I. HAARETZ - Gaza rocket hits Israel for fifth consecutive day
A Qassam rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip struck the Western Negev on Monday, a day after an Israel Air Force assault killed three Islamic Jihad men posed at a launching ground in the coastal territory. There were no casualties or damages reported in the incident Monday. Israeli security forces were summoned to the area to identify the location of the rocket. The IAF strike Sunday came hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed a "powerful response" to recent rocket and mortar shell attacks from the coastal territory. The strike targeted a cell as its members, which included a senior Jihad field commander, were launching rockets at Israel. Four mortar shells were also fired at Israel from Gaza on Sunday, but they exploded on the Palestinian side of the border. Addressing an increase of rocket fire into Israel from Gaza, Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday advised Gaza's Hamas rulers to "watch their step, and not to cry crocodile tears if they force [Israel] to take action."
II. UK PRESS - Intensive talks over Cyprus future
Rival leaders on the divided island of Cyprus have launched a round of intensified talks aimed at paving the way for a potential peace deal this year. President Dimitris Christofias, a Greek Cypriot, and breakaway Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat have started six day-long sessions, hoping to overcome obstacles that hindered progress during 60 meetings over the past 16 months. Real progress would restore the talks' credibility and rekindle hope among jaded Cypriots that their leaders can tackle a decades-old dispute that is hindering Turkey's EU membership bid and harming EU-Nato cooperation. "It is imperative that agreement is reached on a range of matters by the end of the month," Nicosia University International Law professor Tim Potier said. "Warm words or little more than that, by the end of the month, would suggest that the process is likely to end in failure. The leaders of the two communities have to lead the nation, otherwise others, with alternative ambitions, will lead it for them." Talks are focusing on power-sharing under a future federal structure, the economy and EU matters. But they appeared to be on shaky ground even before they started. New Turkish Cypriot proposals leaked last week reportedly include separate rights to sign international agreements and control of the Mediterranean island's air space. Government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou called the proposals "unacceptable" and warned they could not constitute the basis for negotiations. Mr Talat is under pressure to avoid concessions before elections in April, with his hardline opponent Dervis Eroglu leading opinion polls. Mr Christofias is also facing criticism from his Greek Cypriot coalition partners, the Socialist EDEK and centre-right Diko, who say he has already made too many accommodations for Talat. Cyprus was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded after a coup by supporters of union with Greece. The island joined the European Union in 2004, but only Greek Cypriots enjoy the benefits.
III. BUSINESS WEEK - EU: Greek Budget Deficit Is ’Very Critical’ for Bloc
Olli Rehn, the European Union official picked to tackle the region’s fiscal crisis, said the 27-nation bloc faces “a very critical situation” over Greece’s budget deficit. “The Greek government is aware of the seriousness of the situation,” Rehn told a European Parliament committee today during his confirmation hearing in Brussels. “The commission is assessing the matter with major concern,” he said, adding that “in the course of this month or next month we will have to deal with Greece’s excessive deficit.” The International Monetary Fund will send a team to Greece tomorrow after the government in Athens requested technical assistance in tackling the euro area’s largest deficit, the IMF said today. In the context of regular surveillance, the fund will explore possibilities for help on pension reform, tax policy, tax administration and budget management, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based lender said in a statement. The risk for Rehn. a 47-year-old Finn with a doctorate from the University of Oxford and a lifelong passion for soccer, is that failure to cajole Greece into cutting the budget shortfall, estimated at 12.7 percent of gross domestic product last year, could further undermine its fiscal rules and hurt the bonds of other EU nations struggling to get their deficits under control. Prime Minister George Papandreou in December said the country will aim for a 4 percentage-point cut in the deficit instead of an originally planned 3.6 points. The premium investors demand to hold Greek bonds instead of German bunds has widened to 217 basis points from 37 points two years ago.
IV. RIA NOVOSTI - Karabakh dispute to be focus of Lavrov's visit to Armenia
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will discuss Nagorny Karabakh during his visit to Armenia on January 13-14, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday. Lavrov will meet with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan. "The focus will be the exchange of views on the continuation of negotiations on a settlement in Nagorny Karabakh in the context of mediation efforts undertaken by Russia to resolve the conflict," Andrei Nesterenko said. Bilateral cooperation and the situation in the wider Caucasus are also expected to be discussed, he said, noting that despite the recession, trade and economic, military and political, humanitarian and interregional cooperation between Russia and Armenia are developing. The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorny Karabakh first erupted in 1988, when the region claimed independence from Azerbaijan to join Armenia. Over 30,000 people are estimated to have died on both sides between 1988 and 1994, when a ceasefire was agreed. Nagorny Karabakh has remained in Armenian control and tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia have persisted. The OSCE Minsk Group, comprising the United States, Russia and France, is a mediator in the conflict.
V. B92 - Battle for new Kosovo talks in 2010
Belgrade daily Blic writes that the Serbian government will be calling for new negotiations for the Kosovo status solution in 2010. Steps have been taken to immediately, “literally the day after the opinion of the International Court of Justice in The Hague is given, to call a meeting of the UN Security Council”, says the newspaper. “A fast push and fast progress” will then begin in order to get new negotiations and finding a solution between Belgrade and Priština, Blic writes. The daily’s source said that without this, Serbia’s strategic goal of EU membership will not be possible. “The open question of Kosovo is halting Serbia’s EU progress, hurting relations with American as the largest world power without whom there is no political or economic progress, it is also straining relations with the most influential and prosperous European countries and making Serbian unable to become a true leader in the region, because real friendly relations with its neighbors are not possible,” the article continues. In the region, only Romania and Bosnia-Herzegovina have not recognized Kosovo’s unilaterally proclaimed independence, and of the others, only Montenegro has yet to send an ambassador to Priština, Blic says. Belgrade, “naturally”, writes this newspaper, reacts negatively to every step towards cooperation with Kosovo by its neighbors, “deteriorating” relations in the region. Even though political analysts and experts maintain that the search for Kosovo solution cannot be fast or easy, the government is dedicated to making “fast progress” in solving Serbia’s main problem this year, Blic writes.
VI. DAILYMAIL UK - The mini ice age starts here
The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists. Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in summer by 2013. According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this. The scientists’ predictions also undermine the standard climate computer models, which assert that the warming of the Earth since 1900 has been driven solely by man-made greenhouse gas emissions and will continue as long as carbon dioxide levels rise. For Europe, the crucial factor here is the temperature of the water in the middle of the North Atlantic, now several degrees below its average when the world was still warming. But the effects are not confined to the Northern Hemisphere. Prof Anastasios Tsonis, head of the University of Wisconsin Atmospheric Sciences Group, has recently shown that these MDOs move together in a synchronised way across the globe, abruptly flipping the world’s climate from a ‘warm mode’ to a ‘cold mode’ and back again in 20 to 30-year cycles. 'They amount to massive rearrangements in the dominant patterns of the weather,’ he said yesterday, ‘and their shifts explain all the major changes in world temperatures during the 20th and 21st Centuries. 'We have such a change now and can therefore expect 20 or 30 years of cooler temperatures.’ Prof Tsonis said that the period from 1915 to 1940 saw a strong warm mode, reflected in rising temperatures. But from 1940 until the late Seventies, the last MDO cold-mode era, the world cooled, despite the fact that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continued to rise. In 1974, a Time magazine cover story predicted ‘Another Ice Age’, saying: ‘Man may be somewhat responsible – as a result of farming and fuel burning [which is] blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the Earth.’ Prof Tsonis said: ‘Perhaps we will see talk of an ice age again by the early 2030s, just as the MDOs shift once more and temperatures begin to rise.’ Like Prof Latif, Prof Tsonis is not a climate change ‘denier’. There is, he said, a measure of additional ‘background’ warming due to human activity and greenhouse gases that runs across the MDO cycles. But he added: ‘I do not believe in catastrophe theories. Man-made warming is balanced by the natural cycles, and I do not trust the computer models which state that if CO2 reaches a particular level then temperatures and sea levels will rise by a given amount. 'These models cannot be trusted to predict the weather for a week, yet they are running them to give readings for 100 years.’ Prof Tsonis said that when he published his work in the highly respected journal Geophysical Research Letters, he was deluged with ‘hate emails’. He added: ‘People were accusing me of wanting to destroy the climate, yet all I’m interested in is the truth.’ He said he also received hate mail from climate change sceptics, accusing him of not going far enough to attack the theory of man-made warming. The work of Profs Latif, Tsonis and their teams raises a crucial question: If some of the late 20th Century warming was caused not by carbon dioxide but by MDOs, then how much?
Dearly Beloved in Christ: As Orthodox Christians, we strongly affirm the value and sanctity of all human life, from the moment of conception to the final breath one takes. This affirmation is theologically based, in that each person bears within him or her self the image of God, and has the potential to fulfill that image by likening him/herself to God. To artificially terminate life is to transgress on that which is holy; it is unthinkable, a grave sin. Every one of our churches and our homes bear the image of the infant Christ cradled in the arms of His Mother, an image that is supremely human, and supremely divine. It is the image of divine Motherhood, that the Son of God was conceived, borne and nurtured by His Most Pure Mother. God is thus revealed in the Motherhood of the Virgin; bearing us in Her holy embrace of love. This image also reveals God's love for us, that he became like us in every way--a fetus in His Mother's womb, an infant in Her arms, a little child. God has sanctified every aspect of human life, becoming what we are that He might make us like Himself. As Orthodox, every aspect of our lives is iconic. Every child is an image of the Christ Child, every person an image of God. Each bears infinite potential to attain to the Likeness, to sainthood, to holiness. Marriage also is an icon, as the union of man and woman in the flesh blessed by God, and bringing forth the fruit of children, is an image of our union with one another in Christ in the Kingdom. Christian marriage and family are the sacred context not only for the rearing of children, but as the basic core of our identity and reference point of stability. The family is the place where we are nurtured and accepted, find solace and consolation, and thus the faithful family becomes the place where these very human emotions and feelings are filled with grace and sanctified. Whether we are very young or very old, the family is the context of our life, in which we work out our salvation. We experience God's Fatherhood, and divine Motherhood; we experience the nurturing love which becomes a participation in divine communion. And as we breathe our last, should we not remember the image of the crucified Christ, carried in the arms of his mother, in her grief, the grief of every mother for her child? We affirm the sanctity of life, made holy by the incarnation of the Christ. We affirm that every stage of our life has been sanctified. We affirm marriage of one man and one woman as the foundation of the family, the image of our union with God, and the means of sanctifying the lives of all members of that family by the grace of love and divine communion. These are desperate times. Our society is in despair. It is a despair that manifests itself in the breakdown of essential relationships, of marriage and family. Continued unemployment leads to hopelessness, and the breakdown of trust that one is able to provide; this leads to the breakdown of marriages, and the bitterness that goes with it. Returning soldiers, with posttraumatic stress just below the surface, enter into relationships that often turn brutal and abusive. Marriage, and the very family itself are in question, with the issue of homosexual unions. The majority of marriages end in divorce, and the majority of children grow up without fathers or mothers; and how many pregnancies end in abortion? Despair is the primary context which could make it even possible for a mother to destroy her unborn child. We offer, always, the way to healing and reconciliation for those who have fallen short and fallen into sin, in an embrace of love. We offer hope to those who have lost hope through the guilt of sin. We offer consolation to those in sorrow. We offer support and guidance to build families that work out their salvation together, and become the rock and foundation of our culture. Through these things, re-incarnating Christ's love and redemption in hearts, in real faces, in institutions of concrete service and healing, we offer hope to our people, our culture, our society, and through that hope, joy as we see God reborn in our lives and in those of all around us.