I. WASHINGTONTIMES - There's only one Cyprus
I am writing to express my disappointment over the map of Cyprus and the caption you ran with a recent news article ("Ghosts of conflict," Geopolitics, March 31). Both the map and the caption distort history and geography and lack sensitivity. The map incorrectly divides the Republic of Cyprus into two states, Cyprus and North Cyprus. This gives your readers the mistaken impression that the island of Cyprus contains two states, when in fact, there is only one internationally recognized state on the whole island of Cyprus: the Republic of Cyprus. Second, the caption under the photograph that accompanies the article incorrectly states that "the 1974 war ... divided the island into areas controlled by Turkey in the north and Greece in the south." While you are right to point out that the northern part of our country is controlled by Turkey as a result of the illegal Turkish invasion and occupation of 36.2 percent of the territory, it is erroneous to say the south is controlled by Greece. The Republic of Cyprus, which has been illegally divided since 1974, has been an independent and sovereign country for nearly 50 years and is a member of the United Nations, the European Union, the Council of Europe and the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). For nearly 36 years, the people of Cyprus have endured an illegal occupation and numerous violations of fundamental freedoms. Roughly 43,000 Turkish army troops occupy the northern part of our island, making it one of the most densely militarized zones in the world. Turkey has treated the occupied part of Cyprus as if it were one of its own provinces and has transplanted more than 160,000 Turkish citizens while confiscating property that legally belongs to Cypriots who were evicted from their lands by the Turkish army. I trust that in the future you will be more sensitive and factual when reporting on Cyprus.
The statement of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski that if there was a referendum regarding the name, he would vote “against” is a clear proof that the name dispute between Macedonia and Greece has to be resolved as quickly as possible, Macedonian newspaper Vecher quotes Erwan Fouéré, EU Special Representative for FYROM, saying. “The public statements of representatives of the two countries cannot resolve the issue, but would rather lead to further misunderstandings. That is why the two countries need to find a solution very soon,” Fouéré said.
III. RAWSTORY - Srebrenica was not genocide
Bosnian Serbs will never accept that the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslims was genocide, Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik told a Belgrade daily in an interview published on Tuesday. "We cannot and will never accept qualifying that event as a genocide," Dodik, who heads the Bosnian Serb entity in Bosnia, Republika Srpska, told the Vecernje Novosti newspaper. Bosnian Serbs have long downplayed the Srebrenica massacre. But in a report in 2004, the Republika Srpska government acknowledged the scale of the killing and apologised to the relatives of Muslims killed in Srebrenica. In his interview, Dodik dismissed the 2004 report, saying it was adopted "under pressure" from the international community's powerful high representative to Bosnia, and that it contained "inexact numbers". So far more than 6,400 victims exhumed from various mass graves around the town have been identified by DNA analysis.
IV. RIANOVOSTI - Yanukovych reverses Ukraine's position on Holodomor famine
It is "unjust" to call the Stalin-era famine that killed millions across the Soviet Union a genocide of the Ukrainian people, President Viktor Yanukovych said on Tuesday. Yanukovych's statement to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) marks a complete reversal of the policy of his predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, who sought international recognition of the 1932-1933 Great Famine, known to Ukrainians as the Holodomor, as genocide. PACE will discuss on Wednesday a report commemorating the victims of the Soviet famine that includes an amendment recognizing the Holodomor as a genocide of the Ukrainian people. "We consider it incorrect and unjust to consider the Holodomor a fact of genocide of a certain people," Yanukovych said, calling it "a common tragedy" of the Soviet people. The Ukrainian president said not only Ukrainian, but also Russian, Belarusian and Kazakh people starved during the famine. "Those were consequences of Stalin's totalitarian regime, his attitude to people," he said. More than 3 million people perished in Ukraine due to the famine, and Ukrainian nationalists say Russia, as the legal successor of the Soviet Union, should bear responsibility. Yushchenko, who was known for his anti-Russian policies as president, led Ukraine's efforts to secure international recognition of the famine as an act of genocide.
V. JPOST - Proximity talks can start next week
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu alluded to the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process at a Likud convention in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, saying that he would be happy to begin proximity talks as soon as next week. "I was satisfied to hear yesterday that [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas was ready to resume talks," Netanyahu told the assembled Likud members. "We are committed to a real peace process ... we support peace." He warned, however, that any peace agreement with the Palestinian would have to safeguard what he termed Israel's "vital interests." "We insist that [the Palestinians] recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland," the prime minister said, adding that a solution would have to be found to the issue of the Palestinian refugees without necessitating their return to Israel. The prime minister then referred to differences of opinion within the party itself, saying that Likud member Moshe Feiglin and his supporters constituted an "extremist minority" that was a threat to party unity. The "Messianic, extremist" group, he said, was trying to "force on us a path that is foreign to us." Also during his speech, Netanyahu announced that he would visit Egypt on Monday and meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
VI. XINHUANET - France willing to deepen ties with China
French President Nicolas Sarkozy says he wants to enhance Franco-Sino relations at all levels because China has an indispensable role to play on the global stage. President Sarkozy described bilateral ties and partnership as comprehensive as well as strategic. "Comprehensive, because it covers all aspects of our relationship; strategic, because China has become an absolutely essential player on the international stage. There is no more big issue today that we can tackle without China," Sarkozy said. Referring to the establishment of the France-China diplomatic relations 45 years ago, the president said some misunderstanding between the two countries had belonged to the past and he held a firm confidence in China's future. "This is why I made the strengthening of the Franco-Chinese partnership a priority of our foreign policy," Sarkozy said. He said relations between the two countries had warmed and France would like to further ties with China "in all dimensions." Besides political and diplomatic dialogue on all major international issues and the promotion of the development of trade and industrial cooperation, France and China could open new fields for cooperation, the president said. Current bilateral cooperation on sustainable development, personnel exchange and scientific communication all had room to be expanded, he said. In his opinion, the "ambitious" will to promote France-China ties was not only a reflection of "the long profound friendship" between the two nations, but also a response to new challenges in the 21st century.
VII. PRAVMIR - Metropolitan Philaret on Mid-Pentecost
We all know that, beginning Wednesday of this past week, the Church began to sing the meaningful and touching troparion of the feast of Mid-Pentecost, in which is said: “At Mid-feast give Thou my thirsty soul to drink of the waters of piety.” This appeal to the Christian soul is understandable to everyone, especially, of course, in our terrible time, when we hear not about the “waters of piety,” but rather about the waves of impiety pouring more and more over the entire world and over the entire human race. The Christian soul, under the pressure of this impiety, prays that the Lord would water it, thirsty, with the waters of piety. The answer to this appeal comes in the Gospel we heard today at the Liturgy, in which the Lord, as if coming out to meet the soul calling out to Him in the troparion, says: Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest [Mt 11:28]. You also know another moving passage in the Gospel, in which the Lord says: Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light [Mt 11:29]. An apostle said once that the Lord’s commandments are not grievous [1 Jn 5:3]. Here the Lord calls us to learn from Him, for He is meek and lowly of heart. If we learned this meekness and humility from Him, we would immediately find rest for our souls. Here is our present life, with its vanity and defilement, with all its hardships and difficulties – is it some evil trick lying upon man, under which he suffocates and loses strength? The Lord says, in contradiction to this: My yoke is easy, and My burden is light, and not at all that terrible burden that the world, gone out of its mind, lays on its children. If only the children of this age would understand the Lord’s appeal, that only the Lord can give rest to the soul and remove that burden that lays on it, then all of life would change quite wonderfully. But alas! We know both from the Gospel and from the works of the Holy Fathers that the darkness resting over mankind will continue to thicken and condense, and will grow darker yet. One only needs to remember that both the Gospel and the Holy Fathers have warned us that life will become worse and more difficult. Certain of them speak of some sort of subsequent improvement. But the great Elder Ambrose of Optina waned in advance that this darkness will thicken and thicken, and that things will become more and more difficult for people. Finally the era of the Antichrist will arrive, in which those who are truly faithful to God and the Church will endure such tribulations as no one has ever before known. At the same time, those who are faithful to the Lord will cry out that the Lord’s yoke is easy, and His burden light. He who bows his head under this good yoke and this light burden of Christ will immediately feel that he is free, that the yoke of Christ does not choke him, that it does not make his life more difficult but, to the contrary, eases it. If only mankind, gone out of its mind, would at last understand this Evangelic appeal and turn to its Savior, Who calls them to Himself, and learn from Him, for He is meek and lowly of heart – then mankind would understand where in fact truth and light are, and where lies and falsehood are. But, I repeat, there is no hope that mankind will understand, because the predictions of Holy Scripture and the Holy Fathers do not speak of this at all. But the Christian should not grow downcast in spirit. The Lord knows His faithful ones, and protects them as the apple of His eye. Recall how approvingly the Lord, in the Apocalypse, speaks to the angel of the Church of Philadelphia, which can be taken as all those who are faithful to Him. He says: Because thou hast kept the word of My patience (His Divine word), I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world [Rev 3:10]. The Lord Jesus Christ, as we know all too well, never spoke an untruth: if this is what He said, this is what will be! It follows that our task must be to maintain fidelity to Him. If we will keep His the word of His patience, His Divine word, as holy, and fulfill it, then He will fulfill His Divine word, and can save us from those afflictions, from those years of temptations that have already begun and which are still ongoing. Amen.