Despite the fact that preliminary results of the runoff presidential elections in Ukraine have shown victory to Victor Yanukovich, tensions are far from decreasing in Ukraine. The head of the Yulia Timoshenko’s election campaign office, Aleksandr Turchinov, announced on Wednesday that the second round of the elections has seen “falsifications that substantially affected results of the voting.” Turchinov added that the office is ready to provide concrete evidence of falsifications to international observers, journalists and court. He said that the office has sent documents demanding recounting of votes at over 900 polling stations to the Central Election Committee of the country. Meanwhile, Yulia Timoshenko herself has remained silent. Political analyst Aleksey Garan told RT that, although it is Timoshenko’s right to challenge the results of the voting, she should not expect it to be an easy task. “There were certainly some irregularities in the east of the country and in Crimea,” he said. “Mostly they were at a very, very local level, which is really difficult to see for international observers.” ”It is the right of Timoshenko to go and contest the results to the court and there is understanding she will do this. The question is, what information she and her lawyers have on file and whether it would be able to prove that there were falsifications which finally lead to distortion in the results,” he added. Meanwhile, Victor Yanukovich has called on Yulia Timoshenko to accept the “people’s will” and to the leave her post as prime minister. "I am addressing the prime minister with a formal call to resign and to go into opposition,” he said in a statement to his fellow citizens, placed on the Party of Regions website. “My call to the members of the parliamentary coalition is to suspend their activity in order to let me enter into negotiations with different factions over forming a new Cabinet," he added. “The country does not need another political crisis,” Yanukovich persisted. “People have distinctly spoken for a change of power.”
Spanish ambassador to Serbia Inigo de Palacio Espana said that he believes that the ICJ’s decision will open up chance for new dialogue regarding Kosovo. “Spain completely agrees with the government's stance that the opinion of the International Court of Justice, which is expected in the summer, will offer a very important opportunity for restarting dialogue, that would help us find a functional, sustainable agreement for all sides involved in the Kosovo question, which we believe remains unsolved,” he said. Asked whether it was realistic to expect the Kosovo Albanian government, that unilaterally proclaimed independence and received recognition from a number of countries, would return to the negotiating table, he said that the question of status was a "very wide concept”. "I believe that it would be in the best interest of everyone, Priština included, to solve the question of Kosovo’s full-fledged membership in the international community, which is not the case today, because Kosovo is not a UN member, and is having difficulty integrating into regional organizations, while only a third of the international community has recognized it. It would be in the best interest of Priština to find a way to find a solution through a bilateral agreement with Belgrade,” the ambassador said. The Spanish ambassador also stated that a solution for the Kosovo question was not a condition for Serbia gaining the status of an EU candidate, but that it "could come up in one of the later phases of membership negotiations. I believe that Serbia will be able to become a candidate for EU membership and at the same time keep its stance in relation to the legal status of Kosovo,” he said.
III. PEOPLESDAILY - U.N. envoy to visit Macedonia over name dispute with Greece
A U.N. special envoy on the name dispute between Macedonia and Greece will pay a visit to Skopje on Feb. 23 for a fresh round of talks. The Macedonian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that U.N. envoy Matthew Nimetz has accepted this date proposed by the Macedonian government in a bid to step up efforts to solve the problem. The two neighboring countries are locked in a 19-year-long row over the use of the name Macedonia. Athens insists that the name of the Republic of Macedonia implies territorial claims of its own northern province of the same name. In December last year the EU postponed a decision on opening accession talks with Macedonia, citing the unresolved row as the reason. In 2008, Athens, which is also a member of NATO, prevented Skopje from entering the organization over the same dispute. Nimetz is expected to launch a fresh round of talks between the two countries. His latest visits last autumn did not produce anything substantial results. Although there are no official details on the talks, local media in both countries said some variants of the compound name of the Republic of Northern Macedonia might be acceptable to both sides.
IV. ANA - Sarkozy, Papandreou meeting in Paris
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou reiterated here, moments after his official meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, that the Greek government will unwaveringly implement the EU-mandated Stability Programme "to the letter". Papandreou arrived in the French capital for talks with French leadership, as he was received by Sarkozy at the Palais d' Elysee. In speaking to reporters, Papandreou said the target for 2010, namely, a reduction in the budget deficit by four percentage points (from the current 12.7 percent) remains unchanged. Besides the pressing deficit and credit crisis plaguing Greece, Papandreou said issues dealing with the Balkans, the Cyprus problem, climate change and even Europe's position on the international stage were discussed. The Greek premier and foreign minister was scheduled to meet in the afternoon with French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and the president of the French National Assembly Bernard Accoyer. "We had an excellent meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, where the deep relations of friendship and cooperation between Greece and France were confirmed," Papandreou stressed.
V. KATHIMERINI - Cyprus talks will continue
Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias pledged to continue reunification talks yesterday, dismissing criticism from a former coalition partner of tactical blunders in negotiations with estranged Turkish Cypriots. The Socialist EDEK party quit Cyprus’s left-wing coalition government on Monday, accusing Christofias of making unacceptable concessions in peace talks with Mehmet Ali Talat, the Turkish-Cypriot leader. The talks, seeking to end decades of division and a conflict harming Turkey’s ambitions of joining the European Union, started in September 2008. “We are not so close to a solution as some would suggest both here and abroad, but we are working for a solution and this process is ongoing,” Christofias said in a statement. “No one can prejudge the outcome, and certainly not suggest that we are trapped on a dangerous path. That is unsubstantiated and wrong,” he added. EDEK and the centrist Democratic Party had supported Christofias, a communist party leader, in presidential elections in 2008. Their departure does not mean early elections, since Cyprus has a presidential system of government with a strong executive. It does however underline the many obstacles both Greek and Turkish Cypriots will need to overcome before coming anywhere close to a deal. Talat, Christofias’s key negotiating partner in talks, is also not without domestic problems. He faces elections in April and could lose to a hardliner. EDEK, seen hawkish in their approach to reunification, have repeatedly said Christofias’s decision to start negotiations failed to meet a condition that there be a common basis for discussions. The Democratic Party shares EDEK’s misgivings. Greek and Turkish Cypriots are attempting to reunite Cyprus as a two-zone federation. Grievances are focused on Christofias’s offer of a rotating presidency with Turkish Cypriots and the voting system. “The basic principle is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” Christofias said. “The problems [in the negotiation process] are tangible, as is the prospect of solving the Cyprus problem.”
VI. FRESHPLAZA - Cyprus: Potato crop destroyed by frost
Seventy per cent of potato crops suffered extensive damage in the Famagusta district, farmers complained yesterday. AKEL deputy Yiannakis Gabriel told reporters the damage caused to crops due to the past three nights’ freezing temperatures had brought about irreversible damage. He said the damage was 80 to 90 per cent complete and had been verified by Agriculture department officials who had visited the area. Gabriel said the Farmers’ Organisation and the Agriculture Ministry had to make a record of the damages so that the farmers could be compensated as soon as possible after going to enormous expense to invest in their crops. Without compensation potato farmers would be unable to support their families, he added. Potato farmer Adamos Fellas from Sotira village in the Famagusta district said the destruction had taken on biblical proportions. He said the crops had been planted three months ago and that at the start of March they had been due for export to Britain and other countries. “They can no longer cope after the past three nights’ freeze,” he said. The potato farmer explained that the spuds were no bigger than a partridge egg and the larger ones were no bigger than a chicken egg, which were not tradable. “That’s why we are calling on the Farmers’ Association to visit the potato plantations to evaluate the damage and to go ahead with the compensation,” he said. The farmers explained that the reason they hadn’t watered the crops during the past few nights during the freeze was because of the rainfall this year. They said the fields were already very damp and that had they been watered they risked damaging the potatoes further.
VII. OCA - Archpastoral Epistle of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah for the Beginning of Great Lent 2010
To the Very Reverend and Reverend Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of The Orthodox Church in America. Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, The gateway to divine repentance has been opened: let us enter eagerly, purified in our bodies and observing abstinence from food and passions, as obedient servants of Christ who has called the world into the heavenly Kingdom. Let us offer to the King of all a tenth part of the whole year, that we may look with love upon His Resurrection. We approach the Great Fast as our preparation to celebrate the life-giving Passion and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Great Lent is a time of great beauty and profundity, a time which the Church calls the "tithe of the year" which we give to Christ in a spirit of fasting and self-denial. We fast, we pray, we go to services, and we give alms. But what is different in us the very day after Pascha? Have we attained inner peace? Have we come to self-control over our passions? Has my soul been healed, even a little? Lent is the time for repentance. But that repentance does not simply mean feeling sorry for our sins, much less trying to do some kind of penitential acts to atone for them. Rather, the goal of repentance is the transformation of our minds and hearts, our very consciousness. It means a transformation of our whole life. To engage it means that we have to embrace change. This change not only affects our diet for a few weeks, or abstaining from some bad habits. It means a different way of behaving, of perceiving God, ourselves, our neighbors. It means a rejection and renunciation of the ways we have been living and treating others, and the adoption of a new way of life. We have to come to the recognition that how we have been living and behaving does not lead us deeper into communion with God and our neighbors, but rather alienates us from both, and from our very self. So often we become trapped by our own self-righteousness and pride, thinking that we do not have to change. This is delusion. If we are so sure of ourselves, how have we left room for God to even show us our shortcomings? We fall into the trap of the Pharisee. This is especially the case when we let ourselves criticize and judge our neighbors. If we allow ourselves to judge and criticize, then we can be sure that we have cast God out of our lives. Who needs Him, if I can judge everyone and everything? We pick and pick at our neighbors, from external appearances to deep judgments about their integrity. And in so doing, we destroy our own souls. We project all our own insecurities on those around us, not caring whose feelings we hurt or whose lives we destroy. And in reality, it has nothing to do with that other person; our judgment is only an image of myself and my insecurities, and the sins we don't want to admit to ourselves. If we judge and criticize our neighbor, our fasting is in vain. Our repentance is hypocrisy. And we make a mockery of Jesus Christ. We receive the Eucharist unto damnation. And we are oblivious to it, in our own self-righteousness. Repentance, being "transformed in the renewal of our minds," means that, like the Prodigal, we have "come to ourselves," and recognized that our minds and hearts have taken the wrong road. We can perhaps see some of the damage we are causing to ourselves and others. We recognize that our minds are filled with angry, suspicious, judgmental, and self-righteous thoughts, and that we have no inner peace. How do we repent? The first thing we must do is withdraw from the stimulus: to stop exposing ourselves -- temporarily -- to the issues and people that bring up these angry thoughts and judgments. We have to stop ourselves from rehearsing the wrongs done to us (and hence our judgment and condemnation of the person who wronged us), and realize this is just our own self-justification rooted in pride and vainglory. Then we need to pray that God will forgive us for our anger and pride, and forgive the other for what he or she has done. Then we can let it go. So long as we are provoked by thoughts of the remembrance of wrongs (resentments), and react with anger, we have not worked it through. But when the remembrance of something no longer disturbs our peace, we know that God has worked in our hearts. Great Lent can be a clinic, a hospital, for our souls that are sick with the passions. Have we been healed? We can have our minds and hearts lifted up to heaven itself, if we want. We can use Great Lent to lay the foundational stones of discipline, and build habits that will stay with us the rest of the year. We can emerge from Lent with our hearts illumined and our minds cleansed, with a new way of being. Will we allow ourselves to change and be transformed in repentance? It is only this transformation that will open our spiritual eyes, that in our hearts and with all our being we will be able to shout with joy, "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!" With love in our Merciful Savior, +JONAH, Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada.