Author: GREEK WORLD MEDIA

Ironman MP John Pandazopoulos announces he won’t recontest the seat of Dandenong

Source: Dandenong Leader

John Pandazopoulos won't recontest the seat of Dandenong at the next state ...

John Pandazopoulos won’t recontest the seat of Dandenong at the next state election. Source: News Limited

STATE Labor MP for Dandenong John Pandazopoulos has announced he won’t be standing at the next State Election

Mr Pandazopoulus said he was retiring from 22 years in State Parliament and 26 years in public life, including his time as a councillor and Mayor of the then City of Berwick.

‘Panda’, as he is affectionately known, said it was an honour and privilege to have served the people of Dandenong and surrounding suburbs.

“It’s mostly an area of working people and migrants who are working hard to make a living for themselves and their families, a story similar to that of my parents,” Mr Pandazopoulos said.

“These people rely on us Labor people to look after them, advocate for them, defend their rights and interests and, when in government, deliver for them.”

Mr Pandazopoulos said he was proud of his achievements in office, including the transformation of the Dandenong CBD, EastLink, the Dandenong Bypass, and enshrining multiculturalism in the Multicultural Victoria Act and the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act.

“All of these were achieved through the shear hard work of the many people that I have worked with who shared the vision,” he said.

“I, of course, remain in Parliament until the next election, serving the people of Dandenong and continuing my work on Parliament’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee.”

Mr. Pandazopoulos has served in the Parliament of Victoria for 22 years and he will not be running again in the November 2012 election. He is the longest standing Greek politician to hold a seat in Australian parliament. He was elected to the City of Berwick Council in 1987, and was Mayor of Berwick from 1990-1991. He is also the chairman in the World Hellenic Inter-Parliamentary Association (WHIΡA).

In the meantime, the former Mayor of Monash, Stephen Dimopoulos, announced that he will fight for the nomination of candidate for the Labor Party for the government seat of Oakley.

The Greek Lambros Tapinos, the current Mayor of Moreland announced that he will fight for the seat of Pasko Veil with the Labor Party.

Nick Xenophon calls for Senate Inquiry into GM crop farming

Source: dailymercury.com.au

Senator Nick Xenaphon Senator Nick Xenaphon

CONCERNS over genetically-modified crops are again hitting the headlines as Independent senator Nick Xenophon calls for a Senate Inquiry into GM crop farming and what it can costs their non-GM farming neighbours.

Mr Xenophon is inspired by a case due to his the West Australian Supreme Court next year in which a farmer lost his organic certification after a neighbour’s GM crop spread on to his property.

The organic markets he profited from were now closed to him and he claims 70% of his property was affected.

The inquiry, Mr Xenophon said, needs to review the regulations around GM farming so those unwillingly affected can seek compensation without having to fight an expensive court battle.

“Certainly if someone has to pursue their right through a multi-million dollar court case, it is beyond the means for almost any farmer in Australia,” Mr Xenophon said.

The Senator expects to launch the inquiry once the WA case wraps up.

Turkey refuses to allow Greek Orthodox school unless Athens opens mosque

Source: themuslimissue

Now really? And we want 5,000 churches in the Middle East. Meanwhile Turkey wants to convert their churches into mosques and are even converting the old Greek Orthodox church Haga Sofia into a mosque – which was left as a Museum after AtaTurk abolished Islam from the country.

No Greek Orthodox school until Athens opens mosque, says Turkish deputy FM

No Greek Orthodox school until Athens opens mosque, says Turkish deputy FM

Turkey’s deputy foreign minister has said that Turkey is halting the reopening of a Greek Orthodox school in Istanbul until Greece opens a mosque in Athens.

Turkey’s Deputy Foreign Minister Metin Kulunk has refused to resume the Greek Orthodox Halki Seminary until Greece reopens the Fethiye Mosque in Athens.

“Have no doubt, Turkey has not taken a step to re-open Halki Seminary and it will not take a step until Greece, who did not hold up the promise it gave in Lausanne, opens the Fethiye Mosque in Athens,” Kulunk said in a Western Thrace Turks Solidarity Association meeting in Germany.

Turkey has been demanding the re-opening of the Fethiye Mosque in Athens, the only European capital city without an official mosque, in return for moves to reopen a Greek Orthodox school in Istanbul’s Heybeliada Island, which was closed in 1971.

Calling Greece “a church state,” he questioned why a mosque was not being given permission to exist in Athens while many mosques, churches and synagogues stand side by side in Istanbul.

In October, Turkey’s EU minister Egemen Bagis said that Turkey would be encouraged to reopen the Halki Seminary in Heybeliada if Greece took steps to open a mosque in Athens.

Greece is home to many Muslim communities, both native and migrant, but refuses to grant permission for the construction of new mosques.

The 150,000 strong Turkish Muslim community of the Western Thrace province near the Turkish border have complained that they are being refused to build new mosques as well as rebuild old mosques from the Ottoman era.

They are also refused the right to elect their own religious representation to the Greek government.

Greek commerce has lost 176,000 jobs

Source: Ekathimerini

ESEE survey shows that employment in the sector has undergone a major drop when compared with 2008

Employment in Greek commerce has gone back 16 years, to 1997 levels, as more than 175,000 jobs have been lost since 2008, according to an annual review of the sector by the National Confederation of Greek Commerce (ESEE) issued on Monday.

The price has been heavy not only for salaried workers, but also for employers and the self-employed, who represent about half of those to have lost their jobs lost in commerce over the last five years.

This has resulted from the closure of no fewer than 130,000 enterprises, against the opening of just 45,000 enterprises between 2009 and 2013.

It appears the future will be particularly difficult, as economic analysts agree that it will take at least 20 years for the losses in employment to be recovered, provided that the economy shows a rebound rate of 3.5 percent per annum in the years to come.

The ESEE report showed that employment in the sector declined for a fifth consecutive year to remain below the 700,000-job level for the second year in a row.

The latest data show there are 656,156 workers in the sector, while this year alone 23,194 jobs have been lost in commerce.

The trade sector has lost 176,400 jobs since 2008, with the biggest share of that (47 percent) being employers and the self-employed.

As the director of the Small Businesses Institute of the Hellenic Confederation of Professionals, Craftsmen & Merchants (GSEVEE), Dionysis Gravaris, said, according to a confederation survey, some 30 percent of the homeless in Athens are former merchants or self-employed.

“We’ll need 20 years to recoup our losses as the first couple of years of the rebound will not come with an increase in employment,” commented Panteion University professor Apostolos Dedousopoulos.

Meanwhile the number of overtime hours has grown by 8.5 percent since 2008, while unpaid overtime work has expanded by 76.4 percent.

At the same time the share of part-time work has almost doubled, rising from 4.5 percent five years ago to 8.2 percent this year, according to the ESEE survey.

The prospect of shutting down for commercial enterprises in the coming year is significant, according to the ESEE research, but not as high as last year, as one in 10 companies in the sector feel there is a high risk or a certainty of closure.

Watch As Luxury Passenger Ship Burns In Greek Shipyard

Source: zerohedge.com

If the unfortunate, yet hilarious, sinking of the Costa Concordia cruise liner in January 2012 off the Tuscan coast was the best symbol of the foundering Eurozone, then we are unsure just what the symbolic value is of the fire that raged over the weekend on the Majestic International’s Ocean Countess cruise ship while laid up at a shipyard in Greece.

As Gcaptain reported, the Ocean Countess caught fire Saturday at the Chalkis Shipyard near Chalkis (or Khalkis), Greece, north of Athens.

All five crewmembers were evacuated safely, but as of Sunday firefighting crews were still trying to contain the blaze, reports say.

The Ocean Countess was launched as the Cunard Countess in 1976 and has been laid up at the shipyard for over a year since its last charter to UK-based Cruise & Maritime Voyages ended.

Supposedly, the vessel was scheduled to re-enter service next year. It won’t.

Unlike the Costa Concordia, this tale has a somewhat happy ending:  Vernicos Salvage and Tug reports that the fire onboard the Ocean Countess has been brought under control through firefighting efforts by the crew of their Alexander 3 tug.

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Mayor vows considered response to desecration of Greek and Lebanese Orthodox Church section graves

Source: dailyliberal.com.au

Anna Sarantzouklis holds back tears as she looks in horror at her husband’s desecrated grave. Photo: KATHRYN O'SULLIVAN

Anna Sarantzouklis holds back tears as she looks in horror at her husband’s desecrated grave. Photo: KATHRYN O’SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O'SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O’SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O'SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O’SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O'SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O’SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O'SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O’SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O'SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O’SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O'SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O’SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O'SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O’SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O'SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O’SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O'SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O’SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O'SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O’SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O'SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O’SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O'SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O’SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O'SULLIVAN

One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O’SULLIVAN
One of the almost dozen graves which were desecrated. Photo: KATHRYN O'SULLIVAN

VANDALS desecrated almost a dozen graves in the New Dubbo Cemetery at the weekend, breaking off religious icons from headstones and smashing glass reliquaries.

  • One of the graves that was damaged at New Dubbo cemetery.

DUBBO’S mayor has promised to look into security options to prevent a second spate of vandalism at the New Dubbo Cemetery.

Councillor Mathew Dickerson slammed the recent desecration of almost a dozen graves and vowed the council would take action.

“It’s a very sad fact that the final resting place of people, a very sacred area, is desecrated,” he said.

“I struggle to understand the mindset of the people who vandalised the graves.”

A man who would only be identified as Lonnie for fear of retribution said he was shocked to see a funeral cross thrown in his backyard on Saturday afternoon.

Lonnie, who lives across the road from the cemetery, was mowing the lawn when he sighted the cross intact and called the police.

“I couldn’t believe someone would do such a low thing like that,” he said.

Cr Dickerson said he was not in favour of security guards roaming the cemetery as it was too expensive.

Security fencing would be a better option which would be discussed with councillors based on cost and the frequency of vandalism attacks.

“It’s a sad reflection of our community that we’re contemplating this fact to stop it happening,” he said.

Cr Dickerson said there should not be a need to install a high security fence as it was a sacred area which should be respected.

“My guess is a few people a bit drunk from the pub walked through the cemetery on the way home and caused damage,” he said.

“If this fence goes up it would be difficult enough to get over and (this would) reduce the chances of vandalism.”

The council’s director community services David Dwyer said the current low-height fence was installed to prevent dogs and cattle from entering the cemetery.

He called on the council to install security to keep the vandals out.

“To think someone came to the cemetery and desecrated the graves is disgusting… just senseless,” he said.

The vandals broke off religious icons from headstones, smashed glass reliquaries and scattered items from the graves in the grass near the two areas they struck – one general burial area near the centre of the cemetery and the Greek and Lebanese Orthodox Church section in a far corner.

Police are continuing their investigation and call on members of the community with any information to contact the Dubbo Police Station.

Paul Walker’s Daughter Has Greek Origins

Source: Greekreporter.com

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The famous actor Paul Walker, whose tragic death stunned Hollywood and thousands of his fans all over the world, has a connection to Greece.

Walker had revealed in an interview, that his daughter Meadow Rain Walker, age 16, is part-Greek.

The actor became a father when he was 25 years old while dating Rebecca McBrain, the mother of the girl. McBrain is half-Greek half-Swedish; her father was a Greek with the last name Sotiropoulos.

Rebecca and Paul were never married. In fact they separated right after their daughter’s birth.

McBrain had been living in Hawaii with their daughter. However, they had recently moved to California because Meadow loved her dad very much and wanted to be close to him.

Walker, in an interview he had given to Greece’s MTV show “Movie & Stars,” among other things, said: “Greece is my place. My daughter has Greek origins as her mother is half Greek, half Swedish. Her maiden name is Sotiropoulos.

I visited Greece as well during the summer Olympic Games, back in 2004.”

No battle of the sexes, our brains just wire differently

Source: CanberraTimes

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Wired differently: tracking men’s brain connections at top and women’s beneath.

Women can’t parallel park and men can’t communicate with emotional intelligence. These common stereotypes get used as ammunition in the so-called battle between the sexes.
But, a new study by the University of Pennsylvania provides support for these (often unfair) standards.

Previous studies have looked at brain size; men’s tend to be around 10 per cent bigger than women’s, and composition; men have more white matter in their brains, which is linked to motor skills, while women have more grey matter, which is linked to sensory perception such as seeing and hearing, memory, emotions, and speech.

Nurture, as well as nature, is also known to play a part, affecting the way we act.

But, little research has been done on the way our brains fire and wire differently.

This latest study, to be published in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, has discovered unique sex differences in brain connectivity.

The researchers used high-tech 3D scanners to trace nerve fibre connections in 949 healthy individuals, aged eight to 22.

Interestingly, the connectivity of young girls and boys was similar, but by the time of adolescence, the changes become marked. By the time of adulthood, the differences are considerable.

The male brain showed stronger connections within one hemisphere, whereas the female brain tended to work more across both hemispheres.
The results suggest that male brains are structured for perception and co-ordinated action, the study’s authors said, whereas females are designed for communication between the analytical and intuitive parts of the brain.

“Connectivity in females would facilitate integration of the analytical and sequential reasoning modes of the left hemisphere with the spatial, intuitive processing of information of the right hemisphere,” the authors said. While connectivity in males “would confer an ef?cient system for co-ordinated action”.
Additional cognitive tests by the researchers found “the females outperforming males on attention, word and face memory, and social cognition tests and males performing better on spatial processing and motor and sensorimotor speed.”

It has long been hypothesised that behavioural differences between men and women have developed to be complementary and create harmonious social structures and procreation.
Indeed, in her best-selling book The Female Brain, Louann Brizendine says that while there are always exceptions we shouldn’t be afraid of acknowledging biological differences. “The fear of discrimination based on difference runs deep, and for many years assumptions about sex differences went scientifically unexamined for fear that women wouldn’t be able to claim equality with men,” she writes. “But pretending that women and men are the same, [does] a disservice to both men and women … It also ignores the different ways that they process thoughts and therefore perceive what is important.”

The authors of the University of Pennsylvania study concluded that their findings support the idea that there are developmental neural “substrates” behind this (stereotypical) behavioral complementarity between the sexes.

Το τέλος του κόσμου! – Βγήκαν οι πιθανές ημερομηνίες για το 2014!

Source: onalert.gr

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Οι προφητείες των Μάγια αποδείχτηκαν αστήρικτες. Οι προβλέψεις διαφόρων μεταξύ των οποίων και πολλών Ελλήνων για το τέλος του κόσμου όλο πέφτουν έξω. Όλο το αναγγέλουν κι όλο αυτό…τους στήνει.

Είναι θέμα που … πουλάει αλλά όλοι οι κομήτες και μετεωρίτες, χωρίς να υπολογίζουμε το μετεωρίτη του Τσεμπαρκούλ πέρασαν παρακάμπτοντας τη Γη και … χάλασαν τα σενάρια των εγχώριων “καταστροφολογων”. Μπορούμε άραγε να αναπνεύσουμε με ανακούφιση ότι θα μας αφήσουν ήσυχους κι αν τέλος πάντων είναι να ΄ρθει το τέλος του κόσμου άστο να ΄ρθει;

Κάθε άλλο. Για το 2014 μας … προτείνουν δύο σενάρια της »Ημέρας της Κρίσεως»…

Το 2014 θα έρθει η σειρά των αρχαίων Βίκινγκς να μας εκφοβίζουν με κοντινό και αναπόφευκτο τέλος με βάση τους Σκανδιναβικούς μύθους, καθώς επίσης και με το Όξινο Νέφος που έρχεται από το κέντρο του γαλαξία, καταστρέφοντας τα πάντα κατά τη διαδρομή του.

Να, τι είπε στην <> για ό,τι μπορεί να συμβεί ήδη στις 22 Φεβρουαρίου του 2014, ο πολιτισμολόγος Κ. Βαντίμ Σερμπακόδ:

<>.

Έτσι, λοιπόν, σύμφωνα με το σενάριο των Σκανδιναβικών μύθων, θεωρητικά δεν θα πρέπει να βρεθούμε αντιμέτωποι με το τέλος του κόσμου.

Αλλά ποιός ξέρει; Ίσως σε ορισμένες χώρες, οι άνθρωποι δεν κατάφεραν να απολαύσουν τις ζεστές ημέρες του Ιουλίου και τώρα διατρέχουν μεγαλύτερο κίνδυνο από ό,τι εμείς…

Όσον αφορά το γιγαντιαίο Όξινο Νέφος μεγέθους 16 εκατομμυρίων χιλιομέτρων, που βγήκε από μαύρη τρύπα και έρχεται προς το μέρος μας με μεγάλη ταχύτητα από το κέντρο του γαλαξία, θα μας φτάσει, σύμφωνα με το αμερικανικό παρατηρητήριο Chandra (Chandra X-ray Observatory) ήδη την 1 Ιουνίου του 2014 και θα καταστρέψει όλο τον πολιτισμό.

Οι Αμερικανοί επιστήμονες διαπίστωσαν ότι το «νέφος» αυτό σαρώνει τα πάντα στο δρόμο του: πλανήτες, αστέρια και αστεροειδείς. Με άλλα λόγια, κανείς δεν μπορεί να σωθεί απ’ αυτό το σύννεφο.

Σε σχέση με αυτό δημιουργείται το εξής ερώτημα: «Κατά πόσο γρήγορα θα συντελείται η διαδικασία της καταστροφής του κόσμου μας; Αν πιστέψουμε στα δεδομένα του αμερικανικού Παρατηρητηρίου, η ταχύτητα του «νέφους» ισοδυναμεί με την ταχύτητα του φωτός. Δηλαδή, στην ουσία δεν θα προλάβουμε να φοβηθούμε και να καταλάβουμε ακόμα πώς είμαστε ήδη νεκροί. Ωστόσο οι Ρώσοι επιστήμονες δεν πιστεύουν σ’ αυτή την προοπτική.

Ο αστροφυσικός κ. Μιχαήλ Οντιντσόφ είπε πεπεισμένος στο ραδιορταθμό «Η Φωνή της Ρωσίας» τα παρακάτω:

<>.

Με δυό λόγια, ως τις αρχές Ιουνίου, σίγουρα δεν θα μας φτάσει … Εξάλλου, όλοι περιμένουν ανυπόμονα πότε επιτέλους θα γίνει πραγματικότητα έστω και κάποια μια από τις προφητείες – είτε επιστημονικές,είτε μυθικές.

Elephant Poaching Could Wipe Out 20 Percent Of African Population In Next Decade

Source: Huffpost.com

As many as 20 percent of Africa’s elephants could be killed in the next 10 years if illegal poaching continues at the current rate, according to new data released Monday at the opening of the Elephant Summit in Botswana.

An estimated 22,000 elephants were illegally killed across Africa in 2012, slightly lower than the 25,000 elephants poached in 2011, according to a report by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES.

The elephant killings took place at 42 sites across 27 Africa countries, said the CITES report.

“With an estimated 22,000 African elephants illegally killed in 2012, we continue to face a critical situation. Current elephant poaching in Africa remains far too high, and could soon lead to local extinctions if the present killing rates continue. The situation is particularly acute in Central Africa where the estimated poaching rate is twice the continental average,” said John E. Scanlon, CITES Secretary-General.

The poaching data was released at the African Elephant Summit in Gaborone, Botswana’s capital. The conference on elephants is being convened by the Botswana government and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

In September 2013 cyanide was used to kill more than 300 elephants in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park in the “worst single massacre in southern Africa for 25 years,” said the IUCN in a statement.

Africa current has about 500,000 elephants, according to the IUCN. Elephants in Central Africa are bearing the brunt of the poaching, although high poaching levels in all sub-regions mean that even the large elephant populations in southern and eastern Africa are at risk unless the trend is reversed, said the IUCN.

Poverty and weak governance in elephant range states, together with rising demand for illegal ivory in consuming nations, are believed to be the key factors behind the increase in elephant poaching in recent years.

The elephant summit is being convened to agree on policies to end the illegal ivory trade and secure viable elephant populations across Africa, including strengthening national laws to tackle wildlife crime and enhancing cooperation between countries.