I. EPOCHTIMES - Greek Parade Celebrates Enduring Culture in New York City
Hundreds of Greek New Yorkers took to the streets on Sunday to celebrate their rich cultural heritage. The celebration marked 189 years since Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire and 2,500 years since the epic Battle of Marathon that set the stage for Western culture as we know it. Fifth Avenue was flooded with floats, dancers, bands, and marchers as part of the annual tradition—the Greek Independence Day Parade. On March 25, 1821, the Greeks had a revolution against the Ottoman Empire, an amalgamation of Islamic states centered around Turkey. The parade also celebrated the 2,500-year anniversary of the Battle of Marathon, a pivotal moment in the European history by many accounts. The outnumbered Greeks defeated the Persian infantry, and shortly afterward, the rise of the Classical Greek civilization ensued, strongly influencing Western culture through the present. Around 100,000 people were on the ground to watch the parade.
A nationalist candidate won presidential elections in the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Sunday, dealing a blow to efforts to bring the Mediterranean island's long conflict to an end. Dervis Eroglu took just over 50 percent of the vote, giving him an outright victory over the moderate incumbent Mehmet Ali Talat and five other candidates, north Cyprus election authorities indicated Monday. All the votes have been counted, the agency said on its Web site. The breakaway region was created after Turkish forces invaded the northern section of the island in 1974.
III. B92 - Serbia express gratitude to Russia
FM Vuk Jeremić met in Belgrade today with United Russia party official and Chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev. The Serbian minister thanked his guest for Moscow's continued support for the preservation of Serbia's territorial integrity, reports said. Jeremić stated that he extended "full gratitude for the continued support", as Serbia makes efforts to preserve the country's integrity. The MFA said in Belgrade on Friday that Jeremić and Kosachev also talked about bilateral relations, and ways to deepen cooperation in all areas. The two officials concluded that the stability of the Western Balkans and improved mutual cooperation of all states in the region was important, said a statement from the meeting.
IV. WASHINGTONTIMES - Obama skips Polish funeral, heads to golf course
A massive volcanic plume covering most of Europe forced President Obama to cancel a Sunday trip to Poland to attend the funeral of the nation's president. But the last-minute change left an opening in his schedule, so the president headed to the links for a round of golf instead. After canceling the Poland trip on Saturday, the White House announced that Mr. Obama had no public schedule for Sunday. He was to have arrived in Krakow in the morning, attend the 2 p.m. funeral and leave for home by 5 p.m., arriving back at the White House after midnight. Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, along with dozens of top Polish government officials were killed April 10 when their airplane went down in heavy fog after clipping a tree on approach to Smolensk, Russia. Mr. Obama has not gone to the Polish Embassy in Washington since the accident, but Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. both have. There, they signed a condolence book. Mr. Obama was not the only world leader to miss the funeral because of the expanding volcanic ash cloud. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also canceled. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, however, flew by plane from Moscow for the funeral. Other foreign leaders used different modes of transportation to get there. Slovenian President Danilo Turk decided to drive the 500 miles to Krakow. Romanian President Traian Basescu traveled to northwestern Romania by helicopter and then continue by car through Hungary and Slovakia. Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip made the 18-hour drive to the funeral, while Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus made the trip by car and train. Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko left Kiev with his wife at 7 a.m. Saturday for the long road trip. Mr. Obama has played golf far more often than former President George W. Bush. It is the 32nd time Mr. Obama has played golf since taking office Jan. 20, 2009. In his eight years in office, Mr. Bush played just 24 times. His last time as president was Oct. 13, 2003. He said in 2008 that he gave up golf "in solidarity" with the families of soldiers who were dying in Iraq. "I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," Mr. Bush said in a White House interview Saturday with the Politico. "I feel I owe it to the families to be as - to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."
V. UPI - Government distrust, Pew poll
Less than one-quarter of U.S. residents polled indicated to the Pew Research Center that they trusted the U.S. federal government most of the time. The center issued poll results Monday indicating that 22 percent of respondents said they trusted the government almost always or most of the time. The percentage was among the lowest Pew recorded for the question. Pew researchers blamed "a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials" for the results. "Favorable ratings for both major parties, as well as for Congress, have reached record lows while opposition to congressional incumbents, already approaching an all-time high, continues to climb," Pew said in a release on its Web site.
VI. PANTAGRAPH - Black or biracial? Census forces a choice for some
There were 784,764 U.S. residents who described their race as white and black in the last census. But that number didn't include Laura Martin, whose father is black and mother is white. "I've always just checked black on my form," said Martin, a 29-year-old university employee in Las Vegas. She grew up surrounded by black family and friends, listening to black music and active in black causes -- "So I'm black." Nor did it include Steve Bumbaugh, a 43-year-old foundation director in Los Angeles, who also has a black father and white mother. "It's not as if I'd have been able to drink out of the white and colored water fountains during Jim Crow," he said. "And I most assuredly would have been a slave. As far as I'm concerned, that makes me black." This is only the second census to allow people to identify themselves by more than one race. About 7 million people, or 2.4 percent of the U.S. population, chose that option in 2000. It's impossible to know how many of the 35 million people counted as "black alone" in 2000 have a white parent. But it's clear that the decision to check one box - or more - on the census is often steeped in history, culture, pride and mentality. Exhibit A is President Barack Obama. He declined to check the box for "white" on his census form, despite his mother's well-known whiteness. Obama offered no explanation, but Leila McDowell has an idea. "Put a hoodie on him and have him walk down an alley, and see how biracial he is then," said McDowell, vice president of communications for the NAACP. "Being black in this country is a political construct," she said. "Even though my father is white and I have half his genes, when I apply for a loan, when I walk into the car lot, when I apply for a job, they don't see me as half white, they see me as black. If you have any identifying characteristics, you're black." There is evidence, though, that while some may be resistant to the idea of identifying as multiracial, white attitudes are moving in that direction. In a January poll by the Pew Research Center, 53 percent of white people said Obama is "mixed race" and 24 percent said he is black. In contrast, 55 percent of black people said Obama is black and 34 percent said he is mixed. This also may represent a new twist on the "one drop" concept, which for centuries held that even one black ancestor made a person black. Now a brown-skinned man is president, and for many white people, one white parent means you are NOT black. But the logic is simple for Ryan Graham, the brown-skinned son of a white-black marriage who defines himself as multiracial. "Say you're wearing a black-and-white shirt. Somebody asks, 'What color is your shirt?' It's black and white. There you go. People ask me, 'What race are you?' I say I'm black and white. It's that simple," said Graham, a 25-year-old sales consultant from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Graham's mother founded Project Race in 1991 to fight for a multiracial classification in the census. Graham testified before Congress on the issue when he was 8. He's disappointed that Obama chose not to check the white box on the census, but said that people should be allowed to define themselves however they choose. "It's frustrating from a point that there's a lot of multiracial people out there who see Obama out there doing that, knowing that he's multiracial, and they think maybe that's the right choice. But there's a lot of people saying maybe it's the wrong choice." For those who decline to check the white box: "Think about your family, think about what makes you you," Graham said. "How you are, who you are, where you come from." Most experts say there is very little genetic difference between people of different races - as little as 1 percent. "Race is a social concept, not a scientific one," goes a much-repeated quote from J. Craig Venter, who led one of the first projects to decipher the entire human genome. That's one reason why the American racial system is "facing taxonomical meltdown," said Nell Painter, a Princeton University history professor and author of "The History of White People." "The complications of the classification system, the resistance that people are mounting, the weight of immigration and marriage mixing, young people are checking more than one box," Painter said. "The system might just all fall away." Which would leave blackness to be defined person by person, according to how they think, the way they look at the world - blackness as a state of mind.
VII. GREEKREPORTER - His Beatitude Theophilos III’, Patriarch of Jerusalem lays the Foundation Stone of the Orthodox Church in Doha
The Patriarchal Divine Liturgy was performed last Friday in the newly founded Orthodox Church of Saint George and Isaak the Qatari, in Doha of Qatar. Immediately after the liturgy, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Theophilos III’, in the presence of many orthodox Christians and representatives of other Christian Communities living in the Emirate in the Persian Gulf, symbolically lay the Foundation Stone of the Church. The Divine Liturgy was celebrated in Greek, Arabic, Russian and Romanian. His Beatitude, Theophilos III, who is the first Orthodox priest who arrived in Qatar after many centuries, was able to obtain land, which was provided by the Emir of Qatar for the construction of the Orthodox Church. On the occasion of his pastoral visit in Qatar, the Patriarch of Jerusalem visited the Emir of Qatar H H Shiekh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Below you can read the Address of Greeting from the Patriarch of Jerusalem to the Emir of Qatar: Your Highness, It is an honour for Us, Your Highness, to be able to address you on the occasion of Our pastoral visit to the Roum Orthodox community of Doha for the laying of the foundation stone of our parish of Saint Isaak the Qatari and Saint George. This is the fruit of many years of careful work and co-operation between the Emirate of Qatar and the Roum Patriarchate of Jerusalem. We take this opportunity to praise the work that both Your Highness and Her Highness the Consort have done in encouraging all Qataris to help build in this country a culture of progress and openness. Qatar is well known for the breakthroughs that you have made in overcoming the barriers of prejudice, in encouraging freedom of worship, and in creating a society of mutual respect and peaceful co-existence. The world sees in Qatar a country that has managed to combine remarkable progress in the economic realm with an equally remarkable progress in the spiritual realm, and as such Qatar serves as a leader and as a model of stability for our region. We see in his achievement the embodiment of the essence of Islam as a religion of tolerance, hospitality and intellectual rigour and achievement. In this region of the world, Christian and Muslim have enjoyed periods of peaceful co-existence that have been of mutual benefit to both our communities. We know each other well, we understand each other’s customs and traditions, and the well-being of our region depends on good relationships between us. We honour the leadership that Your Highness has shown, and continues to demonstrate, in the practical work of ensuring the ongoing religious and cultural diversity of our region. The Rum Patriarchate pledges itself to be loyal and firm supporters of Your Highness’s leadership in this regard. As we know that we have a place in Qatar, Your Highness has a respected place in Jerusalem, and we are privileged to have your photograph in our Patriarchate. We look forward to the day when Your Highness can visit us at our Patriarchate in Jerusalem, a city that is sacred to the Abrahamic traditions. We thank you, Your Highness, for this opportunity to address you, and we pray the blessings of the All-Merciful God on you, Her Highness the Consort, on your family, and on all the people of our beloved Emirate. God bless you.