A cold front that has hit Greece, named ‘Zenobia’, has taken its first victim.
A 94-year-old man from Plataea in southeastern Boeotia, died of complications from a power generator and electricity outage due to bad weather. The gas from the generator then entered the house where the elderly man and his 64-year-old son were losing consciousness.
Ambulance arrived in the late afternoon where the 64-year-old son regained consciousness, but the 94-year-old man was announced the first victim of Zenobia.
“Four machines were launched to create access and only two were able to reach it,” said Deputy Civil Protection Officer, Thanassis Karakantzas.
A Christmas Eve “Blasphemers Party” in a bar in the seaside town of Nafplio was “uncalled-for”, Bishop Nektarios of Argolida said on Antenna TV.
It had been advertised with a poster depicting Jesus in heavy makeup and earrings, which led to some threats of violent protests he said “went too far”.
“Christ does not need bat-wielding defenders,” he said about social media posts warnings there would be a backlash to the party at the bar.
“However, I was deeply saddened by the fact that certain people tried to abuse a holiday that is so important to us Christians,” Bishop Nektarios said, confining his comments to what he felt was an inappropriate act in a country with Greek Orthodoxy dominates.
All social media posts and posters advertising the event were taken down in response to the reactions.
Advertising posters of the ‘Blasphemers Party’ in Nafplio.
In November, Greece’s ruling New Democracy dropped plans to criminalise blasphemy that would have resulted in up to two years in prison.
The country’s long-standing anti-blasphemy laws were scrapped in 2016 by the previous ruling Radical Left SYRIZA of then-Premier Alexis Tsipras.
The Specialty Coffee Association has announced that its 2021 World of Coffee show — Europe’s largest annual specialty coffee trade show — will be heading to Athens, Greece.
The show will be in concert with the Athens Metropolitan Expo and will take place June 24-26, 2021. The 2020 World of Coffee event is taking place in Warsaw, Poland, from June 18-20.
The SCA — whose global membership predominantly comprises coffee professionals from the United States and Europe — said the event has more than tripled in size over the past six years, growing to more than 11,000 visitors and 240 exhibitors at the 2019 event in Berlin.
In addition to the main expo and associated educational programming, endless cuppings, networking events and surrounding parties, the 2021 World of Coffee in Athens will also host the 2021 World Barista Championship, the World Cezve/Ibrik Championship, and World Cup Tasters Championship, where hundreds of national winners will compete.
“The volunteers and staff of the SCA who make World of Coffee possible are delighted to return to Greece in 2021,” SCA CEO Yannis Apostolopoulos said in announcement of the event. “Greece is a country with a thriving specialty coffee community, as exemplified in the work and activities of the volunteers who run the SCA Greece Chapter. We look forward to working with the Athens Metropolitan Expo to execute a world-class event and welcome the global specialty community to Athens.”
Here are the World of Coffee host cities over the past 10 years:
Cornell University has enacted new rules aimed at curbing underage drinking and secretive pledging at fraternities in connection to the death of freshman Antonio Tsialas.
The crackdown, which includes requiring outside vendors for alcohol service and security at many frat and sorority events, is part of Cornell President Martha Pollack’s response to the Greek system’s links to an ongoing investigation into the death.
Tsialas was last seen at an unregistered fraternity party at Phi Kappa Psi on Oct. 24, and his body was found two days later, authorities said.
Cornell Police have said they don’t suspect foul play but declined to discuss details of the active probe. Private investigators hired by Tsialas’ parents suspect at least one other person travelled with him to the remote Fall Creek area after the party, a family attorney said.
“We have on this campus, as do many of our peers on their campuses, a persistent culture of misconduct in the Greek-letter system; a pattern that dates back years, if not decades, and one that I have witnessed during my two-and-a-half years as Cornell’s president,” Pollack said.
Tsialas’ case is one of several deaths connected to fraternities in recent months, including fatalities of young men at colleges in California, Pennsylvania and Washington.
Despite only entering
professional tennis in 2016, it’s impossible not to cement Tsitsipas as one of
the greatest Greek athletes of the last decade. Tsitsipas was ranked world No.
1 as a junior, playing on the ITF junior circuit in 2013 at the age of 14.
At only 18 years old, he won
the runner up trophy at the 2017 Brest Challenger, also participating in the
French Open that same year. At the age of 19, he became the first Greek player
to be ranked in the top 100 of the ATP rankings.
Currently ranked at world No.
6, the 21 year old has collected over ten million dollars in prize money and is
the highest-ranked Greek player in history. His drastic climb to the top of the
tennis charts in only 2 years has made himself a title contender for the next
decade of tennis competitions.
Sokratis Papastathopoulos
Photo: Bundesliga.com
There are many Greek football
stars that could have been on this list, however Sokratis makes the list due to
his consistently strong performance throughout the whole decade. Sokratis had a
successful five year spell from 2013 to 2018 at Borussia Dortmund, being
awarded the role of captain in his final few years. The past two years, he has
been playing as leading centre back for former Premier League champions
Arsenal.
Along with his strong
domestic performance, the Kalamata born defender has played ninety games for
the Greece national team. His strong performance in the 2014 World Cup made him
recognised as one of the greatest Greek players during the tournament that
year.
Anna Korakaki
AP Photo/Hassan Ammar
Anna Korakaki represented
Greece in shooting in the 2016 Summer Olympics and since then has dominated
almost every shooting competition she has participated in.
At the age of 20, she earned
a gold medal for the 25m and a bronze for the 10m air pistol in the 2016 Olympics.
Since then, she has won numerous first place medals, including at the 2018
shooting world championships and the 2019 European Games.
Competing since 2009, she is
coached by her father and retired shooter Tassos Korakakis. At only 23 years
old, she will ultimately secure a place as one of Greece’s greatest competitive
shooters.
Giannis Antetokounmpo
AP Photo/Aaron Gash
Only 25 years old, the “Greek
Freak” has cemented himself as one of the greatest Greek basketball players to
grace the game. Born in Greece to Nigerian parents, Antetokounmpo has spent his
entire professional career at the Milwaukee Bucks, making his debut as one of
the youngest NBA players ever.
Following the 2018/19 season, in which he achieved aa career high average of 27.7 points per game, he was named the league’s most valuable player, beating out Kyrie Irving and James Harden. The Greek star has also featured heavily for the Greek National Basketball team, enduring a continuous all-round successful basketball career.
Eleftherios Petrounias
AP Photo/Darko Bandic
Greek gymnast Eleftherios Petrounias was one of Greece’s strongest competitors in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, and since then has won multiple global competitions. The artistic gymnastic secured a gold medal at the 2016 Olympics and has also received three first place awards at the gymnast World Championships, as well five first place awards in the European Championships.
Growing up as a hyperactive child, the athlete has a remarkable story, with his mother bringing him to the Panionios Gymnastics Club so that he could release his energy. He has two screws in his fingers due to physical damage sustained when he was younger. Petrounias is also prominently featured in anti-bullying campaigns, as he was bullied himself when he was child due to his small size.
Katerina Stefanidi
The best female athlete of the year, Katerina Stefanidi secures her place as one of the greatest Greek athletes of the decade due to her overwhelming success in various competitions in the past six years. The Olympic pole vaulter won first place in the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics, along with a World Championship win in 2017 and a European Championship win in 2018.
In the 2016 indoor season, she set a national record after reaching a height of 4.90 m at the Millrose Games, which ranks her at fourth place of all time in the event. The Athenian pole vaulter was born to athletes Georgios Stefanidis and Zoi Vareli, who competed internationally in the triple jump and sprints, respectively.
Che Jon Fernandes
Friedemann Vogel/Getty Images South America
Che Jon Fernandes is one of
Greece’s greatest Paralympian athletes from the past decade, competing in the men’s
shot putt events. The Paralympian has won four gold medals in various
competitions in the past decade, with one being secured at the 2016 Rio de
Janeiro Paralympic Games.
The Vasilopita is one of the biggest Greek food traditions celebrated in Australia and what’s more special then a Greek celebration to bring us into the new decade! Here is a Vasilopita recipe to bring you into an exciting new decade.
Ingredients
250g butter
2 cups (440g) white sugar
3 cups (375g) plain flour
6 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup (250ml) warm milk
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup blanched slivered almonds
2 tablespoons white sugar
Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Generously grease a 25cm round cake tin.
In a medium bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light. Stir in the flour and mix until combined-it may be a little dry and crumbly. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Combine the baking powder and milk, add to the egg mixture, mix well. Then combine the lemon juice and baking soda, stir into the batter. Pour into the prepared cake tin.
Bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove and sprinkle the nuts and sugar over the cake, then return it to the oven for 20 to 30 additional minutes, until cake springs back to the touch. Gently cut a small slit in the cake with a knife and place a coin in it. Try to cover the slit up. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes before inverting onto a plate.
As Greece’s population continues to decline due to low birth rates and high emigration, Greek media have reported that, because of these reasons, schools and kindergartens have been closing in high numbers across the country.
The report says that because of the declining population size, between 2009 and 2014, the government closed 796 primary schools, 400 high schools, and 509 kindergartens. In addition, a further 14 kindergartens and 9 primary schools will close by the end of next year.
A survey released by the Foundation for Economic & Industrial Research (IOBE) estimated that by 2035, the number of school pupils in Greece will be 29.2% lower than it was in 2008 – 1,050,000 vs 1,480,000 in 2008. The main reasons given for the closures is a lack of resources.
The 10-year economic crisis has driven over 400,000 young workers to move abroad, causing further damage to productivity and the economy. As families move elsewhere, there are far fewer children requiring education services. Greece’s new government has vowed to address this by giving incentives to young people to stay in the country.
The program, known as “Rebrain Greece”, aims to encourage young people currently working abroad to return to the country. Among the incentives proposed by the government, there will be a new minimum wage of €3,000 which will be subsidised by the state for one year. Companies will be legally obliged to keep the employees after the one-year period for another 12 months with the same wages.
Greece tennis-star, Stefanos Tsitsipas, touched down in Brisbane on Saturday, along with Greece’s national tennis team.
The team are preparing for the start of the ATP Cup, which is the first tennis tournament of the year 2020.
Tsitsipas and his team have commenced training, as they join Canada, Australia and Germany in Group F.
The event will kick off on 3rd January, 2020. The biggest names in tennis will also make their way to Brisbane, Perth and Sydney for the ATP Cup tournament.
Greece and Russia are among the teams schedule to play on Day 1.
A Syrian refugee who was disabled after being shot by a Greek coast guard in 2014, is demanding 100,000 euros for pursuit injuries from the Greek state.
The 68-year-old man, who now lives in Sweden, submitted his case to a court on the island of Rhodes. The plaintiff was critically injured in September of 2014, when Greek coast guards fired on a smuggler’s speedboat in a drawn-out chase near the island of Kalymnos.
The smuggler had previously attempted to ram and sink the Greek patrol boat, injuring one of the coast guards, authorities stated at the time of the incident.
The coast guards claimed that during the pursuit, the dozen asylum-seekers on the speedboat were concealed and unknown to be onboard.
Greece’s Prime Minister said in remarks published on Sunday that if Athens and Ankara cannot solve their dispute about maritime zones in the Mediterranean they should turn to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague to settle the disagreement.
Turkey signed an accord with Libya’s internationally-recognised government last month that seeks to create an exclusive economic zone from Turkey’s southern Mediterraneanshore to Libya’s northeast coast.
Greece and Cyprus, which have long had maritime and territorial disputes with Turkey, say the accord is void and violates the international law of the sea. They see it as a resource-grab designed to scupper the development of East Mediterranean gas and destabilise rivals.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in an interview with weekly newspaper To Vima, said his intention is for Greece and Turkey to discuss their differences about maritime zones in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean on a political and diplomatic level.
“But we should say clearly that if we can’t find a solution then we should agree that the one difference that Greece recognises [over maritime zones] must be judged in an international body like the International Court of Justice in Hague.”
Earlier in December, Cyprus petitioned the ICJ to safeguard its offshore mineral rights. There has been no response so far from Turkey to that initiative.
Turkey maintains that several islands and islets near its coasts that are claimed by Greece under long-standing post-war treaties are actually “grey zones”.
“No one should try to blockade us, to trap us in our own coasts or trample on our economic rights,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last week.
Greece ‘wants a say’ in Libya talks
Mitsotakis told the Greek publication that Athens also wishes to take part in the United Nations-sponsored talks on the Libyan talks scheduled to take place in the German capital Berlin in January.
“We do not want a source of instability in our neighbourhood. Therefore we want a say in developments in Libya,” Mitsotakis said.
“We want to be part of the solution in Libya, as it concerns us too … [Libya] is our natural maritime neighbour, not Turkey,” he said.
Since the overthrow of late leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, two seats of power have emerged in Libya: One in eastern Libya supported mainly by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, which enjoys international recognition.
The eastern administration is supported by renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), which launched an offensive on Tripoli in early April. The LNA fighters have failed to reach the centre of the city but have made small gains in recent weeks in some southern suburbs of the capital.
Erdogan on Thursday announced that he would present a bill to the Turkish parliament in early January to seek consent to dispatch troops in support of GNA-aligned forces, in line with a security agreement signed last month with Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj.
