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French President Francois Hollande awards the Legion of Honour to Alek Skarlatos. Photo: AP Photo/Michel Euler, Pool.

Heroic Alek Skarlatos received the Legion of Honour after bringing down a gunman on a train

A heroic Greek American prevented chaos on a train from Amsterdam to Paris last week after an armed gunman opened fire.

US National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, along with fellow serviceman Spencer Stone and student Anthony Sadler, overpowered a 26-year-old Moroccan national who burst into their train carriage with heavy artillery.

Skarlatos was on a European holiday when the events took place, having recently completing a tour of Afghanistan, and spoke to Sky News following the ordeal.

“I just looked at Spencer and said ‘let’s go!’,” Skarlatos told the network.

“Spencer got to the guy first, grabbed the guy by the neck and I grabbed the handgun, got the handgun away from the guy and threw it.

“Then I grabbed the AK (assault rifle), which was at his feet, and started muzzle thumping him in the head with it.”

Throughout the struggle the suspect pulled out a box-cutter which he used on Stone, who later required surgery on his hand.

Once the man was detained Skarlatos disarmed his weapons, at which point he realised the assault rifle had jammed.

“He didn’t know how to fix it, which is very lucky,” he said.

“If that guy’s weapon had been functioning properly I don’t even want to think about how it would have gone. We were incredibly lucky.”

“We just did what we had to do. You either run away or fight. We chose to fight and got lucky and didn’t die.”

Skarlatos, along with Stone, Sadler and a British passenger Chris Norman, were all presented with France’s highest honour – the Legion of Honour – by French President François Hollande.

Another man, Mark Moogalian, who assisted in restraining the suspect, is recovering from a shot wound in hospital and will be honoured at a later date.

The suspect has since been arrested.

source:Neos Kosmos

Sydney school in the spotlight for taking stance
on same-sex parenthood.

Burwood Girls High School in Sydney sent a flyer to parents last week saying all students would attend a special screening of the award-winning documentary Gayby Baby during periods two and three on Friday 18 August.

The film, according to former student and director Maya Newell, is more about four children growing up than their parents’ sexuality. Newell, 27, comes from a family of same-sex parents and Gayby Baby represents the voice of children like herself growing up in Australian society.

The screening, scheduled to be attended by 1,200 students, was to be followed by a morning tea with purple cupcakes and a purple fashion parade, as part of the student-led Wear It Purple initiative, promoting diversity and inclusiveness in schools. Up to 50 schools throughout Australia, starting with NSW and Victoria, had been planning to show the film as part of the Wear It Purple campaign.

Following a Daily Telegraph headline on parents being outraged at the flyer, NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli made a statement on Macquarie Radio, condemning the documentary, saying “schools are not places for political issues to be aired”.
After receiving a phone-call from a Greek Australian mother on Wednesday, Neos Kosmos contacted the Department of Education, which confirmed that “screening the film may be considered if it is an integral part of the planned curriculum for an age appropriate year group”.

“If a school decides to screen the film outside school hours or as an integral part of the curriculum all relevant policy and procedures must be followed,” the department’s media spokesperson said.

Following Minister Piccoli’s statement, the deputy secretary of the Department of Education instructed that all NSW public secondary schools refrain from showing the Gayby Baby film in school time, so that it would not impact on the delivery of the planned lessons of the day. It has been confirmed, however, that Burwood Girls High did not receive a single complaint with regards to showing Gayby Baby during class time.

“We only received four inquisitive emails expressing concern,” the school’s spokesperson said.

In fact, students at Burwood Girls High claim the school has had several interruptions of planned lessons over the past month to attend non-relevant events to their school curriculum, without ministerial intervention. The Wear It Purple event itself is also expected to replace some teaching hours to celebrate LGBTI rights.

“We are going ahead with Wear It Purple day on Friday and we will see what happens at other schools around the state,” said Burwood Girls High school captain Eve Croffrey.

“We consider ourselves leaders in the push for equality and acceptance – for all people. We consider our support to be just one small step in creating better understanding in the community.”

Director Maya Newell defended her work, saying that banning the film would have greater implications.

“If a film that represents your family and your voice is banned from a school as inappropriate to show other students, it gives children being raised in same-sex families the very negative message that their family is abnormal and not acceptable.”

Newell stressed that creating inclusive classrooms and valuing family diversity is essential in promoting student wellbeing and acceptance of difference.

“There is no place for bullying, homophobia or discrimination in Australian public schools,” she concluded.

Meanwhile, it was revealed that the NSW education minister and Premier Mike Baird hadn’t watched the film prior to banning it, even though it screened at Parliament House the night before the alleged turmoil; while Premier Daniel Andrews took to Facebook to show his support.

“I’m getting really sick of this stuff (…) I will not put up with this kind of cruel rubbish in Victoria,” he wrote.

Since Thursday, more schools across the state are defying the ban by hosting after-hours screenings while members and supporters of the LGBTI community plan on protesting on Sunday afternoon outside the offices of The Daily Telegraph in Surry Hills.

Other sources: smh, Facebook

More than 4,200 refugees were due to arrive in Piraeus on two ships from Lesvos Tuesday, only temporarily easing the pressure on scant resources on the island but at the same time increasing concern in Athens about the fate of those who would disembark.

Authorities on Lesvos have registered some 17,500 refugees and migrants over the past week but the transfer to Athens of many of those people would only provide brief respite as hundreds more are arriving each day.

While many refugees head for Greece’s border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), some end up stranded in Athens. Victoria Square in the city center has become a popular gathering point for refugees.

Athens Mayor Giorgis Kaminis is due to meet caretaker Immigration Minister Yiannis Mouzalas Thursday to discuss the issue. European Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos is also due in Greece Thursday.

Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos called his French counterpart Francois Hollande to discuss the issue. Pavlopoulos took the opportunity to explain to Hollande the size of the problem Greece is facing.

More than 350,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean this year and 2,600 have died while making the journey, the International Organization for Migration said Tuesday.

The latest figures from IOM show that 234,778 migrants had landed in Greece and another 114,276 in Italy, with most of the other arrivals split between Spain (2,166) and the island of Malta (94).

The figure from 2015 already dwarfs that of 2014, when 219,000 made the crossing throughout the entire year.

source:eakthimerini.com

Greece’s Syriza party is on course to win 26 percent of votes in a snap election in September, just one point ahead of the conservative New Democracy party, a poll published by the Pulse for Action 24 television channel said on Tuesday.

Former premier Alexis Tsipras of Syriza resigned in August to seek a new mandate for a bailout deal he clinched with the country’s international creditors, but Syriza’s slipping poll lead suggests the decision could backfire.

Tsipras came to power in January promising to end austerity in a country battered by recession and unemployment but eventually accepted stringent conditions for a new 86-billion-euro bailout after months of difficult negotiations with Greece’s lenders.

Worryingly perhaps for Tsipras, more than two-thirds of the poll respondents disapproved of his government’s performance in its seven months in office. Previously, polls had suggested Tsipras remained popular with voters because he had at least put up a fight in the negotiations for a bailout.

The leftist Syriza party led the New Democracy party by as much as 15 percentage points in May, but its lead has dropped sharply over the summer, opinion polls suggest.

The new poll also said the Golden Dawn party was on course to win 6 percent of votes, while 10.5 percent of Greeks were undecided.

“We’ve made a tough choice to not lead the country to a national disaster,” Tsipras told a crowd during a speech on the campaign trail on the island of Crete.

“We are proud we gave this battle all these months, defending Greek people’s rights.”

The poll showed that Independent Greeks will not win enough votes to pass the 3 percent threshold to enter parliament, while the Popular Unity party, a hard-left splinter group that broke from Syriza last month, will get 4 percent.

A quarter of the people polled would like to see a coalition government made up of Syriza, New Democracy and other parties.

source:reuters.com

Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou has slammed both sides of soccer’s increasingly ugly pay battle for taking focus away from the team’s upcoming World Cup qualifiers.

As the war between Football Federation Australia (FFA) and Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) escalated on Tuesday after Socceroos players decided to boycott commercial appearances in Perth, Postecoglou said the whole saga was an unwelcome distraction the team should not have to deal with.

“I’m not happy it’s getting played out in Socceroo camp,” Postecoglou said.

“I don’t have the players often and when I have them, that time’s precious. I don’t want any minute wasted.

“If we think it’s OK during the World Cup qualifiers to play out this scenario then I’m out of whack with everyone else because I think while the camp is on … lay down your guns and pick them up as soon as it’s over, and go as hard as you want.

“It’s not good enough.”

Bangladesh clash overshadowed

Australia faces Bangladesh on Thursday at Perth Oval, but the match has been somewhat overshadowed by the wrangling over a new collective bargaining agreement for Socceroos, Matildas and A-League players.

Socceroos players have pulled out of all commercial appearances with FFA partners in Perth this week – a move which has riled FFA chief David Gallop, who says the players are being fed “misinformation” by their union.

“The talk by the PFA of salary cap freezes and having no protection is nonsense,” he said.

“We have spent six months and countless meetings on the new CBA. We were very close to an agreement to benefit all parties.

“The PFA’s move to stage this boycott is wrong and against the interests of everyone in the game, including the Socceroo players.

“Our competitor codes will see our PFA as having scored an own goal for the sport.”

Players deserve respect: PFA

PFA boss Adam Vivian said the players were after just one thing – to be treated with respect.

“Currently that is missing from the negotiations regarding a new agreement to protect the rights of the players and to grow the game together,” he said.

Postecoglou said he was not taking sides.

“If I did, I’d fall into the same trap as everyone else,” he said.

“I should be talking about team selection, team tactics, growth, qualifying for the next World Cup.

“Maybe there’s a perception outside of camp that these games aren’t going to be that tough, and we can afford to have arguments that don’t impact us on the football field.”

source:abc.net.au

Η Αυστραλία δεν έχει μέχρι στιγμής απαντήσει επισήμως στο αίτημα των ΗΠΑ

Μέσω Τουρκίας αναμένεται αυστραλιανά πολεμικά αεροσκάφη να πετούν πάνω από τον εναέριο χώρο της Συρίας και να βομβαρδίζουν στόχους του Ισλαμικού Κράτους.

Μέχρι στιγμής, πάντως, επισήμως η Αυστραλία δεν έχει απαντήσει σε σχετικό αίτημα των ΗΠΑ.

Χθες τουρκικά πολεμικά αεροσκάφη συμμετείχαν, για πρώτη φορά, σε αεροπορικές επιδρομές που διενήργησε ο υπό την ηγεσία των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών Αμερικής συνασπισμός εναντίον της οργάνωσης Ισλαμικό Κράτος στη Συρία, ανακοίνωσε το τουρκικό υπουργείο Εξωτερικών.

«Τα αεροσκάφη μας άρχισαν να διενεργούν αεροπορικές επιχειρήσεις μαζί με τις δυνάμεις του συνασπισμού εναντίον στόχων του ΙΚ στη Συρία που αποτελούν απειλή και για τη δική μας ασφάλεια» αναφέρει ανακοίνωση που εκδόθηκε σήμερα.

Η επιχείρηση ακολουθεί την τεχνική συμφωνία που επιτεύχθηκε με τις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες στις 24 Αυγούστου σχετικά με τον ρόλο της Τουρκίας στην εκστρατεία εναντίον των σουνιτών ισλαμιστών που ελέγχουν μεγάλα τμήματα του εδάφους της Συρίας και του Ιράκ.

Τον περασμένο μήνα η Τουρκία συμφώνησε να ανοίξει τις στρατηγικά σημαντικές αεροπορικές βάσεις της στον συνασπισμό, όμως δείχνει απρόθυμη να διαδραματίσει ηγετικό ρόλο στη μάχη κατά του Ισλαμικού Κράτους, φοβούμενη μια βίαιη αντίδραση.

Η συμφωνία αυτή επιτρέπει και στην Αυστραλία να κάνει χρήση τουρκικών αεροδρομίων για να συμμετάσχει σε βομβαρδιστικές επιχειρήσεις στη Συρία.

Στις 24 Ιουλίου, αεροπλάνα της τουρκικής Πολεμικής Αεροπορίας επιτέθηκαν σε στόχους του Ισλαμικού Κράτους στη Συρία, αλλά όχι στο πλαίσιο της επιχείρησης του συνασπισμού.

Πηγή: Νέος Κόσμος

Greece’s Alternate Minister for Immigration Policy, Tasia Christodoulopoulou.

Greek minister appeals to western countries to do their bit

Greece’s Alternate Minister for Immigration Policy, Tasia Christodoulopoulou, says the United States, Australia and other western countries should take some of the refugees that are flooding Greece and other Mediterranean countries.

Mrs Christodoulopoulou says intervention by the west in African and Arab countries has created the massive exit of refugees and that the nations involved in the interventions have an obligation to assist.

As the Union of Greek Municipalities (KEDE) called on the Greek government to take action to deal with an unprecedented wave of mass migration through Greece, Christodoulopoulou accused municipal and regional authorities of not doing their share.

KEDE chief Giorgos Patoulis said the government had failed to present a comprehensive plan for managing the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees, mainly from the Middle East, and warned that delays in implementing European Union measures may lead to hefty fines.

“There is no magic wand that will create the infrastructure or make the migrants disappear,” Christodoulopoulou told a meeting of KEDE on Wednesday.

The minister added that with the exception of the municipalities of Athens and Lesvos, no other regional or municipal authorities have offered facilities for processing and housing arrivals.

The outgoing minister defended the government’s lack of progress, saying that she is expecting €30 million in EU funding to be released next week, which will go toward building reception centres on Kos, Leros and Lesvos.

Her comments came after an earlier statement by European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud, who said that the commission is waiting for Greece to establish an agency to manage the funds.

source:neos kosmos

European Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos is expected to visit Kos at the end of the week as pressure grows on Greece’s eastern Aegean islands due to the constant flow of migrants and refugees from the Turkish coast.

Despite the Eleftherios Venizelos passenger ferry carrying some 2,500 refugees at a time to Piraeus almost around the clock, thousands of people remain stuck on the Greek islands, often in squalid or dangerous conditions. Authorities on Lesvos estimate that there are 12,000 refugees on the island, which has a total population of around 85,000.

The problem is being compounded, though, by the continuous surge of people crossing the Aegean in rubber dinghies given to them by people traffickers. The Greek coast guard said on Monday that it had rescued some 2,500 people in the previous three days. On Monday morning, the crew of an air force helicopter rescued a man just off Chios.

On Saturday, though, a 17-year-old man lost his life when the coast guard tried to stop smugglers off Symi. It appears that the teenager, a migrant, was hit by a bullet fired by the coast guard as it attempted to stop the boat. Two Turkish smugglers were arrested.

Around 4,000 refugees arrived on Lesvos on Saturday alone, heightening concern about whether the island has the resources to support them.

Giorgos Saxonis, a baker who has been officially enlisted to help authorities by providing three meals a day for refugees, says he has yet to be paid and is running out of ways to continue supplying the aid.

“We have run up debts with everyone and we have not been paid yet,” he told Kathimerini. “I only get a small amount anyway; 5.87 euros per person for the three meals per day. When it was only 100 or 200 people, it was manageable. But the other day I handed out 8,644 portions of food. The whole island is full of [refugees’] tents.”

Samos Mayor Michalis Angelopoulous told Kathimerini that the government does not have a plan to tackle the situation and that the municipality would shortly put forward its ideas on dealing with the refugees.

“You could, for example, employ the Syrian doctors on some remote [Greek] islands,” he said.

source:ekathimerini.com

The attack comes after Treasurer Joe Hockey also accused the media of undermining the government and labelled cabinet colleagues who have been leaking against him as “fringe whingers”.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has accused Fairfax Media of trying to “bring the government down” for publishing stories about division in its most senior ranks.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott declared “full confidence” in his Treasurer on Monday after two cabinet ministers told Fairfax Media he was being urged to dump Mr Hockey if the Canning byelection delivered a bad result for the Liberal Party.

In an interview with the ABC’s AM program on Tuesday, Mr Dutton blamed media organisations when asked what the government could do to steer itself back on course and communicate its message to voters.

“I think it would be helpful if some of the commentators in the area, in this space of politics, started reporting on the incidents, as opposed to being players themselves,” he said.

“I think there’s a huge move by Fairfax at the moment to try and bring the government down, that’s fair enough.

“They aren’t supposed to be political players, they’re supposed to be objective reporters of the news and I think many of them have morphed into frustrated politicians themselves.”

Mr Dutton later told Sky News: “The reality is that there is a bit of a jihad being conducted by Fairfax at the moment.”

Mr Dutton’s swipe is similar to criticism made by former prime minister Julia Gillard of News Corp publications during the turbulent Rudd-Gillard era.

The Immigration Minister also said Fairfax was not acting alone and was being helped by the ABC.

“You ask me what I think of the current political environment, I think that’s part of the problem. I think regardless of what Tony Abbott does, Fairfax will say it’s bad. I think regardless of what Joe Hockey or the Abbott government does, Fairfax will say it’s bad,” he said.

“They’re being helped by the ABC as well, there’s no question about that, some elements of the ABC.”

In 2013, then opposition leader Mr Abbott said it was up to governments to “take the rough with the smooth”.

Speaking about the then Labor government at a media conference in 2013, Mr Abbott said: “fundamentally, if you want good coverage, you have got to perform well”.

“If you want better coverage, be a better government.”

Social Services Minister Scott Morrison told a separate interview with the ABC’s AM on Tuesday morning that talk Mr Hockey would be removed was “speculative nonsense”.

“It is becoming commonplace for politics to be reported on like it’s reality television,” he said.

“We as a government take it more seriously than that and they’re the issues we’re focused on – jobs, growth, community safety.

“I’m not going to feed the frenzy you’re seeking to whip up.”

Making the case for the continuation of the royal commission into union corruption, Employment Minister Eric Abetz on Tuesday praised Fairfax Media for its work exposing serious claims of misconduct in the trade union movement.

Fairfax Media and the ABC declined to comment.

Fairfax Media is the publisher of this website.
source:smh.com.au

The upcoming Greek election may reopen the can of worms that the country’s recent 86 billion euro bailout deal with its creditors was supposed to close. Given that no party is likely to emerge from the Sept. 20 vote with a majority, it may be hard to form a strong government that can implement the program. There’s even a risk that there will be yet more elections, tipping Greece back into crisis.

When Alexis Tsipras triggered the election by resigning as prime minister, he probably thought he would win fairly easily. After all, July’s opinion polls showed him head and shoulders above his opponents. Tsipras’ idea was to get rid of the parliamentarians in his left-wing SYRIZA party who opposed his deal with the euro zone and secure a new mandate to implement the program.

But new opinion polls that came out last week paint a different picture. In all, SYRIZA is still the leading party. But its gap over the centre-right New Democracy party has narrowed sharply.

What’s more, Tsipras’ own approval rating, which used to be sky high, has come down to earth. In a poll by the University of Macedonia, only 30 percent of those asked had a positive view of him, down from 70 percent in March.

In the past, Tsipras seemed like a Teflon prime minister, who remained popular despite terrible decisions that took the country to the edge of an economic abyss. But now it looks the mud is beginning to stick.

The civil war inside SYRIZA is also taking its toll. One hard-left faction, which wants to bring back the drachma and is furious that Tsipras agreed a deal with the euro zone despite previously saying he wouldn’t, has already created a new party.

The election campaign has barely started and opinion polls during the August holiday season are not considered particularly reliable. Despite those caveats, it doesn’t look likely that any party will emerge with a majority in the 300-seat parliament even after taking account of the fact that the one with the most votes gets an extra 50 members of parliament.

This presents a problem. True, the vast majority of MPs elected next month are likely to belong to parties that are committed at least in theory to the bailout. The snag is that Tsipras has said he won’t be prime minister of a government including New Democracy or two smaller centrist and centre-left parties. What’s more, it is touch and go whether his favourite coalition partner, the far-right Independent Greeks, will secure any MPs at all.

If Tsipras can’t form a government, there may have to be yet more elections, the third this year. This could cause further economic mayhem because Athens would fall seriously behind in implementing its bailout deal. People might even speculate again that Greece could leave the euro.

The Greek people might well punish Tsipras if he forced a third election. They already seem unhappy that a second ballot has been called – not to mention that Tsipras held a referendum in July on an earlier version of the bailout program. Given that, Tsipras might yet form a coalition with the centre and centre-left parties he has pledged not to deal with. The former prime minister does, after all, have a track record of going back on his word.

Such an outcome might lead to an effective implementation of the bailout. But there is a risk that Tsipras won’t get rid of all the rebels from his party because he is afraid of swelling the ranks of the new splinter group. In that case, he could find his government starts with a majority, but that its unity melts away when it has to take tough decisions, again triggering elections.

This scenario might be avoided if any party invited to join a Tsipras-led coalition insisted on all the other centrist parties being in the government too. This would probably give it a big enough majority to withstand future defections. Any putative coalition partner should also insist that Tsipras appoints serious ministers including some technocrats to his cabinet. His first government was plagued with incompetence.

Another idea is that Tsipras could support some form of national unity government but not as its prime minister. He could propose another SYRIZA politician or some technocrat for the post. But this would raise the concern that Tsipras wants to wash his hands of the program he previously signed up to, which in turn would make it hard to implement.

All these calculations would, of course, change if New Democracy wins the election. It would find it easier to form a coalition because it has promised to work with any democratic party after the vote. It has even said it would work with SYRIZA in what would be a national unity government. While that, indeed, might be the best outcome for Greece, Tsipras is most unlikely to agree to it. Even if the worst scenarios are avoided, the risk is that amid the political fighting, what’s most beneficial for the Greek people does not end up driving events forward.

source:ekathimerini.com