Χιόνια στο κέντρο της Αθήνας 2016
Σε κλοιό χιονιά η χώρα – Στα «λευκά» και η Αττική
Στα λευκά Λυκαβηττός, Ακρόπολη, Ζάππειο. Δείτε περισσότερες εικόνες από το χιονισμένο κέντρο της Αθήνας
Τα χιόνια έφτασαν κοντά στα Χανιά.
Η Μαλάξα είναι ήδη ντυμένη στα λευκά.
BACKPACKER TAX
Working holiday-makers will have to pay 15 per cent tax from the first dollar they earn and forgo 65 per cent of any superannuation earned when they leave the country. They can no longer claim any tax-free threshold.
PENSIONS
The amount of assets (excluding the family home) someone can have before pensions are hit is increasing but pensions will cut out more quickly for those with assets exceeding $375,000 for homeowner couples, $450,000 for single non-homeowners, and $575,000 for non-homeowner couples.
EDUCATION
– New VET student loan program begins, replacing the old VET FEE-HELP scheme. Students can get loans up to $5000, $10,000 or $15,000 depending on costs for a limited range of vocational courses.
– Industry Skills Fund, offering grants to help small businesses train staff, closes.
– The period students from regional and remote areas have to work to get the Youth Allowance is cut from 18 months to 14 months.
– Extra funding to schools for students with disabilities.
– Six research block grant schemes for universities is consolidated into two simpler programs.
AGRICULTURE
– Changes to the way levies for cattle, goat, lamb and sheep slaughters are split between R&D and marketing.
– New melon levy of $0.004 per kilo for R&D and Plant Health Australia membership.
HEALTH
– Mepolizumab (trade name: Nucala) for the treatment of severe asthma listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
– Price cut for PBS prescriptions of Thiamine hydrochloride, used for treating vitamin B1 deficiency.
– Changes to Child Dental Benefits Schedule give children aged between two and 17 access to basic dental services, capped at $700 over two years.
– Increase to amount paid to pharmacists dispensing medicines to Remote Area Aboriginal Health Services.
CHILDCARE
– Trial program offering subsidies on nanny fees closes to new applications.
EMPLOYMENT
– New trial of a Launch into Work program offering training, work experience, and mentoring to prepare disadvantaged job seekers for employment.
ENVIRONMENT
– Green Army program ends, no new projects accepted.
– New grants available for councils, community and environmental groups to improve local parks.
AGED CARE
– Changes to aged-care provider funding, including increasing supplements for rural, remote and specialty services.
– Specialist dementia care units in 31 regions to be set up.
– Rental income from former family home of aged-care residents will be treated the same as pension income tests and the aged-care means test.
WELFARE
– Tougher compliance measures for people receiving welfare payments, including more data matching with tax office information about income.
– All newly arrived migrants have to wait two years before becoming eligible for a range of welfare payments, even if they are family of Australian citizens or permanent residents.
PASSPORTS
– $20 increase to adult passport fees and $10 for children and seniors.
– $54 increase for priority processing of passport applications.
AROUND THE STATES:
NSW
EDUCATION
– Community preschools which enrol four or five-year-old children for at least 600 hours a year will receive a funding boost. Average fees are expected to drop to $22 a day.
– Public schools teachers receive a 2.5 per cent pay rise under a three-year deal struck between their union and the Education Department.
TRANSPORT
– Fares on non-government operated ferry services, such as the Manly Fast Ferry, will rise in line with inflation.
– Toll charges on the Cross City Tunnel, Eastern Distributor, Hills M2 and Lane Cove Tunnel will increase slightly.
ENVIRONMENT
– “Feed-in tariffs” of 60 or 20 cents per kilowatt per paid to households for providing power generated by their solar panels into the electricity grid end as the state government’s solar bonus wraps up.
PROPERTY
– The tax-free threshold for land tax payments rises from $482,000 to $549,000. The second bracket lifts from $2,947,000 to $3,357,000.
– An extra land tax surcharge of 0.75 per cent will come into effect for foreign residential real estate buyers.
VICTORIA
POLICE
– Police will now have the power to impound or crush a miniaturised motorbike, known as a monkey bike, if ridden on roads, footpaths or carparks. Offenders can be fined up to $3109.
– Increases to the maximum penalty for refusing a roadside drug test.
TRANSPORT
– Prices will jump for all public transport users while concession card holders will get a mere 90 cents wiped off their weekend tickets.
CHILD SAFETY
– All organisations working with children will need to meet new Child Safe Standards, with tougher screening for employees and stronger processes to help children at risk report suspected child abuse.
ELECTRICITY
– The state’s five electricity distributers will lower tariffs by up to 3.31 per cent in some areas that could shave about $51 off an annual power bill. However some power companies will raise prices by up to 10 per cent.
PROPERTY
– People who do not live in the property they own will have their absentee land tax surcharges increased from 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent.
AGRICULTURE
– All sheep and goats born on or after January 1 will have to be tagged with the National Livestock Identification System to help trace diseases to their source and quickly contain outbreaks.
QUEENSLAND
SMOKE ALARMS
– All homes will be fitted with interconnected, photoelectric smoke alarms under a 10-year rollout of changes recommended by a coroner following a fatal house fire that claimed 11 lives at Slacks Creek, south of Brisbane, in August 2011.
TRANSPORT
– Fuel sellers will be required to meet targets for the sale of ethanol-blended petrol and bio-based diesel.
POWER
– Electricity rebates will help 157,000 extra families with a health care card save $330 a year.
EDUCATION
– Prep will become compulsory.
TASMANIA
FREIGHT
– Weekly international freight flight from Hobart to Ningbo (China) carrying milk, meat, seafood, fruit and vegetables.
PROPERTY
– Domestic structures like carports, decks and sheds will no longer require building or plumbing permits as long as the work is done by licensed tradespeople.
TRANSPORT
– Government-run Metro buses will introduce urban zone fares costing between $2.64 and $6.90 for an adult. Student concession bus fares rise 10 cents to $1.70.
EDUCATION
– New fees subsidy structure for TasTAFE students.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
457 VISAS
– Migrant families arriving in SA on 457 visas will have to pay a public education contribution fees of $5100 for each primary school-aged student and $6100 for high school pupils.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
FIRST HOME BUYERS
– Grants for new homes up to a value of $750,000 will be lifted from $10,000 to $15,000 for one year
WELFARE
– Metropolitan income limits for eligibility to the Keystart loan scheme increased by $20,000 – a couple who would previously only be eligible if their combined income was below $95,000 could now earn $115,000 and a single person, $90,000.
NORTHERN TERRITORY
Aquatic biosecurity powers will be strengthened and Aboriginal marine rangers will be able to become fisheries inspectors under changes to the Fisheries Act.
Source: News.com.au
Anastassia Ontou after giving birth to her granddaughter.
A 67-year-old Greek grandmother has given birth to her daughter’s baby girl, becoming the world’s oldest surrogate mother.
Anastassia Ontou decided she had to offer to carry the baby after her daughter suffered through seven failed pregnancy attempts.
Mrs Ontou, from a village near Larissa, central Greece, gave birth to the 2.6lb girl on Tuesday via Caesarian section, after a pregnancy lasting seven and a half months.
She said yesterday: “I feel more like a grandmother than a mother. It was an easy decision for me – my daughter was heartbroken after not being able to carry the baby herself.”
Mrs Ontou’s daughter Constantina, 43, said she thought her mother was “crazy” when she offered to carry the child.
“I told her she’s crazy,” she said. “We haven’t cried like this in years.2 Mrs Ontou, said that she had been fortunate enough to have faced few problems during the pregnancy.
Constantinos Pantos, Mrs Ontou’s supervising obstetrician, said: “This is a heroic grandmother.”
He said that “based on international records, this is the oldest surrogate mother who is also a grandmother, based on her daughter’s medical condition.”
Mr Pantos, who heads a fertility clinic in Athens, said he had personal reservations about the pregnancy, but was convinced to go ahead after court in Larissa gave its approval. “Because of the grandmother’s age, it’s the first time such a ruling has been issued,” he said.
The oldest woman to have given birth is believed to be Omkari Panwar, from India, who had a twin boy and girl in July 2009. She claimed to be 70, although she had no birth certificate.
However, according to the Guinness Book of Records, the oldest officially recognised mother is Maria del Carmen Bousada Lara from Spain, who was 66 years and 358 old when she gave birth to twin boys in Barcelona in 2006.
Miss Bousada de Lara died from cancer in 2009, leaving her sons orphaned before their third birthday.
The former shop worker, who was single, sparked controversy over her decision to become a mother so late in life. Her own family called her “selfish and irresponsible” for rendering it so likely that her children would be orphaned.
She admitted lying about her age to doctors in order to receive fertility treatment at a private clinic in Los Angeles, for which she paid a reported £30,000.
Shortly after the birth of her sons by caesarean section in Barcelona, Miss Bousada de Lara defended her decision.”I have wanted to be a mother all my life, but I never had the opportunity, or met the right man,” she said.
Britain’s oldest first time mother is Elizabeth Adeney, from Lindgate in Suffolk, who gave birth to a son at the age of 66, in May 2009. Mrs Adeney travelled to Ukraine for IVF treatment, as clinics here do not treat women aged over 50.
At the time of her son Jolyon’s birth, at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, she said: “It’s not physical age that is important – it’s how I feel inside. Some days I feel 39. Others, I feel 56.”
Source: TheTelegraph
10-year-old Helen Karapidis was abducted 22 December 1988 from her Marrickville home complex grounds by members of the Wood Royal Commission pedophile network.
This child trafficking network included government social workers, Aunties and Uncles program staff, Hillsong architect Ian Longstaff who redesigned their Young St, Waterloo church building, David Young who, with Ian, collected kids to attend ‘Youngies’ youth club, and convicted pedophile and Hillsong staff member John Baxter.
Helen attended Hillsong Kids’ Club. She knew her abductors, which explains why she disappeared so.
Hillsong founding pastor Frank Houston was a convicted pedophile who sought and trafficked children to the Sydney VIP pedophile ring based in Kings Cross boy brothels. Houston was named multiple times to the Wood Royal Commission. These children were sought by Hillsong from low socioeconomic families with single mothers, parents in trouble with the law, and who had been brought to the attention of the Department of Children’s Services.
Helen Karapidis was ritually murdered days following her abduction, during an evening church service, in a secret room that overlooked the congregation at Hillsong Church Young St, Waterloo.
Two children aged 6 and 8 witnessed Helen Karapidis’ ritual murder and reported this to police. The children later won a NSW Victim Compensation claim in court on the basis of witnessing Helen Karapidi’s murder in Hillsong Church. The children also witnessed several other children murdered at that same church.
Police did not investigate the child witnesses’ testimonies, did not conduct forensic investigations at Hillsong Church at Young St, Waterloo. Instead, police targeted the child witnesses and their mother. Case discussion notes from a meeting held regarding this case at the Children’s Hospital in Camperdown, Sydney, and attended by the Department of Children’s Services, stated: ‘Officer John Hesslop said we have concerns about containing the mother.’ Police also targeted Helen Karapidis’ father and tried to frame him for Helen’s abduction. This never stuck…because it was a lie.
60 Minutes reporter Mike Munroe left Channel 9 after the network failed to air this story. The 60 Minutes team recorded psychiatrist Dr Anne Schlebaum interviewing the 2 witnesses. Royal Commissioner James Wood then slammed Dr Schlebaum and dismissed her report which supported the child witnesses. Judge Patricia ‘Patty’ Bergan was promoted to Supreme Court after tearing apart genuine victims, witnesses and their testimonial evidence at the Wood Royal Commission.
The mainstream media contributed to the cover up of Helen Karapidis’ murder at Hillsong Church by refusing to report the truth, and by lying in print about the case and reporting terrible untruths about Helen’s father.
One of the child witnesses to Helen’s ritual murder at Hillsong Church is spending this Christmas in prison. He was recently arrested immediately after his mother spoke with Helen Karapidis’ family and told them for the first time what became of their little girl. He was charged for defending himself after a gang of thugs attacked him. When the victim’s barrister phoned NSW Police for information pertaining to the charges, NSW police allegedly told the barrister to fuck off…
Will keep you posted regarding how the police handle this case. It may be time for us to send the NSW Police Commissioner Scipione a few Christmas cards…
It is anniversary time for the greatest perversion of justice Australia has never seen or heard.
GREEK WORLD MEDIA 