Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America spoke in the final week of October at the Orthodox Christian Laity conference in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. He provided clarity to the laity on the requirements placed upon the American jurisdictions by the recent Chambesy conference. The international conference in June sent a requirement to all American Orthodox bishops to meet together and determine a course of action to approach a unified American Orthodoxy. Metropolitan Jonah, whose Orthodox Church in America did not take part in Chambesy IV, welcomed the process. He encouraged the laity to recognize that the leadership of the Church will make the hardest decisions, but the laity must nonetheless be very involved with each other. "Part of the challenge is simply to be together: to work together, to pray together, and for our children to grow up together, our seminarians to study and pray together and our people to marry one another. There is a gradual process of integration that will take generations and will eventually result in a completely unique American Orthodoxy," he said in a presentation at the Thursday night session in Ligonier. Metropolitan Jonah conceded that all jurisdictions including the OCA must give up their own structures to form a new church. This concession was a welcome offering to a discussion that has been complicated by territorial and ethnic claims from a variety of parties, as well as worries about what properties, activities, and claims several authorities would be required to abandon, transfer, or share in the hypothetical new order. "When the time comes for that autocephaly, then the vision that we were given in 1970 will be fulfilled in something much greater than we are ourselves," he said. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew completed a rare visit to the United States several days ago. During his visit, he met with Metropolitan Jonah, who said he was encouraged by the Patriarch's public words and also by their private conversation.
Russia and the United States on Monday resumed what is expected to be the last round of marathon talks to renew a key nuclear disarmament treaty which is due to expire next month. "The negotiations resumed this morning at the Russian mission and will last about a month until December 5," a Russian diplomat told AFP. Delegations from the two countries are divided into "four working groups on specific subjects," and should "meet alternately at the Russian mission and the American mission during this period," added the source. The latest negotiations mark the eighth round since May in a bid by the two to conclude a treaty to replace the landmark 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) which expires on December 5. Russian foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said last week: "We hope that this will be the last round and that by December 5 we will have agreed a new accord." A Kremlin source quoted in the Russian press meanwhile said the two Cold War foes plan to sign the accord before Obama receives his Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, marking a major foreign policy achievement for the US leader. Moscow indicated Thursday that the latest US proposal on START was "constructive."
The Muslim world is watching how the United States will act on the stalled process for Palestinian-Israeli peace and wondering how one of the main sticking points, the Israeli settlements, will be resolved, the world's top diplomat for Islam said on Saturday. Arab discontent over statements from Washington seen as favoring Israel culminated this week when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he did not want to run in an upcoming poll, citing disappointment with US President Barack Obama. Abbas's frustration with Obama centered on the US administration backing away from support for demands for a «freeze» on Israel settlement building in the occupied West Bank and an endorsement of Israel's view that settlement expansion should not be a bar to resuming peace talks. «We would like to keep our hopes that President Obama's commitments and good intentions will translate into reality but, of course, we've found that the whole negotiation comes back to square one,» said Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to halt construction in the settlements, many of which the Jewish state plans to annex under any eventual peace accord. Palestinian elections are scheduled for January 24, though few are anxious to take on Abbas's role, throwing into doubt the reconciliation of fighting Palestinian factions as well as the peace process with Israel.
Abdullah Gul, president of Turkey, accused the European Union yesterday of "interfering" by asking Ankara to withdraw an invitation for Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Sudan's indicted president, to attend an Islamic summit in Istanbul. The row threatens to stir fresh tensions between Turkey and its western allies after a month in which Turkish leaders have forged trade links with Iran and Syria and provoked a crisis in relations with Israel by ejecting it from joint military exercises. Turkey's hosting of next Monday's meeting of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, Iran's president, is likely to attend alongside Mr Bashir, will boost Ankara's image as a key player in the region and wider Muslim world.
But it will raise fears that this more assertive foreign policy could set it at odds with its traditional allies. "Why are they interfering? Who are they to deliver a note to us?" Mr Gul said, according to the Anatolian news agency.
President of the Republic of Cyprus Demetris Christofias said on Monday that the wall dividing Nicosia still stands, a fact the Europeans are aware of, and expressed hope that the Europeans would assist efforts to solve the Cyprus problem and reunite the island. Speaking at Larnaca Airport before departing for Berlin, where he will attend celebrations to mark the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, President Christofias said Germany was divided after World War II and the victory of the allied forces, while Cyprus has been divided for 35 years due to the Turkish invasion. President Christofias said Europe could contribute to efforts to solve the Cyprus problem and the ongoing talks between the leaders of the two communities, so that an agreement could be reached for a bizonal bicommunal federation in line with international and European law.
An eerie silence lingers over Varosha, an abandoned Greek Cypriot neighborhood left in beachfront limbo since war split the Mediterranean island. Derelict apartment blocks and crumbling hotels riddled with bullet holes sit on empty beaches behind barbed-wire fencing after Varosha's 15,000 residents fled in 1974, when a Turkish invasion split Cyprus. Since then Varosha -- the Greek Cypriot quarter of the now Turkish Cypriot-controlled city of Famagusta has been sealed off. Turkish soldiers patrol a perimeter fence, with visitors only allowed to look at Varosha from afar. If peace talks between estranged Greek and Turkish Cypriots succeed, Varosha could be one of the first Greek Cypriot areas to be revived, one of scores of abandoned areas creating a buffer separating the island's Turkish and Greek populations for three decades. Varosha was once a suburb renowned for its artistic vibrancy and as a thriving business hub. What remains is reminiscent of an abandoned movie set. Snapshots taken by witnesses show furniture and upholstery still hanging from once pristine balconies that were badly damaged by the fighting.
Some 300 Serbs from northern Kosovska Mitrovica visited, on All Souls’ Day, the Orthodox cemetery in the southern, Albanian part of town, accompanied by members of the Kosovo Police Service. There were no incidents at the cemetery, where the Albanian vandals desecrated and destroyed more than 80 percent of the gravestones. In the southern part of Kosovska Mitrovica, more than 500 gravestones were destroyed and desecrated at the Serbian cemetery, while there is no damaged monuments at the Albanian cemetery in the northern part of the city. Serbs claim that the All Souls’ Day is their only chance when, accompanied by police, they can visit the graves of deceased relatives and friends in the southern part of Mitrovica, and added that more and more tombstones are damaged each year.