CNN made a report on the case of Greek teacher Julie Koukliati working at a private school in South Africa, where she is teaching the Greek language to the children of the Greek migrants there.

Full of optimism and despite the cuts in her salary from the Greek government for her teaching abroad, Koukliati told CNN: “You only hear bad things about Europe and Greece but people there still have hope. They are still falling in love, going on vacation, they are getting on with their lives.”

More and more people begin expressing their interest in travelling overseas to make ends meet while Greece is suffering from the fifth consecutive year of recession.

In South Africa, the Greek Community includes up to 50,000 people, according to the Consulate General of Greece in Johannesburg.

According to the CNN report, community organizations are receiving more job applications from electricians and artists desperate to escape the tough economic conditions in Greece, which could boost the declining numbers of the Greek population in South Africa since 2004.

These are only some of the photographs included in this year’s calendar of the Youth Network of the World Council of Hellenes Abroad (SAE), Central and South America Region.

The photographs were chosen from a contest organized in November 2011 and present landscapes, people, events, celebrations, monuments, architectural works, etc. which are reflective of the Greek character.

The photography contest was organized in order to enhance the bonds of people living in South America with Greece, and promote and highlight the Greek cultural presence in those countries.

Second, third and even fourth generation young people of Greek descent responded to the SAE contest call and sent their personal photos from countries such as Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile.

The first prize was awarded to Avgoustina Maniki from Buenos Aires, who decided to shoot a picture of a Greek-born man dressed as a Tsolias in a 2011 May parade in Argentina. “The piercing eye of the man gives the picture depth, meaning, emotion and humanity” commented young Avgoustina.

One of the winning photographs shows the Church of Archangel Michael of the Greek Community “Socrates” in Buenos Aires. “This photograph is very important to me because it reminds me of my grandfather, Demetris” said photographer Alexis Spyrakis. “With his donation, love and efforts, my grandfather contributed to our society becoming closely connected to Greece and obtaining a house of prayer, where we can hold on to our faith” added Spyrakis.

The Acropolis was also included in the calendar with a photograph taken by David Gonzales from Mexico, depicting a group of Greek born people posing in front of the ancient site.

Theocharis Deligiannis’ photograph from Santiago, Chile, is full of optimism for the future of Hellenism in Latin America. The photograph shows three Greek born children dressed in traditional Greek outfits, participating in the celebrations for OXI Day on October 28, 2011.

The words “Price Tag” daubed on a vandalized car parked outside the 11th-century Monastery of the Cross suggested that militant Jewish settlers were responsible and police said they were investigating that possibility as well as other angles.

The term refers to retribution the settlers say they will exact for any attempt by the Israeli government to curb settlement in the West Bank, an area Palestinians seek as part of a future state.

“Price Tag” attacks have targeted mosques, Palestinian homes and Israeli military installations in the occupied West Bank, but vandalism of Christian holy sites in Jerusalem is extremely rare.

Police said “Death to Christians” was painted in Hebrew on the outer wall of the fortress-like monastery administered by the Greek Orthodox Church in a valley overlooked by Israel’s parliament.

“I am a priest and I forgive,” Father Claudio of the monastery told Reuters.

Elsewhere in Jerusalem on Tuesday, “Death to Arabs” was painted in Hebrew on the wall of a playground of a Jewish-Arab bilingual school.

In the West Bank, anti-Muslim slogans were daubed on the walls of several homes in the village of Al-Lubban al-Sharqiya overnight, a Palestinian official said, blaming Jewish settlers.

A similar incident occurred on Sunday in the West Bank village of Al Janiyeh, the official said.

(Source: Reuters.com)

Owner of the historic patisserie “Delices”, Mrs. Antoniou’s distinction was also featured in the last issue of the weekly “Al Badr Gadida”. During the Awards’ ceremony, all “effective tourist agents” have been recognized for their contribution to the Egyptian economy.

The event was attended by a representative of the Press and Communication Office of Greece in Cairo.

The business activities of the Antoniou family in Egypt began in 1922, and Mrs. Aliki Antoniou has been a shining example for the Greek Community, with her contributions to the Lyceum of Hellenic Women.

In 1985, Faryad came to Greece after visiting Paris and undertaking a course in the Greek language at the Hellenic-American Society. He entered the University of Athens to study modern Greek and Greek Literature in general.

At the same time, he began to translate Greek poets and writers. In this way he acquainted Persian readers with Elitis, Sinopoulos, Vrettakos, Livaditis and many others.

In 1990, a large anthology of Ritsos’ poetry was published in Iran with the title “The Diary of an Exile”. For this translation Faryad won the 1991 prize from the Greek Centre for the Translation of Literature. In the same year he taught Persian in the University of Thessaloniki. From that year on, he began to study Ancient Greek, and finished a translation of an anthology of short stories of Antonis Samarakis.

In 1997 he published a translation from ancient Persian literature into Greek – the first book of its kind, entitled “Stories from Paradise”. It includes five magic stories from four classical Iranian poets – Ferdowssi, Nezami, Attar, and Khajouye-Kermani.

The latest work of Faryad was an anthology of modern Greek poetry from Solomos, Kalvos, Palamas, and Kavafy, up to the present time.

Many celebrated poets and writers have written in praise of Faryad’s poetry: for example – Antonis Samarakis, Manolis Anagnostarkis, Titos Patrikios, Dinos Christianopoulos, Katerina Angelaki-Rook, Kostas Asimakopoulos, Michael Meraklis, Kostas Tchaousis, Pandelis Boukalas, Maria Markantonatou, as well as the great poet Iannis Ritsos, and French writer and poet Jacques Lacarrier.

HS HYDRA is a MEKO 200HN type multiple role frigate which has been in the service of the Hellenic Navy since March 1992. She has a displacement of 3,350 tons, a crew of 189 and carries an SH-70 Sea Hawk helicopter.

The Greek ship joins EU NAVFOR to protect merchant vessels carrying humanitarian aid of the World Food Program, other vulnerable ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, as well as operating in a manner to deter and disrupt piracy while monitoring fishing activity off the coast of Somalia.

This will be his second visit after performing 11 concerts in August 2011 in the Tohuku area for the disaster victims. He is planning to visit the area again in March, which will be one year exactly since the devastation.

Sponsors of the concert are the Japan-Greece Society, the Japan-British Society and the Japan Emergency NPO (JEN).

The music to be performed includes composer Hadjidakis’ “Three Greek Pieces” (from “For a little white seashell”), Say’s “Black Earth” (“Kara Tropak”), Takemitsu’s “A Song of Love” (from Uninterrupted Rest) and Chopin’s “Ballade No.4 in F minor, Op. 52”.

The Greek residents in Japan, as well as all Japanese, are kindly invited to this charity concert of March aiming at offering some help to those in need.

Doors open at 18:30 on Friday, March 16. Ouji Hall is located on Ginza 4-7-5 Chuo-ku (for more information visit www.ojihall.jp) and the fee is 4,000 yen (free seating). For early reservations made in February the fee will have a discount of 500 yen.

Further information is posted on “Greeks of Japan”, a community website created to unite the Greeks and people interested in Greece who live in Japan.

For those interested please contact Fay Savaidis on faysavaidis@ever.ocn.ne.jp by the latest on February 29, 2012, or visit http://www.greeksofjapan.com/.

The author points out a number of facts that apparently were kept as sealed secrets for decades by the Turkish regime. Some of  the most poignant are:

“Compatriots, stop already all the festivities about the Fall, we have given Anatolia enough violence as it is…

If there was to be a convention in Athens about: ‘we will take back Constantinople…’

If the Greeks were to depict Agia Sophia with a cross on it…how would we feel about that?

We would not like it at all, in fact we would provoke a diplomatic incident.

So, why do you keep on with the festivities every year?

Is that not a way of making a clear declaration: ‘these grounds were not ours, we have conquered them using violence.’

All of Anatolia is conquered with the use of  violence.

Instead of being proud of the cities we have conquered, let us be proud of those that we have founded, if any… But there are not.’’

The letter, sent on January 27 by the Assyrian Genocide Research Center to numerous members of the Knesset of the State of Israel, noted that hundreds of thousands of innocent Assyrians and Greeks “faced targeted killings, rape, abuse, destruction of home and villages and the razing of churches at the hands of the Ottoman Turks and their Kurdish allies” during the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923.

While the better-known genocide of Armenians has garnered more international attention, Assyrians and Greeks worldwide have campaigned passionately for the recognition of their genocides alongside that of the Armenians. “Many do not know”, the letter notes, “that genocide was also committed against other ethnic groups, namely the Assyrians and Greeks, who were living from time immemorial on their ancestral lands, which were within the borders of the Ottoman Empire in 1914.”

Despite the extensive corpus of academic research and archival material proving the reality of the genocide, the Turkish Republic has until now refused to formally recognize the genocide of Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks. Numerous governments, parliaments and international bodies have recognized the genocide. Most recently, the Parliament of Sweden endorsed a resolution to officially recognize the Assyrian genocide, alongside those of the Armenians and Greeks.

(Source: AINA)

The Late Bishop Petros of Nikopolis (Karatroupkos) was born in Naousa, Macedonia. He held a degree from the Theological Faculty of the University of Thessaloniki, was ordained Deacon in 1953 and Priest in 1960. He served as Archdeacon of the late Metropolitan Seraphim of Ioannina, who was later Archbishop of Athens, and as Priest he served at the Holy Metropolis of Verroea and Naousa, the Holy Archdiocese of North and South America, the Holy Metropolis of Toronto and the Holy Metropolis of Carthage, serving as its Vicar.

On February 22nd, 2001, by proposal of the late Petros VII, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria, he was unanimously elected as Bishop of the newly-established Diocese of Zambia. He resigned on March 14th, 2003. On the same day he received the title of Bishop of Nikopolis.

(Source: Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa)