greek-turkish friendsship

THE children of the Greeks who emigrated to the Kavala district of Greece in an exchange scheme after the Independence War are due to arrive to Didim to see where their ancestors lived and visit their homes.

Mayor Mümin Kamacı said that Kavala and Didim would become sister cities. He said: “Improving such relations will earn Didim tourism and our people.”

A special programme has been prepared for the Greeks.

About 70 Greeks will arrive in Didim on Wednesday April 2 at 8pm. 

On Thursday April 3, the Greeks will visit the houses of their ancestors and at 7.30pm, the documentary “Asia Minor” about the period of exchange will be shown at the wedding hall.

On Friday April 4, there will be a tour to Ephesus, Virgin Mary's House, Priene and Miletos. 

On the same day the protocol for being a sister city will be signed. 

There will be a farewell dinner held at Kamacı 3 Restaurant, where songs in Greek and Turkish will be sung.


http://www.voicesnewspaper.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1652

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.

You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract . This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.

We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.

Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are based on matter, There is no matter here.

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge . Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.

In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us.

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.

We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.

Davos, Switzerland

February 8, 1996

Home(stead) Page: http://www.eff.org/~barlow

http://www.ccc.de/crd/CRD19960209.html?language=en

Good Bye torrentspy..!

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Regal... continues.. after the scandals

Most people would shudder at the prospect of being sent to Siberia. Not David Greer. He spent four years on the bleak Russian plains as director of a vast oil and gas project for Shell and, although life was tough, it was not all about hardship.

“Sometimes you'd get up in the morning and a metre of snow would have fallen – you couldn't even open the door,” he says. But there was snow-mobiling and in summer, shooting, riding motorcycles, even jetskiing. “I like to work hard and play hard . . . and drive anything fast,” grins Mr Greer, a rumbustious Glaswegian.

Perhaps it is this unconventional approach that persuaded him last November to take up the job of chief executive at Regal Petroleum, a company that has received much publicity over the years – not always for the right reasons.

Formed in 1996 by Frank Timis, a colourful Romanian tycoon, and listed in 2002, Regal's most promising drilling prospects are now in Ukraine, although the company is exploring for oil in Mr Timis's home country and in Egypt.

Regal is best known for a 2005 share scandal that outraged the City after claims that Mr Timis, then the company's chairman, had overhyped the prospects of an oilfield at Kavala in Greece. In the run-up to the debacle, Regal's shares had soared to highs of 509p after investors were led to believe that the field contained up to one billion barrels of oil, making it one of the biggest finds in Europe. At the time, the pressure inside the well was said to be so high that the drilling platform above it was at risk of being destroyed.

The company had raised £40 million of new money from investors in the weeks leading up to the announcement but in fact the well was virtually dry. That prompted the Financial Services Authority and the Stock Exchange to begin separate investigations as the shares plunged to less than 50p.

Mr Timis, who in the 1990s was convicted on two charges of heroin possession, was forced to resign later. He remains on the sidelines as Regal's biggest single shareholder with a 20 per cent stake.

Although the company remains the subject of a disciplinary hearing by the Alternative Investment Market, Mr Greer says that he prefers to focus on the future and bats off questions about the episode. “It's wrong to continue to tarnish the company for something that happened in 2005,” he says. “Too many people are stuck in the past.”

He points out that there are no senior executives left at the company from that time and that the Greek field has since been sold, along with other assets in Liberia. The ongoing disciplinary hearing has no bearing on the running of the business today, Mr Greer insists.

Instead, he prefers to talk about Regal's three fields in Ukraine, which independent consultants believe contain nearly 170 million barrels of proven and probable reserves. If handled correctly, he believes that they have the potential to transform the company and deliver a substantial boost to its £248 million valuation.

“The best legacy for me would be to transform this ragdoll of the London City press into a respectable, mid-tier oil and gas company on the main market,” he says.

With this in mind, Mr Greer – who says that he left Shell last June because he was turning 50 and, fed up with constant travelling, wanted to spend more time with his family – has been busy assembling a strategy to accelerate Regal's drilling programme. Last month, he completed a $165 million (£82.4 million) fundraising round that was oversubscribed by $35 million – not bad going for a roadshow undertaken in the depths of the credit crunch. A marked increase in gas output is expected this summer, with full-scale production due to begin next year.

“There is no excuse for us not going forward and making a success of it,” Mr Greer says. “Regal has every right to be differentiated for all the right – not the wrong – reasons.”

Nevertheless, he finds it harder to fend off questions about a more recent spate of headlines – this time regarding the circumstances of his appointment.

Regal's prospect in Ukraine was so enticing that last autumn, just before Mr Greer joined the company, it had attracted the interest of his old employer, Shell.

Neil Ritson, Mr Greer's predecessor as chief executive, who joined Regal in the aftermath of the 2005 shares scandal, had signed the company up to a $400 million joint venture with Shell to co-develop the fields.

When the deal was announced to the market on November 21, it was welcomed by many as a sign that Regal was regaining credibility. Nevertheless, it proved to be an unpopular decision with key shareholders, including Mr Timis, who wanted Regal to go it alone in Ukraine. They believed that Shell was picking up quality assets on the cheap.

In typical Regal style, a remarkable turn of events ensued. The following day, November 22, Mr Ritson was ousted in a shareholder coup and replaced by Mr Greer. On November 23, Shell pulled out of the partnership.

Mr Greer bristles at the mention of all this. At the time, he says, he was working as a consultant and had been granted access to data regarding Regal's fields in Ukraine.

“Our view was that you could deliver as much value by delivering it yourself than by selling it to Shell or anyone else. We obtained the support of 70 per cent of shareholders – including Timis. Then on November 22 we were approached and asked if we could take on the role of chairman and CEO. We came over the same day.”

Despite his apparent admission that Mr Timis did, indeed, play a role in the process, he fiercely denies the notion that the former chairman retains any undue influence over the company: “Frank Timis is not a director. He has no influence over the company. It's a nonissue and a figment of the imagination of a bitter and twisted few.”

Some may find this hard to believe, but Mr Greer is insistent. He adds that he has learnt much since his appointment. A 28-year career at Shell took him all over the world, including stints as an engineer in the deserts of Oman, offshore Norway, Argentina, northern Canada and the Philippines. But he never felt at home in the marbled halls of the City.

“I came from quite a poor background,” he reflects, “but over the past three months I have learnt a hell of a lot. There is a lot of mystique about the City.” But Mr Greer, every inch the grizzled oilman, is not the sort to be put off by this lack of experience. “I have always relished a challenge,” he says.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article3642087.ece

Το Καβαλιώτικο Κρασί στη Βουλγαρία..!!

Domaine Biblia Chora

With professionalism and a discriminating taste for detail

The ownership of Biblia Chora – which, for now, is the only Greek wine imported into Bulgaria – is divided between two Greek oenologists – Vassilis Tsaktsaralis and Vangelis Gerovassiliou – who make all the cellar's wines.

Tsaktsaralis' reputation as a talented wine-maker precedes him, and with due reason. His wines are modern in their production style, while retaining a classic approach and a flair for experimenting. Gerovassiliou has previously established his name with his own winery Domaine Gerovassiliou.

Biblia Chora (also spelt Vivlia Hora) is beautiful and impressive – it could easily be called a temple of wine. The edifice carries the entire charm of classic Europe, while at the same time constructed to be maximally becoming for a winery.

While proving to be ideally situated for both red and white varietals, the two owners have a penchant for the native white varietal assyrtiko. It is on this grape that their best wines are based, often in a blend with sauvignon blanc, chardonnay or semillon.

Assyrtiko, which is typical of northern Greece, is associated with aromas of lemon and fresh grass – by which it recalls sauvignon blanc. The two varietals complement each other well, a natural marriage of sorts.

On principle, the region around Kavala is where the red ksinomavro is grown, but the two oenologists prefer more southern, spicy complex and fresh agiorgitiko. For fresh and fruity wines is the style after which they strive.

We tasted the 100 per cent syrah rose. It was a resonant, clean, lively wine with interesting fruit notes and charming violet.

The conception of the winery is like this: for world-known grape sorts present in Greek-Macedonian land to be combined with the best characteristics of local varietals. Such is why wines like Biblia Chora's Ovilos label are designated as being “from the region of Pangeon”. For example, the white Ovilos is a blend of 50 per cent sauvignon blanc and 50 per cent assyrtiko; the red that we tasted was 100 per cent cabernet sauvignon.

Ovilos
Regional white wine from Pangeon 2005. Straw-gold colour and intense nose in which dominates the fresh aromas of basil, mint, grapefruit and spices. Harmonious, with good freshness and structure. In the in-mouth aroma again is perceived mint, basil, tar and grapefruit. Long herby finish. (rating 85/100, 23 leva)

Ovilos
Regional white wine from Pangeon; sauvignon blanc and assyrtiko 2005. Straw-gold with glossiness. Intensive aroma in the nose among which dominate grass, white peach, lime and green pepper. Fresh, light and harmonious, with a medium body, while in the in-mouth aroma appears peach, grassiness and lime. Long, fruity and fresh finish. (rating 85/100)

64008 Kokkinohori; Kavala
Tel: +30 25920 44974
oinopedion@acn.gr

http://www.sofiaecho.com/article/get-that-spirit-movin-domaine-biblia-chora/id_28438/catid_29