Daily Archives: April 23, 2015

Rescuers rush toa car that is stranded in flood waters in Maitland. Photo: Peter Stoop

“There are people in there!” a man cried out as bystanders raced to help a woman trapped in a car in floodwaters outside Maitland.

The moment was captured by Fairfax Media photographer Peter Stoop, who was covering the floods in the Hunter region on Wednesday morning.

The woman had driven from Gillieston Heights into Maitland and was returning when the tragedy happened, Inspector Brian Tracey, of Maitland police, said.

Her small silver hatchback had joined a procession of cars trying to cross flooded Wallis Creek on Cessnock Road shortly before 9am when a red Falcon in front of it stalled.

Witnesses say the hatchback tried to go around the stalled
Falcon, but it was quickly caught in the fast flowing waters.

Inspector Brian Tracey, of Maitland police, talks to the media at Cessnock Road. Photo: Jonathan Carroll

About a dozen people ran into the water, but the car was swept away, sinking nose first, and went bobbing into the main body of water.

Anthony McAndrew, of Gillieston Heights, who had been in the car that stalled, dived in and swam after the floating car. His vehicle was also swept away.

Three men on the opposite bank also dived into the water.

A woman and her baby being brought across the flooded road. Photo: Jonathan Carroll

A district fire officer yelled out to the occupants of the car to wind down the windows. She said the passenger door opened and she called out to close it. A rear passenger door then opened and she called on the occupants to close it but the car sank within seconds.

“I yelled at them to swim for it as they started to sink but they didn’t,” the fire officer said. “I had been on shift all night and I had just come across there myself. I rang my captain and told him I had aquaplaned across and I told him to block the road.”

Peter Gray, a deputy captain of Fire and Rescue NSW, said police, ambulance, fire and SES crews, using helicopters and boats, began searching for the submerged cars.

A young mother and her seriously ill four-month old baby are taken across the flooded Cessnock Road in an inflatable boat. Photo: Jonathan Carroll

Inspector Tracey said the men who had jumped into the waters in the attempted rescue had been accounted for and did not require hospital treatment.

At the same time as the search mission was being undertaken, rescue workers brought a young mother and her seriously ill four-month-old baby across the water in an inflatable boat. They had come from Cessnock and were taken to Maitland Hospital in an ambulance.

Late on Wednesday, the body of an 86-year-old woman was recovered from the floodwaters. Inspector Tracey said the police divers had told him there was zero visibility in the water and that they had to feel their way to the car.

A young mother and her seriously ill four-month old baby are taken across the water in an inflatable boat. Photo: Jonathan Carroll

Divers searched the car and, despite fears there might have been a passenger, they now believe the woman was travelling by herself.

The woman’s 66-year-old son had maintained a vigil by the water throughout the day, but just after 7pm any hopes of his mother’s recovery were dashed when paramedics brought out her body on a stretcher. The woman’s death brings to four the death toll from the storms that have lashed Sydney, Newcastle and the Illawarra.

source:smh.com.au

The brinkmanship over Greece and its debts continues. A meeting of finance ministers in Riga on Friday is likely to pass, like many previous make-or-break moments, without resolution. The European Union isn’t deviating, and neither is Athens. Before much longer, though, something really will have to give — and it seems ever more probable that, when it does, the news will be bad.

Confidence has firmed across Europe that a Greek default won’t much harm any other country — indeed, that the rest of the EU might actually be stronger if the Greeks are taught a lesson. This theory is wrong. If it’s pressed into action, Europe will come to repent its biggest miscalculation since the creation of the euro.

EU governments are hardening their insistence on an overt Greek surrender. The terms of the existing bailout program, they say, must be honored in full before talks on a new one can start — and meanwhile, there’ll be no more money. In plain terms, the SYRIZA government led by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras must not only break its promise to voters but be seen by all to have broken it.

Tsipras, to be sure, commands little sympathy. He has served his country poorly. His government’s initial take-it-or-leave-it posture looked calculated to offend. Having started badly, how to make matters worse? Press for war reparations from Germany — an altogether strange way for a distressed borrower seeking new debt relief to approach its creditors. Athens thought it was negotiating from a position of strength — that Europe wouldn’t dare call its bluff. This now looks like a losing bet.

So, yes, Syriza got every last detail of this negotiation wrong. The only thing it got right was the main point: The Greek economy, crushed by Europe’s economic crisis, cannot recover without relief from the self-defeating fiscal austerity imposed by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The tactical incompetence of Tsipras and his ministers is a pitifully lame excuse for the failure of those institutions to achieve this outcome — a remedy, by the way, that’s in the interests of the wider EU.

Unless Athens is granted some of the 7.2 billion euros still pending in the existing bailout program, it can’t make payments falling due in May and June. The IMF has said that it won’t tolerate a delay. Default is staring Greece in the face. Exit from the euro system would likely follow default — if not explicitly, then tacitly, through the creation of a parallel currency that would enable the government to meet its domestic obligations.

If all this comes to pass, Europe will have shown it meant business. That’s fine. Aside from scoring this gallant victory over mighty Greece, what will it have achieved?

If Greece defaults, the IMF and the ECB will lose more than if they agreed right now to forgive much of the debt. That’s to say nothing of the risk of contagion, and a widening crisis of confidence. Governments and the ECB seem to believe that this danger is contained. The U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve thought the same about Lehman Brothers.

Grexit would compound the risk. The prevailing view that Greece can be pushed out of the euro system with little collateral damage, together with the moves the ECB has made to partition the underlying system of national central banks, have already weakened the system’s credibility. The euro looks less like a single currency and more like a fixed-exchange-rate system. In the end, fixed-exchange-rate systems collapse. Grexit, if it happens, will emphasize the point.

Europe’s economy shows signs of dragging itself off the floor, thanks to a devalued euro and lower energy costs. But Europe has addressed few of the structural and institutional failings that made its recession so deep and persistent. The EU’s economy is still fragile. The last thing it needs is a shock like Grexit.

Suppose, though, that the recovery strengthens and Europe does take Grexit in stride. Europe’s policymakers should look ahead to the next crash. Post-Grexit, markets will know that countries with unsustainable debts can be ejected from the system. This raises the risk of capital flight and makes self-fulfilling panics more likely.

Tsipras has climbed a long way down from his initial demands. A new bailout program could well strike a workable compromise between, on one side, Greece’s need for debt relief and fiscal moderation, and, on the other, a commitment to monitored and sustainable long-term public finances. Yet to get to that new program, you have to lift the threat of immediate financial breakdown.

Europe and the IMF have chosen not to lift that threat unless Tsipras surrenders unconditionally. It is Europe, not Tsipras, that has set its face against compromise — by enshrining the current bailout program, which its own authors acknowledge to be a failure, as a sacred object. Instead of helping Greece to its feet, Europe is telling Greece to kneel. Instead of helping Tsipras to climb down, the EU demands he abase himself. Instead of expressing solidarity with the Greek people, who have suffered inordinately, Europe says: “Election? What election?”

Tsipras has done a terrible job. Compared with the rest of Europe’s leaders, he looks like a statesman.

source:ekathimerini.com

File photo of the Greek Finance Ministry in central Athens.

 A teleconference of eurozone Finance Ministry officials on Wednesday concluded that much more work needs to be done before a deal can be reached with the country’s creditors while Greece’s envoy in the negotiations currently taking place in Paris said any decision must be reached on a “political level.”

The Euro Working Group teleconference was held to lay the groundwork for Friday’s Eurogroup summit in Riga, Latvia, but eurozone officials said afterward that no statement was expected to be made about the Greek situation in Riga. Sources pointed to some improvement in the pace and quality of the talks, noting that Greece was sending more experts to the discussions. But they added that the two sides remain far apart on key issues while Greece’s growth forecasts are regarded as excessively optimistic.

In comments to Mega TV after talks in Paris on Wednesday, Greek envoy Nikos Theoharakis said talks were progressing though labor and pension reforms remained the key points of contention. Any agreement can only be reached “on the political level,” he said.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras plans to take a step in that direction when he meets in Brussels today with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the sidelines of an emergency summit on immigration. Sources close to the German government, however, suggested that Merkel is likely to do little more than repeat that a deal must be reached at the technical level.

Germany’s Finance Ministry spokesman, Martin Jaeger, said there were “very limited expectations” of the Riga meeting, which would probably yield an interim assessment on the reforms Greece must make for urgently needed rescue loans.

Despite the low expectations, Greek officials sought to appear upbeat on Wednesday. Government spokesman Gavriil Sakellaridis told ANT1 TV Tsipras would express to Merkel his commitment to achieving a mutual compromise quickly. In comments to Parliament, meanwhile, State Minister Nikos Pappas said the government would stick to its red lines. “The creditors have put on the table some demands that have not been accepted to date and will not be accepted,” he said.

source:ekathimerini.com

Περίπου 40 ένοπλοι Αλβανοί εισέβαλαν τα ξημερώματα σε αστυνομικό φυλάκιο του χωριού Γκόσιντσε, κοντά στα σύνορα με το Κόσοβο και αφόπλισαν τους αστυνομικούς, ανέφερε η αστυνομία της ΠΓΔΜ.

Ο εκπρόσωπος των αστυνομικών αρχών της χώρας, Ίβο Κότεσκι, ο οποίος έκανε λόγο για τρομοκρατική επίθεση, δήλωσε ότι οι ένοπλοι έφεραν στολές του UCK και εισήλθαν στο έδαφος της ΠΓΔΜ από το Κόσοβο.

Κατά την εισβολή τους στο αστυνομικό τμήμα έδεσαν με χειροπέδες τρεις από τους τέσσερις αστυνομικούς του φυλακίου και χτύπησαν ακόμη έναν.

Σύμφωνα με την αστυνομία της ΠΓΔΜ, οι ένοπλοι, κατά την εισβολή τους στο αστυνομικό φυλάκιο, είπαν στους αστυνομικούς ότι είναι μέλη του UCK και πως δεν αναγνωρίζουν την ειρηνευτική συμφωνία της Οχρίδας από το 2001, με την οποία δόθηκε τέλος στις ένοπλες συγκρούσεις που είχαν ξεσπάσει τότε μεταξύ Αλβανών ανταρτών και κυβερνητικών δυνάμεων της ΠΓΔΜ.

«Εμείς είμαστε από τον UCK. Να διαμηνύσετε στον Γκρούεφσκι (σ.σ. πρωθυπουργός της ΠΓΔΜ) και στον Αχμέτι (σ.σ. αρχηγός του μεγαλύτερου αλβανικού κόμματος στην ΠΓΔΜ, το οποίο συμμετέχει στην κυβέρνηση της χώρας) ότι δεν μπορούν να σας σώσουν. Θέλουμε το δικό μας κράτος και δεν αναγνωρίζουμε συμφωνίες όπως αυτή της Οχρίδας. Αν σας συλλάβουμε ξανά, θα σας σκοτώσουμε», φέρεται να είπε ο επικεφαλής των ενόπλων Αλβανών οι οποίοι εισέβαλαν στο αστυνομικό τμήμα.

Οι ένοπλοι, σύμφωνα με την αστυνομία, κατέγραψαν με κάμερα την εισβολή τους στο φυλάκιο.

Πηγή: enallaxnews.gr

To αυστριακό κοινοβούλιο τήρησε σήμερα ενός λεπτού σιγή ως φόρο τιμής στα θύματα της αρμενικής γενοκτονίας, για πρώτη φορά στη χώρα αυτή που ήταν σύμμαχος της οθωμανικής αυτοκρατορίας και όπου ο όρος “γενοκτονία” δεν είχε ποτέ υιοθετηθεί επίσημα.

“Η 24η Απριλίου 1915 σηματοδότησε την έναρξη των διώξεων που ολοκληρώθηκαν με γενοκτονία”, δήλωσε η πρόεδρος του κοινοβουλίου Ντόρις Μπούρες, του Σοσιαλδημοκρατικού Κόμματος, πριν καλέσει όλους τους βουλευτές να τηρήσουν ενός λεπτού σιγή.

Η τελετή πραγματοποιείται μετά τη σύνταξη από τις έξι κοινοβουλευτικές ομάδες, κοινής δήλωσης που αναγνωρίζει τη γενοκτονία.

“Στο όνομα της ιστορικής ευθύνης, με τη μοναρχία της Αυστροουγγαρίας να έχει συμμαχήσει με την οθωμανική αυτοκρατορία στον Α΄Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο, είναι δικό μας καθήκον να χαρακτηρίσουμε αυτά τα φρικτά γεγονότα γενοκτονία και να τα καταδικάσουμε ως τέτοια”, υπογραμμίζεται στη δήλωση που δόθηκε σήμερα στη δημοσιότητα. “Είναι επίσης καθήκον της Τουρκίας να αντιμετωπίσει έντιμα τα επώδυνα κεφάλαια της ιστορίας της και να αναγνωρίσει ως γενοκτονία τα εγκλήματα που διαπράχθηκαν κατά των Αρμενίων υπό την οθωμανική αυτοκρατορία”.

Η δήλωση που υπογράφεται από τους αρχηγούς των έξι κοινοβουλευτικών ομάδων –του Σοσιαλδημοκρατικού Κόμματος (SPÖ), του κυβερνώντος Λαϊκού Κόμματος (ÖVP), του (ακροδεξιού) FPÖ, των Πρασίνων και των δύο μικρών φιλελεύθερων κομμάτων –δεν τέθηκε προς ψήφιση και συνεπώς δεν έχει νομική ισχύ. Σηματοδοτεί όμως ένα πρώτο συμβολικό βήμα στην αναγνώριση της γενοκτονίας από την Αυστρία.

Η Αρμενία, όπου σήμερα άρχισε διεθνής διάσκεψη για την καταπολέμηση της γενοκτονίας, χαιρέτισε τη δήλωση. “Η Αυστρία συνέβαλε σημαντικά σε μια ευγενή υπόθεση για την αποτροπή των γενοκτονιών και των εγκλημάτων κατά της ανθρωπότητας”, δήλωσε ο αρμένιος υπουργός Εξωτερικών ‘Εντουαρντ Ναλμπαντιάν.

Στις αρχές Απριλίου, το οικουμενικό συμβούλιο των χριστιανικών εκκλησιών της Αυστρίας είχε καλέσει επίσημα την προεδρία της Δημοκρατίας και την κυβέρνηση να αναγνωρίσουν τη γενοκτονία των Αρμενίων “όπως έχουν κάνει πολλές άλλες χώρες”.

Ωστόσο, ο πρόεδρος Χάιντς Φίσερ δεν αποδέχτηκε πρόσκληση της Αρμενίας να μετάσχει στις εκδηλώσεις μνήμης για την 100ή επέτειο της γενοκτονίας στο Γερεβάν την Παρασκευή, στις οποίες θα παραστούν, μεταξύ άλλων, οι πρόεδροι της Ρωσίας Βλαντίμιρ Πούτιν και της Γαλλίας Φρανσουά Ολάντ. Η χώρα θα εκπροσωπηθεί από πρεσβευτή.

Η Αυστροουγγαρία, όπως και η Γερμανία, είχε συμμαχήσει με την οθωμανική αυτοκρατορία κατά τον Α΄Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο. Η τουρκική κοινότητα αποτελεί τη δεύτερη ξένη κοινότητα της χώρας, με 240.000 μέλη.

Τη Δευτέρα, ο ηγέτης του FPÖ Χάιντς-Κρίστιαν Στράσε είχε κατηγορήσει τα κόμματα που μετέχουν στην κυβέρνηση ότι “σκύβουν το κεφάλι μπροστά στην Τουρκία” από φόβο μήπως θιγούν οι τουρκικής καταγωγής ψηφοφόροι.

Περίπου 20 χώρες, μεταξύ τους η Γαλλία και η Ρωσία, έχουν αναγνωρίσει την αρμενική γενοκτονία, η οποία σύμφωνα με το Γερεβάν στοίχισε τη ζωή περίπου 1,5 εκατομμυρίου ανθρώπων μεταξύ του 1915 και του 1917. Η Τουρκία, όπως και οι ΗΠΑ, η Γερμανία και άλλες χώρες απορρίπτουν τον όρο γενοκτονία για να χαρακτηρίσουν τις σφαγές των Αρμενίων από τον τουρκικό στρατό.

Στην Αυστρία, την Παρασκευή, οικουμενική επιμνημόσυνη δέηση θα τελεστεί στον καθεδρικό ναό του Αγίου Στεφάνου στη Βιένη, ενώ το απόγευμα έχει προγραμματιστεί πορεία έπειτα από πρόσκληση οργανώσεων Αρμενίων και φιλελεύθερων Τούρκων.

Πηγή:topontiki.gr