Monthly Archives: September 2014

Για να καταπολεμηθεί η πλαστογράφησή τους.

Η Κεντρική Τράπεζα της Αυστραλίας σχεδιάζει νέα χαρτονομίσματα τα οποία θα είναι «θωρακισμένα» με νέες δικλείδες ασφαλείας προκειμένου να καταπολεμηθεί η πλαστογράφησή του που τα τελευταία χρόνια έχει αυξηθεί.

Σύμφωνα με την κ. Michele Bullock, την βοηθό κυβερνήτη της Κεντρικής Τράπεζας της χώρας, αυτή τη στιγμή στην αγορά κυκλοφορούν 1,3 δις χαρτονομίσματα αξίας $61 δις και ενώ τα πλαστά χαρτονομίσματα που είχαν εντοπιστεί πριν από τέσσερα χρόνια δεν ξεπερνούσαν τις 8,500, πέρσι εντοπίστηκαν πάνω από 18,000 απ’ αυτά.

Όπως ανέφερε η κ. Bullock τα τελευταία χρόνια σπείρες πλαστογράφων έχουν στην διάθεσή του πολύ καλύτερη τεχνολογία γεγονός που σημαίνει ότι τα πλαστά χαρτονομίσματα που παράγουν είναι πολύ δυσκολότερο να εντοπιστούν. «Παρά το ότι το πρόβλημα δεν είναι μεγάλο στην Αυστραλία αν δεν ‘θωρακίσουμε’ τα χαρτονομίσματά μας μπορεί κάποια στιγμή να βρεθούμε προ πολύ δυσάρεστων εκπλήξεων» ανέφερε η κ. Bullock.

Τα νέα χαρτονομίσματα θα είναι του ιδίου μεγέθους και από το ίδιο υλικό με τα σημερινά και θα μοιάζουν εμφανισιακά με αυτά που κυκλοφορούν τώρα αλλά δεν θα έχουν τα ίδια χρώματα και θα είναι «εξοπλισμένα» με επιπρόσθετα ειδικά χαρακτηριστικά που θα κάνουν πολύ δύσκολη την πλαστογράφησή τους.
Όπως ανέφερε η κ. Bullock θα κυκλοφορήσουν παράλληλα με τα σημερινά τα οποία θα αποσυρθούν σταδιακά.

Παράλληλα με τα νέα χαρτονομίσματα η κεντρική Τράπεζα ζήτησε από τον Γενικό Εισαγγελέα της χώρας George Brandis να δώσει επιπρόσθετες εξουσίες σ’ αυτή έτσι ώστε να ενδυναμωθεί η συνεργασία της με την Ομοσπονδιακή Αστυνομία για την εξάρθρωση σπειρών πλαστογράφησης.

Πηγή: Νέος Κόσμος

Ο 19χρονος ομογενής Χριστόφορος Χατζής που δολοφονήθηκε από τέσσερις συνομηλίκους του

Το δικαστήριο, τελικά, απεφάνθη ότι ο 23χρονος David Zefi που μαχαίρωσε επαλειμμένα τον Χριστόφορο ενώ οι Rrok Jakaj, 20 ετών, Dario Stakaj, 21 ετών και ένας ακόμα 19χρονος, το όνομα του οποίου δεν δημοσιοποιήθηκε λόγω της ηλικίας του, τον κρατούσαν αιχμάλωτο, δεν είναι ένοχοι για την δολοφονία του αλλά για ανθρωποκτονία.
Κατά την απολογία του, ο Zefi, παραδέχθηκε ότι μαχαίρωσε τον Χριστόφορο, αλλά είπε ότι δεν γνώριζε πόσες φορές και ότι, στην ουσία, επρόκειτο για αυτοάμυνα καθώς ο ομογενής ήταν αυτός που πρώτος τράβηξε μαχαίρι και τον απείλησε. Όπως είπε, δεν κατάλαβε ότι σκότωσε τον Χατζή και την τραγική κατάληξη του 19χρονου ομογενή την πληροφορήθηκε την επόμενη μέρα. Το τραγικό συμβάν έλαβε χώρα τον Αύγουστο του 2012 στην περιοχή Light Square, στο κέντρο της Αδελαΐδας.

Οι τέσσερις δράστες μετά την ανακοίνωση της απόφασης του δικαστηρίου θα παραμείνουν υπό κατ’ οίκον κράτηση για τις επόμενες 15 μέρες δηλαδή έως ότου ανακοινωθεί η ποινή τους.

Πηγή: Νέος Κόσμος

Το στιγμιότυπο είναι από την ειδική παρουσίαση προς τους ομογενείς δωρητές για τις έρευνες στη Μονάδα Νευρο-Ογκολογίας του Royal North Shore Hospital του Σίδνεϊ

Με την πρωτοβουλία συμπαροίκων, η ομογένεια έδειξε για άλλη μια φορά το κοινωνικό της πρόσωπο, ενισχύοντας αυστραλιανό ίδρυμα στις έρευνες για την καταπολέμηση του καρκίνου.

ιας η κ. Αθανασία Πεπόνη-Μπρισίμη, η οποία διοργάνωσε εκδηλώσεις, συγκεντρώνοντας το ποσόν των $78.500.

Τα χρήματα δόθηκαν τμηματικά, νωρίτερα φέτος στη μονάδα Νευρο-Ογκολογίας του Βασιλικού Νοσοκομείου Βορείων Προαστίων Σίδνεϊ, Royal North Shore Hospital – Sydney Neuro-Oncology Group, που υπάγεται στο Ινστιτούτο Ιατρικών Ερευνών, “The Kolling Institute of Medical Research”.

Σε ειδική τελετή την περασμένη Παρασκευή, οι υπεύθυνοι του Ινστιτούτου ενημέρωσαν τους διοργανωτές και εκπροσώπους των βασικών δωρητών για τη λειτουργία του Κέντρου και τους ξενάγησαν στους χώρους όπου διενεργούνται οι έρευνες. Επίσης, συνεχάρησαν την κυρία Πεπόνη-Μπρισίμη για την πρωτοβουλία της και ευχαρίστησαν πρόσωπα και φορείς που ενίσχυσαν την προσπάθεια.

Η κ. Πεπόνη-Μπρισίμη είπε ότι παρακινήθηκε να διοργανώσει τις ερανικές πρωτοβουλίες από την περιπέτεια που έζησε με τη μητέρα της, η οποία υπέφερε από καρκίνο του εγκεφάλου. Γνωστοποίησε δε, ότι προγραμματίζει κι άλλες εκδηλώσεις εντός του 2015.
Η διευθύντρια των εργαστηριακών ερευνών, Viive Howel, δήλωσε ότι τα χρήματα που προσφέρθηκαν θα βοηθήσουν όλη τη λειτουργία της μονάδας, από τους μισθούς του προσωπικού μέχρι την ενίσχυση των ερευνών.

Στην ειδική παρουσίαση της περασμένης Παρασκευής, παρέστη ο γενικός πρόξενος της Ελλάδας στο Σίδνεϊ, Δρ. Σταύρος Κυρίμης, που είπε ότι είναι σημαντικό η Ομογένεια να αναλαμβάνει τέτοιες πρωτοβουλίες, που την εντάσσουν πιο δυναμικά στην αυστραλιανή κοινωνία.
Παρευρίσκονταν επίσης, η πολιτειακή γερουσιαστής του Εργατικού Κόμματος και σκιώδης υπουργός, Σοφία Κότση, και εκπρόσωποι από το Ιατρικό ίδρυμα της ΑΧΕΠΑ και τον Παναρκαδικό Σύλλογο της ΝΝΟ.

Αύξηση 27% παρουσίασαν οι Ελληνικές εξαγωγές προς Αυστραλία.

Οι Ελληνικές εξαγωγές προς την Αυστραλία παρουσίασαν αύξηση ύψους 27%, σύμφωνα με στατιστικά στοιχεία της Αυστραλιανής Στατιστικής Υπηρεσίας, για το πρώτο εξάμηνο του 2014, σε σχέση με το αντίστοιχο διάστημα 2013.

Συγκεκριμένα, κατά τους πρώτους έξη μήνες του 2014 οι ελληνικές εξαγωγές προσέγγισαν τα Α$100 εκ. (το υψηλότερο ποτέ καταγραφέν νούμερο) σε αντίθεση με τα Α$80 εκ. το ίδιο διάστημα 2013. Εξ’ αυτών ποσοστό περίπου 50% κατέλαβαν οι κωδικοί τροφίμων και ποτών, στοιχείον που αποδίδει ιδιαίτερη σημασία σε αυτόν το δυναμικό κλάδο της εγχώριας ελληνικής βιομηχανίας.

Σύμφωνα με τον Βαϊανό Ωραιόπουλο-Κελένη, προϊστάμενο του Γραφείου Οικονομικών και Εμπορικών Υποθέσεων του Γενικού Προξενείου της Ελλάδας στο Σίδνεϊ, άξιο αναφοράς είναι ότι το 85% των εξαγομένων προϊόντων στην Αυστραλία διακινείται από επιχειρήσεις ομογενειακών συμφερόντων, ενώ αυστραλιανές επιχειρήσεις έχουν σταδιακά αρχίσει να διεκδικούν μερίδιο από την ολοένα αυξανόμενη πίτα των ελληνικών εξαγωγών.

Πηγή: Νέος Κόσμος

Το 18χρονο θύμα. Φώτο: Facebook

Ένας νεκρός και δύο τραυματίες είναι ο απολογισμός συνάντησης νεαρού, ύποπτου για τρομοκρατική δράση, στο αστυνομικό τμήμα του προαστίου Endeavour Hill της Μελβούρνης. Νεκρός είναι ο 18χρονος Abdul Numan Haider και τραυματίες δύο αστυνομικοί μέλη της μικτής αντιτρομοκρατικής ομάδας του αστυνομικού τμήματος.
Το τραγικό περιστατικό συνέβη νωρίς το βράδυ της Τρίτη που ο αφγανικής καταγωγής νέος επισκέφθηκε το αστυνομικό τμήμα, ανταποκρινόμενος σε πρόκληση της αντιτρομοκρατικής υπηρεσίας.

Ο υπαρχηγός της πολιτειακής αστυνομίας, Luke Cornelius, δήλωνε τα μεσάνυχτα της Τρίτης ότι οι δύο αστυνομικοί -ο ένας μέλος της Κοινοπολιτειακής και ο άλλος της Πολιτειακής Αστυνομίας- συναντήθηκαν με το νεαρό έξω από το αστυνομικό τμήμα και, μετά από λογομαχία, ο νεαρός τράβηξε μαχαίρι και τραυμάτισε σοβαρά με αλλεπάλληλες μαχαιριές τον κοινοπολιτειακό αστυνομικό και το μέλος της πολιτειακής αστυνομίας στα χέρια. Εν αμύνη, ο ντόπιος αστυνομικός έσυρε το πιστόλι του, πυροβόλησε και σκότωσε τον νεαρό.

Πηγή: Νέος Κόσμος

Members of the group Aussies in Thess gathered recently for their BYO picnic in front of the White Tower.

As the first – and every subsequent – wave of Greek migrants reached Australian shores, associations and brotherhoods were formed; foundation stones of Greek communities laid around Australia.

It was their same background; the country where they were born that tied them close.

In a reverse phenomenon and many years later, in circumstances different to those of forced migration, a group of ‘Aussies’ united in Thessaloniki.

Their connection – their Greek background and Australian upbringing.

For Greek Australian Anastasia Skliros, returning to Greece was a destiny she couldn’t avoid.

Her father, who migrated to Australia from Lefkada, took her pregnant mother back to Preveza on a ship – for the sole purpose of giving birth to their first born on Greek soil.

Anastasia now says her father’s recipe seems to have worked – it’s not by chance that she has been living in Greece for over 20 years now.

“My family was very Greek orientated in Australia. My father promoted Greekness in our family, we went to Greek school, Greek gatherings – he didn’t allow us to think that we were Australians. I was always drawn to Greece, as a child. Even though we were so far away from Greece, the Greek element
was a strong part of growing up in Australia,” Anastasia tells Neos Kosmos.

“After growing up in Mornington, and finishing my degrees, it was a common thing to go travelling around Greece. On the island of Paros, I met another tourist – a Greek from Thessaloniki, later on my husband.”

Twenty years on, Anastasia’s home is Thessaloniki, where she lives with her husband and two children.

It was several years ago that she felt the urge to finally bring to fruition that reverse phenomenon idea she though about so many times – to bring together all (Greek) Australians in Thessaloniki and Northern Greece.

The group Aussies in Thess was founded in 2011, and after just three years of existence, it now counts over 1,000 members.

“I was feeling the connection with people with common background and experiences similar to mine. I remembered how in Australia our parents used to get together with brotherhoods – so I thought, why not do that here? I had two Greek Australian friends; there must be so many more I thought…

“We just click; we know how we relate to each other. We do differ to Greeks from Greece, we are Greek Australians. We connect because we have this bi-cultural thing going, and we know what it feels like to grow up as Greeks abroad,” she explains.

“I regard the group as my baby. I have met so many great people with whom I share a similar background and whole cosmotheoria – simply because we have the same growing pains and background. We are just Greek Aussies together, when we meet we speak English.”

The group gathers a few times a month, and is a very active one. Charitable events, tavern nights with families, walks for autism – are just a few of the events the group takes part in.

In Anastasia’s words, this is what makes their friendship real.

“This is the whole meaning of the group to me. It’s like group therapy in a way. For what we’ve left behind, what we have here, desires to return or to stay here. We nurture it, as if it was our baby.”

Despite the optimism and love for Greece that keeps Anastasia and other group members there, she tells that due to the recession and over 35 per cent unemployment in Greece, many group members have already moved back to Australia, having spent as much as 20 or 30 years in Greece – a lot of them at an advanced age and as blue collar workers.

Those who leave, Anastasia says, are doing so as they have no other choice left in Greece.

“It’s very difficult to get up and leave and start life from zero at that age. The only reason I would return is for the future of my kids, to give them a better future.”

Other members of the group have their own stand on the issue, Anastasia recognises.

“They want to stay in Greece, but they are afraid whether they will be able to. We don’t know what the situation is going to be like, if we will be able to handle it. We have a bit of a sense of insecurity here – something that is missing from life in Australia – where, from the day you are born, you feel secure and supported.”

For another member of the Aussies in Thess group, Konstantinos Kallianides, it was after he finished grade five that his parents decided to return to Greece – in 1983. They returned to their village of Rizari, in the municipality of Edessa.

Since then, Konstantinos hasn’t been back. He is keen to visit, but has no plans of moving to Australia permanently.

“I really loved it. My parents still love and talk about Australia – it gave them a chance in life. They left their country because jobs didn’t exist, life was hard. They found a better life there. But they wanted to come back and try their luck in their homeland. At that age, they didn’t ask me,” Kon says with a laugh.

“I probably would go back, but at the point of my life as it’s turning now, I’m not thinking about it. I have a wife, children, two jobs – as a firefighter and a farmer. My children have been brought up in Greece, there is no way for me to go back permanently.”

But, similar to Anastasia, Kon says he is losing some of his friends who are moving back in the time of the Greek crisis.

“For some of them it has worked out, coming back to Australia, for others not…

“I guess it depends on what you are looking for in life. Either way you must work very hard. I don’t believe that everything is given to you openhanded in Australia, you have to work and earn.

“Here, I have two jobs, as my wife doesn’t work. The truth is we get paid less and less every year,” Kon explains.

An active member of the group, Kon often makes his way to Thessaloniki to join Aussies in Thess gatherings.

“Anastasia found me, she is remarkable. She keeps us together, and everyone else in the group is like that. We have the same background; we have been to the same places. It’s a great family type of group. I met remarkable people, it’s a perfect bond.”

Similar to Kon, Vicky Matzouranis’ return to Greece was not a choice of her own.

Born in Greece, her parents migrated to Australia when she was just two years old. It was lack of work and poverty that, like many other Greeks, drove them to immigration.

But, as Vicky says, they were dreaming of return since the day they left Greece.

“Myself, as a child brought up in such a beautiful and developed country, which offered me the very best in education and not only that, I was not too enthusiastic about returning to Greece.

“I kept the thought of returning to Australia in the back of my head. My first impression was ‘Where have I come? This is third world!’ Greece was just booming again … and boom it did! Beautifully!”

Today, there are many more reasons that attract and keep Vicky in Greece.

“The culture for one; the laid back lifestyle. The fact that summer is never dull … always somewhere to go and something to see. We work early and arrive home early after our eight-hour shift and still have the day ahead of us to enjoy. We sleep late and socialise a lot and can meet up with friends whenever we want.

“There are many differences between Greece and Australia … climatically and scenic-wise. Life-wise. Night spots and coffee places close in the early hours of the morning any time of the week. Summer is summer and winter is winter.”

Having set up a life for herself in Greece, Vicky is not thinking of returning.

“I am very happy here. I returned to Australia on holiday in 2010 – I don’t think I could live anywhere other than Thessaloniki!”

The founder of the group Aussies in Thess, Anastasia Skliros says her family is still financially comfortable in the Greece of today. What she misses from her other home, Australia, is the security factor.

“I miss the government that takes care of its citizens. My first preference would be to bring my kids up in Australia. We moved back in 2005, but as my husband couldn’t assimilate in Australia, we returned after three months. These are the things that worry us.

“I have a lot of memories from Australia. I regard it as my home, the first home. And that’s how most of the people in the group feel.

“We adore Greece, but Australia is my first home. Life in Greece is beautiful, it’s a magical place. But you have to be care-free to be able to appreciate this magic; you can’t be burdened with everyday struggles.

“After living here for 20 years I think it has made me a better person, I learned to deal with a lot of things I took for granted in Australia, and that has made me stronger. I believe that Greece has a very positive future if it’s promoted properly, and that has to do with the government.”

Another Aussie in Thess, Vicky Matzouranis doesn’t think about return either.

And about the situation in Greece that pushes many of those like her back to Australia, Vicky says they are its guinea pigs.

“Big political games are being played on our backs. Why aren’t we reacting? The time hasn’t come. Greeks have played a significant role in the state this country has been brought to … so they should all just start paying now. The way they vote here, so passionately; friends in high places, sustaining them there – it’s all paid its price and this is the thank you we are getting from those friends in high places.

“The economic situation isn’t a very optimistic one. We are being taxed unfairly left right and centre; our salaries and wages have dwindled very low, below half, speaking for myself, an English teacher by profession in the private sector.

“And yet, these people called Greeks, with their wages and salaries slaughtered by unfair taxing, expenses up to our necks, still find time to have a coffee outdoors, a tsipouraki-ouzo, mingle with friends and smile. This is why I love this country.

“I will always call Australia my home away from home!”

For more information about the group, visit their Facebook page Aussies in Thess.

source: Neos Kosmos

Larger exhibits in Greece’s National Archaeological Museum were buried in the ground during World War II.

On 30 March 2013, engineer Ronald Obermeier went to the post office of his hometown of Rimsting, Germany, holding a parcel that he had put a lot of consideration into before posting it.

He had carefully wrapped its contents the previous night: 73 ancient relics dating from the Hellenistic period to the 4th century AD. He remembered these objects displayed throughout his childhood in a glass cabinet in the family’s living room and his father telling him the fascinating tale of how they ended up there.

“I grew up with them, but one day I decided it was time for those antiquities to go back where they belong,” Obermeier told Kathimerini. He sent the parcel to the Archaeological Museum of Kos, the eastern Aegean island where his father had served as a German naval correspondent in 1942, when the Nazis occupied Greece.

“A building that served as a museum was commandeered to serve as the local headquarters,” he said. “They threw the exhibits out the window. My father gathered a few of the objects and coins and brought them to Germany. After his death in 1996, these came to me and I would now really like to return them to a museum in Kos.”

The looting of this small museum is one of hundreds of stories that unfolded during the occupation of Greece and would never have come to light had Obermeier not taken the initiative.

The only written source concerning antiquities looted during World War II is a 165-page tome from 1946 recounting hundreds of stories of illegal excavations and destruction carried out by all three occupying forces – the Germans, Italians and Bulgarians.

In the prologue, the minister of education and religion, who ordered some of the most prominent archaeologists of the time to compile this record, notes that it is incomplete.

It is this list that formed a springboard more recently for the Culture Ministry’s Department of Documentation and Protection of Cultural Heritage. A group of six archaeologists and historians took the initiative last year to create a fresh record of missing antiquities as well as those that were returned to Greece following the end of the war.

“The list from 1946 was the starting point but we now have the opportunity to use the German archives, which were opened this last decade and provide a plethora of information regarding the events of those years, as well as many other sources,” explained Suzanna Houlia, head of the department.

The ministry has also recently sought the help of Interpol to trace at least 100 of the most precious items found on the list.

The search has already started on the websites of major museums around the world, with a particular focus on exhibits that are of “unknown provenance from World War II”.

The priority has been placed on those objects for which there is solid proof regarding what they are and how they were stolen. Among these are two clay female figurines taken by two Italian officers from a local man on the island of Sifnos, who had been hiding them in his home together with other valuable finds from an excavation in 1935, and two marble grave steles removed by the Germans in 1943 from a collection in Kissamos, Crete.

Any one of these objects that is found will join the list of just 26 successful recoveries, the first of which were made in the summer in 1948.
The first expedition

On May 18, 1948, archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos set off for Rome to retrieve stolen antiquities on the orders of the Ministry of Education and Religion.
As an archaeology professor who “spoke three foreign languages, was well-travelled, with studies in Berlin, and a patriot, he had all those elements that made him the country’s chief archaeologist at the time”, explained Eleni Matzourani, a history professor who, together with Marinatos’ daughter, Nanno, recently wrote a biography of his life using stories and archival material referring to that trip that had never been published before.

Marinatos had the list drawn up in 1946, enough money – in US dollars – and carte blanche to follow his investigation wherever it took him. The most important thing he had with him, however, was the uniform of an army major, a rank he was awarded in an expedited fashion a few months earlier in order to facilitate contact with the allied forces in the search for the stolen antiquities and the negotiations regarding their return.

His trip lasted 75 days and he ran into numerous obstacles, including failing to make the stop he had planned in Berlin as the allied powers invoked all sorts of bureaucratic obstacles to his entry. In Rome and at his other scheduled stop, Graz in Austria, he also had problems gaining the trust and cooperation of army men and even archaeologists.

Marinatos toured museums and universities looking for the objects on the list and thanks to his acquaintances in the international academic community was able to find many, as well as information concerning the whereabouts of others.

His aim in Rome was to find dozens of antiquities stolen from Rhodes in 1940 and to include them in a large archaeological exhibition that was to take place in Naples.

Graz was his second stop and he arrived there in July 1948. He wanted to visit the small Austrian town because it was the home of the notorious Austrian Nazi General Julius Ringel, whose headquarters in 1941 were located at the Villa Ariadne in Knossos, Crete, and who pillaged both the sites of Knossos and Gortyna of a plethora of antiquities which he then shipped to Germany.

When Marinatos arrived there after experiencing the disappointment of Berlin he was dealt another blow: Ringel had fled the town and was wanted for war crimes. His mansion had also been ransacked by Russian troops, who also made off with all of the antiquities.

Marinatos, however, did not give up his inquiries and learned that some of the loot from Knossos had been donated by Ringel to the local university, and he was thus able to trace a number of items. He packed them into three large crates and shipped them to Greece. In September, 1948, he joined these antiquities on their final journey back to the archaeological site of Knossos.

Museums hide exhibits

Shortly after his 1948 trip, Marinatos was appointed Greece’s director-general of antiquities.

As well as the repatriations he also faced the gargantuan task of reorganising the country’s museums, which had been closed down during the occupation and their contents hidden away to protect them from bombardments and looting occupation forces.

Using funds from the Marshall Plan, he hired people for just this job.

The operation to hide the artefacts had started on November 11, 1940, when the management of every museum in the country received a circular containing detailed instructions about how to store and protect their exhibits.

“Early in the morning, before the moon set, everyone tasked with the job would gather at the museum and work all through the day,” the late Semni Karouzou, a member of the committee responsible for salvaging the country’s cultural treasures, wrote, describing the situation at the National Archaeological Museum, where the operation lasted for six months.

Smaller objects were placed in crates and stored in the basements, while larger exhibits, such as the 3-metre Kouros of Sounio, were buried in the ground.

Similar operations were taking place all over the country – objects were hidden in caves on the Acropolis, in ancient tombs, in gardens and even in crypts. Some statues were transported to other parts of the country for safekeeping and the catalogues of every museum’s treasure were sealed in vaults in the Bank of Greece.

So when the Nazis first started to arrive in Greece in April 1941, they found the country’s museums either closed or empty. Throughout the occupation, a special service set up by the German military for the protection of art pushed for the museums to be reopened. The only case in which the Greek side bowed to its demands was at the Archaeological Museum of Kerameikos, where the reasoning given was that it had been built with German funding.

The result of this decision was that during a tour of high-ranking Nazi officers of the premises on November 9 1941, a black-figure plate depicting a dead man was stolen, and remains missing to this day.

* This is an edited version of an article first published in the Greek daily Kathimerini.

source: Neos Kosmos

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and Prime Minister of Greece Antonis Samaras, left, in Berlin. Photo: AP/Michael Sohn.

Greece is ready to stand on its own feet, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said after a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, where he set out how Athens could exit its adjustment program at the end of the year, forgoing the remaining loans from the International Monetary Fund.

“Greece will soon put forward its own framework for continuing reforms in the years ahead,” said Samaras, adding that his government is committed to producing primary budget surpluses.

The European involvement in Greece’s program is due to end in December but the IMF still has more than 15 billion euros of loans to disburse to Athens. Samaras said his government is now in a position to turn down these instalments and end the monitoring of the Greek economy.

“I believe this cooperation will be completed ahead of schedule,” said Samaras in response to a question about whether Greece is seeking a “divorce” from the IMF. “If that happens, it would be a success, not a divorce,” he added, citing the examples of Ireland and Portugal also exiting their programs.

Samaras pointed to the expected return of growth in the second half of this year and the gradually falling unemployment rate as signs that Greece is turning the corner. Merkel also dwelt on this point.

“I can only say, especially to the Greek people, that I know what a difficult time the country is going through, how many people are still unemployed,” she said.

“But the first tender shoots of success from these efforts are visible and we will do everything from the German side to support this.”

Samaras did not go into detail about debt relief apart from saying that he expects the maturity of Greece’s loans from the eurozone to be extended and some other steps, which he did not describe, to also be taken. Merkel said there would be negotiations “regarding the next steps in the coming weeks.”
The impression left by her comments suggests that Berlin will wait for the latest troika review of the Greek program, due to start at the end of this month, to be completed before any decisions are taken.

Opposition parties reacted to the scant results of the meeting in Berlin with scathing criticism.

Leftist SYRIZA declared that the outcome of the talks “deprived the prime minister of the ability to create a pre-election narrative,” a reference to mounting speculation about early elections in view of the leftists’ stated intention to block the coalition’s candidate for president early next year. In a harshly worded statement, SYRIZA referred to the “prime minister’s pathetic image,” which, it said, “undermined himself and the country.”

Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos, for his part, condemned Samaras as a “fawning politician” while the Communist Party (KKE) said the premier’s meeting with Merkel “proved once again that any negotiation within the framework set by the memorandum… will yield painful results for the people.”

Source: Ekathimerini