3,000 British tourists named the top 10 of the countries which are friendly toward to the toursists from Great Britain. Germany emerged as the second most unfriendly country and Belgium was third. Spain was fourth and Turkey was fifth. 75% of those polled said they had been subjected to rudeness in France while 2/3 said they had experienced the same thing in Germany. Holland was named as most welcoming European nation followed by Greece, Portugal and Italy. Accroding to a spokesman for www.OnePoll.com, which carried out the research, the language barrier is still a major problem as the majority of people who travel to France can't speak the language. On the upside Holland came out very well in the poll. 95% of Dutch master English language. Brits seems to appreciate the laid-back Dutch way of life.'' Holland was the clear winner among the friendly countries, scoring almost twice as many votes as second-placed Greece. TOP TEN MOST WELCOMING COUNTRIES: 1. Holland 2. Greece 3. Portugal 4. Italy 5. Sweden 6. Switzerland 7. Luxembourg 8. Austria 9. Norway 10. Finland; TOP TEN MOST UNWELCOMING COUNTRIES: 1. France 2. Germany 3. Belgium 4. Spain 5. Turkey 6. Russia 7. Cyprus 8. Czech Republic 9. Croatia 10. Romania.
The Greek Cypriot- controlled government of Cyprus placed new obstacles in the way of Turkey's efforts to join the European Union yesterday, declaring that it would not permit the start of accession talks in five policy areas unless Turkey changed its stance on the Cyprus dispute. The Greek Cypriots exercised their right under EU rules to block talks dealing with the free movement of workers; the judiciary and fundamental rights; justice, freedom and security; education and culture; and foreign, security and defence policy. Markos Kyprianou, Cyprus's foreign minister, described the measures as a "targeted response, not a complete freeze" to talks.
The next European Union expansion could be right around the corner. At a Brussels summit this week, leaders may establish a timeline for a number of new members, many of them in the Balkans. Some would like to see the troubled region in the EU by 2014. Undeterred by growing voter resistance to a European Union whose borders are pushing ever eastward and soon possibly even further into the North Atlantic, the European Commission in Brussels and individual EU member states are currently working on plans for a further accession round. According to the current plan, at least five new member states could join the EU by 2014. Accession negotiations with Croatia may be completed as early as next year. Should that happen, the Balkan nation could become an EU member in 2011. Iceland, crisis-riddled and deeply indebted as it is, wouldn't be much further behind. On Thursday and Friday, EU heads of state and goverment will be in Brussels for their December summit. During the meeting, they are expected to set a date for the start of formal membership negotiations with Macedonia. The Greek government in Athens is still trying to block negotiations over a name dispute with Macedonia, which is also the name of a region in Greece. But it is unlikely Athens will be able to secure much more than a modest delay in opening talks with its neighbor. Efforts to reach a deal on an "interim treaty" with Serbia are also on the summit agenda, and official accession talks are expected to commence soon thereafter. Neighboring Montenegro is also expected to join the lineup for accession negotiations soon. Some EU leaders would like to see expansion come even faster. Athens' new socialist prime minister, Georgios Papandreou, and his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi, would like to see the accession of the entire Western Balkens by 2014, including Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania. That would be the only way to prevent further ethnic tensions in the region, they argue. But for many EU member states, expansion would be expensive. Net payers -- the countries that pay more into EU coffers than they receive back, including Germany -- would be required to significantly increase the amount they pay to Brussels each year. The move would also further delay the aspirations of Turkey, which has been a candidate for many years, to become part of the EU. But Ankara already seems resigned to that fact. In a recent interview with the US weekly Newsweek, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu mentioned what he thought was the realistic date for Turkish accession to the EU: 2023.
Iran claimed Wednesday that a newly built U.N. station to detect nuclear explosions was built near its border to give the West a post to spy on the country. The construction of the seismic monitoring station was completed last week in neighboring Turkmenistan, a few miles from the Iranian border. It's one of roughly 275 such stations that are operational worldwide and that can detect seismic activity set off by weak nuclear blasts and even shock waves from nuclear experiments. Abolfazl Zohrehvand, an adviser to Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, said the international treaty that allows for setting up such observatories is an "espionage treaty." "With the disclosure of the identity of such stations, it is clear the activity of one of them (in Turkmenistan) is to monitor Iran," Zohrehvand told state IRNA news agency. Zohrehvand said the U.N. planned to set up more than one such station around Iran. The U.S. and some of its allies suspect Iran's nuclear program is a cover to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has denied the charges, saying the program is geared toward generating electricity. The CTBTO Web site said the three stations in Iran are located in Tehran and the southern towns of Shushtar and Kerman. The decision to build the seismic station in Turkmenistan was made between 1994 and 1996, with Iranian involvement, said Annika Thunborg, the CTBTO spokeswoman. At that time, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a relative pragmatist, was president of Iran. Rafsanjani is now the most senior member of the clerical establishment who opposes hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's fierce crackdown on the opposition following the disputed presidential elections in June. The United Nations has demanded Iran freeze uranium enrichment. Tehran insists it has a right to enrich uranium to produce fuel for nuclear reactors to generate electricity. Uranium enriched to low levels can be used as nuclear fuel but enriched to higher levels, can be used at material for a nuclear bomb. Iran and the West are deadlocked over a U.N. proposal for Iran to send much of its enriched uranium abroad. The plan is aimed at drastically reducing Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium in hopes of thwarting the country's ability to potentially make a nuclear weapon. So far, Iran has balked at the offer. Recently, Tehran announced it intends to build the 10 new sites — a statement that followed a strong rebuke from the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday that trying professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City will make him "as important or more important than Usama bin Laden." In an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Cheney said holding the trial in a lower Manhattan courtroom near ground zero will make Mohammed "a hero in certain circles, especially in the radical regions of Islam around the world." "He'll be able to go in whenever he's up on the stand and proselytize, if you will, millions of people out there around the world including some of his radical Muslim friends and generate a whole new generation of terrorists,'' Cheney said. The former vice president called Attorney General Eric Holder's decision in November to try Mohammed and four other 9/11 suspects in a civilian federal court near ground zero "a huge mistake." The trial will put Mohammed "on the map," he contended. The Republican, who has previously accused President Obama of "dithering" on the war in Afghanistan, sharply criticized the president for bowing to foreign leaders during recent overseas trips. "When you have a president who goes around and bows to his hosts and then proceeds to apologize profusely for the United States, I find that deeply disturbing,'' Cheney said. "That says to me this is a guy who doesn't fully understand or share that view of American exceptionalism that I think most of us believe in." The former vice president also said Obama is a "more radical'' Democrat than he first appeared to be. "I saw him when he got elected as a liberal Democrat, but conventional in the sense of sort of falling within the parameters of the national Democratic Party,'' Cheney told Hannity. "I think he's demonstrated pretty conclusively now during his first year in office that he's more radical than that, that he's farther outside the parameters if you will of what we've traditionally had in Democratic presidents in years past." On Afghanistan, setting a 2011 date to begin withdrawal is "better than withdrawal now," he said, though he added that he thinks it vindicates Al Qaeda strategy that "if you kill enough Americans, you can change American policy." "Everybody is watching. The Taliban are watching, the Al Qaeda are watching, the Afghans who are on our side are watching, and when they see hesitation, uncertainty, lack of clarity from an American president, they begin to think the Americans aren't going to be here very long," Cheney said.
Moscow and the Vatican have exchanged notes formalizing the establishment of full diplomatic relations, Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. Russia, which only had a representative office in the Vatican, will now have a full-fledged embassy. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced the establishment of full diplomatic ties during his visit to the Vatican and meeting with Pope Benedict XVI last week. The move was hailed by both the Russian Orthodox Church and the Holy See as a sign of further improvement in relations between the two Christian churches. "Russia and the Vatican have made a decision to establish diplomatic relations at the level of the Russian embassy in the Vatican and the apostolic nuncio in the Russian Federation" and exchanged related notes, the ministry said in a statement on its website. Relations between the Churches have improved and high-level visits have become more frequent under Benedict XVI and Russian Patriarch Kirill, who took office in February after the death of his predecessor Alexy II. Church officials in Moscow have accused Catholics of proselytizing in Russia, which the Vatican has denied, and highlighted a number of differences on which there is no room for compromise. Since 1990, the two sides maintained diplomatic representation below the level of ambassador.
On Saturday afternoon, January 30, 2010, The Most Rev. and Rt. Honorable Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury and senior bishop of the worldwide Anglican communion, will deliver the annual Father Alexander Schmemann Memorial Lecture at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. The archbishop will speak on the topic “Theology and the Contemplative Calling: The Image of Humanity in the Philokalia.” St Vladimir’s Seminary will also confer upon the archbishop a Doctorate of Divinity honoris causa, in recognition of his contribution to the academic study of Eastern Orthodox theology and spirituality. The Very Rev. Dr. John Behr, dean of St. Vladimir’s, was examined for his own doctoral degree at Oxford University by the archbishop, then a professor of theology there. “Many Orthodox Christians may be unaware of Rowan Williams’s research and contribution to the field of Orthodox theology,” said Father John. “But he was a pioneer in this field, with outstanding breadth and depth. The subject of his own doctoral thesis, for instance, was the work of the great Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky, the first academic study of the émigré theologians. He has also written beautifully on the icons of the Theotokos and the Transfiguration, and, most recently, has published a highly regarded volume titled Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction. In recognition of his outstanding work and contribution to the study of Eastern Christianity, we are very pleased that he has accepted to deliver the 2010 annual Schmemann lecture.” The Very Rev. Dr. Chad Hatfield, chancellor and CEO of the seminary, likewise noted the import of the upcoming visit. “The archbishop is a patron of The Fellowship of Ss. Alban and Sergius, a society of Eastern and Western Christians that held a major conference on our campus in 2008,” said Father Chad. “And we welcome his presence as a person who supports the continued dialogue of the society’s members.” The lecture is scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m., and is free and open to the public. It will be filmed and live streamed by Anglican TV Ministries. The seminary is located at 575 Scarsdale Road, in Yonkers, NY. Please visit www.svots.edu or call the seminary events coordinator at 914-961-8313 ext. 351 for further information. Note: Visitors needing overnight accommodations for the lecture may make their personal reservations by January 5, 2010, at Royal Regency Hotel, 165 Tuckahoe Rd., Yonkers, NY 10710, 914-476-6200. The group code is ST VLAD and the Group Rate is $119.00 per night plus tax.