Daily Archives: October 15, 2014

His design was influenced by corrugated iron in the outback.

First featured in Neos Kosmos two weeks ago, Sydney designer Christopher Ditsas was pipped at the post in the commercial television competition.

Sydney designer Christopher Ditsas has fallen at the final hurdle in his quest to have his dress design feature at the 2014 Miss Universe pageant.

The winning design of ‘The Elucent Skincare National Costume Competition’, run via Channel 7’s Sunrise program, will be worn by Australia’s representative at the pageant.

He was told late last week that he had not made the final cut.

Ditsas told Neos Kosmos that despite the disappointment he was proud of his uniquely Australian design – a prerequisite for entering.

“You know it’s nice to see something for your efforts and I really believed in my design but I guess the people vote as they see fit so perhaps this wasn’t
Australian enough or maybe not as obvious enough, who knows?”

He said he would continue with his full-time job as a chef, and doesn’t have any immediate plans for design projects, but is keeping his options open.

“I’m keeping in touch with the people from the pageant, they probably want me to re-enter next year – they’ve more or less indicated so, and we’ll see how it goes,” Ditsas said.

“It was a fun and enjoyable experience. You want to win, naturally, but hopefully better luck next time and who knows, maybe I can approach different pageants or different competitions and see where it takes me from there.”

Ditsas praised the winning design as a “well-thought out” and “well executed” deserving piece, inspired by Australia’s indigenous culture.

source: Neos Kosmos

Panagia Soumela in Trapezounda.

In a journey that coincided with the third historic liturgy at Panagia Soumela in Trapezounda by the Ecumenical Patriarch, members of Melbourne’s Greek Australian community recently made a pilgrimage to Constantinople (modern day Istanbul, Turkey).

Bishop Ezekiel of Dervis concelebrated with Patriarch Bartholomew and made the visit with accompanying members – Father Emmanuel from Perth, Father Stavros from Nunawading, Father Eustathios from Brunswick, and Melbourne’s Greek community members Stelios Koukouvitakis and Eugenia and Dennis Vandoros.

The journey, which took place from 9 to 22 of August, began in Constantinople. The group visited the Ecumenical Patriarchate and His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, engaging in a conversation about his life in Constantinople.

Mr Koukouvitakis says he remembers vividly the Patriarch’s last visit to Australia 10 years ago.

“Instead of welcoming him they threw lemons at him. Some newspapers called him the Turk Patriarch. He lives under captivity, he is more Greek than me or you,” Mr Koukouvitakis says.

“Think about what it would be like to be in some place where everybody is watching what you are doing. His life is not the best possible, but we are lucky because the Turkish government can’t touch him.”

The Patriarch has over 30 churches under his responsibility which he must keep open. If that’s not the case, the Turkish government will take control over them.

Today, there are only a handful of Greek Orthodox Christians left in Turkey and most are elderly.

“He has to stay there. He would never agree to leave the place where he and his grandparents were born.”

Mr Koukouvitakis believes he is very lucky to have met the Patriarch. He describes him as a simple man, who talks to everybody. He also hopes that the Greeks of Melbourne will see the Patriarch again in the future.

In Constantinople, the group of Australian pilgrims visited Hagia Sophia, once a church and a mosque and today – a museum.

Mr Koukouvitakis was disappointed to see the damage that had been done to the icons.

“I was proud as a Greek to see what our fathers built there, this great building and museum. However, I was annoyed when I went inside to see that they had turned the church into a mosque.”

The journey took them to Panagia Vlahernon, a church in the middle of Constantinople.

For the pilgrims, it was an exciting experience, as they met with many other visitors from Greece who all sang Upermaho (O, invincible champion) in Greek. For Mr Koukouvitakis it was a humbling experience.

From there, they visited the Theological School of Halki which has been closed down to this day by the Turkish government. As a consequence the church can’t train new priests, potential new patriarchs, who under Turkish law have to be born in Turkey.

The experience of being at the Liturgy in Trapezounda was ecstatic, says Mr Koukouvitakis. It is not the same as hearing about it or seeing it in photos.
“We were very excited to be at Panagia Soumela.

“Some churches had been turned into museums and to go in and venerate the icons you had to pay. Others were turned into mosques for Islamic purposes. Not even one Christian, they were all gone.”

He says the entire experience made him feel proud as a Greek but also very depressed about what the Greek people had lost.

Within his mixed feelings, there is a sympathy towards the Turkish people but also anger for what the Turkish government has done to the Greeks.

“With hate they destroyed icons in the church.

“I went to a place of my dreams, I’m happy for what my people did there, and I would go again. I saw a lot of things but I did not see any [Greek] life there.”

For another pilgrim, Eugenia Vandoros, the meeting with the Patriarch was a mind blowing experience.

“He can make whoever he speaks to feel comfortable, he can relate to anyone. It was mind blowing meeting him, I’ll never forget it.

“With the Divine Liturgy being by invite only, we felt privileged that we were able to attend. For me, it was very emotional,” Ms Vandoros says.

“I felt out of place, but I had this inner strength.

“We went to Cappadocia and visited its churches. Visiting these places and these churches and seeing icons that were vandalised and disrespected – coming from a Greek Orthodox perspective, it was the hardest thing to deal with. By the end of the tour it was like I couldn’t walk into another of these places, spiritually it was very hard.”

*Peter Dalambiras is a journalism student at Deakin University.

source: Neos Kosmos

The Amphipolis mural.

Archaeologists should know this week whether a third figure is depicted in the mosaic found in the tomb being excavated in Ancient Amphipolis, according to a top Culture Ministry official.

Speaking to Skai TV this week, Culture Ministry General Secretary Lina Mendoni said that efforts to uncover the two sides of the mosaic should be completed in a couple of days.

The mosaic was discovered last week in the tomb’s third chamber. Archaeologists have yet to discover the identity of who was buried in the tomb, with Mendoni saying that there may even be more than four chambers.

“It is not clear if the next chamber will be the last one,” she said.

The mosaic, three meters long and 4.5 meters wide, depicts a horseman with a laurel wreath driving a chariot drawn by two horses and preceded by the god Hermes. According to a Culture Ministry announcement, Hermes is depicted here as the conductor of souls to the afterlife.

The mosaic is made up of pebbles in several colours: white, black, grey, blue, red and yellow. A circular part, near the centre of the mosaic, is missing, but authorities say enough fragments have been found to reconstruct most of it.

The ministry says that archaeologists have dated the mosaic to the last quarter of 4th century BC (325-300 BC, consistent with their belief the grave contains the remains of a contemporary of Alexander the Great, the ancient Greek king of Macedonia who conquered the Persian Empire and reached present-day India, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan in a whirlwind campaign from 334 to 323 BC). The grave may be that of a relative or general of Alexander’s, archaeologists have speculated.

Alexander, who died in Babylon in present-day Iraq at age 32 in 323 BC, is believed to have been buried in Egypt. His tomb hasn’t been found.

Source: Kathimerini

Last to go: Nikolas Kondos bought this North Fitzroy property in 1958. It sold this week for $1.3m. Photo: Nelson Alexander.

With a keen eye for an appreciating asset, over the past decades Nik bought at least one property every year and so developed a portfolio that had few equals. It all started with some advice from a neighbour.

“I had a Jewish bloke next door to my business and he said ‘from now, if you want to get rich, buy properties but don’t sell them’,” Mr Kondos told Fairfax Media this week.

“‘Don’t work for the government, don’t work for the agents. Keep them until the end’, so that’s what I did.”

And the end has finally come. This week Nik’s journey as one of Australia’s most successful self-made property investors is complete.

He sold his last asset – a six-bedroom house in Holden Street, North Fitzroy. Tenanted continuously for 56 years, the property has been earning Nik a handy $50,000 per annum in rent, but the hammer fell at a boardroom auction on Wednesday for just over $1.3m.

Auctioneer Tom Alexiadis said that Nik had adhered to some basic principles to build up his prolific portfolio.

“When you’ve got some money just buy, nothing really fancy, but buy in good areas and for rental income.

“It’s surplus to him now, so what he’s doing is setting up his family and grandkids.”

source: Neos Kosmos

Eye in the sky: an RAAF officer prepares for his mission on a E-7A Wedgetail Warning and Control aircraft over Iraq. Photo: AAP/Australian Department of Defence, Corporal Max Bree.

The latest polling shows that public support for the Coalition government is at its highest for almost nine months, and rose to 47 per cent (up 1.5 per cent) but still trails the ALP at 53 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.

According to this week’s Morgan Poll, if an election was held now, the ALP would win, based upon the voting intentions of an Australia-wide cross-section of 3,151 Australian electors aged 18+ over the last two weekends.

Primary support for the Coalition was up 1.5 per cent to 40 per cent, while ALP support fell 2.5 per cent to 35 per cent. Support for other parties shows The Greens were at 12 per cent and the Palmer United Party (PUP) at 3.5 per cent.

Political analyst Dr Nick Economou told Neos Kosmos that the upward trend for the government should come as no surprise.

“It’s improving its position. Going to war is one of the few areas for national government that’s not subjected to constitutional constraint in Australia,” said the Monash University lecturer.

“It panders to the egos of Australian national political leaders and gives them an opportunity to strut the world stage and make a contribution to great international events.”

Dr Economou says Labor would have steered an identical course on Australia’s second chapter of military involvement in Iraq, which has so far entailed the deployment of eight RAAF F/A 18 Super Hornets to the region, along with surveillance and refuelling aircraft.

“There’s a great deal of support for what’s happening within the Labor Party, which can be quite socially conservative on a number of issues. People who have a problem with this have long gone from Labor, they’re now in the Greens.”

Meanwhile, Dr Economou says the Abbott government’s actions should not be seen merely as a continuation of conservative Australian governments “seeking to align Australia to the geo-strategic ambitions of our most powerful ally”.

“There is a moral argument too about Australia’s involvement in this, in that we participated in the destabilisation of the region which has led to these events, so we have a moral obligation to be part of whatever solution is decided upon.”

On Thursday, the RAAF attacked their first Islamic State target in Iraq, dropping two bombs on what Defence described as an IS ‘facility’.

Australia is close to reaching an agreement with the Iraqi government for troops to deploy on the ground in the country. The deal will allow the deployment of a 200-member unit of special forces to assist Iraqi security forces in the fight against Islamic State. Tony Abbott has left open the possibility of Australia joining a ground campaign against IS militants “down the track”.

source: Neos Kosmos

A severe storm has cut power to tens of thousands of properties and prompted dozens of flood rescues in New South Wales.

The wild weather diverted flights, closed roads, brought down trees and resulted in an unseasonal snow storm in the Blue Mountains.

The NSW State Emergency Service (SES) said flash flooding trapped some people in their cars and homes after the storm hit Sydney and the south coast, bringing torrential rain and gale force winds.

“We’ve had, overnight, around 1,300 calls for emergency help,” SES spokesman Phil Campbell said.

“Seventy-three of those were for flood rescues, which shows it was a very dangerous situation out there.”

Superintendent Paul Johnstone from the NSW fire service said extra crews were called in to help with rescues.

“We had wires down, trees on wires, it’s an extraordinarily busy night for fire crews,” he said.

Superintendent Johnstone said lightning caused a house fire at Pennant Hills, in Sydney’s north.

About 20 firefighters fought another house fire at Guildford, but it was unclear what sparked that blaze.

“This is at the height of this storm and tempest damage that we were responding to,” Superindendent Johnstone said.

“We had four fire engines respond to that fire and that house was well alight as crews arrived.”

In the Blue Mountains, which was devastated by bushfires this time last year, a snowstorm cut power to three major power stations and forced the closure of roads and the train line towards Sydney.

The weather bureau said the severe storm was now slowly moving up the state’s coastline towards the NSW Central Coast and Hunter region.

At Ulladulla on the South Coast, 171 millimetres of rain has fallen since yesterday morning with wind gusts of 160 kilometres an hour recorded south of Sydney overnight.

“There’s also been severe weather in the Illawarra and the Blue Mountains, where a snow storm has cut supply to three major power stations.”

Crews working to restore power to thousands

Endeavour Energy said about 30,000 properties on its network lost power in the Southern Highlands, south coast and upper Blue Mountains regions.

Spokesman Peter Payne said power had been restored to about half of those customers.

Photo: A radar image showing storm activity over Sydney and the Blue Mountains. (Bureau of Meteorology)

“Until we determine what the access arrangements are, and we can actually patrol those areas, it is difficult for us to give an accurate estimation at this stage,” Mr Payne said.

“We are expecting, however, that we will be working throughout the day to restore supply to all customers who’ve been affected by the storm over the past 24 hours.”

Power distributor Ausgrid, which services Sydney’s east and parts of the Central Coast and Hunter regions, said another 13,000 homes in its service area lost power.

“That number has come down a little bit to 8,000 but we do expect it’s probably going to be revised up a little bit later in the morning as we get more reports,” spokesman Anthony O’Brien said.

“The current outages that we know about are around Engadine, Kurnell, Punchbowl, as well as Petersham into the inner-west and Lidcombe, and then up into the northern beaches area around Freshwater and Allambie Heights.”

Forecaster Beck Kami said the conditions would improve later in the day, with a low pressure system moving north.

“That [the storm] has since tracked northwards to be off the Hunter coast this morning, and it’s expected to continue tracking northwards along the Hunter coast before moving off to the Tasman Sea later today,” Mr Kami said.

“As that moves off, conditions are expected to ease later today.”