I. AFP - Israel to keep nuclear ambiguity
Israel will keep up its longstanding policy of deliberate ambiguity over its nuclear programme, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Tuesday, adding that US support for the position remains unchanged. "This is a good policy and there is no reason to change it. There is complete agreement with the United States on this question," Barak told army radio. He also said "there is no risk" that inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would get authorisation to inspect Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor. "There is no threat over the traditional agreements between Israel and the United States on this issue," said Barak. "I met President Barack Obama and other US officials two weeks ago. All of them told me denuclearisation efforts target Iran and North Korea." Israel has maintained its so-called policy of deliberate ambiguity about its nuclear programme since the Jewish state inaugurated the Dimona reactor in the southern Negev desert in 1965. Media reports have said the United States agreed in 1969 that as long as Israel did not test a nuclear weapon or publicly confirm that it had one, Washington would not press it on the issue. Foreign military experts believe Israel has an arsenal of several hundred nuclear weapons. Like nuclear-armed countries India, Pakistan and North Korea, Israel has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in order to avoid inspections by the Vienna-based IAEA. But an Israeli scientist on Monday said Israel should end its decades-long silence over its reported nuclear weapons capability and open its nuclear reactor to inspection. Uzi Even, a Tel Aviv University chemistry professor and former worker at the Dimona reactor, said Obama's campaign for global nuclear arms reduction is a sign of changing times and Israel must get in step.
Russia's president said Tuesday that Israeli-Arab tensions threaten to draw the Middle East into a new catastrophe, as he added Moscow's weight to a diplomatic push to ease antagonism between Israel and Syria. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, whose country has been building up its influence as a Middle East mediator, pledged its assistance in pushing the region toward peace. "Tensions in the Middle East threaten to lead to a new explosion or even a catastrophe," he said. Last month, Israeli President Shimon Peres accused Syria of providing Scud missiles to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and adding to an arsenal that the Iranian-backed Shiite militants say can reach all parts of the Jewish state. Syria denied the accusation and warned such talk seemed calculated to set the stage for military action. Before Medvedev's visit, Peres' office said the Russian president agreed to deliver a message to Syrian President Bashar Assad seeking to ease the tensions. Assad, addressing the reporters, leveled more accusations against Israel over its conflict with the Palestinians. "Expelling Palestinians from Jerusalem, attacking holy sites and besieging Palestinians in Gaza are steps and measures that could completely derail the peace process," he said. U.S.-mediated indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians began last week after 17 months of deadlock. Syria had also been expected to use Medvedev's two-day visit to lobby Moscow to block new U.N. sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Russia, which has veto power as a permanent member of the Security Council, has been reluctant to back a fourth round of tougher penalties. Diplomacy and sanctions have so far failed to persuade Iran to stop parts of its nuclear program that could serve as a possible pathway to weapons production. Iran insists its program is only geared toward peaceful uses like energy generation, but Tehran has not fully cooperated with an investigation by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency. In a joint statement issued after their talks, Assad and Medvedev called for a nuclear weapons free Middle East and urged Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and open up its nuclear facilities to the U.N. monitoring agency. Israel is widely believed to have a nuclear arsenal, though it does not acknowledge that.
III. RIANOVOSTI - Somali ambassador defends Russian treatment of pirates
The Somali ambassador to Russia on Tuesday defended the decision to set adrift a group of pirates who briefly seized the Liberian-flagged Moscow University tanker last week. The tanker, with a Russian crew of 23, was hijacked on May 5 off the Somali coast. After a Russian naval operation on May 6 freed the tanker, capturing 10 pirates and killing one, the disarmed pirates were put into inflatable boats without navigational systems and pushed off into open waters. Russia said it had no choice but to set the pirates adrift, citing the absence of international laws to prosecute them, and their boat disappeared from radars an hour later. A top-ranking Defense Ministry source said on Tuesday the pirates are believed to have died. "It doesn't concern us whether the pirates died or not. We, the states of Russia and Somalia, are responsible for a criminal's civil rights when he voluntarily surrenders or we take him alive," ambassador Mohamed Handule told journalists. Handule said law-abiding citizens should be pitied, rather than criminals, adding that Somalia has no funds to search for the pirates in the sea. He told the journalists to imagine they are law enforcement officers in the wilderness. "You free the hostages, but you can't do anything with the criminals and you leave them in the woods. Are you guilty?" he asked. Handule said the pirates are unlikely to have survived as the location where Russian sailors left them is 250 miles from the coast. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged last week to punish pirates who seize vessels off the Somali coast "with the full force of maritime law." Until a legal system allowing hijackers to be punished is created, "we will have to act as our forefathers did when they met pirates," he said, without specifying how exactly the pirates should be punished. Russia has repeatedly called for the creation of a special juridical body to try hijackers captured during anti-piracy operations off the Somali coast. In late April, the UN Security Council adopted Russia's proposal to consider the creation of a new court for this purpose.
IV. REUTERS - Yanukovych Backers Cordon Off Parliament
Hundreds of supporters of President Viktor Yanukovich threw a cordon around the Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday to block opposition demonstrators from coming near the building. Tension was high after riots in parliament on April 27 in which smoke bombs were thrown and brawls broke out between Yanukovich and opposition deputies over ratification of an agreement to extend the Russian navy's stay in Ukraine. On Tuesday, several hundred members of the pro-Yanukovich Regions Party formed a barrier to the entrance to the parliament building, while police kept back about 3,000 supporters of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko from drawing near. Yanukovich, in a U-turn after the anti-Russian policies of his predecessor Viktor Yushchenko, agreed on April 21 to extend the lease of the Black Sea fleet until 2042 in exchange for cheaper gas, vital for the struggling economy. The Black Sea fleet extension was ratified on April 27 in almost siege conditions in parliament and the ex-Soviet republic is now preparing to welcome Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Kiev on an official visit on May 17. Yanukovich draws most of his support from the industrial east and the south, and is particularly strongly backed by the mainly Russian-speaking population in Crimea where Russia's fleet is based. An opinion poll by the KIPU sociology centre found that 56.5 percent of Ukrainians favoured the extension of the fleet's stay until 2047 -- giving the nod to an extension of a further five years which is allowed under the April 21 Kharkiv agreement.
Cyprus’s capital Nicosia aims to attract tourists away from the more favored coastal resorts by staging an annual beer festival, organizers said. “Unlike all other European capitals, Nicosia has the sad privilege to be the only one not to enjoy the respective country’s lion’s share of tourist numbers,” Christodoulos Angastiniotis, president of the Nicosia Tourist Development and Promotion Company, said in a phone interview today. Nicosia, located in the center of the eastern Mediterranean island, received just 5 percent of the 2.1 million tourists that visited Cyprus last year, according to Angastiniotis. Tourism directly and indirectly accounts for about a quarter of the island’s economy. The organizers are providing free buses to transport tourists from coastal resorts to the festival, which begins tomorrow. As many as 15,000 people are expected to attend.
VI. YAHOO - Spain sees EU progress for Turkey in two months
Turkey should make some progress in its negotiations to join the European Union in the next two months, Spain's foreign minister said on Monday, urging the bloc to intensify its cooperation with Ankara. Speaking after a regular meeting to assess Turkey's readiness to join the 27-member union, Miguel Angel Moratinos said the EU would "certainly" open new areas of talks before Spain's presidency of the EU ends on June 30. "Chapters will be opened during the Spanish presidency," he told a news conference after speaking with Turkish officials in Brussels. Since their launch in 2005, Turkey's accession talks have progressed slowly because of a dispute with EU member Cyprus over a Turkish enclave on the Mediterranean island which has led Cyprus to block the opening of some policy areas, or "chapters". Turkey's membership is a divisive issue in Europe where centre-right governments in Germany and France, worried about cultural differences, have signalled their opposition to letting the largely Muslim nation of 72 million people join. But Moratinos said the EU should "further accelerate and consolidate bilateral commitments" with Ankara. Turkish officials in Brussels reiterated pledges to press on with reforms, but expressed frustration over "political barriers" put up by EU member states. The EU's enlargement chief Stefan Fuele said it was possible some negotiations chapters would be opened this year but that more reforms were key in Turkey. These include a need for better rule of law, a more effective fight against corruption, protection of human rights and more separation between civil and military authorities. Accession talks could be further complicated if peace talks on Cyprus between the Greek community and the breakaway northern province, recognised only by Ankara, founder after an election last month brought to power a hardline Turkish Cypriot leader.
VII. CATHOLICONLINE - The Changing Face of Orthodox Christianity in America
In a few weeks Orthodox bishops will meet in New York to discuss changes that may permanently transform the public face of Orthodox Christianity in America. The meeting is largely under the public radar, so low in fact that few Orthodox believers are even aware of it. How do we understand its importance? First, some history. Orthodoxy Christianity entered the American continent through Russian missionary work in Alaska starting in 1794. Native Aleuts received the Gospel and the Orthodox Church took root there. Later Orthodoxy spread to San Francisco and then to the East Coast largely through the Russian immigrant communities. The next phase of Orthodox growth occurred during the great waves of American immigration starting in the late 1800's. America's gates were opened to Eastern Europeans came to America by the thousands searching for economic stability. They built parishes and brought over priests from the mother countries to minister to them. At first growth was relatively orderly. The Russian Orthodox Church held administrative authority in America because they were the first to establish a presence here. This lasted until 1918 when the Communist takeover in Russian broke all ties with the mother Church. After 1918 Orthodox Church order in America devolved into what we have today: a very loose federation of Orthodox Churches divided along ethnic lines where each ethnicity has its own bishop. It creates all sorts of canonical anomalies including multiple bishops in one city that undermine the public witness, internal health, and cultural contributions of Orthodox Christians in America. Unknown to many is that no substantive theological divisions exist between the Orthodox jurisdictions even though they remain administratively divided along ethnic lines. Further, in many cities the divisions are more formal than material since the second and third generations self-identify as Americans more than they do with their grandparents' country of origin. There the local parishes cooperate in catechesis programs, social outreach, youth and summer camp programs, and so forth even though each reports to a separate bishop. The easiest way for Catholics to understand this is to recall what Roman Catholicism was a hundred years ago. There were Polish Catholics, Irish Catholics, German Catholics, Italian Catholics and others. A good Pole for example, would gravitate to the parish of his ethnic compatriots half a city away even though there was an Irish Catholic Church right down the block. Today those divisions don't exist. More difficult to Catholics to comprehend however, is why it takes so much time and effort for the Orthodox to get their house in order. One reason is that Orthodoxy does not have a pope. Orthodoxy Christianity sees unity expressed in shared theology and worship. The term "Catholic" (Greek: katholikos -- "according to the whole") in the Nicene Creed's "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church" refers not to an institutional structure or administrative principle. Rather, it means that each local parish expresses the faith of the larger Church. This definition is more abstract than the Roman Catholic definition and frustrates Roman Catholic ecumenical officers to no end. Who do they talk to? Who really represents the Orthodox Church? It also leads to problems like we have in America today: canonical incoherence that needs to be rectified. On the other hand, the definition functions as a safeguard to problems that trouble the Roman Catholic Church. Take liturgical devolution for example. A guitar or polka liturgy (mass) in an Orthodox Church is simply incomprehensible. It won't happen. If it did, that parish will have ceased to be Orthodox. If a bishop ever sanctioned it, he would be run out of town. The American Orthodox bishops made a self-directed attempt at unity about ten years ago at what is now called the "Ligonier Conference." They decided to unify the ethnic churches into one American Orthodox Church. The Patriarch of Constantinople disagreed and forced the retirement of the Greek Orthodox Archbishop in order to derail it. Most people thought Ligonier was dead. Ten years later it looks like the train left the station anyway. Moscow is rising in authority and leads the effort to correct the American anomaly thereby completing the work they started over two centuries ago. Last year the Patriarchs of Orthodox churches the world over met in council at Chembesy, Switzerland to lay the groundwork for the New York meeting at end of this month. One reason for the reluctance of Orthodox bishops to publicize the meeting is that no one really knows what will come of it. They have no historical precedents to guide them. The Orthodox change slowly, sometimes interminably so, and no one is willing to offer any predictions or promises. If it succeeds, even incrementally, the public face of Orthodoxy in America will be much different down the road. For an inside look on the meeting see Peter Marudas "What's the Future of Orthodox Unity in America?"