Stratos Pantavos

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A chance meeting at the harbor in Aegina yesterday with Stratos Pantavos was a welcome development for me because the Steering Committee of the Aegina Active Citizens’ Association, of which we are both members, is not programmed to meet until 28th March and there is a lot to catch up.

Stratos has been with our initiative around Capodistrias and, for a period, Altiero Spinelli, right from the beginning, i.e. for nearly twenty years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCDso57HBV4

He co-chaired the meeting at which we were addressed by the late Giulietto Chiesa during the visit of this distinguished Italian politician (and former Europarliamentarian) to our island https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wPniHFeXiM&t=7s

He chaired another meeting on European integration in 2019 https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=727

The east-west orientation that Giulietto Chiesa (and indeed Spinelli) were attempting to rescue has been replaced in our day by a new orientation seeking to integrate “the global south”.

If he were still with us today Chiesa would (arguably) be part of this.

Stratos is well suited to link our initiatives past with its present, particularly given the emergence of activists intellectuals such as Lorenzo Maria Pacini.

Can a bridge be built between voices such as this and their evident and/or would-be counterparts in the “global south”? https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=1444

The transition is not going to be managed entirely in English. The Italian and Greek languages will play a larger part in the proceedings, and for that Stratos is a more suitable than I am, for I know only the latter language, not the former (though I did finish Latin at school).

Wayne Hall

Gabriel Shipton, Julian Assange and the Cape Byron Lighthouse project

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Dear Wayne,

We have an urgent update on our campaign to stand with journalist Mary Kostakidis.
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 here: 
https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/zionist-vexatious-legal-action-against-kostakidis-will-go-to-trial-after-failed-mediation/

Reply:
I agree with you.

Here is some recent input from our side:

1. https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=1448

2. https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=1446

Why aren’t you and I collaborators in the same organization?  Are you in the Cape Byron Lighthouse project?   If you were, we would be in a stronger position e.g. to enlist the open assistance of Vice-Admiral Heraklis Kalogerakis and get him to be a “Lighthouse keeper” (at the Aegina lighthouse).

 https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=1442

I am not happy to be just a source of finance for your initiatives. If I had money I might be less unwilling. 

Wayne Hall

p.s. Mary Kostakidis has also been unfriendly towards me. She did not respond well to my trying to activate “the old school tie” as we happen to have gone to the same school. I support what you and she are doing, but it could be done more effectively if I were in your loop, or better, you were in mine.

Here is Jewish Australian Alon Cassuto taking advantage of the global reach of the English language in order to enlist the sympathy of the world in a way he could not do if he gave his message in Hebrew. If one is permitted to have one’s cake and eat it too, why not do so?

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1953984195551017

https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=1403

Western Australian secession and Greece

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Dear Anne (Twomey),

I am writing to you in response to this video of yours:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XFyCGoxnR4&t=909s

sent to me by my Melbourne political friend Lorraine Pratley, whose acquaintance I made years after having left Australia permanently to live in Greece. I am a graduate of the University of Sydney but have not lived in Sydney since 1970, apart from one year in 1979.

I have ordered the book on Western Australian secession that you mention in your interview. I was attracted to the subject through my affectionate admiration for Gigi Foster, with whom I have had two-way verbal communication only through one video, which she unfortunately did not want to have aired very publicly. Perhaps one day she will change her mind. I have not yet seen what she has to say on the subject of Western Australian secession but am very curious to see what she has to say.    

Yesterday I attended the opening of an exhibition on my home island of Aegina that was devoted to the life and times of Greece’s assassinated first governor Ioannis Capodistrias.

https://www.aeginaportal.gr/politismos/gliptiki/41985-o-kapodistrias-stin-aigina-prooimio-gia-ton-kyverniti-ta-egkainia-tis-ekthesis-sti-dimotiki-pinakothiki.html

Everyone who spoke at the inauguration was oriented towards the date 26th January 2028, which is the 200th anniversary of the foundation of the modern Greek state in Aegina and 240th anniversary of the raising of the Union Jack at Port Jackson in New South Wales. Aeginetans have for many years tried to secure recognition of the date 26th January 1828 as the date on which the modern Greek state was founded. 

This is what Wikipedia says: In 1827, Ioannis Kapodistrias, was chosen by the Third National Assembly at Troezen as the first governor of the First Hellenic Republic. Kapodistrias established state, economic and military institutions. Tensions appeared between him and local interests and, following his assassination in 1831 and the London Conference of 1832, Britain, France and Russia installed Bavarian Prince Otto von Wittelsbach as monarch.[104] Otto’s reign was despotic, and in its first 11 years of independence Greece was ruled by a Bavarian oligarchy led by Josef Ludwig von Armansperg and, later, by Otto himself, as King and Premier.[104] 

Following years of lobbying by Aeginetans, in 2012  the ceremony held annually in Aegina on 26th January was recognized in a Greek presidential decree as “a national festival of local significance”. This was welcomed in Aegina but by many is not recognized as going “far enough”. 

Speaking personally, but not entirely as an individual, I see similarities between the constitutional problems of the Hellenic Republic and those of the Commonwealth of Australia. In Australia they came very much to light in the discussion around “the Voice” referendum  The young Greek-Australian Kanellos Patsios 

https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=1313

says “Greece is experiencing an identity crisis and must go back to  the origins of the Greek state”. The Voice referendum in my view was (and IS) symptomatic of a similar identity crisis of Australians who have tried to discover who they are by examining the origins of human habitation on the Australian continent tens of thousands of years ago. Australia’s political origins in fact are to be traced to the establishment of the New South Wales Legislative Council

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb5kT5XdEKE&t=1s 

in 1823, following the defeat of Napoleon and shortly before the establishment of the modern Greek state in Aegina on 26th January 1828. 

This was the starting point in Australia for the process that led to Federation and everything that follows. 

In 2026 the president of the New South Wales Legislative Council  is Mr. Benjamin Franklin.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E3GwaVA5fI

Mr. Franklin’s name is so serendipitous that even if in 2028 he is no longer president of the New South Wales Legislative Council he should be invited by the Aegina Municipal Council to participate in the ceremonies in Aegina celebrating the 200th anniversary of the founding of the modern Greek state. 

https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=1349

Do you agree?

With very best wishes,

Wayne Hall

Aegina, Greece

PostscriptThis gives a general idea of the proposal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YldpGXWsDQ4&t=3sGigi Foster’s contribution starts at minute 13.24. But is her enthusiasm enough to sustain the whole undertaking?

Two eyes or one?

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https://cairnsnews.org/2026/03/16/harry-palmer-and-mike-holt-two-up-podcast-monica-smit-video-hits-home/

OK, Monica, but……

The horrible Labor Party of the horrible system?

Dear Monica,

I guess if I were still living in Australia and could vote in Australia, I might vote One Nation too. I probably would, though it goes against my ideological life trajectory.

Your critique of the unacceptability of mindlessness in relation to terrorism is right, but if you leave your right flank uncovered you are not doing a good job of defending Australia.

Note this summary of a coming public speech that is on the drawing board for us in Aegina (I have shown you around Aegina and I think it is OK for me to say this). 

This is from Vice Admiral Heraklis Kalogerakis https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=1442
And note the link to this article on “deterrence”. 

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

The right is generally speaking as oblivious to the wrongness of believing in “nuclear deterrence” as the left is oblivious to the wrongness of defending terrorists who can represent themselves as patriots.

Let’s look at “our” world with two eyes, not with one.

Virtue signaling

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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