Category: Uncategorized

To: <editor@tribunemag.co.uk>

Attention Grace Blakeley .

(editor, please forward)

Dear Grace Blakeley,

Thank you for your contribution in this video: https://www.youtube.com/live/C4zreB1805o

I am writing to you from Aegina in Greece, the island on which Yanis Varoufakis has his second home. DiEM25 got off to a very early start here, but the performance was not sustained.

Yanis Varoufakis spoke to the group on a couple of occasions. Here is the first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyNfj52AVKw&t=48s\

I convened this meeting but I was not head of the DiEM25 group in Aegina. That was Erik Rooze, who was present in the audience. Now all these years later, yesterday (22nd February 2026) Erik and I met and discussed the present situation, including the Iran war but not only that. Erik and Yanis are still in communication. I made it clear to Erik yesterday (though he did not really need to be told) that I want absolutely nothing to do with Yanis or with DieM25 but I nevertheless believe that Yanis could make an important contribution to Greek, European and global politics.

After the summer 2016 beach meeting in Aegina where Yanis spoke, infighting broke out in the local DiEM25 group. I could not be bothered trying to wage the low-level fight that was required and I peacefully handed over the site and the organization to the new “leadership”, who did not take long to destroy DiEM25 in Aegina. I was not (and am not) at all interested in having anything more to do either with DiEM25 or with this kind of politics generally. I am also not interested in continued real-life personal involvement with the Cape Byron Lighthouse initiative but I will help with relevant translation into Greek in support of it.

Yanis is currently engaged in confrontation with Alexis Tsipras and has embarked on the same course as is to be seen everywhere that challenges to the status quo are being attempted (and in many cases where real challenges are probably not being attempted (is this true for the Tsipras case? Probably). Anyway, what happens is that there is a proliferation of rival small parties, some of them clearly being bankrolled for the purpose of sowing division.

This is not all that is to be said about Yanis. As I say, I think he could play an important role in Greek, European and global politics. My collaborator Nikos Vakolidis in Northern Greece (Ioannina) is of the same opinion, despite his own negative experience with DiEM25 and MERA25. He can tell the story about all that himself.

I think it would be best at this point to continue with an assortment of input compiled over a long period. Here goes:

To: Nikos Vakolidis

Would you support nominating Varoufakis as the “Lighthouse Keeper” for Aegina?

W.

https://lighthousedeclaration.org/

https://cafelockedout.com/what-if-you-could-see-silence/

From: <halva1@otenet.gr>

Subject: On the Cape Byron Lighthouse Project

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 at 21:01, Wayne Hall <enouranois@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Mehran,

Thursday 19th. I received a phone call in the middle of the day today from Vangelis Venetis, who watched the discussion between Varoufakis and Jeffrey Sachs that you compered – “Stopping Europe’s War Project” and has also read the message about it I sent to you.

The war that Vangelis would be committed to averting would be the war against Iran, because that is where his expertise is focused. A month or two back he and I were discussing the Lighthouse Declaration and I suggested that he might like to become a “Lighthouse Keeper”. What that involves you can begin to see from this video which I am currently subtitling:

https://clubgrubbery.com.au/graham-and-john-speak-to-representatives-from-the-lighthouse-foundation/

In the “Stopping Europe’s War Project” video Jeffrey Sachs made the point that the War Project could be stopped from one day to the next with a change of Chancellor in Germany. What are Reiner Fuellmich’s prospects? At this moment he is prison. But Nelson Mandela was in prison before emerging as President of South Africa.

Last summer in Aegina at the annual film festivaI on the Kollatos estate I gave a presentation of the situation with Fuellmich. If you are short of time start at minute 1.05.20, where I announce the Lighthouse Declaration, which had just come to hand (for me) and which Reiner is now supporting. https://odysee.com/@World.Freedom.Alliance.Greece:4/ReinerFuellmichWhatIsToBeDone:3

Someone else who is committed to resisting Europe’s War Project is Dr.William Mallinson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ0ew7yJuBI&list=PLmkbtuHyNanzr6rdXgSB6Zu0OjSoLwBeY&index=27

Bill and Vangelis have agreed with the idea of our meeting together at the end of next week (say the 27th?) when I will be in Athens, to continue more or less the discussion we just saw you compering. My focus will be the Lighthouse Declaration. Do you have an alternative proposal?

I am ccing Nikos Vakolidis, just for his information because he is not in Athens

Hope we can manage it.

Wayne Hall

From: enouranois <enouranois2@gmail.com> Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2026 9:01 AM. To: Nikos Vako <nikosvako@hotmail.com> Subject: Fwd: On the Cape Byron Lighthouse Project

Niko that is an e-mail I sent to Mehran Khalili, inviting him to a meeting and subsequently asking him to send on related correspondence to Yanis Varoufakis. He refused.

W.

On Sun, Mar 22, 2026 at 10:46 AM Nikos Vako <nikosvako@hotmail.com> wrote: I would be surprised if he didn’t.

Nikos

Why? W.

Well, I think our past in DiEM25 maybe influences negatively his response to your requests. And the content of your email also might not be interesting to him, Reiner Fuellmich is labelled antivaxx and the lighthouse initiative also is from like-minded people. DiEM25 never questioned the science behind anti COVID measures. Of course they are allegedly pro free speech, against corruption, against oligarchs etc, but I don’t think they will support Reiner or the Lighthouse initiative. And a large part of DiEM25 didn’t support Julian Assange either, saying he is far right.

Nikos

Related Links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r-YEv3917c

https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=1473

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp860Pu1F0s

https://www.aeginaportal.gr/eidiseis/omilies/23835-omilia-gia-to-faro-tou-mpoyza-apo-ton-antinayarxo-irakli-kalogeraki.html

In this last link Vice-Admiral Heraklis Kalogerakis is speaking on the history of the Bouza lighthouse in Aegina. As a military man he is not willing himself to take on the activist political identity of the Lighthouse Keeper being demanded for the Cape Byron Lighthouse Declaration. My impression, though, is that he would not mind seeing Yanis Varoufakis as Aegina’s “Lighthouse Keeper”. After all, he came along to DiEM25 meetings when Erik was the head of DiEM25 in Aegina. This is English translation of an introduction he has written for a planned public meeting in Aegina: https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=1442

More links:

Response to Sir Niall Ferguson | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

Be true to your school | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

Electoral politics | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

Stratos Pantavos | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

Gabriel Shipton, Julian Assange and the Cape Byron Lighthouse project | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

Western Australian secession and Greece | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

Two eyes or one? | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

Virtue signaling | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

Bruce Pardy | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

THE IMPERIALIST SELF-JUSTIFICATIONS | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

Linguistic Politics | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

Dialogue with Australian writer Shelley Dark | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

Hugo Lennon | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

A message for Benjamin Franklin | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

Looking at democracy | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

Kanellos Patsios in Sydney | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

Capodistrias – Aegina | CSE | Citizens’ Europe

Dear Grace Blakeley,

I agree with Wayne Hall that Varoufakis could play an important role politically, at a national and international level.

We follow his activity and recently noticed also his presence as a speaker at a BRICS conference. I think it was something the Greek mainstream media didn’t focus on.

I am writing to you from Ioannina, capital of Epirus region, North-West Greece.I got involved in activism and politics after the 2015 Greek referendum and chose DiEM25 as the movement I would like to dedicate my forces to. Not because of Varoufakis, but for its orientation for a really democratic Europe. The internal procedures appeared really democratic to my eyes at that time and there were also specific proposals, specially when parties came out of the movement, on how corruption and lack of democracy could be fought.

I was the coordinator for several years of Ioannina1DSC of DiEM25 and of Ioannina MeRA25, the electoral branch of the movement. I participated at national and European elections with MeRA25 and been member of Health and Green Transition sectors of the party. In Ioannina the main issue we were fighting with other groups at that time was against fracking for oil and gas in the region. We gained recognition from the movement for our activity, which was remarkably intense compared to other cities.

Then we had the COVID period and I soon was on the part of those who rejected the narrative, the measures and, in the end the mRNA substance. The same period I campaigned also against 5G. In DiEM25 there were other like minded people on those issues, but not the majority and not campaigning intensively as I did. DiEM25 had made it clear that it supports the science in general and vaccines are science so they accepted this new product without questioning it from a medical-scientific point of view. There was never a vote in DiEM25 about that. Only the slogan “Universal but non mandatory!”. As for 5G, Yanis told me personally that “We have a problem with you!”, and even if I explained that there are a series of concerns on 5G, for example the energy it requires, he said “Some things we cannot avoid.”. I thought he was against the TINA concept… There wasn’t a vote in DiEM25 on 5G either.

I was brought several times in specific committees of the party, brought from my comrades in Ioannina, who demanded I should leave the party. They were unsuccessful until the movement decided at a paneuropean level that I should leave the party “for comparing the Holocaust and concentration camp ovens to mRNA injections and 5G antennas.”. Since then, the local group in Ioannina has not been particularly active.

After my first experience in politics, I think this idea of a party-movement combination is not something that can function properly and bring the changes DiEM25 envisioned for Europe.

Despite the bad experience for me in my first attempt as an active citizen, I repeat that I still believe YV could have an important role in global and national politics.

Nikos Vakolidis

https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=1460

Wayne,

Nice to hear from you.

I have no interest in following or supporting Julian Assange. It’s NOT a subject that comes up when we get together.

All the best,

RVK 19 March 2026

(Explanation: By “we”, Bob means Fort Street “old boys”. W.H.)

Bob, this is an e-mail I received (in a mass e-mailing) from Gabriel Shipton, Julian Assange’s half-brother. Mary Kostakidis is a Fortian and I once wrote to suggest to her the idea of trying to mobilise “the old school tie”. She rejected the idea fairly abruptly but with the passage of time it occurs to me that I may have tried the wrong approach. I should have spoken to other Fortians about the idea of supporting her rather than speaking to her about the idea of other Fortians supporting her. In any case Gabriel Shipton’s asking me for money seems equally misguided. I am the last person to be approached as a significant financial donor. I share this message with my friend and comrade Nikos Vakolidis, orthodontist in the northern Greek city of Ioannina. Let’s just discuss it between ourselves for starters, Bob, Nikos has not been abrupt with Gabriel Shipton as I have so perhaps whatever we conclude between ourselves could be conveyed to Gabriel if Nikos wants to oblige in this way.

Take the advice in the p.s. and read the Sydney criminal lawyers’ report.

How is everything else with you?

Best wishes,

Wayne Hall

p.s. I cc fellow Fortian Les Thompson from our year, who lives in France, and invite him to join our discussion if he chooses.

Gabriel writes:

Mary is facing a racial vilification complaint brought by the Zionist Federation of Australia over social media posts she shared on X/Twitter. Last year, she fought to have the case struck out, but the Federal Court denied her request. Now, after a second mediation attempt has ended without agreement, the case will go to trial in the Federal Court starting 30 November 2026.

Stand with Mary — donate now

“Nobody believes that the allegations against Mary are anything but a coordinated effort to silence reporting and criticisms of the behaviour of a foreign power,” said Information Rights Project Founder Gabriel Shipton.

This is why your support matters. Mary now faces a costly, drawn-out battle in the Federal Court.

“Australians have a right to be informed, and the case against Mary Kostakidis is trying to deny us those very rights,” said Gabriel.

Mary has made clear she won’t back down, but legal battles of this scale require resources. We urgently need to raise funds to ensure Mary has the support she needs.

Most supporters give around $30. Combined, your contributions can help Mary access the resources to fight back and help to defend our right to speak freely and stay informed. Will you chip in today?

Donate Now

Thank you for standing up for the rights of all Australians to speak and be informed.

In solidarity, Nevena The Information Rights Project

P.S. Read more about the case https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/zionist-vexatious-legal-action-against-kostakidis-will-go-to-trial-after-failed-mediation/

Bad tempered afterword from Wayne https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=1451

Response:

Bob, thank you for getting involved. I am pleased to tell you that my inventive collaborator Nikos Vakolidis responded to my unsuccessful donning of the old school tie not with ridicule or silence but blowing the dust off his own old school tie. Apparently he went to a school in Ioannina called the Zosimaia school, with a history as proud as or prouder than “my” proud Fort Street, who actually sing in their school song (or did in “my day”) “Fort Street’s name rings round the world” (do you mean to say you haven’t heard of “us”?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM6GsXP4_3Q

It was only in 1913 that Ioannina was brought by the Greek army out of the Ottoman Empire and into the modern Greek state. I wonder what proud words they were singing in Nikos’ school song!

The “pride in ancestry” habit seems to be catching on so let’s bring Phillip Adams into it. Phillip is an Australian with a hidden Greek name who prides himself on being descended from the Greek revolutionary Anagnostaras and who played a sterling role in defending Julian Assange.

Since Julian Assange’s release from prison but continued imprisonment in unchallenged false accusations, Phillip has prioritized denunciation of Zionism, where he has plenty of company, mostly below the intellectual level he occupied when he was prioritizing defence of Julian Assange. It is still unclear, though, whether Julian Assange thinks that the job of defending him was being done better by Phillip or by, say, Yanis Varoufakis. Phillip gives his opinion on that subject in the link immediately above.

https://cairnsnews.org/2026/03/14/indigenous-virtue-signalling-reaches-absurd-heights-as-sa-hospital-given-bizarre-new-name/

To judge by Cory Bernardi’s name he is of Italian origin, which may give a hint to his evident sensitivity to considerations that escape certain dangerous unfortunates who almost certainly know no other language than English.

This is speculation, but even the term “virtue signaling” becomes less opaque if one knows Latin or Italian and know that “vir” is Latin for “man”. Australia is now importing population from almost everywhere and if everyone starts insisting on their “native language rights” we are back at the Tower of Babel.

Portuguese and Spanish imperialists had no qualms about conflating linguistic and religious considerations. It is only since the French got involved in the colonial (and enslaving) project that the idea gained ground that colonialists should be “on the side of the natives”. A knowledge of Latin (or indeed Italian) helps one understand the English language but if one really wants to go “back to the roots” one will learn Greek, modern Greek preferably because one cannot speak with the dead. There are good reasons for Australians to know something about the origins of human habitation on the Australian continent, but for the purposes of politics, going back to the roots means going back to the foundation of the New South Wales Legislative Council https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb5kT5XdEKE&t=1s, from shortly after the defeat of Napoleon (1823), and not long before the founding of the modern Greek state on 26th January (!) 1828. That, in conjunction with the introduction of modern Greek as compulsory second language in Australian schools will help to counteract the dangers of Islamization of Australia, without encouraging bigotry. https://cairnsnews.org/2017/02/12/exit-right-cory-bernardi/

Postscript: Cory Bernardi wins a South Australian parliamentary seat.

https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/i-assume-youre-a-bleeding-heart-lefty-cory-bernardi-clashes-with-reporter-over-one-nations-immigration-policy/news-story/3ad44dadd36c820f276b6a6294b96313

Heraklis Kalogerakis

https://cairnsnews.org/2026/03/12/new-iranian-leader-wounded-in-hiding-from-us-missiles/

https://halva.proboards.com/post/3231

The history of nations is often recorded through wars, campaigns, conflicts. In the case of the Greek Revolution, our historical memory is filled with such images: the fire ships of Kanaris, the battles of Kolokotronis, the resistance of Karaiskakis.

But states are not created only on the battlefield. They are born also in the sessions of diplomacy. They are brought into existence by people who understand that the force of arms is not enough in itself. Political discernment is equally necessary, as is international strategy and – above all – the ability to avert war when this is possible.

Such a person was Ioannis Capodistrias. In an age of revolutions and confrontations Capodistrias was the embodiment of a different approach to power. He did not believe that nations are saved by means of war alone. He believed that they are saved when politics and diplomacy create the conditions that render warfare either superfluous or impossible.

In other words he believed in what today is called strategic deterrence. Perhaps this is what is most up-to-date about Capodistrias. Because his thinking was not applicable only for 1821. It applies for every age. In every historical period states are faced with the same dilemma: to resort to war or try to avert it.

Capodistrias opted for the latter. And his choice was not the product of weakness. It was the result of profound knowledge of international politics.

As Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire he had found himself at the epicenter of European diplomacy. He understood his age’s mechanisms of power better than any other Greek. He also understood something else: that revolutions can win battles but only diplomacy can create states,

This conviction underlay his entire stance on the Greek Revolution. And it is this stance that we examine today. Not Capodistrias as governor. Not Capodistrias as politician. But Capodistrias as strategic mind of diplomacy, a person very much aware that the greatest victory of a state is not always to win a war but rather to deter a war.