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Hundreds of people have gathered at Syntagma Square in downtown Athens on Saturday afternoon, where several events were being held to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racism.

Several marches are being held, including one at Omonia Square by the anti-fascist KEERFA group, and another to the prime minister’s office calling for the protection of children’s rights.

“Racism, as a mindset and as an attitude, is used to raise fear, hatred and discrimination mainly against vulnerable groups,” said Alternate Minister of Citizens’ Protection Yiannis Panousis, who also described the phenomenon as a threat to social cohesion.

source:ekathimerini.com

Και τα πουλιά έχουν ψυχή. Άρα και… ψυχολογικά προβλήματα! Αυτή είναι η επιστήμη που έχει σπουδάσει η ομογενής Πάρις Ίβς. Να βοηθά τα πτηνά να αντιμετωπίζουν την κατάθλιψή τους.

Η Πάρις Ίβς έχει βοηθήσει εκατοντάδες άτομα να κατανοήσουν καλύτερα τις ανάγκες των πτηνών τους, αλλά και να επωφεληθούν από τις θεραπευτικές ιδιότητας της παρέας των πτηνών. Η ίδια επιθυμεί να αποκαλεί τον εαυτό της ως «συμπεριφολόγο» πτηνών, και για περισσότερα από 10 χρόνια, αγωνίζεται για την καλύτερη μεταχείρισή τους σε όλη την Αυστραλία.

Στην κλινική που διαθέτει προστρέχουν πολλοί ιδιοκτήτες πτηνών όταν διαπιστώνουν πως «κάτι δεν πάει καλά». Συχνά ακούει τους ιδιοκτήτες κατοικίδιων πτηνών να παραπονιούνται ότι τα πουλιά τους «δεν τραγουδούν αρκετά», ότι «δεν πετούν μέσα στο κλουβί τους», ότι «δεν έχουν ενέργεια».

«Στις περισσότερες περιπτώσεις», λέει, «το σφάλμα δεν το έχει το πουλί, αλλά ο ιδιοκτήτης του, αφού οι απαιτήσεις του από το πτηνό είναι, πολλές φορές, υπερβολικές. Για παράδειγμα, ζητούν από τα πτηνά τους να περπατούν στους… ώμους τους, ή να μπουν μέσα στο αυτοκίνητο και να παραμείνουν ήσυχα. Όλα αυτά είναι αφύσικα πράγματα» λέει η κα Ίβς.

Η θεραπευτική της μέθοδος έχει να κάνει με την αλλαγή νοοτροπίας των ιδιοκτητών και για το τι προσδοκούν από τα κατοικίδια πτηνά τους.

Πηγή:zougla.gr

Νέα τουρκική πρόκληση σημειώθηκε, αυτή τη φορά δια θαλάσσης, με τουρκικό πολεμικό πλοίο να εισέρχεται εντός ελληνικών χωρικών υδάτων.

Η τουρκική πυραυλάκατος «TCG Poyraz» εισήλθε ώρα 08:55 σε ελληνικά χωρικά ύδατα ανατολικά του Αγαθονησίου όπου και παρέμεινε «κρατημένο» σύμφωνα με ανακοίνωση του Γενικού Επιτελείου Εθνικής Άμυνας.

«Στη συνέχεια, κινούμενο με πορεία, αρχικά, δυτική και στη συνέχεια νότια και ανατολική, εξήλθε από τα Ελληνικά Χωρικά Ύδατα την 11:50 νοτιοανατολικά νήσου Αγαθονήσι» όπως αναφέρεται στην ανακοίνωση του ΓΕΕΘΑ.

Όπως περιγράφεται από το υπουργείο Εθνικής Άμυνας ο πλους του τουρκικού πολεμικού πλοίου εντός ελληνικής χωρικής θάλασσας διήρκεσε σχεδόν τρεις ώρες και συνιστά ξεκάθαρη παραβίαση των κανόνων αβλαβούς διέλευσης δεδομένου ότι το «TCG Poyraz» παρέμεινε κρατημένο ανατολικά του Αγαθονησίου.

Σύμφωνα με το ΓΕΕΘΑ, το τουρκικό πολεμικό πλοίο συμμετείχε «στην επιχειρησιακή εκπαίδευση Α΄ τριμήνου του τουρκικού πολεμικού ναυτικού».

Πηγή:zougla.gr

Dr. Alexander Yarmolin, a member of the archeological team from Haifa University, holding his finding.

Almost two weeks ago, Haifa University archaeological team, headed by Dr. Michael Eisenberg, discovered an extremely rare bronze mask of the ancient Greek deity Pan at the Sussita archaeological site on the Golan Heights. The area of Hippos-Sussita, has been a significant source of ancient pagan artifacts.

The mask is estimated to date back to the Hellenistic period, nearly 2000 years ago, while the majority of the ancient bronze statues and masks were melted down in later periods. Another thing that makes the mask so rare is the location it was found, far outside the ancient city, in something that could be a shrine.

Dr. Alexander Yarmolin, an archaeologist working with the University, used a metal detector while looking for coins and came across a mass of earth, covering the mask’s surface. Once uncovering the half-goat, half-human features, there was no doubt the mask depicted the ancient deity Pan, god of shepherds, also representing music and amusement.

“The first thought that went through my mind was ‘Why here, outside the city?'” said Dr. Michael Eisenberg.

“After all, the mask is heavy and could never have just ended up there. We could see the remnants of a basalt structure near the place where we found the mask.”

“The thickness of the walls, the method of construction and the high-quality masonry work hinted at a large building from the Roman period,” he added.

North of Sussita, there is in fact a whole ancient city dedicated to Pan, named Panias, where the deity was worshiped within the city’s temples, as well as in the fields around it, utilising a cave as a pagan temple.

“Rituals to worship the gods of pasture and the fields, particularly Dionysus, were held fairly often outside the city,” the doctor further explained.

“They included ceremonies that involved drinking, sacrifice and ecstatic worship that sometimes involved nudity and sex, which is probably the main reason of the reasons the ceremonies were held outside the city walls.”

Eisenberg and the University’s archaeologists have contacted curators at several museums across the globe, unable to find a piece similar to the one unearthed in Sussita. Pan and the satyrs till now have appeared occasionally as ornamentation on furniture, featured in very small sizes.

“Most of the existing masks resemble theatrical masks; sculpted of stone or clay and with cultic, symbolic and ornamental significance, not to mention how tiny they are,” he said.

“The site cannot compete with the richness of some of the cultural centers of ancient Rome, so a find of this sort here, of all places, is amazing.”

source:Neos Kosmos

Το γερμανικό περιοδικό Der Spiegel κυκλοφορεί το Σάββατο με φωτογραφία στο εξώφυλλό του την Άνγκελα Μέρκελ ανάμεσα σε ναζί αξιωματικούς μπροστά στον Παρθενώνα, στην Αθήνα της Κατοχής.

«Πώς οι ευρωπαίοι βλέπουν τους Γερμανούς: Η γερμανική υπερδύναμη» είναι ο τίτλος του θέματος.

«To τέταρτο Ράιχ» αναφέρεται στο άρθρο, ενώ στην εισαγωγή υπάρχει μια ζωγραφιά σε τοίχο με την Μέρκελ να φέρει μουστάκι.

Και στην εισαγωγή αναφέρεται: «Η Άνγκελα Μέρκελ με χιτλερικό μουστάκι στο δρόμο για την Αθήνα. Σε ορισμένες χώρες-μέλη ανθούν οι συγκρίσεις με τους ναζί. Οι Γερμανοί επέστρεψαν ως δύναμη, αλλά είναι μια περισσότερο αδύναμη δύναμη, παρα ένας ισχυρός ηγεμόνας στην ευρωπαϊκή ήπειρο.”

Πηγή: in.gr

From 2008, before Greece signed a bailout deal with its creditors setting out a raft of cost-cutting measures, until 2012, the tax burden on lower-income Greek households skyrocketed by 337.7 percent compared to just 9 percent for high-income groups, a recent study by Athens-based professors Tassos Giannitsis and Stavros Zografakis found.

The study, for the German-based Macroeconomic Policy Institute, titled “Greece: Solidarity and Adjustment in Times of Crisis,” examines the impacts of the crisis.

Other than major inequalities between rich and poor, the study also noted a major gap between the public and private sectors. In 2009-13 average pay cuts in the public sector came to just 8 percent. In the private sector they were sliced by as much as 19 percent. This further widened the gap between average salaries in the two sectors from 35 percent to 43 percent.

“This policy had much more destructive effects on the productive base of the economy than a spending-led adjustment process, leaving intact an inefficient, corrupt and backward public administration,” the authors note.

The study found that taxation made a 72.4 percent contribution to consecutive governments’ fiscal adjustments, compared to the 7.5 percent contribution of spending cuts.

It concludes by saying that the “emergence and persistence of such divides implies that certain categories of people have come out as winners from the crisis.

source:ekathimerini.com

Jailed leader of Greece’s extreme right Golden Dawn Nikos Michaloliakos sits in a police car as he leaves Korydallos Prison near Athens to be taken home, after 18 months in custody, on Friday.

As the Council of Appeals Court Judges on Friday ordered the release of Golden Dawn party chief Nikos Michaloliakos and MP and party secretary Yiannis Lagos, the anti-racism prosecutor launched a preliminary probe into whether the far-right party was inciting hatred by distributing leaflets calling for “illegal migrants to get out” and advertising a gathering on the issue.

Michaloliakos and Lagos were released from custody because the 18-month period during which suspects can be held pending trial expires next week. The Golden Dawn leader was ordered to remain under house arrest until the trial, scheduled for April 20. Lagos posted bail of 125,000 euros and was banned from leaving the country or attending any public gatherings.

Michaloliakos and Lagos were arrested in September 2013 in the wake of the murder of musician by a party supporter.

source:ekathimerini.com

A beaten Malcolm Fraser leaves the Liberal function late on election right. Photo: C. McKinnon

Whatever you thought of his politics and his seminal role in the vice regal dismissal of the Whitlam Labor government almost 40 years ago, John Malcolm Fraser was, above all else, a genuine liberal in the best sense of the word. Thus he goes to his grave appalled, surely, by the oafs, boofheads and lesser ninnies that not only control the Liberal Party and conservative politics in this country these days, but take their disgrace to the summit of running Australia too.

How could it have come to this, J.M. Fraser must have wondered, constantly, in more recent years, as political behaviour, state and federal, from top to bottom, in our parliaments and out, and right across the three major parties in our democracy, became uglier, greedier, less inclusive, less civil, less caring, more irresponsible, more ill-mannered, more shrill, more ratbag, and wholly more venal, indeed blighted in any and every way you care to look at what is happening to national political life in this country?

This is not to pretend Fraser was a saint. He never got over losing his trousers in Memphis all those years ago after losing government to the Hawke Labor onslaught in 1983. And political opponents like Labor’s Peter Walsh, another flawed man of the land (wheat) like Fraser (beef cattle), pursued the then prime minister’s supposed gaucheries quite mercilessly through Senate questions on notice in the late 1970s and early ’80s that, for whatever reason, never seemed to get answered. And while some in Labor will never forgive the often socially awkward if hard-nosed Fraser of the 1960s and ’70s for what happened on November 11, 1975, Gough Whitlam certainly did in later life. Whitlam and the opponent he flayed on the front steps of old ParLiament House as “Kerr’s cur” that white hot November day, not only reconciled in the 1990s but became friends who shared a deep mutual respect on many issues, not least their detestation of John Howard.

Even Paul Keating, another flawed pillar of the recent political past and one who forever “hates Tories”, could not have been more plain speakingly generous in his unqualified tributes when he learned of Fraser’s death on Friday. Keating’s statement of eulogy is all class.

Which is a aeons distant from what can be said of John Howard and the federal Liberal Party and its national organisational cronies under Howard’s leadership in the 1990s and 2000s. He, it and they shunned Fraser utterly, right up and beyond the day voters rid us of Howard’s government in November, 2007 as well as disposing of the Toad himself. And let me remind you that the only time Malcolm and Tamie Fraser were ever asked back to the Lodge after Fraser lost office in 1983 was when the Keating-appointed Sir William Deane ended his five-year appointment as Governor-General and asked John and Janette Howard to include the Frasers in the afternoon tea the Howards hosted for the Deanes the June day in 2001 that Bill Deane’s appointment ended.

Deane recognised Fraser’s deep contribution to Australian life, most particularly the ethos of multiculturalism, and ensured the Frasers understood he did so.

source:smh.com.au

Bill Lark of Hobart’s Lark Distillery. Photo: Peter Mathew

When it comes to the world of whisky, Tasmania is rapidly defining itself as a global leader.

At the World Whisky Awards held overnight in London, the Sullivans Cove distillery was named Craft Distiller of the Year, and for the third consecutive year was also pronounced Australia’s best single malt whisky.

Tasmania’s Sullivans Cove is named Craft Distiller of the Year.

In addition, local legend Bill Lark – the man behind another leading Tasmanian whisky producer, Lark Distillery – was inducted into the Whisky Hall of Fame for his services to the industry.

The latest round of recognition follows last year’s defining victory, when Sullivans Cove’s French Oak variety was named the world’s best single malt. This year, that title went to a distiller from Taiwan, Kavalan Vinho Barrique.

Being named the world’s top craft distiller is a handy consolation prize, says Sullivans Cove marketing manager Bert Cason. “It’s pretty awesome when you consider the many thousands of craft distillers across the globe,” he says.

Finely crafted

Visitors to the distillery might be sorely disappointed if they are expecting a bucolic experience to match the quality of the whisky. A staff of 10 produces the coveted drop from a concrete shed in an industrial estate close to Hobart’s airport. Neighbours include an auto-scrapyard, a metal fabricator, and a manufacturer of electrical cables.

“There’s absolutely nothing romantic about it,” admits the distillery’s founder Patrick Maguire. “There are no pretty little creeks, or rustic stone buildings. But it’s what comes out of the place that is important.”

The Lark Distillery, five minutes up the road from Sullivans Cove, is similarly functional, operating out of a tin shed plonked in a paddock beside a winery. It was founder Bill Lark who in 1992 resurrected the Tasmanian distillery industry after it had been dormant since the early 1900s.

“That’s a major gong for Tasmanian and Australian whisky,” says Maguire in tribute to his neighbour’s induction into the Hall of Fame.

Legendary Lark

At one time more than a century ago there had been eight distilleries in the Hobart area. Lark lobbied to have laws amended to allow the legal distilling of spirits to recommence. With his wife Lyn, Lark began experimenting with making whisky at their kitchen table. His friend Maguire would go around and lend a hand, which is how he became interested in the craft himself.

“We go back a hell of a long way,” says Maguire. “We may be business rivals but we’re also great mates. I’ll go to their bar and tell them their whisky is s–t, and they’ll laugh at me and tell me that mine is, too. We like taking the piss out of each other.”

Both men were instrumental in establishing the Tasmanian Whisky Producers’ Association almost five years ago. Maguire was the first president.

Tasmanian tigers

There are now about 10 whisky distilleries operating in Tasmania including Overeem, Hellyers Road, Heartwood, Redlands, Belgrove, Trapper’s Hut, and William McHenry and Sons.

The burgeoning industry is even attracting ‘whisky tourists’, keen to take one of the many whisky tours on offer.

So what’s the secret? How is this small island creating some of the most celebrated whisky on the planet?

Executive Style caught up with Bill Lark while he was in London to receive his award to ask him.

“We’re using a traditional brewing barley locally grown in Tasmania,” says Lark. “It doesn’t give us the same high yield of alcohol as a distilling barley used in other parts of the world, but what it does is bring to our whisky a richness of malt and flavour.”

Lark also says the climate is conducive to whisky production.

“We enjoy great seasonal variation and diurnal changes in temperatures which really aids the maturation process, and as any distiller will tell you, 60 per cent of the character of any whisky comes from the time it spends in the barrel.

“I’d also like to think some of the success is owed to the dedication of those who are making whisky in Tasmania, and are very passionate about producing a high quality product.”

source:smh.com.au

Ο Νανά Μούσχουρη

«Μπορεί η Νανά Μούσχουρη να είναι σήμερα 80 ετών, αλλά η φωνή της παραμένει ακόμα νεανική» γράφει το ένθετο «Good Weekend» της εφημερίδας «The Sydney Morning Herald» που φιλοξενεί συνέντευξη της Ελληνίδας ερμηνεύτριας, με αφορμή την περιοδεία που πρόκειται να πραγματοποιήσει στην Αυστραλία.

Το άρθρο αναφέρεται, με ιδιαίτερα εγκωμιαστικό τρόπο, στην καριέρα και το ήθος της, ενώ η ίδια η καλλιτέχνης απαντά σε ερωτήσεις σχετικά με την οικογένειά της και την προσωπική της ζωή».

Αποκαλύπτει, μάλιστα, ότι το 1974 όταν για πρώτη φορά περιόδευσε την Αυστραλία ήταν ακόμα παντρεμένη με τον Γιώργο Πετσίλα, αλλά το τέλος της σχέσης τους διαφαινόταν στον ορίζοντα όταν γνώρισε τον αριστερό συγγραφέα, Φρανκ Χάρντι.

«Η γνωριμία ξεκίνησε με καβγά» λέει η ίδια και προσθέτει πως ο Χάρντι την φλέρταρε, της έγραφε ποιήματα και την ακολουθούσε παντού.

«Ήταν μια σπάνια φιλία για μια ζωή αλλά δεν πήγε παραπέρα» είπε.

Τα φωτογραφικά στιγμιότυπα, τα οποία πλαισιώνουν το αφιέρωμα, προέρχονται από την περίοδο όπου η καριέρα της γνωστής ερμηνεύτριας βρισκόταν στο απόγειό της.

Πηγή: Νέος Κόσμος