Doric column

From Meld blog

As I was sailing the waves of www a couple of months ago, I came across the imposing image of a ”hungry baby” pasted somewhere on an Athenian wall. I was compelled to send a friend request to the street artist on FB and happily enough he responded immediately. From our initial conversations, I realized that STMTS, the young man of 18 years of age who is attending the School of Fine Arts in Athens is a very passionately creative and socially active human being. Needles to say, I asked him to invite me to his next action.

A couple of weeks later, the phone rings and what do you know, we were on! In utter excitement I called my friend “Ryme” to join me and film-shoot the action.

I arrived at 22pm at the metro station of Panepestimio, a winter Athenian night. As I exited, on my right I could hear the not very computing sound of drums and in astonishment I witnessed a group of nude African dancers from the waist up, probably part of some ethnic festival taking place in the city for the people to see. This city is always surprising… Across the street I finally meet STMTS and one of his collaborators, John. They came fully equipped: ladder, self-made glue, brushes in hand and Avanti popolo!

Image Courtesy of Ryme63/StateofMInd & Innoir

STMTS looked around and finally picked a dark, quiet spot to avoid messing around with the authorities. He explained to me that he was very much concerned with vandalism, and one of the reasons he did not use stencils, nor spray paint was to avoid hurting his already wounded city. Instead, his art is applied on cut out paper and, as any other poster, is easy to remove and leaves no traces behind. I was very moved and happily surprised to find out that –contrary to common belief- there is a part of the youth who really care and are still engaged in the well being of their city! I was about to witness the birth of an artwork made by an 18 year old socially conscious and responsible, sensitive person…a real artist.

The boys began their process by making their own glue and pasting their blown up image on the wall. As the first part of a baby face was coming to life, a security guard approached suspiciously and asked us what we were up to. “Just an urban art intervention,” we said. “Ok do you know you are right by the door of the Ministry of Labor?” he insisted…a fact that had escaped us, but nevertheless, intensified the ad hoc action and the conceptual aspect of it. Regardless of the warnings of the guard, the boys continued the posting. As they had proceeded to the center-piece of the face, a car came out of the ministry’s garage and 30 seconds later, a police team appeared.

Tension rose as one of the officers asked again aggressively what on earth we were doing. The young artist showed him his School ID and tried explaining calmly what a street intervention was as the law enforcement representative was now angrily protecting the establishment, screaming the familiar ”The law is the law!” “But we are not spraying, we are pasting! In the same way than these posters for strikes and manifestations that are posted right here, next to the Ministry door! Look, right here there is an “apergia” poster announcing the next strike!”, I showed him in protest and to our defense.

Image Courtesy of Ryme63/StateofMind & Innoir

The relentless policemen were getting impatient as they were chanting their mantra: “the law is the law” and they threatened to call in their superiors. By that point we were circling the police and begging to be understood. The younger officer seemed to have some compassion, but almost apologetically told us that the decision was not in his hands. Suddenly, an older gentleman who looked authoritative, came out of the Ministry watching the scene with a perplexed look. I, keeping my calm, explained to him our purpose, the situation and how important it was that the young Athenian artist was not vandalizing the city, but beautifying it with a meaningful, thought-provoking image that was carrying a very important social message and a dream for the future.

The gentleman from the Ministry took the police aside, talked to them gave him his own personal information and suddenly out of the blue, with the authorities okay, we were back in business! That was one of the magical and most hopeful moments of that evening, where two completely different generations joined together under the same cause. Thank you Athens!

Image Courtesy of Ryme63/StateofMind & Innoir

Half an hour later, “le baby” was born! A powerful, big and beautiful image of a baby with a pacifier carrying the universal nuclear symbol on it! A conceptual expression of deep, unsettling concern for the endangered future, not only of the city of Athens, but of the entire planet!

I will always carry this nocturnal experience in my mind and in my heart. I will always remember the hope it gave me, as I realized the fact that the new generations to come are and will always be finding their own ways to express themselves, with no support from the State and the public sector in its whole. I will remember that it all came to life from a deep desire of self-expression, far stronger in effect than the rebellious trio “sex, drugs and rock and roll” that has been the vehicle of many generations.

I will always respect and expect more from the young artist who told me that drugs, sex and rock roll are not enough to make his heart beat fast, and that in order to face nihilism, stagnation and lack of purpose in our times you have got to be creative. And that once you commit to creativity, then magic and change starts happening…

Image Courtesy of Ryme63/StateofMind & Innoir

Thank you STMTS. Thank you Ryme, Innoir, Dawkinson, DJ Booker, Ioanna, and John for making this possible.

And thank you Athens for your Magic!

Text by Maria Dawkinson & Karenina

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The internship will start on the 27th of February 2012 in Nantes and run up until the 13th of July 2012 (documents have to be returned before the end of January 2012). The students get a monthly allowance of about 417 €.

How it works:

by Sarantis Michalopoulos, President of JEF-Greece

Many analysts believe that the unfolding euro debt crisis has put the EU in a historic crossroads, which can result in a productive outcome or on the contrary, in a collapse with unpredictable consequences for the rest of the world on a multidimensional level.

Glad to see young talented Greek and German friends mentioned at the Associated Press article by Christopher Torchia and their stories ...

"A few Greek entrepreneurs perch in front of laptops in bare offices above a ground-floor supermarket, five minutes' walk from the Athens square convulsed by riots last month over the country's economic crisis.

"Innovate," a wall slogan exhorts. "Originate." A bowl of fist-sized plastic balls sits on a table, ripe for the plucking. Sure, the touches are geeky. But if there is hope for debt-laden Greece, which has just been bailed out again by the EU, there is a glimmer of it here. A small enterprise called CoLab Workspace rents space to tech-savvy startups on the theory that the more they mingle, the more they thrive. This nascent pocket of dynamism won't make much of a dent in a culture of freeloading and favor-trading that burrowed deep into the Greek psyche, but it is a symbol, however rarefied, of fresh thinking.

For the problem is not just the numbers, the dots that connect a picture of economic collapse. Unemployment, austerity measures, bailout funds and the slumping stock market are one thing. Modern Greece, whose ancestors laid foundations of art, democracy and individualism, is also reckoning with ingrained habits of dependence, accompanied today by a yawning sense of betrayal and hopelessness, that block its path to recovery.

"It's extremely difficult. Here, in general, innovation never existed. The majority of the companies, they relied on the state, on the government. It was a totally wrong approach," said Vassilis Nikolopoulos, a computer engineer whose IT startup, Intelen, aims to help firms monitor and curb their energy consumption. He recently shifted his operations to CoLab Workspace from a conventional office that cost more.

Declaring that "the state is dead," in that it has no money to support projects, Nikolopoulos said he has raised about one-third of the roughly $300,000 needed for initial funding from private investors and that his 7-member company plans to export services even if it entails failure, a rite of passage for any aggressive entrepreneur.

by Natali Lekka*

Such is the love for food among Mediterranean countries that after a joint petition, put forward by Greece, Spain, Italy and Morocco,  UNESCO decided to include the Mediterranean diet in the World Heritage list, in the 5th session of the UNESCO Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage, in Nairobi, Kenya, last November.

Every year, thousands of food festivals take place in every corner of the Mediterranean region, and Greece, which boasts one of the healthiest diets in the world, could not be missing from the feast.

Print newspapers are declaring bankruptcy nationwide... High-profile blogs are proliferating. Media companies are exploring new production techniques and business models in a landscape that is increasingly dominated by the Internet. In the midst of this upheaval, it is difficult to know what is actually happening to the shape of our news. Beyond one-off anecdotes or painstaking manual content analysis, there are few ways to examine the emerging news ecosystem.

• Do bloggers introduce storylines into mainstream media or the other way around?

• What parts of the world are being covered or ignored by different media sources?

• Where do stories begin?

Source: europarl.europa.eu

A meeting this week of MEPs and MPs from countries bordering the Mediterranean comes at a significant time. Portuguese MEP Mário David (EPP), who heads Parliament's delegation to Mashreq countries, including Egypt, said, "we are lucky to have such a meeting at such a historic moment". Italian Socialist Pier Antonio Panzeri, Chair of the EP delegation to Maghreb countries, which includes Libya and Tunisia, has called it an "important opportunity" to analyse the situation.

Italian Liberal MEP Sonia Alfano who will attend the meeting of the "Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean" in Rome on 3-4 March said, "regimes on the other side of the Mediterranean that killed liberty have fallen and dictatorial regions that were considered unshakeable are trembling".

Speaking to us ahead of the meeting Mr David stressed that the EU must "encourage all our partners in the South and in the East of the Mediterranean to pursue their path to democracy (and) respect for human rights". He went on to say that the use of violence against demonstrators must be firmly condemned. In addition he called for negotiations between Israel and Palestine to be given greater impetus, based on the Arab League's Middle East Peace Plan of 2002.

Mr Panzeri was clear that he thought that the movement towards democracy and freedom in these States "will proceed". He added: "No situation is alike: in Tunisia the situation is rather different to that in Egypt and to that in Libya too. There also has to be a stronger EU presence in the aftermath of these events."

Mr Panzeri also called for "immediate action - particularly as far as the very delicate matter of immigration is concerned. "I'm talking about the availability of certain instruments and financial resources, as well as showing greater solidarity in tackling the problem in a more redistributive manner across Europe."

Meeting with history "lost", says Alfano

In Ms Alfano's opinion Europe has been too slow to adopt a common position on the emerging crises and has "lost an historic meeting with history". She went on to say, "we have allowed the United States to intervene first despite our geographical, historical and political links with this part of the world...The current situation shows that Europe must not make any concessions on human rights - ever".

Parliament's President Jerzy Buzek will head the delegation to the EuroMed summit. Ahead of the meeting he spoke of the "long road to lasting change: a road of political transition, through constitutional reforms, free and pluralistic elections and strengthening of civil society" through which the European Union must support these countries.

"We have to ensure that the changes brought about the people in the Mediterranean region have the strong support of Parliamentarians from the entire region," he said.

The annual meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean (PA-UfM) brings together MPs and MEPs from the EU and from Mediterranean countries belonging to the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, including Algeria, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. Delegations from Tunisia and Egypt will not participate this time, due to the difficulties they are dealing with at home.

As well as recent events, immigration and the EU financial instruments for the region, including the Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership (FEMIP) of the European Investment Bank are on the agenda.

This article was originally published at Jpost.com here

By GIL SHEFLER

“We cannot look into the future without knowing the past. Not for nothing was it called the Jerusalem of the Balkans."

Thessaloniki Mayor Yiannis Boutaris has always felt close to the Jewish community of his city, he told The Jerusalem Post at the Israel Trade Fairs Center on Tuesday.

“My first lover in high school was Jewish,” the white-haired mayor, who exudes an air of sophistication, recalled as he lit up a cigarette. “She later got married in Paris, but I had several Jewish friends in class.”