The Telegraph recently made headlines with a survey that suggested that a fifth of the European Union will be Muslim by 2050. This is if anything an understatement of the situation, since once you subtract Eastern European states and focus in on Western European countries such as England, France and Italy… or Sweden, Islam will comprise a sizable enough minority to be considered a state within a state. And even the most pessimistic statistics will grow gloomier if 75 million Turks inside the presently Islamist Turkey will become part of the European Union. Meanwhile always eager to get ahead, Russia estimates that Islam will become its predominant religion by 2050. The Russians, both under the USSR and in the Putin era, have done everything they can to try and raise the birth rate, but remains at half that of Uzbekistan, or even war torn Chechnya. With the Russian population set to fall by almost 50 million, to 100 million in 2050, the Muslim birth rate will have made up the surplus. So what does the future hold for Europe? Constantinople offers some clues, but even with Turkey again on its doorstep, Europe is not Byzantium. As long as the European birth rate keeps falling, and Europe’s borders remain open, and its politicians remain unwilling to begin exporting its former guest workers back to their countries of origin, Europe is doomed. The date may be unknown, but the trajectory is all too unfortunately clear. When it comes to Muslims, Europe, Israel, America and every country infected with the Islamist plague retains only one real option, to deport them or to surrender to them. Europe has chosen to surrender. Israel has chosen to partition itself, thereby only dragging out the pain. America has chosen to pretend the problem doesn’t apply to it. And by doing so, all of them are paving the way for their own destruction.
Through the long Ottoman era, Turks and Russians fought many bloody wars. But one would hardly have guessed it as the two countries’ prime ministers, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, splashily signed a raft of agreements in a ceremony in Ankara on August 6th. Sitting at the crossroads of the energy-rich Middle East and the former Soviet Union, Turkey has unique leverage as a transit hub for gas. And it is unabashedly using the energy card to promote its membership of the EU. This requires co-operation with Russia. In exchange for backing South Stream, Turkey won Russian support for an oil pipeline from the Black Sea port of Samsun to the Ceyhan terminal on the Mediterranean. What do the Americans think? Ian Lesser, an analyst at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, argues that for now they are not fussed. “The [Obama] administration is far more sensitive to what Turkey does with Iran.” Turkey’s overtures to Russia are seen in the context of a new foreign policy that involves engaging with all its neighbours. Europe can hardly cast stones either, as it remains divided over Russia. Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was present in Ankara because ENI, an Italian energy company, is involved in the South Stream deal. Turkey even appears to have colluded with the Russian patriarch, Kirill, to limit the powers of the Greek Orthodox patriarch in Istanbul, Bartholomew I, usually seen as first among equals in the Orthodox hierarchy. Yet mutual suspicions linger. Russia is unhappy with Turkey’s indulgence of Chechens. For Turkey, Russia’s refusal to label Kurdish rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as “terrorists” is a sore point. It is also wary of Russia’s show of wanting to help Armenia and Azerbaijan make peace over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Unknown persons set fire to St. Nicholas Church in Reljevo, a district of Sarajevo, and damaged the building's walls. The incident was reported by local parish priest Milorad Milinkovich who was awaken from sleep by two gun shots and the sound of a car driving away at about 2:45 a.m. Wednesday. In the morning, he found a broken glass over the church door, a bullet trace and the bullet inside the church, Srpska.ru reports. This is the fifth incident of the kind in Sarajevo. The offenders who had attacked two Orthodox facilities before were detained by police.
As continuation of the outstanding cooperation realized between the Armed Forces of the United States and Serbia in recent years, uniformed members of both nations are about to engage in a number of combined Humanitarian Assistance (HA) projects rehabilitating elementary schools and kindergarten facilities in a number of Serbian communities. On Thursday, August 6, 2009, the first group of U.S. personnel, 37 members of the Ohio National Guard, arrived in Serbia eager to work alongside their Serbian counterparts. Two additional groups will follow for a total involvement of 82 U.S. personnel. The U.S. military personnel are primarily construction engineering specialist with a few medical and public affairs support personnel. The U.S. personnel will join their new Serbian comrades at various project locations and commence work August 7, with military executed portions of the projects being completed before the September 1 start of school. The U.S. Embassy’s Office of Defense Cooperation is completing six HA engineer/construction projects this summer with a total value of one million USD. Four of these projects involve military members.
Russian news reports say two people were killed and several others wounded in a bomb blast in Abkhazia during Wednesday's visit by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Mr. Putin's one-day trip to the Georgian breakaway territory was the first by a top Russian official since Moscow last year recognized Abkhazia's independence after the five-day Russian-Georgian war. The reports quote authorities as saying the blast in the resort town of Gagra killed a 52-year-old woman and wounded four others. A second victim died later in a hospital. Authorities say no one was hurt in the second blast, which occurred in the Abkhaz capital, Sukhumi, shortly after Mr. Putin departed the city and returned to the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi.
The saga goes back 200 years, when Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Turks who then occupied Greece, obtained permission to remove dozens of marble friezes from the ruined Parthenon in the heart of Athens. These were shipped back to England and put on display in the British Museum, where they reside to this day. After the Greeks threw out the Turks in the mid-19th century, they asked for the marbles back but Britain refused, claiming that they had been legitimately acquired. The Greeks persisted, and the British developed a string of reasons why they should stay: they were safer in London, they formed part of a unique collection of antiquities, and anyway, the Greeks had nowhere to display them. The Greeks have just skewered that last argument by building a top-class museum right next door to the Acropolis where the Parthenon stands. The whole of the top floor, encased in glass with magnificent views of the Acropolis, is given over to a reconstruction of the friezes and pediments from which Elgin took his marbles. The missing pieces are marked by crude plaster reproductions, illustrating very starkly just how much the British took away with them. The British Museum is irritatingly coy about the whole furore. While the rest of the world calls them the Elgin Marbles, the museum insists on calling them the Parthenon Sculptures, and the most it will admit to is that there is "a discussion" about where they should belong. But it is firm in its refusal to return them. Its position is that the marbles "are part of everyone's shared heritage and transcend cultural boundaries". The suspicion is that the museum fears that sending them back would open up a string of claims from other countries whose antiquities it possesses. And not just the British Museum. Paris, Berlin and many other cities which also have Parthenon marbles are probably secretly lending support, pressing the British not to yield.
Stand near it and it is said to let off an overpowering scent of roses. On some days, a stream of myrrh may appear on the icon, a mounted print of Theotokos — the Greek title for Mary, mother of Jesus — holding the Christ child. Religious officials have no explanation for it and call it a miracle. On Saturday, that miracle will make its way to Resurrection Greek Orthodox Church, to be part of The Dormition (Falling Asleep) of the Theotokos service. The Dormition commemorates the death, resurrection and glorification of Mary. During the service, participants will have an opportunity to be anointed by the icon. "Very few times in the history of the church has there been myrrh from an icon," said The Rev. Michael Prevas, a priest at Resurrection Greek Orthodox. "This is an extraordinary miracle, and it's a blessing for our church and community." The print, known as the Myrrh-Streaming Icon of the Theotokos of Iveron, is on loan from a church in Hawaii. A member of the Russian Orthodox Church in Honolulu received the icon as a gift, according to a letter he wrote in December 2007 that is posted on the Web site of Holy Theotokos of Iverson Russian Orthodox Church. "My wife and I noticed a hint of the scent of roses in the area surrounding our icon," the letter says. "The liquid smelled very sweet, like myrrh." For more information on the icon, click here.