CTC acquires OTEnet unit in Cyprus March 27, 2008
Posted by grhomeboy in Business & Economy, Telecoms.Tags: Business, Cyprus, Greece, OTE, Telecoms
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Importer and retailer Cyprus Trading Corporation (CTC) said yesterday that it owns fully Cyprus-based OTEnet Telecommunications after it bought a 12.75 percent stake from Brightmind Enterprises.
The agreed price for the transaction was 1 million euros, CTC said in a statement. In February, CTC acquired from Greece’s telecom OTE its shareholding in Cyprus’s OTEnet for 3.99 million euros, which gave it 87.25 percent ownership of OTEnet Telecommunications.
British man gets 15 years for child sex March 27, 2008
Posted by grhomeboy in Police & Crime.Tags: Greece, Police & Crime, Thessaloniki
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A Thessaloniki court yesterday passed down a 15-year jail sentence to a 66-year-old British man found guilty of sexually molesting a schoolboy and trying to molest another.
The man, identified by The Associated Press as John Norman Hardy Foss, was an English teacher, the court heard. But his two victims, aged 11 and 12, were not his pupils. He lured them into his car in the summer of 2006 before driving them to a remote spot. There he sexually abused one of them and tried to abuse the second, who resisted.
The crime came to light in July 2006 when two women in the neighborhood of Katerini told police they saw the 66-year-old dropping off the boys. The Briton was arrested and detained until last January when he got a conditional release. In addition to his jail sentence, the 66-year-old was fined 150,000 euros.
Forum on poverty in Athens March 27, 2008
Posted by grhomeboy in Living, Shows & Conferences.Tags: Athens, Conferences, Greece, Living
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Six in 10 Greeks feel they could slip below the poverty line in the years to come, according to figures made public yesterday at a ceremony held to launch an international forum in Athens on fighting poverty.
The sixth forum of the World Alliance of Cities against Poverty (WACAP) was launched with more than 1,000 delegates attending from 300 cities in 100 countries.
“We can no longer continue to feign ignorance,” said Athens Mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis. “We know very well that next to the world of progress, development and affluence, there exists a world that is almost totally unprotected and trapped in a deadlock. It is a world of intolerance, poverty and misery,” added the Athens Mayor.
The forum, which lasts until tomorrow, aims at fighting poverty, protecting children and providing basic services to citizens, such as clean water and a decent standard of living.
The theme of the WACAP forum in Athens is the reinforcement of local democratic government.
Earth Hour > Greece’s initiative March 27, 2008
Posted by grhomeboy in Environment.Tags: Environment, Greece
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The island of Aegina will be Greece’s representative in a worldwide initiative, known as Earth Hour, this Saturday at 8 p.m. to save energy, it was revealed yesterday.
The scheme, which began in Australia, aims to get people across the world to switch off their lights for an hour. More than 30 big cities have signed up, including Sydney, Chicago and Dublin, but Athens has not shown any interest.
More than 9,000 businesses and 136,000 individuals have indicated their intention to participate at www.earthhour.org, including a group of activists from Aegina.
Art exhibition presents history through subjective stories March 27, 2008
Posted by grhomeboy in Arts Events Greece, Arts Exhibitions Greece, Arts Museums.Tags: Arts, Events, Exhibitions, Greece, Museums, Thessaloniki
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Despina Meimaroglou and Deimantas Narkevicius at Thessaloniki’s SMCA
An image from the video ‘Disappearance of a Tribe’ by Deimantas Narkevicius.
A photograph from Despina Meimaroglou’s project inspired by her trip to Cambodia.
During a trip to Cambodia three years ago, artist Despina Meimaroglou visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in the capital Phnom Penh. Originally a school, it had been converted into a torture site during Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime before much later becoming a Museum.
Impressed by the numbers of young students waiting to visit the former torture chambers, Meimaroglou began thinking about rememberance and the strong effect that certain historical events can have on our lives. Her visit to Cambodia provided one more occasion to ponder on politics and history, steady subject matter in the work of this politically oriented artist. Upon her return, and still deeply stressed by the strong effect that the visit to the Genocide Museum had on her, Meimaroglou began work on a new project.
“Discovering the Other – Tuol Sleng, After all who Rewrites History after You” the title of the art installation that ensued after the artist’s visit to Cambodia, is one of the artist’s two works presented in “Genius Seculi”, a joint exhibition on the work of Meimaroglou and the well-known Lithuanian artist Deimantas Narkevicius, who represented his country at the 2001 Venice Biennale. The exhibition is organized by the Center of Contemporary Art, a section of the Thessaloniki State Museum of Contemporary Art (SMCA) and curated by Syrago Tsiara, the Center’s Director.
Meimaroglou and Narkevicius both share an interest in exploring issues related to history and politics through personal narratives. They both view history through subjective, individual stories and explore the interplay between the personal and the collective.
Narkevicius raises issues related to his country’s recent history and uses film and video in the style of a documentary. “Once in the XX Century”, a film presented in the Thessaloniki exhibit, is a montage of footage documenting the tearing down of public sculpture during the period of the early 1990s when Soviet control of Lithuania came to an end. The overpowering presence of the sculpture is a metaphor for the staying effects of the Soviet regime. According to the artist, it suggests that the immediate changes that everybody hoped for were not effected, that the “utopia of liberalism, which then seemed the only way” did not become a reality.
The work of Narkevicius speaks of the importance of thinking about recent history in a critical and profound way. His work suggests that being oblivious to historical events is at the expense of awareness of both history and oneself.
In the video “Dissapearance of a Tribe”, Narkevicius reflects on the history of his country from the 1950s to today through a selection of images taken from his family photo album. Again, his work examines the ways in which the large events of history trickle down into the lives of people or how personal stories reflect broader, historical events.
This quest is also to be found in the work of Meimaroglou. In the video installation “Annette McGavigan: A Personal Story becomes History” Meimaroglou tells the story of a 15-year-old girl who was killed by British soldiers during the traumatic Bloody Sunday events in Northern Ireland in 1972. After a chance meeting with the victim’s brother in Athens a few years ago, Meimaroglou began collecting all sorts of archival material on this relatively recent chapter of Northern Ireland’s history.
Her work engages the notion of historical memory. The artist pays tribute to the anonymous victims of violence and tragic historical events. Both her work and the work of Narkevicius are a reminder that history is a living experience that shapes the present and our self-understanding.
“Genius Seculi” at the SMCA, Thessaloniki, to 30 April. For information call 2310 546683.
Related Links > www.cact.gr
One-off gig from an indie-rock great March 27, 2008
Posted by grhomeboy in Music Life Live Gigs.Tags: Athens, Concerts, Greece, Live Gigs, Music, Performances
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Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses performs solitary European concert date in Athens tomorrow
‘My lyrics aren’t about my expression so much as they’re about the expression of something universal, through images and moments I may have experienced, but which are not me or mine,’ says indie-rock pioneer Hersh. She follows up spoken word-music shows in London and Glasgow with a gig in Athens.
Kristin Hersh emerged in the mid-80s as a co-founder and band leader of Throwing Muses, an innovative rock act that quickly proved to be pivotal, internationally, in independent music.
Throwing Muses became the first of a number of US acts to be signed by the emblematic British label 4AD, home over the years to a rich guild of artful acts, both atmospheric and abrasive, and usually dark-sounding. The label’s roster of past and present acts reads like an accumulation of standout cases in contemporary music. Some of the now-defunct acts were widely unknown during their time. But highlighting this label’s ability and instinct for spotting genuine talent, many of its acts went on to consolidate their reputations, to varying degrees, once they had called it a day.
The label’s signings have included the Pixies, Cocteau Twins, Birthday Party, Breeders, Dead Can Dance and Bauhaus, as well as worthy lesser-knowns such as Lisa Germano and Kendra Smith.
As for Throwing Muses, it is said that the act decided to split because of financial woes despite the good word that was being spread around about them in independent music circles. Hersh, a songwriter of eerie and intense work, both acoustic and harder-hitting, has continued as a solo performer. Her debut solo album, 1994’s “Hips and Makers”, a project loaded with troubling acoustic beauty, proved a commercial success. Several worthy solo albums have since followed. Currently in Europe for two shows featuring spoken word, music and projections in London and Glasgow, the California-based musician will also perform a solo concert date in Athens tomorrow night.
Kristin Hersh (solo set), tomorrow, Kyttaro Club, 48 Ipeirou Street, Athens, tel 210 8224134. Doors open 9.30p.m. Nearest metro station “Victoria”.
A solo photo show at the Benaki Museum March 27, 2008
Posted by grhomeboy in Arts Events Greece, Arts Exhibitions Greece, Arts Museums.Tags: Arts, Athens, Culture, Events, Exhibitions, Greece, Greek Diaspora, Greek Heritage, Museums
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A few years ago, Pavlos Kozalides traveled the region of the Black Sea in order to document the lives of the area’s Greeks. In many ways, it was voyage in search of his own roots. Of Pontic descent himself, he grew up listening to his family talk about their lives in Ordu, Turkey, before the 1923 exchange of populations.
Kozalides visited Ordu as well as other regions of Turkey but also traveled to Georgia, Ukraine and Russia. The photographs he produced, on a commission from the Benaki Museum, are exhibited in “Pavlos Kozalides: Seeking a Lost Homeland”, an exhibition curated by the artist and on display at the main building of the Benaki Museum, while the Museum’s Photographic Archives is the organizer.
Kozalides seeks out those aspects of Greek tradition that still survive in the communities of Greeks living in the Black Sea and draws attention to an important but somewhat neglected part of the Greek diaspora.
Born in Piraeus in 1961, Kozalides moved with his family to Canada when he was 7. He started working as a photographer in the 1980s, upon his permanant return to Greece. He has traveled extensively, photographing different parts of the world. The Benaki exhibition is the first public presentation of his work.
“Pavlos Kozalides: Seeking a Lost Homeland”, Benaki Museum, 1 Koumbari Street, Athens, tel 210 3671000. To April 13.
Related Links > www.benaki.gr
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