital vaccination certificates to help businesses screen customers and comply with the measure.

Authorities are keen to avoid a new lockdown and business owners say they will do all they can to help the measure succeed. Greece’s economy slumped 8.2% last year, hit by lockdowns during waves of the pandemic.

“We are in favour of the government’s measures. Our only concern is that they increase business costs,” said Yiannis Chatzitheodosiou, head of the Athens trade chamber.

Turkish coastguard fires shots at Cypriot marine police boat and pursues it

The Greek Herald
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Turkish coastguard fires shots at Cypriot marine police boat and pursues it

A Turkish coastguard fired at a boat of the Greek Cypriot port and marine police in the sea off Kato Pyrgos Tylliria early on Thursday.

The incident took place at around 3.30am during a regular patrol by the marine police to check for illegal immigrants arriving from Turkey.

According to police, a small three-member boat spotted a Turkish coastguard vessel about 11 nautical miles from the port of Kato Pyrgos Tyllirias.

The boat then started heading towards the fishing shelter of Tylliria, but the Turkish coastguard began to pursue it and fired four warning shots against it.

The fishing shelter at Kato Pyrgos.

The foreign ministry was informed of the incident, police said.

Following the incident, the president of Kato Pyrgos Tyllirias community council Nikos Kleanthous reiterated his long-standing requests for increased patrols and checks both at sea and on land.

He said it is “incomprehensible” that the port and marine authority of the area to be equipped with only one small boat.

According to Kleanthous, “the serious provocation by a Turkish coastguard is part of the protection provided to the traffickers of illegal immigrants who have come out in the area of Kato Pyrgos Tillyria very often lately”.

Source: Cyprus Mail.

Mirvac head Stuart Penklis offers advice for young first home buyers

John Voutos
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Mirvac head Stuart Penklis offers advice for young first home buyers

It’s not easy to break into one of the most competitive housing markets in the world, but Stuart Penklis suggests one way it can be done. 

Stuart Penklis is the head of residential at property developer Mirvac and says persistence and making sacrifices pays off. 

“One thing that most of these first home buyers have in common is a clear goal and a willingness to make sacrifices to save towards owning their own home,” he tells the Daily Telegraph. 

“When you see young couples in their early 20s, who’ve been saving since they were teenagers and have the deposit and a steady income to support a mortgage, it gives encouragement to others trying to take the first step on the property ladder.”

No problems if you struggling saving up money, just set yourself goals, Mr. Penklis says. 

“Setting a goal and sticking to a budget is the best way to encourage good saving habits to build a deposit,” he says. 

“Living at home with parents if you can, rather than renting your own place, and cutting back on discretionary spending can add up to significant savings at a time when every little bit helps.”

He says it’s better a better use of your time to know how much you can borrow before you begin your property hunt. 

The national property market has risen nearly 14 per cent over the past year and it has no signs of stopping. 

Source: The Daily Telegraph 

Greek Australian business owner talks about being a Tier 1 exposure site in Melbourne

John Voutos
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Greek Australian business owner talks about being a Tier 1 exposure site in Melbourne

Some Melburnians have woken up this morning to the first day of Melbourne’s snap five-day lockdown worse off than others. 

Wani Sakellaropoulos is the co-owner of Ms. Frankie’s in inner Melbourne and says she’s been hit by a bad case of déjà vu after being forced to shut her doors for two weeks. 

“I’m sitting in line waiting to be tested this morning and it just seems like a little bit of a cycle that keeps repeating itself,” she tells the Greek Herald. 

“This current situation that we find ourselves in isn’t something that we’ve experienced yet.” 

Ms. Frankie is a popular Italian restaurant in the inner Melbourne suburb of Cremorne (Photo: Marton Custom Builders)

Mrs. Sakellaropoulos is in-line waiting for her COVID-19 test after receiving a call from Melbourne Health late last night. 

The representative tells her that a positive case of COVID-19 swung by her and her husband Giorgio’s Italian restaurant around 6pm to 7:45pm before heading down to go watch the rugby at Melbourne’s AAMI stadium on Tuesday, 13 July.

“We got a call last night saying… that we needed to shut down, deep clean, and to get tested and that regardless of a negative result, we have to quarantine for 14 days,” she says. 

“We hope that everybody can return a negative, we deep clean the restaurant, and come out the other end.” 

Ms. Frankie joins the ranks of Vanilla in Oakleigh that has also been listed as a tier 1 exposure site since the Delta outbreak reached Melbourne.  

Vanilla in Oakleigh urged all customers who visited their store on 9 July to get tested and get in touch with the Department of Health via their Facebook page (Photo: Facebook screenshots)

They’ve just been given the ‘all-clear’ after a positive case of COVID-19 visited their restaurant on Friday afternoon, 9 July. 

“[The South East Public Health Unit] went above and beyond to assist us to ensure that we were ready to open our doors again in record time,” they posted to their Facebook page. 

“The infectious control team (IPCAR-ICCOM), otherwise known as the outbreak squad, were superheroes.” 

Mrs. Sakellaropoulos says her staff are currently looking into COVID-19 emergency support from the government to for what she predicts will be a lockdown that lasts longer than the intended five days.

“I was just saying to my business partner [that] we’ve got a lot of staff in their early-to-middle 20’s that are dealing with lots of people on a daily basis and they still don’t qualify [as priority for a vaccine],” she says. 

“It’s a worry but I think hopefully the government can roll out a better vaccine program and [if] we can all get vaccinated, this nightmare ends.” 

Melbourne Health is urging anybody who has visited a tier 1 exposure site to immediately isolate, get a COVID-19 test, and quarantine for 14 days from the date of exposure. You can contact the Department of Health on 1300 651 160. 

Do you have a similar community story? Email us at: greek@foreignlanguage.com.au

Dr. Melanie Fillios on what her excavations of ancient Greek sites show about the Bronze Age

John Voutos
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Dr. Melanie Fillios on what her excavations of ancient Greek sites show about the Bronze Age

Dr Melanie Fillios is a senior lecturer in archaeology and paleoanthropology at the University of New England and has been drawn to the field of cultural archaeology since she entered college in the United States.

“I said, ‘I want to be an anthropologist!’, and my professor said, ‘What you want to be is an archaeologist. Come to my field school’,” she tells the ABC’s Conversations program.  

“So I spent eight weeks in the high desert of Idaho,” she says.

“We had snakes, grassfires, no showers, one porta potty and tents filled with earwigs and I was hooked.”  

She’s fascinated by hunter-gatherer societies and worked on digs in Greece for some years before moving to Australia to live and focus on understanding Australia’s megafauna.

Dr. Melanie Fillios is a lecturer at the University of New England (Left: UNE) (Right: Universities Australia)

Early on in her career, she travelled to excavate a site in the ancient Greek city-state Helike, in the northern Peloponnese, that dates back to about 2600 BC. 

“The site happened to be in an olive grove about five metres below the surface of the ground,” she says. 

“This site was really interesting because it’s mentioned by the classical sources of having been destroyed by an earthquake.” 

“What we found at Helike was a lot of pigs… [which] were a really fascinating animal in antiquity.”

Helike is known as the city that disappeared overnight after it was hit by a tsunami in 373 BC (Left credit: Educalingo) (Centre credit: GettyImages/iStockPhoto) (Right credit: Tetyana Lyapi)

Dr. Fillios says these pigs tell us about the nature of social differentiation in the Bronze-Age society and how they mark a shift towards the time of kings and kingdoms in classical Greece. 

“Pigs might have been a great way [for the Minoans] to maintain their independence from this burgeoning, complex state,” she says. 

She also recalls the time she came across a heap of research-worthy decaying sheep carnage in a mountainous Greek village. 

“Of course, in my naive and young state, the younger me said, ‘Wow! This is my opportunity to get a comparative collection!,” she says. 

“The [disgusted local yiayiades] just looked at me like, ‘You awful, disgusting foreigner’.” 

“That was probably one of the moments I should have questioned by choices in life,” she jokes.

Source: ABC Radio National

Do you have a similar community story? Email us at: greek@foreignlanguage.com.au

US Senate urges US-EU response to Turkish provocations in Varosha

The Greek Herald
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US Senate urges US-EU response to Turkish provocations in Varosha

14 Senators in the United States are urging the Joe Biden administration to utilize both bilateral and multilateral channels to pressure Turkey into withdrawing its advancements in Varosha. 

US Senate Foreign Relations committee chairman Bob Menendez, Senator Chris Van Hollen, and Senator Marco Rubio, are leading the charge. 

They cite Turkey’s contravention of several United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions and defiance of calls from the UNSC and the European Council to “immediately reverse course”. 

Varosha is an abandoned southern quarter of the Cypriot city of Famagusta. It’s remained abandoned since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. 

Joining Chairman Menendez and Senators Van Hollen and Rubio in signing the letter were Senators Dick Durbin, Jeanne Shaheen, Chris Coons, Sheldon Whitehouse, Sherrod Brown, Ed Markey, Cory Booker, Bob Casey, Ron Wyden, Jack Reed, and Ben Cardin.

They write in the letter: 

“You have rightly cantered U.S. foreign policy on principles of human rights and the rule of law. Any attempt by President Erdogan and Turkey to resettle or reopen Varosha would represent a gross violation of those principles.”

“The U.S. and the EU should make clear to President Erdogan that continuing to violate UNSC Resolutions and the rule of law is unacceptable.”

“The Turkish Cypriots’ proposal to establish two-states in Cyprus at the most recent round in Geneva—the first since negotiations broke down in 2017—undermined prospects to reunify Cyprus as a bizonal, bicommunal federation, in accordance with UNSC Resolutions and long-standing policy. As further evidence of its unwillingness to seek a durable political settlement on the island, Turkey has reportedly established a base for unmanned aerial vehicles at Lefkoniko airport, in an effort to expand its military presence in Turkish-occupied Cyprus.”

“We urge you to work in tandem with the EU to make clear, in advance, that any attempt by Turkey to support the resettlement or reopening of Varosha will be met by multilateral sanctions.”

Source: Bob Menedez

NSW hits 97 new daily cases, Victoria enters its first day of lockdown

John Voutos
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NSW hits 97 new daily cases, Victoria enters its first day of lockdown

NSW has recorded 97 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours to 8pm last night. 

Of those, 29 were infectious while in the community. 

“That number of people being infectious in the community keeps going up,” NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced. 

“We really want to stress to everybody, please stay at home, follow the orders in particular, unfortunately, the Fairfield local government area is still seeing more than, or around three quarters of cases in the Fairfield local government area but we are also seeing an extension of cases in adjoining suburbs and local government areas.” 

NSW set a record by conducting more than 77,000 tests in the 24 hours to 8pm last night.

Meanwhile, Victoria has recorded 10 new locally-acquired cases on the state’s first day of lockdown, including four that were announced in press conferences yesterday. 

All 10 are linked to the current outbreaks and it brings the state’s current outbreak to 24. 

Victoria’s list of COVID-19 exposure sites has grown to more than 120. 

Wani Sakellaropoulos, co-owner of Ms Frankie restaurant in inner Melbourne, says she went into “lockdown mode” when her business was listed as a Tier 1 exposure site. 

The list includes more areas at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and multiple locations in Bundoora, Maribyrnong, and Richmond. 

Source: ABC News, ABC News

Greek Australian director, Jason Raftopoulos, wraps filming on ‘Voices in Deep’ in Greece

The Greek Herald
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Greek Australian director, Jason Raftopoulos, wraps filming on ‘Voices in Deep’ in Greece

Greek Australian writer and director, Jason Raftopoulos, has recently wrapped filming on his next feature Voices in Deep in Athens, IF reports.

The film, which stars newcomer Hannah Sims in the lead as an Australian humanitarian, is the second from Raftopoulos after he released Melbourne-set West of Sunshine in 2017.

The writer-director tells IF he decided to film in Athens because it’s a city full of history and culture.

“For centuries, Athens has been a place where the lives of millions have intersected; it’s a city that has been both conqueror and conquered, a place of great enlightenment and great oppression, a melting pot of religions ideas and sexual ambiguity,” Raftopoulos told the media outlet.

“It is for these reasons that I chose Athens as the setting to explore ideas of time, desperation, identity and freedom.”

Jason Raftopoulos.

But of course, preparing a production in Greece during a pandemic was no mean feat.

According to one of the film’s producers from Exile Entertainment, Alexandros Ouzas, the initial plan was to shoot in September of last year, but the COVID risk still seemed too great. The next window, given the seasons in Athens, was May this year.

By that stage, it was “now or never” as the Gallipoli clause, which allowed certain international shooting expenses to be claimed as QAPE under the Producer Offset, was due to end in July, IF reports.

“By then we trusted our team could execute the creative vision while staying COVID-safe. We managed to get through production without any major issues – the Greek Gods were on our side!” Ouzas said.

What is Voices in Deep about?

Angeliki Papoulia and Christos Karavevas star in the film. Photo: IF.

In Voices in Deep, Sims stars as Bobby, who becomes connected to the lives of two orphaned refugees Tarek and Zaheed following a tragedy at sea.

Bobby compulsively exposes herself to strangers to dull the tragic memories, but a chance encounter with Gloria (played by Greek actress Angeliki Papoulia), leads them on an adventure together.

Tarek and Zaheed (newcomers Michael Hilane and Christos Karavevas) fend for themselves on the streets. Tarek sells his body for food and shelter to provide for his increasingly vulnerable younger brother.

Desperate to pull them out of their situation, Zaheed takes matters into his own hands, setting off a chain of devastating events.

Source: if.com.au.

Greece and Lithuania leaders meet to discuss illegal immigration

John Voutos
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Greece and Lithuania leaders meet to discuss illegal immigration

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his Lithuanian counterpart Ingrida Simonyte have met in Athens to discuss migration. 

Both leaders suggest that their influx of asylum seekers is being orchestrated by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in an effort to exert political pressure. 

“What Belarus is doing is simply unacceptable,” Mitsotakis said. 

Mitsotakis says both countries “are characterised by persistent migratory flows, coupled occasionally by an orchestrated effort by a third country to exert political pressure on the European Union through migration as a tool for the projection of geopolitical power.” 

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has accused Belarus of orchestrating Lithuania’s recent influx of illegal migration (Credit: Pool photo by Maxim Guchek/Belta/EPA)

“Neither Greece in the south, nor Lithuania in the north wish to be the gateway to Europe for people-smuggling networks or third-party states intent on putting pressure on the European Union,” he said. 

The European Union (EU) imposed sanctions on Belarus last month following the Belarusian government’s forced landing of a Ryanair flight booked from Athens to Vilnius to arrest dissident journalist Roman Protasevich. 

Lithuanian President Simonyte says Lithuania is collateral damage to President Lukashenko’s consequential and retaliatory decision to halt cooperation with the EU on illegal migration. 

“Lithuania is not a corridor, is not a track towards the European Union, towards Sweden, Germany or other countries,” Lithuanian President Simonyte said. 

She’s reported as saying that Belarus was not an unsafe country unless you oppose its  government and that many asylum applications to the country will likely be rejected. 

More than 1,700 people have crossed the border into Lithuania this year, including 1,100 in July alone.

“The total number might not seem very frightening but what is frightening is the trend,” Simonyte said, adding that more than 20 times more people had entered than in previous years.

Greece has been grappling with a surge in boat arrivals for years and have been accused of carrying out illegal summary deportations. 

Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis denies the accusations and other government officials label them as ‘fake news’. 

Source: Ekathimerini, Reuters

Samos on high alert as firefighters battle wildfire

John Voutos
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Samos on high alert as firefighters battle wildfire

Firefighters are battling a wildfire in Kokkari on Samos which broke out from a forested area near Vourliotes around midday on Thursday. 

112 residents in the villages of Kokkari, Mytilini, Vourliotes, and Mavratzei, were put on high alert later that evening and Samos Police blocked off roads in the villages as they became engulfed in smoke. 

Around 37 volunteer firefighters have been deployed in 15 firetrucks and six aircraft and water carriers are hovering over the area to control the fire against what’s currently a light breeze.

The Chief of the Fire Brigade, Lieutenant General Stefanos Kolokouris, and the National Commander of Civil Protection, Theodosios Dimakogiannis, have flown to Samos to help coordinate the response. 

Lieutenant General Stefanos Kolokouris (left) and Theodosios Dimakogiannis (right)

Residents in Kokkari are to limit their water usage. 

The Arion and Kalidon Panorama hotels were evacuated for a few hours as a precautionary measure.

Arion Hotel (left) and Kalidon Panorama Hotel (right) were evacuated (Credit: Arion Hotel) (Credit: Expedia.com)

“Due to the large fire that is approaching a water supply point, we ask for the minimum use of drinking water in the wider area of Kokkari as well as the city of Samos,” the Municipality of Eastern Samos announced. 

Kefalonia, Mati, Schinos, and Eleios-Pronnoi, have faced their own fires this summer season.

Source: Ekathimerini, samos24.gr

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