In the image released by the Cyprus Press and Information Office on Monday, Aug. 10, 2009, show five Greek Cypriot soldiers are pictured surrendering to advancing Turkish troops near Kiados or (Tziaos) village during the second phase of Turkey’s invasion of the island that started on August 14, 1974. The remains of the five soldiers were recently identified after being unearthed from an abandoned well along with those of 14 other individuals in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north of the island. Cyprus’ government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou urged Turkey to account for some 1,500 Greek Cypriots who vanished during the invasion. Around 500 Turkish Cypriots also dissapeared mainly during inter-ethnic clashes in the early 1960s. Cyprus was ethnically split in 1974 when Turkey invaded in response to a coup by supporters of union with Greece.
President Hugo Chavez told his military to be prepared for a possible confrontation with Colombia, warning that Bogota's plans to increase the U.S. military presence at its bases poses a threat to Venezuela. Chavez has issued near daily warnings that Washington could use bases in Colombia to destabilize the region since learning of negotiations to lease seven Colombian military bases to the United States. "The threat against us is growing," Chavez said Sunday. Chavez claims the United States is using Colombia as part of a broader plan to portray him as a supporter of terrorist groups to provide justification for U.S. military intervention in Venezuela.
U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that his country is against "any kind of partition of Kosovo". “I can tell you that our policy remains unchanged.” He said that he is not familiar with the idea of Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher regarding the "exchange of territory between Kosovo and Serbia", that would have "Belgrade would keep north Kosovo while Kosovo would get the municipalities in the south of Serbia" with ethnic Albanian majority. State Secretary with the Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija Oliver Ivanović said earlier “That's out of the question. Both Kosovo and southern Serbia are Serbian territory and no one in Belgrade is thinking in that direction in the political sense.” Bu he added that it is good that such ideas are coming from the U.S., "because it shows that America too understands that the status of Kosovo is not an issue that has been solved".
President Dmitry Medvedev has drafted a bill expanding legal reasons to deploy Russian troops abroad. The bill released Monday by the Kremlin would allow the president to send troops outside Russia to fend off attacks on the Russian military, deter aggression against another state, protect Russian citizens or combat pirates. Medvedev told leaders of Russia's political parties that the war with Georgia a year ago highlighted the need for the bill expanding deployment rules. Russia says it sent forces into Georgia to protect civilians and its own military personnel from a Georgian invasion of the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Georgia countered that Russia triggered the hostilities by sending a military convoy into South Ossetia.
Neighbouring Abkhazia is another country, alongside South Ossetia. Georgia still sees both as part of its territory. Many in the Republic think that if Georgia had achieved its plan to crush South Ossetia, they would have been the next target. Hundreds of worshippers gathered here in Afon, inside Abkhazia’s main Christian Orthodox cathedral, in grief and in prayer for the victims of last year’s attack on South Ossetia. Besides Abkhazians, there are Russian tourists who spend their vacation in the republic. Most of them are not afraid to visit Abkhazia now, but in August last year there were few visitors, since Georgia had plans to invade its former breakaway territory. According to these plans, the attack could have been carried out from the sea, from the Kodori gorge, where Georgian special forces were building their heavily fortified lines of defense. Most people in Abkhazia were almost certain that if Georgia succeeded in conquering Tskhinval, their republic would have been next.
A year ago a story on Georgia’s war against S.Ossetia filmed by a Russian cameraman was silenced on Polish TV because it was out of tune with the politicized official media line in the country. Today’s diverse range of media sources should enable a more objective portrayal of global news events, but in reality, objectivity often loses out to politics. Viktor Bater learned this the hard way. “My cameraman came back from S.Ossetia, showed me his footage and told me exactly what he’d seen, what had gone on there. So we put together a report and sent it to Warsaw. My bosses were outraged – how could we make such an anti-Georgian story? – and promptly shelved the report,” recalls Bater, a former well-known reporter for Polish state TV TVP in Moscow.
Orthodox church leaders from Russia and Georgia called for peace while their political counterparts lobbed charges of aggression in marking the one year anniversary of the South Ossetia war.