Category: AUSTRALIAN

Source: News

MORE Victorian children are surviving cancer, with the number of young patients still alive five years after diagnosis at an all-time high of 82 per cent, new data shows.

A Cancer Council Victoria report on childhood cancer shows five-year survival has improved from 68 per cent over the past 30 years, reflecting advances in treatment.

Some of the biggest gains were made in the treatment of leukaemia – the most common cancer in children – for which five-year survival increased from 75 per cent to 92 per cent.

Leukaemias accounted for 38 per cent of all new cancer diagnoses in children aged under 15 years and 44 per cent in children aged under four, with the cancer declining in frequency with increasing age.

The report, to be launched by Health Minister David Davis today, also shows:

■About 150 children are diagnosed with cancer in Victoria each year;
■87 children died between 2008 and 2010 and 37 of them were aged under four;
■The most common fatal cancers were brain tumours (11 deaths), leukaemia (seven deaths) and liver cancer (six deaths); and
■More than 40 per cent of all deaths occurred within a year of diagnosis, and three-quarters within three years.

Director of the Royal Children’s Hospital cancer centre Francoise Mechinaud said improved survival was due not just to advances in chemotherapy, but also supportive care provided to children to treat infections and ensure they were adequately nourished during cancer treatment.

Dr Mechinaud said doctors had also developed highly accurate tools to assess risk in individual patients, particularly those with leukaemia, which allowed them to tailor treatments that would deliver further survival gains in years to come.

But she said more was needed to improve survival rates for other childhood cancers, particularly brain cancer. ”Brain is a significant issue – not only can the tumour be quite aggressive, but there are issues about whether we can do surgery because some areas of the brain are so crucial,” she said.

Cancer Council chief executive Todd Harper said that although cancer was rare in Victorian children, it remained the second highest cause of death after accidents and the most common cause of death from disease.

”The increase in survival demonstrates we are getting better at treating childhood cancers, and provides hope for the more than 150 Victorian children and their families who are diagnosed with cancer each year,” he said.

Source: Hawthornfc

Helen is set to cover 200kms in the The Ride to Conquer Cancer.

Hawthorn Football Club’s Number 1 female ticketholder, Helen Kapalos, is doing her bit to conquer cancer, and you can help!

Over two days on 27 – 28 October, Helen will cover 200kms on the seat of the bike, riding from Melbourne to Healesville and back again to raise money and awareness for the Peter Macallum Cancer Centre.

The Ride to Conquer Cancer® raises money to support life-saving cancer research and education at Peter Mac in Melbourne.

Peter Mac is Australia’s only public hospital solely dedicated to cancer and is a national leader in multi-disciplinary cancer care as well as and a national and international leader in laboratory, clinical and translational research.

One in two Australians will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. In Australia, 43,000 deaths will be attributed to cancer this year and more than 115,000 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed.

The Ride brings together communities of riders, survivors and their supporters for one common goal: to conquer cancer in this lifetime.

Help Helen to go beyond her target by donating today.

Learn more about the Ride at conquercancer.org.au.

Source: News

Forster in NSW (left) and Mareeba in Far North Queensland: incredible images by Australian digital artist Catherine Nelson

AN AMAZING series of digitally manipulated artworks by the Australian visual artist who brought Kylie to life in Moulin Rouge stretches the boundaries of how we see the natural world.

Sydney born artist Catherine Nelson takes hundreds of photographs of a specific location before spending up to a month digitally stitching them together to make one incredible imaginary landscape.

 

Miniature worlds: Sydney Botanical Gardens. Image: Catherine Nelson

Her art works feature Australian landscapes such as the Snowy Mountains, Kosciuszko National Park and Far North Queensland’s Mareeba wetlands, as well as European landscapes.

Nelson’s beautiful transcendental orbs have been described as “miniature worlds”.

 

Miniature worlds: Snowy Mountains. Image: Catherine Nelson

Begun as a simple way to tell many stories in one image, the works are made possible by modern technology such as Adobe’s image editing software Photoshop and the 64GB memory cards the artist uses to store hundreds of high resolution pictures.

Employing Photoshop’s toolbar as her painterly pallet, Nelson’s career shows how creative artists are exploiting digital tools to take visual art in hitherto unexplored directions.

 

Miniature worlds: Forster, NSW. Image: Catherine Nelson

“I’ve always looked at the world with a painter’s perspective”, says the artist from her home in Ghent, Belgium.

Employing a technological version of traditional collage, she takes hundreds of photographs of a particular location with her Canon 7D camera, then stiches them together on her computer to make dramatic large scale images exhibited at 150cm x 150cm and 100cm x 100cm.

 

Miniature worlds: Mareeba, Far North Queensland. Image: Catherine Nelson

After studying paining at Chelsea College of Art in London and Sydney College of Fine Arts, Nelson embarked on a glittering career in the movie industry as a digital compositor on films such as Harry Potter, 300 and Moulin Rouge.

Beginning her movie career in the early days of the CGI revolution initiated by Industrial Light & Magic and Pixar Animation Studios, Nelson likens her time working on feature films to the long apprenticeships of Renaissance painters in the 17th century.

“I was exposed to the latest technologies and fabulous techniques. It was a fantastic training, a brilliant way to build my skills”.

She played a key role realising Kylie Minogue’s unforgettable cameo as The Green Fairy in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge.

 

Miniature worlds: Guthega, Kosciusko National Park. Image: Catherine Nelson

Since 2008 Nelson has combined her expertise as a painter and digital compositor to create wonderful imaginary landscapes.

 

Miniature worlds: The Kings Garden. Image: Catherine Nelson

Showcasing nature’s beauty and fragility, miniature worlds have a particular appeal in an age when many people are concerned by the pressures humanity is placing on the environment.

 

Miniature worlds: Danube Lillies. Image: Catherine Nelson

The artist says that her works are a positive reminder that much of the natural world remains wonderfully wild.

“A lot of people have been writing to say how moving they find them,” she says. “These are very inclusive.”

“People worry about the planet, but I try to present a positive picture of our surroundings and people respond to that optimism.”

Nelson’s first exhibition was shown at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Sydney in 2010, and since then she has been shown around the world at galleries in London, Los Angeles, Paris and Beijing. She is currently preparing for an exhibition in South Korea, with Miami to follow in December.

Catherine Nelson is represented by Michael Reid Gallery in Sydney and Gallery Smith in Melbourne.

 

Miniature worlds: Coast. Image: Catherine Nelson

Simon Crerar is News Limited’s Visual Story Editor, follow him at twitter.com/simoncrerar

Source: Sydney.concreteplayground.com.au

When: Tuesday, 16 October – Sunday, 4 November
Where: Palace Norton St., 99 Norton Street, Leichhardt
How much: $18/15/80 for 5 film pass

Throughout history, people have looked towards the arts to gain a better understanding of major events. Whether it be war or natural disasters, artists have a unique way of grasping the reality and human side of the social, economic and political happenings through their plays, films and music. And now, with Greece under the spotlight, thousands of Australians are set to take part in the 19th Greek Film Festival to get a better understanding of the political and economic unrest and the reality of life for Greek citizens. And with the media’s portrayal of the current crisis leaving a negative view through print and television reports, Australians are hoping Greek films in this year’s festival will shed some light on the human element of the situation.

Nia Karteris, chair of the Greek Festival of Sydney, says the Greek Film Festival is taking the negative portrayal of Greece and turning it into a positive by promoting cinema to the masses. She says that the Australian public – not just the Greek community but non-Greeks – are interested in seeing the human side of the crisis and the reality of life in Greece. “[The Greek Film Festival] shows the reality of what is really happening because what they are reading and what they are seeing on mainstream media is not true to the facts,” explains Karteris adding it “gives [the public] the opportunity through the eyes of the camera to see the reality of the life of people of their age in Greece and how the crisis is impacting their life”.

Penny Kyprianou, director of the Greek Film Festival in Melbourne echoes this sentiment. “People are interested to see how these filmmakers are interpreting what’s going on in Greece,” she says. “We are seeing the current situation making its way into a lot of filmmakers’ scripts and we’ve even got a couple of documentaries that are talking specifically about the situation at the moment, the rioting and those aspects of the crisis.” The documentary Children of the Riots is one such example. Directed by Christos Georgiou; the documentary centres on the death of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos.

He was killed by police while on a seemingly safe pedestrian street with his friends on a Saturday night. His death prompted thousands of young people to take to the streets in riots that lasted three weeks, setting Athens ablaze and consuming a nation in violence and chaos. Three years later, the children who witnessed his murder and took part in the riots, reflect on their lives, and the changes following their close involvement in the social conflict.

Whereas the feature length documentary Krisis, is a time capsule of Greek life during the IMF crisis through the perspective of 14 of Greece’s leading journalists and photojournalists who all take different angles to highlight Greece’s most crippling financial crisis. Mainstream interest in Greece has seen audiences at the Greek Film Festival grow in numbers over the past two years. But not only with Greece at the forefront of everyone’s consciousness, the calibre of movies being delivered by Greek directors and the sudden increase in Greek Weird Wave cinema, has seen an interest in Greek cinema by aficionado’s worldwide.

Both Karteris and Kyprianou agree that the quality and calibre of films that are coming out of Greece has definitely increased. “There are far more dramas and stronger documentaries and there’s a shift from the traditional comedies that people may have remembered from previous years, and what they have coined as the new Greek Weird Wave is in my opinion breaking the convention of what people may expect from Greek cinema and it’s far more exciting,” Kyprianou tells Neos Kosmos.

“It’s not representing a stereotype or this perfect representation of Greece. “19 years ago you would see the same directors, now you are seeing younger people who are really identifying with the camera and the subject,” says Karteris, “films that aren’t scared to tackle the hard issues, or aren’t mainstream blockbusters.”

And the fact that traditional funding in Greece has dried up for artists due to the economic crisis has forced filmmakers to opt for an independent route to explore their art. Without the boundaries of production houses they have become more free to express their opinions and views. The audience at the Greek Film Festival have also shifted, and Karteris – who has worked on the Greek Film Festival as a volunteer for 19 years – says when it started the medium age for the audience was 60 plus, and was made up of first generation Greeks; now it’s the younger second, third and even fourth generation Greeks taking part.

“The younger Greeks in Australia understand their culture and the motherland and they want to be involved,” says Karteris, adding the younger generation choose to travel to Greece to stay connected with their heritage. And this connection between Greece and its diaspora can be seen by looking at the program itself. When the film Dogtooth first screened at the Greek Film Festival in Australia, it hadn’t premiered in Greece.

The same with the film Jerks this year, which will be premiered in Australia before it is viewed by Greek audiences showing the relationship between the two countries. But it’s not only Greek films that are getting a nod at the festival, the Australian movie Dead Europe – based on the Christos Tsiolkas novel – will feature as the closing night film of the program at all four Greek Film Festival’s around Australia.

The Greek Film Festival in Melbourne will also pay homage to the late filmmaker Anna Kannava on Thursday 1 November by launching her novel Stefanos of Limassol. This book has been released posthumously in honour of Anna’s unwavering commitment to life and creativity. The book will be launched prior to the film session and will be available to purchase at the cinema.

A tribute to Theo Angelopoulos will be part of the festival with the screening of Landscape in the Midst. Another highlight of the festival is the Student Film Festival open to all students of Greek in Australia. Now in its third year, students learning Greek from primary, secondary and a university level will showcase their four minute shorts on 4 November. They will be screened and awarded that day.

The 19th annual Greek Film Festival will kick off in Sydney on Tuesday 16 October and Melbourne Wednesday 17 October with a program to tantalise and whet the appetite of all film goers. The festival will also venture to Adelaide and Brisbane to make sure no film lover in Australia misses out on what is sure to be the best line up of film from Greece, and Cyprus and from Greek Australian’s who are making their mark in the film industry. From writers to producers, to actors, everyone gets a nod in this annual love affair with all things Greek and film.

For more information and programs for Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane and to purchase tickets visit www.greekfilmfestival.com.au/index.php

Source: NewcastleHerald

Stockton beach disappearing

MILLIONS of tonnes of sand have been stripped from the Hunter’s iconic Stockton Beach in recent months resulting in the most dramatic change to its shape in four decades.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service is considering introducing camping restrictions over summer to protect visitors from high tides that now reach several hundred metres into the rear dune area.

A barrage of fierce storms since June has destroyed most of the frontal dune on the 22 kilometre beach that stretches from Stockton to Birubi.

‘‘The beach is lower and steeper now,’’ National Parks and Wildlife Service regional manager Robert Quirk said yesterday.

‘‘The fundamental change for people driving on the beach is that for two hours either side of high tide you can’t traverse the beach. So when we get the king tides in summer it’s going to be really challenging.’’

The southerly that hit the beach in June is estimated to have done equivalent damage to the beach as the famous 1974 Sygna storm.

Several follow-ups have prevented the beach from rebuilding itself.

‘‘We were really lucky in the June storm because no one was camped on the beach. One of the hut owners in Tin City actually woke up with the waves breaking on his hut,’’ Mr Quirk said.

He said access to camping areas, which are presently closed, was under review for the summer holiday period. ‘‘Last weekend it was a 3 metre sea on a 1.6 metre tide and it broke through the frontal dune in about 25 places, he said.

‘‘They are all the places where more recently people have had tents pitched.’’

The storms have also exposed a large area of remnant soil containing Aboriginal cultural material.

National Parks and Wildlife Service officers are working with Worimi Aboriginal owners and archaeologists to protect the sites.

University of NSW coastal geomorphologist Dr Rob Brander said the Stockton Beach erosion was symptomatic of La Nina, which has been the dominant weather cycle for the past five years.

‘‘When you have the frequency of storms we have had in the last few years it [erosion] just gets exacerbated,’’ he said.

‘‘We are entering into a El Nino event where we tend to get less storms and beaches tend to enter into a recovery phase.’’

Dr Brander said the breakwalls on either side of the entrance to the Hunter River had made Stockton particularly susceptible to erosion.

‘‘Stockton has suffered because of the large trading walls coming out of the Hunter River,’’ he said.

‘‘There’s a reason why Nobbys Beach exists; all of that sand should have been heading up the coast.’’

Source: ABC

Palaeontologists think climate may have played a bigger role than they earlier thought in a giant marsupial becoming extinct.

They have been working to recover a diprotodon skeleton in the mid-north of South Australia.

It is hoped there will be a complete fossilised skeleton once the work has been completed on a sheep station in the Burra region.

The giant wombat-like creature is believed to have died about 50,000 years ago.

Rod Wells from the South Australian Museum said the sediment around the bones indicated the climate was very dry and windy at the time the creature died.

“That suggests they were sort of living in rather harsh conditions and one starts to wonder whether climate may be playing a fairly important role in their extinction, not necessarily the sole role but a more important role than has been given credit to in the past,” he said.

Associate Professor Wells says about 500 hours of painstaking work had already been done, but the retrieval effort was only about half finished and more volunteers to help would be welcome.

“You just walk around the museum and see these beautiful displays and you know it’s an assumption that they just sort of dug it out of the ground and glued it together, but there’s a lot more work that goes into it than that,” he said.

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Ανακοίνωση Τύπου
19 Σεπτεμβρίου 2012

Πιο καθαρή, πιο γρήγορη, πιο αθόρυβη – Η νέα υπηρεσία αποβλήτων της Πόλης του Canterbury
[City of Canterbury]

Ο Δήμαρχος του Δήμου Κάντερμπερι [City of Canterbury], Δημ. Σύμβουλος Brian Robson, είπε ότι προσβλέπει οι κάτοικοι να Πετούν Λιγότερα, ν’ Ανακυκλώνουν Σωστά, να Κάνουν το Μέλλον Λαμπρό καθώς η νέα υπηρεσία απορριμμάτων του Δήμου λειτουργεί πλέον πιο αποτελεσματικά.

«Η νέα υπηρεσία αποκομιδής απορριμμάτων της τελευταίας λέξης της τεχνολογίας έχει γίνει καλά αποδεχτή από τους κατοίκους της περιοχής, αλλά τώρα τους χρειαζόμαστε να σκεφτούν διαφορετικά για τ’ απορρίμματα και την ανακύκλωση για μεγιστοποίηση των δυνατοτήτων της υπηρεσίας,» είπε ο Δήμαρχος Brian Robson.

«Η ανακύκλωση είναι ένας από τους καλύτερους τρόπους για τους κατοίκους της περιοχής να επιφέρουν θετικό αντίκτυπο στον κόσμο στον οποίο ζουν.

«Η ανακύκλωση είναι σημαντική τόσο για το φυσικό περιβάλλον όσο και για εμάς, κι έτσι πρέπει να συνεχίσουμε να δρούμε για να διασφαλιστεί ότι η κοινότητα που θα αφήσουμε πίσω εξακολουθεί να είναι ένα εξαιρετικό μέρος για να ζει κάποιος για εκείνους που έρχονται μετά από εμάς.

«Η νέα υπηρεσία αποκομιδής συνεχίζει τη δέσμευση να διατηρήσουμε και να προστατεύσουμε το τοπικό περιβάλλον μας και επιθυμούμε να διασφαλίσουμε ότι οι κάτοικοι μας Πετούν Λιγότερα, Ανακυκλώνουν Σωστά, Κάνουν το Μέλλον Λαμπρό.

«Ο Δήμος σε συνδυασμό με την επιμορφωτική ομάδα Cleanaway για να τρέξει το νέο επιμορφωτικό πρόγραμμα Απορριμμάτων για την πρωτοβάθμια σχολική εκπαίδευση για να εξασφαλιστεί ότι η νεότερη γενιά μας γνωρίζει τη σημασία της ανακύκλωσης.

«Μέχρι στιγμής η επιμορφωτική ομάδα Cleanaway έχει επισκεφθεί μια σειρά από τοπικά σχολεία πρωτοβάθμιας εκπαίδευσης και παρείχε εργαστήρια σχετικά με τα απορρίμματα, την ανακύκλωση και την πρόληψη των απορριμμάτων.

«Ο Δήμος έχει επίσης ένα λειτουργό ανάκτησης πόρων που απασχολείται πλήρως για να βοηθά στην παρακολούθηση της ορθής χρήσης των κάδων ανακύκλωσης στην περιοχή και να βοηθά στην μείωση της μόλυνσης από το υλικό που συλλέγουμε.

«Το σύστημά μας αποκομιδής απορριμμάτων σε τρεις κάδους (κόκκινο – για γενικά σκουπίδια, κίτρινο – για ανακυκλώσιμα υλικά και πράσινο – για τα απορρίμματα κήπων) έχει μειώσει σε ετήσια βάση την ποσότητα των σκουπιδιών που αποστέλλονται σε χώρους υγειονομικής ταφής.

«Με τη χρήση των κίτρινων κάδων ανακύκλωσης και των πράσινων κάδων για φυτά του κήπου έχουμε καταφέρει σωστά να μεταφέρουμε το 42% των απορριμμάτων μας μακριά από τις χωματερές μας. Αυτό είναι ένα μεγάλο αποτέλεσμα, αλλά τώρα είναι η ώρα να αρχίσουμε να κάνουμε περισσότερα.

«Ο Δήμος συνεχίζει να επενδύει χρόνο και χρήματα για να διασφαλιστεί ότι προσέχουμε το περιβάλλον της περιοχής μας, έτσι τώρα είναι η στιγμή για όλους τους κατοίκους να συμμετέχουν πιο ενεργά και να Πετούν Λιγότερα, ν’ Ανακυκλώνουν Σωστά, να Κάνουν το Μέλλον Λαμπρό!» είπε ο Δήμαρχος.

 o

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Media Release
19 September 2012

Cleaner, Faster, Quieter – The City of Canterbury’s New Waste Service

The Mayor of the City of Canterbury, Cr Brian Robson, said he is looking for residents to Waste Less, Recycle Right, Make the Future Bright as the City’s new waste service kicks into top gear.

“Our new state-of-the-art waste collection service has been well received by local residents but now we need them to think differently about waste and recycling to maximise the service’s potential,” Mayor Brian Robson said.

“Recycling is one of the best ways for local residents to have a positive impact on the world in which they live.

“Recycling is important to both the natural environment and us, so we must continue to act to ensure that the community we leave behind is still a great place to live for those that come after us.

“The new collection service builds on Council’s commitment to preserve and protect our local environment and we want to ensure our residents Waste Less, Recycle Right, Make the Future Bright!

“Council has combined with Cleanaway’s education team to run the new Waste primary school education program to ensure our youngest generation knows the importance of recycling.

“So far Cleanaway’s education team have visited a number of local primary schools and provided workshops on waste, recycling and litter prevention.

“Council also has a full time resource recovery officer to help monitor the correct use of recycling bins in the area and help to reduce contamination in the material we collect.

“Our three-bin waste collection system (red – for general garbage, yellow – for recyclables and green – for garden waste) has annually reduced the amount of rubbish being sent to landfill.

“By using the yellow recycling bins and green garden vegetation bins correctly we have managed to divert 42% of our waste from landfill; that is a great result but now is the time to start doing more.

“Council continues to invest time and money to make sure that we look after our local environment so now it is time for all resident to come on board, and Waste Less, Recycle Right, Make the Future Bright!” the Mayor said.