The recent migrant crisis affecting citizens of the Greek islands, and Greece as a whole, is being watched by the Greek community in Australia with open eyes. The Greek Australian communities have now come together to voice their thoughts and make their views known to the greater population.
The Pan Lesvian Federation of Australia and NZ and the Mytilenean Brotherhood of Sydney and NSW has called for the commencement of action at the Mytilenean House on Saturday 14 March 2020 from 4pm.
The meeting aims to provide an opportunity for locals to voice their concerns on the matter and hear first hand, by direct video link, from these affected islands the plight of the local residents.
“The ever growing refugee problem on the eastern islands will have far reaching ramifications for of Greece and to our European neighbours,” a spokesperson from the Pan Lesvian Federation of Australia and NZ says.
“This is a catastrophe growing in magnitude day by day.”
Speaking with the Greek Herald, President of the Mytilenean Brotherhood of Sydney and NSW, Peter Psomas, talked about the developing agenda that will be taking place on March 14.
During the event they will be talking to multiple Greek island locals and politicians from Lesvos, Chios and Samos. Both Peter Psomas and the President of the Pan Lesvian Federation of Australia and NZ will be in communication with those abroad.
“We just want to show our support, no political alliance with anywhere. Just standing for what we stand for and showing them that we’re thinking of them,” Psomas says.
Shown below are three open letters to all Hellenes and Philhellenes and especially those that have been impacted directly by the growing refugee presence on the islands of Lesvos, Chios and Samos.
Panathinaikos and legendary Greek football player, George Karagounis, arrived in Melbourne on Thursday and has since visited personal friends, attended the Antipodes Festival and visited the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne.
On the second day of his stay, he visited members of the Greek Community at Alphington Grammar School, where he was welcomed by the school’s principal, Mrs. Bivian Nikos, teachers and a number of students.
The students who spoke with him exchanged views on sports, took photos and received autographs.
Giorgos Karagounis (left) with Bill Roumeliotis (right)
The Greek Herald was present at Alphington Grammar School and congratulated the teachers and students on the maturity of their questions to George Karagounis.
In the Euro 2004 player’s short speech, he mentioned his career in professional football and how he felt in 2004, as he lifted the European champion’s trophy with Greece’s National team.
Karagounis was also present at the 2020 Antipodes Festival, where the President of the Greek Community, Bill Papastergiadis, introduced him to the public.
Professor Tim Parkin, of the Department of Classics and Archaeology at the University of Melbourne, will launch the 2020 Greek History and Culture Seminars, offered by the Greek Community of Melbourne. The Seminars will begin with a lecture titled “The Briefest of Wonders: the Colossus of Rhodes’ on Thursday 5 March 2020, at the Greek Centre.
Shakespeare has Cassius speak of Caesar bestriding the narrow world like a Colossus under whose huge legs we petty men walk. So, what do we know of the original Colossus, the third-century BC statue of Helios erected in the harbour of the city of Rhodes?
How, where and why was it built, and what became of it? In this illustrated talk, Tim Parkin will attempt to bring this short-lived wonder back to life and consider why, despite being so short-lived, it looms so large still in modern imaginations.
Tim Parkin joined the Classics and Archaeology department at the University of Melbourne in 2018 as the inaugural Elizabeth and James Tatoulis Chair in Classics. Before this he had spent over eleven years as Professor of Ancient History at the University of Manchester (UK).
Tim’s teaching covers both Greek and Roman history and classical languages. Among his 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, inter al., ancient sexual health, in particular sexually transmitted diseases.
The Greek History and Culture Seminars will enter their tenth year.
“The success and appeal of the Seminars in the Greek and Australian communities have exceeded all expectations and precedents,” said a statement by the Greek Community of Melbourne.
The Seminars are free of charge for the Community, financially supported by organisations and individuals.
When: Thursday 5 March 2020, 7.00pm Where: Greek Centre (Delphi Bank Mezzanine, 168 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne)
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke with US President Donald Trump over the migration crisis evolving on Greece’s borders with Turkey, a statement from the Greek premier’s office said on Monday.
Trump, the statement added, “recognized the right of Greece to enforce the law on its borders.”
The statement comes as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned on Monday that soon the number of refugees crossing into Europe “will reach millions” unless the European Union takes responsibility for the crisis.
Greece has continued efforts to fortify its borders and diplomatic initiatives to tackle what it calls an “asymmetrical threat.”
On the diplomatic front, the government’s initiatives have led to a planned visit on Tuesday to the Greek-Turkish border in Evros by the presidents of the European Commission, Council and Parliament – Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel and David Sassoli – accompanied by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
On Sunday, Greece announced emergency measures to tackle the crisis, including a further tightening of border controls to the maximum level, a temporary one-month suspension of asylum applications and the immediate return of undocumented migrants to their country of origin.
Meanwhile a military exercise with live ammunition was held in the Evros River border region by Greek army units on Monday, with the aim of sending out a message that Greece will not allow its national borders and security to be violated.
The United Nation’s refugee agency said on Monday that Greece had no right to stop accepting asylum applications as Athens struggled with a sudden increase of arrivals at its border of Middle East refugees and migrants from Turkey.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Sunday his country would not be accepting any new asylum requests for a month after two days of clashes between border police and thousands of people seeking to enter the EU from Turkey.
“It is important that the authorities refrain from any measures that might increase the suffering of vulnerable people,” UNHCR said in a statement.
“All states have a right to control their borders and manage irregular movements, but at the same time should refrain from the use of excessive or disproportionate force and maintain systems for handling asylum requests in an orderly manner.”
The UN agency said neither international nor EU law provided “any legal basis for the suspension of the reception of asylum applications.”
Its statement came as the EU scrambled to help Greece police the frontier and sought to put pressure on Turkey to go back to preventing refugees and migrants stranded on its territory from seeking to reach Europe.
Turkey, which is home to 3.7 million Syrian refugees and has another million on its doorstep from a new surge of fighting, said last week it would stop enforcing a 2016 agreement that had prevented migrants from reaching the EU.
Greek officials accused Turkey of orchestrating a coordinated effort to drive migrants across the frontier.
Turkey’s announcement last week threatens to reverse an agreement that halted Western Europe’s biggest wave of migration since World War Two, the 2015-2016 crisis when 4,000 people drowned in Aegean and more than a million reached Greece.
After leaving full-time work, Spyros Korosidis donated years of his time towards community work and was a prominent figure to everyone in the Melbourne Greek community and beyond.
Spyros Korosidis passed away the day before yesterday at the age of 91, scattering grief in the community. An active, happy and beloved man who has participated in a multitude of community organisations, congresses and committees. He has served as president of community organisations and committees, many of which have been founding executives.
Korosidis participated for 20 years in the Red Cross Financial Aid Committee, in the Greek Community of Melbourne, in the Greek RSL Melbourne Branch, in AHEPA and in the National Anniversary Celebration Committee. He also participated in the committees for the organisation of radio rangers in support of the Victorian fire and Cyprus Struggle Committee.
Korosidis said in a recent interview that a milestone in his long journey within the community and national issues was his participation in the 1981 Pan-Macedonian World Congress in Thessaloniki, with former Greek President Konstantinos.
In 2016, he was honoured with the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) medal for his contribution to Australian society.
Spyros Korosidis was born in the village of Aloro in Almopia, where, due to German occupation and civil war, it had many difficulties. He decided to migrate to Australia in 1954 with his wife, Kyria Vera.
Greek Community of Melbourne President Bill Papastergiadis with members of the Greek Community in Melbourne. Photo: Supplied
Greek Community of Melbourne President Bill Papastergiadis released a statement following the death of Spyros Korosidis.
Bill Papastergiadis Statement:
I have known Spyros since the first day of my presidency. He was generous and warm in his approach to me. We quickly became friends. He would often ring me with advice. I would always listen and when I had something to say in return, he too would carefully listen.
I enjoyed the fact that we could communicate honestly and openly. I valued his advice and friendship.
I thought he would live forever. He was in his early 90s and he was still upright and fit. I said to him late last year “Spyro, are you going to Greece in 2020?” he replied as he normally did “Of course I am going, there is nothing wrong with me”
He would come to my parents’ house with so much food cooked by his wife. I said to Spyros, “with all of this food, how do you stay so trim?”
He replied “I don’t eat it, we bring it to you!!!!”
At each election of the board of the Greek Community of Melbourne, his wife would bring to us many trays of tiropita. It helped give us the energy we needed for those tough days!
He would tell me how much he loved Greece and his Macedonia and how each summer, he would live with his daughter in Athens. I asked him, “did you take the main bedroom of your daughter’s apartment in Athens”. He replied, “in summer in Athens, you don’t need a bedroom. I had a foldout bed for the balcony. I slept outdoors all summer.” I envied his strength.
Greek fencers Panos Triantafyllou and Vasilis Ntounis are preparing for the Tokyo Palalympic Games in August, hoping to prove what can be accomplished in a wheelchair.
Triantafyllou, 33, won silver at Rio’s 2016 Paralympic Games, and since then has been picking up medals in various other competitions. He won gold last November at the Wheelchair Fencing World Cup in Amsterdam and silver this month at the cup in Eger, Hungary.
Triantafyllou is currently ranked No. 2 of the year’s best athletes by the International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Federation, and he ranks fifth for Paralympics qualification for Tokyo 2020.
“Only the best 10 qualify for the Paralympics, or the ones who come first in the European tournament and the world championship get a direct qualification,” Triantafyllou says, speaking with NPR. “Theoretically I qualify, but it’s better to attend the last three tournaments ahead of the Paralympics.”
Triantafyllou won silver at Rio’s 2016 Paralympics and is getting ready for the Tokyo Paralympics in August. Photo: Demetrios Ioannou for NPR
Despite his huge success, he says Greece hasn’t always been very supportive of people with activity limitations.
“Greece gives to a person with disabilities an allowance of maximum 600-700 euro [every month], depending on the disability,” he says, an amount equivalent to $660-$770, which is considered low by European Union standards. “If you can’t work and don’t have your own house, you simply don’t get by. When you have to pay 400-500 euros [$440-$550] just for your rent, how can you handle your other expenses, like bills, food, etc.?”
According to a 2017 report by Eurostat, more than 82% of adults with disabilities in Greece lived in a household that struggled financially. This is the highest rate in the European Union and well above the EU average of less than 30%.
Triantafyllou was in a car accident on Nov. 21, 2004, that left him paralyzed from the thorax down.
He considers himself one of the lucky ones because he received some insurance money, but it isn’t enough. “They only cover your everyday expenses for some time,” he says.
In recent years, Greek media outlets have paid more attention to athletes with disabilities. Social media networks have also helped offer exposure.
“When you see something and hear about it, you learn how to respect it,” Triantafyllou says regarding ramps and parking spots for the disabled, which are often blocked by parked cars or being used by people with no disabilities, just for their convenience.
A child died after being pulled from the seat when a boat capsized off the Greek island of Lesbos, officials said on Monday, the first reported fatality after the Turkish government opened its border last week to let migrants reach Europe.
At least 1,000 migrants have reached Greece’s Eastern Aegean islands since Sunday morning, Greek police say. More than 15,000 migrants have attempted to cross by land at the border, where guards from both sides have fired tear gas into crowds caught between the fences in no-man’s land.
Turkey, which is home to 3.7 million Syrian refugees and has another million on its doorstep from a new surge of fighting, said last week it would stop enforcing a 2016 agreement that had prevented migrants from reaching the EU.
Greek officials accused Turkey of orchestrating a coordinated effort to drive migrants across the frontier.
“This movement is guided and encouraged by Turkey,” government spokesman Stelios Petsas told reporters after a national security meeting in Athens. He called the surge of migrants at the border “an active, serious, severe and asymmetrical threat to the national security of the country”.
Turkey’s announcement last week threatens to reverse an agreement that halted Western Europe’s biggest wave of migration since World War Two, the 2015-2016 crisis when 4,000 people drowned in Aegean and more than a million reached Greece.
The Greek coast guard said the boat which capsized off Lesbos on Monday morning had been escorted there by a Turkish vessel. Forty-six people were rescued and two children taken to hospital, one of whom could not be revived.
Another dinghy with about 30 Afghans arrived on Lesbos early in the morning, a Reuters journalist reported from the island. Thirty-two others were rescued in the seas off Farmakonissi, a small island close to Turkey, the coast guard said.
“This is an invasion,” Development Minister Adonis Georgiadis told Skai TV on Monday.
Late on Sunday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted that Greece was determined to protect its borders and warned migrants not to attempt to cross as security was increased to the maximum. He is expected to visit the border on Tuesday with Charles Michel, chairman of EU leadership summits.
George Kambosos is the biggest Greek star in boxing. Born in Sydney and of Greek descent, he started boxing because he was overweight as a 11 years old boy.
His father urged him to box and today, at 26, he has only a dream: To become a world champion. The reason: To see his two kids at the top.
George Kambosos, the unbeaten Greek Australian fighter, talked exclusively with The Greek Herald before his fight for the world title.
When did you start boxing? Why you chose this kind of sport?
I started boxing at age 11, because I was an overweight kid who was bullied at school. I was playing rugby league and I was struggling to keep up with the team as my fitness was very bad, so me and my father decided to try boxing out in the off season. As soon as I stated boxing I feel I love with it, I lost 14kgs as an 11 year old kid and made my move to becoming a fighter.
Before being professional, which was your most important win?
I had many great wins before I turned professional as an amateur. I won many state and national tournaments and got to represent the national team in major events. It is very hard to pin point my most important win in amateurs as so many were vital throughout my amateur career.
Who inspires you?
The people who inspire me the most to continue winning and become world champion is my two kids. My daughter Evaliah and my son Leonidas. Everything I do is for them, I put my body through hell in training to be victorious in my fights, to be able to give my kids the best life possible.
Words that you made state of mind?
“MOLON LABE”, these are the words that sit in my mind when I train and fight, these famous words from the Spartans stays with me very strongly in my state of mind. If you want it, come and get it.
Your first professional win came in Sydney. What does this city mean to you?
Yes, many years ago my first professional win was in Sydney. Sydney means a lot to me, it is my home and where I have grown up. I always represent Sydney wherever I fight in the world and hope to bring some big fights back to Sydney in the near future.
You played in Greece some months before. Your feelings about the first visit in patrida?
I still get goosebumps thinking about my time in Greece and being able to fight in front my people. It was a dream of mine to fight in Greece from a young kid so when the opportunity arose i took it with both hands. I am so proud of my heritage and it motivates to continue winning and honouring the Greek flag and proud Greek people. I will return to Greece and fight again one day.
You are still unbeaten in professional career. How tough is that for you?
It is very important, I have worked very hard to stay undefeated. Every time I prepare for a fight, I prepare like it is a world title fight. I have been with this mentality from the very beginning of my career. I will continue working hard to stay unbeaten.
You played at Madison Square Garden … Amazing for a greek athlete! Your feelings?
Fighting at Madison Square Garden was unbelievable. It is is the most famous arena in the world and for a Greek Australian athlete to represent both nations in such an iconic arena is amazing. I dream of fighting in arenas like these and with my hard work, sacrifice and dedication I have made it happen.
You are still 26! What are your plans? What can we expect from you?
I truly feel I am coming into my prime right now at 26, I have a very important fight next against former world champion Lee Selby. This fight is an official world title eliminator. Once I win this fight I will fight for the world title next no matter what. I am focused on this fight and you have to expect from me to continue winning and taking another step towards becoming World Champion in 2020.
You live the american dream? What is YOUR dream?
I train hard in America and all my fight camps are over there. My dream is to become World Champion, I have dreamed of this since such a young age. We are one fight away from fighting for the World Title.
What is your routine?
My routine is very extreme. I train and prepare my body 110%, I put in a lot of work to have my body ready for war in the ring. Running, sparring, pad work, shadow boxing, skipping, weights and so much more is all part of routine.
When you not boxing, what do you do?
When I am not boxing crazy enough I still stay in the gym, I love to train and stay fit and healthy but also love to spend time with my kids and family and I love to fish when I do get free time.
Do you feel most Greek or Australian?
Both I am proud to represent both, my blood is Greek and I live in Australia so both countries mean a lot to me. It is an honour being able to fly both flags fighting on the world stage.
The message you want to send to Greek Herald’s readers?
I just want to thank all the Greek Herald readers for taking the time to read this interview, I hope you all get behind me and support a proud Greek fighter on his way to championship glory.
