Day: December 22, 2013

A Melodifestivalen Wedding? Helena Paparizou plans to marry after contest

Source: wiwibloggs.com

A Melodifestivalen Wedding? Helena Paparizou plans to marry after contest

As you all know, Helena Paparizou, the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2005, will participate in this year’s Melodifestivalen, the Swedish national selection. It seems that 2014 will bring her only happiness, as it is highly rumoured that she is getting married to her longtime boyfriend Andreas Kapsalis.

 

THE ROLE OF MELODIFESTIVALEN

The couple has not decided on the dates, as their wedding plans will be affected by Helena’s future in the Eurovision Song Contest. They want their marriage take place in late spring or during the summer. However, dates will change if she wins Melodifestivalen, and the opportunity to represent Sweden at Eurovision in May.

 

WHERE WILL IT TAKE PLACE?

Helena would love to marry Andreas in her birthplace, Oksia, the village in Karditsa (Central Greece) where her father grew up. The marriage can also take place in Aigina, the island where the groom comes from, or Athens, where they both spend a great deal of time.

 

WHO IS THE GROOM?

Born in 1970, Andreas is a successful business man in Greece. He comes from a prosperous family, with two other brothers, both of whom have also found great success. Having studied finance in the University of Athens and technology in Zyrich, he has worked as Construction Site Manager and Project Manager in his father’s company. He has been very close to his brothers, especially after their father died. At the age of 18 he already knew that he was going to have golden future. He knew that the resume was more important than playing sports or having relationships with girls. That demonstrated his focus. Now he promises that he will take care of Helena.

Danforth’s ‘Children of the Greek Civil War’ receives prestigious book prize

Source: bates.edu

Dana Professor of Anthropology Loring Danforth. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Dana Professor of Anthropology Loring Danforth. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Co-written by Bates anthropologist Danny Danforth, the first comprehensive study of two children’s evacuation campaigns during the 1948 Greek Civil War has received the prestigious Edmund Keeley Book Prize.

Published in 2012 by the University of Chicago Press, Children of the Greek Civil War: Refugees and the Politics of Memory was co-written by Danforth, the Charles A. Dana Professor of History at Bates, and Riki Van Boeschoten, associate professor of social anthropology and oral history at the University of Thessaly, Greece.

Based in Brunswick, Maine, the Modern Greek Studies Association awards the Keeley Book Prize to an academic book first published in English and dealing with modern Greece or a Hellenic theme. Children of the Greek Civil War shared this year’s first prize with The Balkan Prospect: Identity, Culture, and Politics in Greece after 1989 by Vangelis Calotychos.

The warring sides in the Greek Civil War evacuated 38,000 children from their homes in the mountains of northern Greece. The Greek Communist Party relocated half of them to orphanages in Eastern Europe, while their adversaries in the national government placed the rest in children’s homes elsewhere in Greece.

A point of contention throughout the Cold War, this controversial episode continues to fuel tensions between Greeks and Macedonians and within Greek society itself.

Marshaling archival records, oral histories and ethnographic fieldwork, Danforth and Van Boeschoten analyzed the evacuation process, the political conflict surrounding it, the children’s upbringings and their fates as adults cut off from their parents and their homeland.

They also give voice to seven refugee children who, as adults, recount their experiences and efforts to construct new lives in diaspora communities throughout the world. A much-needed corrective to previous historical accounts, Children of the Greek Civil War is also a searching examination of the enduring effects of displacement on the lives of refugee children.

“Danforth and Van Goeschoten grippingly tell the stories of thousands of Greek children relocated” during the war, writes K. Dubinsky for Choice Reviews Online. “Amid charges of communist baby snatching and fascist child manipulation, the book charts an astonishingly evenhanded and supremely well-researched course.

“Insisting that refugee children ought to occupy center stage in their own history, the authors support their argument with two chapters of testimony from the historical actors themselves remembering their own childhood experiences,” Dubinsky writes. “This innovative book ends with some insightful thinking about the production of historical memory. Highly recommended.”

Danforth has written three other books, all published by Princeton University Press: The Death Rituals of Rural Greece (with photographer Alexander Tsiaras; 1982); Firewalking and Religious Healing: The Anastenaria of Greece and the American Firewalking Movement (1989); and The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World (1997).

Isolated Greek population could hold the key to scientists’ quest to beat heart disease

Source: dailymail.co.uk

The villagers of Anogia appear to have developed a rare genetic mutation, protecting them from the risks posed by obesity and weight-gain

The villagers of Anogia appear to have developed a rare genetic mutation, protecting them from the risks posed by obesity and weight-gain

A village in Crete could provide the missing link in the battle against heart disease, researchers have found.

The high-fat Greek diet, typically rich in cheese, lamb and pastries, should cause most people health problems.

But the inhabitants of Anogia, and the surrounding area, nestled high in the island’s mountain range, appear to have developed a rare genetic mutation, protecting them from the risks posed by obesity and weight-gain.

A team of researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge have discovered that the variant, which decreases levels of bad fats, is 40 times more common in the isolated Cretan community.

They hope the discovery could be a key piece of the puzzle, which has intrigued scientists and health experts for years.

The protective genetic variant, known as R19X, was first found in the Amish population in 2008.

Project leader professor Eleftheria Zeggini said she is hopeful the protection afforded by the variant could be replicated in other people, to lower the incidence of heart disease across the world.

The study, published this week in the journal Nature Communications, involved scientists examining samples taken from 1,200 villagers.

They found R19X, a genetic variant in the gene APOC3, was far more prevalent in this population than in other European communities.

The variant reduces the level of blood fat, that can increase the risk of heart disease. And it increases the levels of high density lipoproteins, also known as ‘good cholesterol’, lowering the risk of heart disease.

In other European populations the R19X variant is found in 0.05 per cent of people.

But in Anogia and the surrounding villages it is found in two per cent of the population.

A study by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge studied samples taken from 1,200 people living in the area. They discovered a rare genetic variant, offering protection against a high-fat diet, is 40 times more common in the isolated population

A study by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge studied samples taken from 1,200 people living in the area. They discovered a rare genetic variant, offering protection against a high-fat diet, is 40 times more common in the isolated population

‘The Mylopotamos villages residents have the same rate of diabetes as the general Greek population, but do not suffer from disease complications,” said Professor Zeggini, lead author of the study.

‘Genetic studies like this can help us begin to understand why this is.

‘The Mylopotamos villages residents have the same rate of diabetes as the general Greek population, but do not suffer from disease complications.

‘This type of study can increase the pace of new therapeutic treatments against cardiovascular and metabolic disease’

Dr Ioanna Tachmazidou, first author of the study

‘Genetic studies like this can help us begin to understand why this is.’

‘Our work exemplifies the importance of studying these isolated populations,’ said Dr Ioanna Tachmazidou, first author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

‘APOC3 is a gene that is relevant to all populations.

‘This type of study can increase the pace of new therapeutic treatments against cardiovascular and metabolic disease.’

Emmanouil Tsafantakis, from the Anogia Medical Centre, told the Times that while he sees people showing the warning signs of diseases like diabetes, their symptoms rarely develop that far.

He said: ‘There have been no amputations, and nephropathies because of (diabetes) are almost non-existent.’

Dr Zeggini told the paper: ‘We have individuals who have had diabetes for years, but they don’t seem to get the complications.’

She pointed to the example of a patient in his 90s who was apparently healthy, but had a much higher-than-normal blood pressure, recording a systolic blood pressure of 190, where the healthy limit is 120.

A past study of heart disease in the area revealed around 40 of 100,000 men died of ischemic heart disease each year, compared with 140 in Greece.

The researchers believe the remote nature of the community has resulted in the rare variant becoming more common, in the last few hundred years.

Christopher Doukas, 13, finds 16th century Portugese swivel gun on Northern Territory beach

Source: news.com.au

Shipwreck timbers add to mounting evidence that explorers visited New Zealand, Australia, much earlier than generally accepted

Timbers from a shipwreck found in New Zealand have been dated to some 70 years before Captain Cook 'discovered' ...

Timbers from a shipwreck found in New Zealand have been dated to some 70 years before Captain Cook ‘discovered’ the islands in 1769. Source: Supplied

TIMBERS from a shipwreck in New Zealand have been dated to some 70 years before Captain Cook and is just the latest in a string of finds showing ancient seafarers explored our great southern lands – but never returned.

The timbers, from a wreck found in New Zealand’s Kaipara Harbor on the North Island, have been identified as having originated in Southeast Asia as early as 1700.

Captain Cook’s Endeavour encountered New Zealand in 1769.

The find comes just weeks after it was revealed a small canon found on a remote Northern Territory beach likely originated in Portugal before being lost by Indonesian seafarers some time about 1760.

Cook first sighted Australia on May 6, 1770.

 

Christopher Doukas, 13, found a cannon buried in the sand on Dundee Beach while on a family outing.

Christopher Doukas, 13, found a cannon buried in the sand on Dundee Beach while on a family outing. Source: Supplied

Australian historians believe that Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon was the first European to have reached Australia in 1606, closely followed by fellow Dutch seafarer Dirk Hartog.

Legend surrounds what may be an early shipwreck in Armstrong Bay in southwest Victoria. Known as the “Mahogany Ship”, speculation identifies it as a Portuguese caravel. Attempts to relocate the wreck have since failed.

But no such mystery surrounds the location of the wreck in New Zealand.

The University of Auckland’s Dr Jonathan Palmer, who used tree-ring techniques to date the ship’s timbers, is calling for a full excavation of the wreck now buried under some 10 meters of sand.

Dr Palmer told TVNZ his first reaction at seeing the dating results was “Good God, this could be really important It really needs excavation. It needs to be an eminent archaeologist”.

The ship was discovered in 1982 by a local mussel fisherman. The wood he salvaged was later identified as the tropical hardwood Lagerstroemia.

It has only recently been further analysed.

 

Several 1000-year-old copper coins from Kilwa Sultanate, East Africa, have been found on an island off the coast of the North...

Several 1000-year-old copper coins from Kilwa Sultanate, East Africa, have been found on an island off the coast of the Northern Territory. Source: Supplied

Palmer cites Captain Cook’s log books as reporting Maori traditions of earlier shipwrecks as further evidence such a dig would be worthwhile.

Cook recited an account by local Maori of “earlier encounters with Europeans, with the ships having been wrecked and the survivors killed and eaten”.

The exact position of the wreck has been pinpointed through use of a magnetometer survey. While buried in sand, the sand bank itself is no longer under water.

The 107cm bronze swivel cannon found at Dundee Beach southwest of Darwin in 2010 was recently determined to have sat on the seabed for some 250 years.

Teen Christopher Doukas found the light artillery piece buried in the sand during an unusually low tide in 2010.

 

Christopher Doukas and the cannon he found.

Christopher Doukas and the cannon he found. Source: Supplied

“The cannon is one of the most significant historical artefacts ever found in Northern Australia,” geomorphologist Dr Tim Stone of archaeological group Past Masters told AAP.

An Indonesian vessel could have been blown off course and on to Australian shores, he said, and the gun find could represent one such incident.

Metal analysis tests are being undertaken in Australia and North America to try to determine the source of the bronze used to cast the gun.

The cannon isn’t the only indication of such an event.

Five 1000-year old coins from the ancient African kingdom of Kilwa were recently identified after being found in the Northern Territory in 1944.

Christmas beetle numbers on the decline as imposter numbers grow

Source: smh.com.au

Just like Santa Claus, when it comes to Christmas beetles the real thing is bigger, rarer and shinier than the fakes that abound in Sydney’s centre at this time of year.
Experts from the Australian Museum say the Christmas beetles reported in Sydney’s more populous areas are likely two impostors, an Argentine lawn beetle and the native chafer.
”Clearly some people are confusing them,” said Chris Reid, a research scientist with the Australian Museum Research Institute.
There are about seven species of Christmas beetles found in the bushier areas of Sydney, including suburbs near the Royal National Park and Ku-ring-gai.
The impostors are dull brown and about 1.5 centimetres long. In contrast, the real thing is shiny, often an iridescent green or metallic brown in keeping with the season, and twice as large.
To tell apart the species, entomologists look at the insects’ bums, which are easy to see, Dr Reid said. The king beetle, about 3.5 centimetres long, has a dull-green rear, he said. Another large species that reached pest proportions in the 1920s had an orange tufted rear.
The washerwoman species of Christmas beetle has a shiny posterior and is about 2.5 centimetres.
”In the 1920s, there are records of Christmas beetles being so common around the harbour that the branches of eucalypts were hanging down into the water,” he said.
While Christmas beetles are common in rural areas, the washerwoman (a type of scarab) is considered a pest in areas such as Armidale, Dr Reid has not seen one in the inner city in the past 15 years. But he has seen many impostors, which people may mistake for Christmas beetles. The impostors thrive in garden lawns. While they are growing in numbers, Christmas beetle numbers are falling because of the decline in habitat.
The adults mainly feed on eucalyptus leaves and prefer open woodland to forest, thriving in pastures where trees have been left in place. On farmland they can form dense masses on remaining eucalypts, chomping through leaves, sometimes killing their hosts, while their larvae feed on roots, usually grasses.
Correction: The caption on the original version of this story said the Argentine lawn beetle was on the left and the native chafer was on the right, instead of the other way around.

Sydney Olympic in hunt for Euro 2004 heroes Angelos Charisteas, Pantelis Kafes and Sotirios Kyrgiakos

Source: smh.com.au

Three of Greece’s most famous footballers could be playing semi-professional football in Australia next season as Sydney Olympic are on the cusp of signing Euro 2004 winners Angelos Charisteas and Pantelis Kafes plus former national team defensive stalwart Sotirios Kyrgiakos.
Olympic hope to sign them for up to four games each, spread across various stages of the 2014 National Premier League season.
All three have agreed in principle to join Olympic as guest players next year with the view of pursuing A-League contracts.

Kyrgiakos, a centre-back for Liverpool, Panathinaikos and Rangers, is expected to be the first of the three to arrive at Belmore Oval, perhaps as early as late January.
”We’ve had negotiations for the past 2½ weeks and it looks like all three will come at different stages of the season,” Sydney Olympic vice-president Graham Athanaseris said.
The club confirmed it was close to signing a deal with Kyrgiakos but said that it would have to wait until the end of the January transfer period before securing contacts with Kafes and Charisteas.
However, events could make the pair ineligible to play in Australia.
Kafes, a central midfielder, is out of contract, having left Greek club Veria in February. While he had agreed to join Olympic in the latter stages of the 2014 season, he has since attracted some offers to continue his career in Europe.
Charisteas, a former striker for Ajax, Werder Bremen and Schalke, is a free agent, having left Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr earlier this year.
While he is understood to be eager to play for Olympic on a short-term deal at the start of the season in late March, he, too, might be snapped up by a European club during January.
It is understood that the three players are interested in continuing their careers in Australia and are hoping to attract offers from A-League clubs following their stints with Olympic, if all three do sign with the club.
”They’re coming off some significant contracts and they’re players of value who want that lifestyle,” Athanaseris said. ”It’s a win-win situation.”
A new board has recently taken over at Sydney Olympic and its directors are eager to reestablish the club as a leader in youth development, and to rebuild its stature.
The ambitious bid to sign the three Greek players, who between them have 190 caps for Greece and have scored 32 internationals goals, is being funded by three of the six members of the board.
They helped to send club technical director Arthur Diles on a European scouting mission.
”We’re looking at developing young players coming through our club and want to continue that,” Athanaseris said.
”If we can get three or four marquees to add that experience, it will only benefit the development of our youth.”

Greek Parliament passes property tax reform

AP News

Greek lawmakers have passed a law on property tax, as demanded by the country’s creditors, but the ruling coalition of conservatives and socialists has lost another member when a former conservative minister voted against it and was immediately expelled from the party.

The law passed in the 300-member Parliament Saturday, with 152 lawmakers voting for and 143 against.

It consolidates previous taxes and replaces a property charge imposed in 2011, which was paid through electricity bills.

Immediately after the vote, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said that a veteran lawmaker and former minister, Byron Polydoras, who voted against the law, has been expelled from the ruling New Democracy party.

The new law envisages that land plots over 1,000 square meters (10, 764 sq. feet) will be taxed for the first time.

%d bloggers like this: