Thirty four key Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 10 key U.S. Senators participated and briefed the delegates of the 25th Annual Cyprus and Hellenic Leadership Conference. Most of the members of Congress expressed strong support to the communities concerns on Cyprus, the Macedonian issue and the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The list of the speakers included some of the most powerful congressional figures, suck as, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) who is the Senate Assistant Majority Leader, House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA), Eurpean Subcommittee’s Chairman Congressman Robert Wexler, Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Chair, European Affairs Subcommittee, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and others.
Their political apparatus is a model of discipline. Their vast array of social services is a virtual state within a state. Their enemies accuse them of being pawns of Syria and Iran. They are the Armenian Christians of Lebanon, one of the Middle East’s most singular and least-understood communities. Last month, the main Armenian political bloc decided to support Hezbollah’s alliance in the coming parliamentary elections in Lebanon against the pro-American parliamentary majority. That fact has brought new attention to the Armenians, a distinct and borderless ethnic group that is spread throughout the region much as the Jews once were. In Lebanon, they have their own schools, hospitals and newspapers. They speak their own language, with its own alphabet. “We want candidates who represent our community... We are not with the opposition, and not with the majority.”
Comparison of Barack Obama to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev before the November 2008 elections turned out to be true by at least one count. Although he has assumed office only four months ago, Obama already has many opponents who accuse him of weakness, pandering to the enemies, and betraying principles. These are the sins Gorbachev was accused of by the Communist Party’s conservatives. Obama’s opponents are criticizing his plans of major financial injections in the economy, expected to produce a “growth miracle.” However, many analysts fear that this will only spur inflation, which will boomerang at all dollar holders across the world. Their other targets are a record-high budget deficit and the bankruptcy of several companies that had seemed to be unsinkable. But Obama’s biggest sin, according to his opponents, is his neglect for the security of Israel, even though that neglect has so far been only verbal.
A new survey conducted last week found that 72% of Israel's employee committees' have decided to continue boycotting Turkey's vacation spots, following the tensions in diplomatic relations between Jerusalem and Ankara, noted in early 2009. Employee committees' are a significant part of the tourism industry, marketing special vacation deals, both in Israel and abroad, to their members. Among the organizations which will not include Turkey in their travel packages are industry staples the likes of the First International Bank of Israel, El-Al, Egged, the Agricultural Research Organization, ECI, Elektra, Israel Refineries LTD., The Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry, the Israeli Technological Institute, Haifa Port and the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), to name a few.
The men, aged between 18 and 65, were on an annual trip with the Hanham Athletic Sunday league team, from Bristol, when they were detained by police in Malia, a resort known for rowdy and drunken behaviour during the summer. All current or former players with the football club, the men were accused of flashing their bottoms "and the rest" while wearing rudimentary nun costumes. Mick Underhill, the club's 59-year-old chairman, said he and his clubmates appeared in court in Heraklion, the capital of Crete, yesterday morning. They were still wearing nuns' outfits, lingerie and wimples after spending 40 hours in a "cramped" and "disgusting" prison cell. In previous years the men have dressed up as St Trinian's schoolgirls in Portugal and babies in Cyprus. They have never experienced any trouble before. They had not finished their first drink of the night when they were thrown into the back of a police van. "We don't think what happened was right or fair."
Minister of Foreign Affairs Vuk Jeremic stated today in Athens that Serbia’s EU membership is the topmost national interest, adding that regardless of the circumstances in this time of crisis Serbia will remain on this road. We will also cooperate with non-EU countries such as Russia, with whom we have special relations, and by fully opening our market to the world we will create new partnerships for prosperity. Thus we will overcome the crisis and become even stronger, the Minister noted. Speaking about the unilaterally declared Kosovo independence, Jeremic stressed that we should respect the fact that the issue is now in the hands of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), adding that no one should prejudge the ICJ’s decision. Therefore no one should encourage further recognitions of Kosovo or exert pressure on multilateral organisations to grant membership to secessionist authorities in Pristina, Jeremic stressed.
The St. Gabriel Assyrian monastery, in Mardin, Turkey, won the first of three court cases today. The dispute centered over land owned by the monastery and three surrounding villages. The Turkish state brought the case against the monastery on behalf of the villagers, who claimed the monastery had illegally encroached on their lands. In today's ruling, the presiding judge decreed that 110 hectares (272 acres) of monastery land which was awarded to the villages by the Turkish land registry belongs to the monastery. A Turkish official at the Ministry of foreign affairs, who wished to remain anonymous, said that they also feel relieved about the verdict since the court cases "caused a lot of headaches for those that work on Turkey's European Union membership." Many European politicians were at the trial as observers. The Swedish-Assyrian parliamentarian Yilmaz Kerimo stated: "It is unbelievable that lawyers can behave like this, like if it was some kind of game," referring to the fact that lawyers for the state delayed the trial because they had to visit a Mosque and pray before coming to court.