Day: November 11, 2012

First full solar eclipse in Australia in 10 years

Source: News

Missed the eclipse?

Take a look at the stunning solar eclipse from earlier this week / Cory Poole

DURING two minutes of daytime darkness on the normally sun-drenched beaches of far north Queensland, thousands of eyes will be turned to the heavens.

When a total solar eclipse casts a shadow over a 150km-wide swathe of land at 6.39AM (AEST) on Wednesday, the tourist towns of Cairns, Palm Cove and Port Douglas will have a front-row seat.

It is the first full solar eclipse to occur in Australia since the same eerie darkness fell on Ceduna in South Australia ten years ago.

Psychologist and avid “eclipse chaser” Dr Kate Russo was there that day, and now devotes a lot of her time to studying – and experiencing – the effects of the phenomena.

The former far-north Queenslander will be in Palm Cove on November 14, gazing at the sky, before interviewing fellow spectators for their reactions.

Once every 300 years

Once every 300 years

Experience the atmosphere of the total solar eclipse on Easter Island, 3,700km off the coast of Chile on July 11.

Russo said she has been addicted to experiencing eclipses since 1999, when she travelled to France in 1999 “out of curiosity”.

“When you get hooked on it, it’s something you try to see for the rest of your life,” she said.

“As it started to progress over time, the more I noticed about the environment – the light started dimming, the birds started flying home to roost, I was picking up this terrible fear, which us eclipse chasers call primal fear.

“And then it just unfolded – the beauty of the eclipse was just stunning.

Marina Mirage Port Douglas

The tourist towns of Cairns, Palm Cove and Port Douglas (pictured) will have a front-row seat. Picture: File

“I was speechless, I was shaking, I had goosebumps, I was in awe.

“It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen – it was like I’d just woken up and my life had changed.”

Dr Stuart Ryder, from the Australian Astronomical Observatory, will also be heading to Palm Cove for the eclipse.

He says he’ll be travelling for the fun of it, but explains that in the recent past, eclipses were used to study the solar corona – the sun’s extremely hot outer atmosphere.

“Nowadays we have a fleet of spacecraft orbiting around the earth and indeed the sun, which can produce artificial eclipses,” he said.

Ryder says it takes the moon about an hour to pass from first contact, when it begins to cross the sun’s path, to totality, when the sun is completely obscured.

During those few minutes of totality, it will seem like a moonlit night.

“However, when you look at the sky in any direction for a couple of hundred kilometres, you can see parts of the atmosphere which are outside the moon’s shadow,” he said.

“So you’ll see a black hole in the sky, with a pearly white filamentary corona around it for several degrees.”

Up to 60,000 people are expected to visit Cairns for the eclipse, while a further 15,000 are set to pack Port Douglas.

Port Douglas Chamber of Commerce representative and newspaper editor Greg McLean says he expects the town to be busier than it is at the height of its peak tourist season.

He says all of the region’s campsites have been booked out, and overflow areas at sporting fields have had to be set up.

“I imagine it’s going to be as busy as the town could ever get … it really is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Port Douglas.”

Like most towns, Port Douglas has come up with some novel ways of celebrating its time out of the sun.

A marathon will begin just as the sun re-emerges from behind the moon, and the town will host the first-ever game of “fooket” – which involves simultaneous games of Aussie rules and cricket on the same oval.

Meanwhile, in a nod to the far north’s hippy past, an eclectic mix of DJs, techno and folk acts will perform at the week-long Eclipse Festival, near the remote Palmer River Roadhouse.

Queensland Rail will send a chartered train to scenic Red Bluff, near Kuranda, giving 100 passengers a different perspective of the celestial dance.

But the thousands hoping to glimpse the eclipse should cross their fingers, as the eclipse falls within the far north’s wet season and could be obscured by cloud cover and rain.

If it is a washout, they’ll have to wait until Sydney goes dark in 2028 for the next total solar eclipse visible from Australian shores.

* Eclipse watchers should remember to wear safety goggles or view the event through simple projection devices, which can be made of cardboard. Even while hidden behind the moon, the sun is incredibly powerful. Just a few seconds of looking at it directly can cause blindness.

 

Galina Chumak, director of the Donetsk Regional Arts Museum, stands before a reproduction of an ancient bust of a Greek charioteer

Source: Washingtonpost

Greeks of the steppe

Will Englund/The Washington Post – Galina Chumak, director of the Donetsk Regional Arts Museum, says it’s foolish to be proud of her Greek heritage but she can’t help it.

Here she stands before a 1952 painting in the museum called “Moving In,” which features a proud Soviet family and a portrait of Josef Stalin, who died the next year.

He killed 20,000 Soviet Greeks.

Galina Chumak is proud to be Greek, however foolish she knows that pride may be.

It wasn’t anything she did, she points out, just the circumstance of birth into what may be Ukraine’s oldest existing ethnic group.

The Greeks arrived in present-day Ukraine before the Tatars, before the Russians, before the Jews, possibly even before the Ukrainians themselves.

They were settlers from the civilization that we think of today as ancient Greece.

They came to the Crimea — a dramatically mountainous peninsula that juts into the Black Sea — in the 5th century B.C., or maybe even the 7th, or just possibly, says Chumak, who once worked on archaeological digs there, the 9th. That would be before Homer got around to composing “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.”

(Will Englund/The Washington Post) – Galina Chumak, director of the Donetsk Regional Arts Museum, stands before a reproduction of an ancient bust of a Greek charioteer.

There are about 91,000 Greeks in Ukraine, according to the last census, but they don’t live in the Crimea anymore, and that fact lies at the heart of one of those arguments that Ukrainian Greeks love to bat around, and have been doing so ever since they left there in 1778.

What’s indisputable, though, is that when they got to the region around today’s Donetsk, in easternmost Ukraine, after a harrowing two-year trek, they were most definitely the first settlers, clearing virgin land at the behest of its new ruler, an empress far away on the shores of the Baltic Sea.

Irony is a Greek word, so that’s Irony No. 1. The Crimean Greeks lived for about 300 years under the rule of the Muslim Khanate, and when imperial Russia made a move to conquer the Crimea they asked Catherine the Great, fellow Orthodox Christian, to offer them her protection.

Sure, she said (or words to that effect). You’ll be best off if you leave your homes of the past two millenniums and set up shop in this other land I’ve just acquired, far to the east. Oh, and that means all of you. Now.

“She awarded lands to the Greeks,” exclaimed Yelena Prodan, head of the Donetsk Greek Society, at a board meeting one night recently. “Orthodox Greeks were rescued from the Muslims.”

“We were deported,” Chumak replied. “People died from the cold, the lack of shelter.”

“They made themselves at home,” said Ivan Makmak, gesticulating. “And only the best, the most cunning, the strongest survived,” he added, looking on the bright side.

‘Just because he was Greek’

Starting on the shores of the Sea of Azov, the Greeks settled in villages on the steppe. They were exempt from conscription, which was a plus, and they prospered. When the city of Donetsk was founded in 1869 by the Welshman John Hughes, as a coal center, they began migrating into town.

They kept their native language — or, actually, languages. Those whose families came from the coastal towns of the Crimea spoke a Greek that was heavily influenced by the Turkic language of the Khans. Those whose roots were in the remote mountains spoke a language that’s descended directly from ancient Greek — closer to it, probably, than you’d hear in Athens today.

And that gets at Irony No. 2, but first, a word about the Soviets.

In the 1920s, in the first blush of the proletarian revolution, the early Soviet Union strongly encouraged the development of ethnic cultures, a sort of de-Russification after czarist rule. Here, a Greek theater opened, as did Greek schools and Greek newspapers. Greek poets flourished.

 

Time is up for Qatari sheikh forced to sell $11 million watch

Source: Bloomberg

A MEMBER of the Qatari royal family and one of the largest art buyers has pledged the world’s most expensive watch and about 240 other collectabels to Sotheby’s to cover debts owed to the auction house, according to court documents.

Sheikh Saud Bin Mohammed Bin Ali al-Thani, a cousin of the Emir of Qatar, provided items from diamond jewellery to tribal art and four vintage watches made by Patek Philippe, of Geneva, Switzerland, the auction house said.

The timepieces include a pocket watch known as the Henry Graves Supercomplication, which an anonymous bidder bought for a record $US11 million in a Sotheby’s auction in 1999. In total, Sotheby’s holds items valued at almost $US83 million ($77 million) from Sheikh Saud, a court document says.

Sheikh Saud has been hit with two lawsuits since the end of September, one alleging he failed to pay for $US19.8 million of ancient Greek coins that he bid on in January. A British court, in a judgment on Friday extending a freeze on $US15 million of the sheikh’s assets at the request of the coin dealers, said Sheikh Saud appeared to have left at least 11 auction houses and dealers unpaid in the past 18 months, including $US42 million owed to Sotheby’s.

Sheikh Saud could not be reached for comment. A man who identified himself as a ”private employee” at an office the sheikh maintains in London said Sheikh Saud was out of the country for a month. Andrew Gully, a spokesman for New York-based Sotheby’s, said the firm did not comment on private business arrangements.

”It’s not unheard of in the auction business, when clients run into cash problems, for auction houses to take property in lieu of payment,” said Michael Plummer, the co-founder of Artvest, a New York firm that provides investment advice for the art market and a former chief operating officer of the financial-services unit at auction house Christie’s.

Mr Plummer said he had no knowledge of Sheikh Saud’s specific situation.

Sheikh Saud formerly ran Qatar’s National Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage, where he spearheaded a national effort to furnish a new museum by spending as much as $US1.5 billion on artwork and collectables during the decade ending in 2005, according to ARTnews.

In early 2005, Sheikh Saud was arrested in Doha on suspicion of misusing public funds, according to ARTnews and The Daily Telegraph newspaper in Britain. No official record could be located on whether Sheikh Saud was charged. A spokesman for the Qatari embassy in Washington did not return a telephone call seeking comment.

The sheikh resurfaced in the art market several years later, and ARTnews named him as one of the world’s top 10 collectors in August 2011, estimating he had spent several hundred million dollars on art during the preceding two years.

In January Sheikh Saud successfully bid on coins including a $US3.25 million single gold piece from the ancient Greek city of Pantikapaion that bears the head of a bearded satyr, according to a lawsuit filed in Washington by AH Baldwin & Sons of London, M&M Numismatics of Washington and Dmitry Markov Coins and Medals of New York.

Sheikh Saud had not paid for any of the coins, and the plaintiffs were charging him monthly interest of 2 per cent, Friday’s ruling in London said. ”This pattern of behaviour is both unexplained and inexplicable,” the London court said. ”The sheikh’s royal status is irrelevant. We are all equal in the eyes of the law.”

His lawyer declined to comment.

Interview with Greek Guitarist Xander Demos

Source: Hellenicnews

Xander_Demos_1

 

By: Markos Papadatos, Contributing Editor

On Nov. 5, rock musician and guitarist Xander Demos spoke about his musical career.

According to Demos, he remarked, “My Greek heritage is pretty cool. I am exactly 50% Greek (25% Italian and 25% Russian). I have to say that one of my favorite things is the food. I love a good Gyro. I also grew up in a place called Tarpon Springs in Florida and it’s a large Greek community. Growing up there was great and I did gain a pretty good appreciation for the Greek culture. The name of my album ‘Guitarcadia’ was rooted in Greek culture as well.”

Presently, Demos noted that he is in the process of writing a follow-up album to ‘Guitarcadia’ and he is planning some new shows. “I also joined another cover band called ‘Jukebox’ and that is helping me in getting out and doing some shows locally. I am still part of the Sabbath Judas Sabbath project. I want to do more recording projects soon,” he said.

Regarding his plans for the future, he stated, “I would like to record, write and tour. I took a small break from everything at the end of the summer but I am going full-steam again.”

He noted that he would love to someday tour in Greece. “I know that people in Greece have an appreciation for my brand of metal so it would be great to tour there. Plus, I have never been there before and it would be such a fantastic reason to finally visit there,” he revealed.

Demos’ musical influences include movie composers such as Hans Zimmer, James Horner and Steve Jablonsky. “I also love Sarah Brightman. From a guitar standpoint, Shawn Lane, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai, Tony MacAlpine, Michael Romeo, Neal Schon, John Sykes and Guthrie Govan are some of my main influences,” he said.

Demos listed Amy Lee and Lita Ford as his dream female collaboration choices in music.

For hopefuls who wish to go into music, Demos remarked, “I would say that they should listen to everything they can to expand their tastes and always have an open mind when it comes to music. Try to play more than just one instrument to give yourself perspective. Take advantage of the Internet, which is something that many of my peers didn’t have growing up. There’s so much out there to learn from so relish these moments.”

For more information on Xander Demos, check out his official website: http://xanderdemos.com/

Greeks protest as budget debate begins

Source: TheAustralian

A man wears a Guy Fawkes mask during a protest in central Athens.

Several hundred have staged a protest in front of the parliament in Athens as budget debate begins. Source: AAP

SEVERAL hundred Greek civil servants have staged a protest in front of parliament in Athens as MPs inside debated a draft 2013 budget ahead of a key vote.

“No to salary cuts!” read one banner held up by the protesters, civil servants from across the country.

They were protesting the reduction of some 125,000 civil servants by 2016, part of a new austerity package that squeezed through parliament on Wednesday, with just 153 MPs voting in favour of it in the 300-member chamber.

On Saturday, MPs began the debate on the 2013 budget on which they are due to vote late on Sunday in the second key test for the government in less than a week.

The 2013 budget predicts that the economy will shrink by a worse-than-previously expected 4.5 per cent next year and that the country’s debt mountain will swell to 346 billion euros ($A434.30 billion), or 189 per cent of economic output.

The government is planning 9.4 billion euros in cuts which will affect mainly state wages, pensions and benefits that have already been drastically reduced over the past two years.

But it will still need to borrow over 68 billion euros next year, the draft budget says.

Greece is currently surviving on two huge bailout packages from its troika of creditors, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.

In return for the aid to avoid default, Athens has introduced a series of austerity measures which have sparked popular anger in a country that faces a sixth year of recession and where unemployment hit above the 25 per cent mark in July.

Κέλλυ Κελεκίδου: «Μου λείπει πολύ η μητέρα μου. Κάθε στιγμή… κάθε λεπτό…»

Κέλλυ Κελεκίδου: «Μου λείπει πολύ η μητέρα μου. Κάθε στιγμή… κάθε λεπτό…»

Στο θάνατο της μητέρας της, αναφέρθηκε σε πρόσφατη συνέντευξη της η Κέλλυ Κελεκίδου αποκαλύπτοντας πόσο την έχει επηρεάσει η απώλεια ενώ τόνισε ότι η σκέψη της είναι συνεχώς κοντά της.

«Μου λείπει κάθε στιγμή, κάθε λεπτό.

Όταν έμεινα έγκυος, ήταν το πρώτο άτομο που ήθελα να τρέξω και να το πω.

Όταν γέννησα, ήθελα να είναι κοντά μου και να μου σφίγγει το χέρι.

Όταν παντρεύτηκα, επίσης την ήθελα κοντά μου.

Στην ανατροφή του μικρού, τη χρειαζόμουν όσο τίποτε άλλο…

Αφού όμως η ζωή τα έφερε έτσι, βαδίζουμε με αυτά που έχουμε.

Πάντως, την κουβαλάω μέσα μου και κάθε μου σκέψη είναι κοντά της», ανέφερε στο περιοδικό Λοιπόν.

Μιλώντας για το ποια ήταν η θέση του συζύγου της, Νίκου Κουρκούλη σε αυτό το τραγικό γεγονός είπε:

«Με στήριξε και έκανε ό,τι δυνατό για να νιώσω καλύτερα.

Αλλά πίστεψε με, η απώλεια της μάνας είναι απώλεια που δεν τη γιατρεύει ούτε ο χρόνος.

Η μητέρα μου για μένα ήταν και είναι ο ήρωας μου».

«Ανάλογα με τη διάθεση μου και τη στιγμή επιλέγω το ανάλογα ρεπερτόριο», απαντά η Κέλλυ Κελεκίδου, αν στο σπίτι τραγούδα δικά της τραγούδια ή του Νίκου Κουρκούλη.

Η τραγουδίστρια λέει στο Λοιπόν: «Είμαι ικανή να ξεκινήσω με Κραουνάκη, να συνεχίσω με Καρρά και να φτάσω μέχρι τα Ζουζούνια που αρέσουν και στον μικρό. Μάλιστα, πολλές καταλήγουμε να κάνουμε ντουέτο, αυτός κιθάρα κι εγώ φωνή», λέει ενώ εξομολογείται πως της αρέσει πολύ που ο γιος της ασχολείται με τη μουσική. «Σαφώς και μου αρέσει που ασχολείται με τη μουσική. Σε ένα σπίτι όπως το δικό μας, με πολλή μουσική και διάφορα μουσικά όργανα, μπορούμε να επικοινωνήσουμε και να διασκεδάσουμε ταυτόχρονα».

Γιώργος Λεμπέσης: «Χωρίς ρίσκο η ζωή είναι προβλέψιμη και βαρετή»

Γιώργος Λεμπέσης: «Χωρίς ρίσκο η ζωή είναι προβλέψιμη και βαρετή»

Για το μεγαλύτερο ρίσκο που πήρε στη ζωή του, μίλησε σε πρόσφατη συνέντευξη του ο Γιώργος Λεμπέσης.

Ο τραγουδιστής υποστηρίζει πως χωρίς το ρίσκο η ζωή είναι προβλέψιμη και βαρετή και αυτό ακολούθησε και στην καριέρα του.

«Το μεγαλύτερο ρίσκο που πήρα ήταν το να φύγω από μια τεράστια δισκογραφική εταιρεία όπως ήταν η Μinos – EMI, σε μια στιγμή που η καριέρα μου ήταν στο ζενίθ, για να μεταπηδήσω, ακολουθώντας τον Φοίβο, στη νεοσύστατη τότε heaven».

Όσο για το αν πιστεύει στην τύχη λέει στο Λοιπόν:

«Είμαι άνθρωπος που δεν πιστεύει στην τύχη, αλλά κυρίως στη δουλειά».

Έκοψαν το τηλέφωνο του μητροπολίτη Καλαβρύτων!

Έκοψαν το τηλέφωνο του μητροπολίτη Καλαβρύτων!

Για αναλγησία του ΟΤΕ που του έκοψε το σταθερό τηλέφωνο στο προσωπικό του γραφείο και στην οικεία του, στη μητρόπολη , κάνει λόγο ο μητροπολίτης Καλαβρύτων και Αιγιαλείας, Αμβρόσιος.
Σε ανακοίνωση  που εξέδωσε  η μητρόπολη υπογραμμίζεται…

Γνωστοποιοῦμε ὅτι τήν 9η Νοεμβρίου 2012, ὁ Ὀργανισμός Τηλεπικοινωνιῶν Ἑλλάδος (Ο.Τ.Ε.), προέβη αἰφνιδίως καί χωρίς προειδοποίηση στήν διακοπή τῆς τηλεφωνικῆς γραμμῆς τοῦ Ἐπισκοπείου τῆς Ἱερᾶς Μητροπολεώς μας, στό ὁποῖο στεγάζεται τό προσωπικό γραφεῖο καί ἡ οἰκεία του Σεβασμιωτάτου Μητροπολίτου μας.

Αἰτία τοῦ γεγονότος αὐτοῦ ἦταν ἡ ὀλιγοήμερη καθυστέρηση πληρωμῆς τοῦ τελευταίου λογαριασμοῦ, ὁ ὁποῖος ἀνερχόταν στό ποσό τῶν 140,50 εὐρώ, καί ἔληγε τήν 24ην Ὀκτωβρίου 2012.

Ἡ ἐνέργεια αὐτή δείχνει, ἀφενός μέν ὅτι ἡ οἰκονομική κρίση ἔχει πλήξει σοβαρά τήν Ἱερά Μητροπολή μας, ἡ ὁποία ὡς γνωστόν βρίσκεται σέ δεινή οἰκονομική θέση, λόγω τῆς ἀνυπαρξίας ἐσόδων, ἀδυνατώντας πλέον νά συντηρήσει ἀκόμα καί τά Ἱδρύματά της.

Ἀφετέρου ἀποδεικνύει τήν ἀναλγησία τοῦ Ὀργανισμοῦ, ὁ ὁποῖος ἀδίστακτα προχωρεῖ σέ παρόμοιες ἐνέργειες μή σεβόμενος τίς δύσκολες συνθῆκες διαβίωσης πού περνάει ὁ λαός μας.

Διέκοψε τήν παροχή τηλεφώνου σέ ἕνα θεσμικό πρόσωπο, τό Ν.Π. τῆς Ἱερᾶς Μητροπόλεως, τό ὁποῖον ἐξ ὁρισμοῦ δέν μπορεῖ να εἶναι ἀφερέγγυο

Κατερίνα Στανίση: «Δεν έχω εξασφαλίσει τα γηρατειά μου»

Κατερίνα Στανίση: «Δεν έχω εξασφαλίσει τα γηρατειά μου»

Μέχρι τα ελληνοσκοπιανά σύνορα στη Γευγελή ταξίδεψε η Κατερίνα Στανίση για τις ανάγκες των γυρισμάτων του video clip του κομματιού «Ως τις Πέντε».

«Εκεί ζούνε πολλοί Έλληνες. Η Γευγελή απέχει μόλις λίγα χιλιόμετρα από τα ελληνικά σύνορα. Δεν περίμενα πως θα υπήρχε τόσο μεγάλη ανταπόκριση.

Μάλιστα ο κόσμος συμμετείχε και στα γυρίσματα».

Φέτος τον χειμώνα η τραγουδίστρια εμφανίζεται μαζί με τον Δημήτρη Κοντολάζο και τη Σαμπρίνα:

«Πάμε πολύ καλά. Οι τιμές είναι προσιτές και έχουμε φτιάξει ένα δυνατό λαϊκό πρόγραμμα όπου ο κόσμος τραγουδάει, χορεύει και εκτονώνεται».

Όπως είπε στην Espresso, η κρίση έχει αγγίξει και την ίδια:

«Έχω αναγκαστεί να κόψω κάποια περιττά έξοδα. Δεν ψωνίζω τόσο συχνά όσο παλιά και προσπαθώ να μην κάνω άσκοπες σπατάλες.

Η αλήθεια είναι πως δεν έχω εξασφαλίσει τα γηρατειά μου.

Δεν ξέρω τι θα γίνει αν αύριο δεν έχω δουλειά».

Η Άνιστον και η περιπέτεια με την μητέρα της που δε θέλει να θυμάται

Η Άνιστον και η περιπέτεια με την μητέρα της που δε θέλει να θυμάται

Και οι διάσημοι έχουν τα προβλήματά τους.

Η Τζένιφερ Άνιστον πέρασε μια από τις χειρότερες περιόδους της ζωής της όταν είχε να αντιμετωπίσει την ίδια της την μάνα.

Η Νάνσι Ντόου, το 1996, έδωσε μια συνέντευξη στην οποία δεν μιλούσε και με τα καλύτερα λόγια για την κόρη της.

Μάλιστα δημιουργήθηκε τόσος μεγάλος ντόρος που η Άνιστον όχι μόνο δεν της το συγχώρεσε αλλά δεν ήθελε να τη δει ούτε και στον γάμο της με τον Μπράντ Πιτ.

Φυσικά την απόρριψη αυτή η μητέρα της δεν την άφησε έτσι αφού κυκλοφόρησσε ένα βιβλίο με τίτλο «From Mother and Daughters to Friends».

Το βιβλίο αυτό έφερε μεγαλύτερη ρήξη στη σχέση τους. Μάνα και κόρη ξαναμίλησαν το 2005, όταν η Τζένιφερ Άνιστον χώρισε με τον Μπραντ Πιτ.