I. NEWSER - Pirates Board Tanker, Russian Warship En Route
Somali pirates have boarded an oil tanker off East Africa and a Russian warship is rushing to intervene. The 106,000-ton ship, named the Moscow University, has 23 Russian crew members on board. Today's dawn attack occurred about 500 miles east of the Somali coast. It's still unclear if the pirates are fully in control of the tanker, an EU Naval Force commander told AP.
II. B92 - NATO concerned over seized weapons
NATO officials are “concerned over the latest developments in the Macedonian-Kosovo border zone”, said reports from Priština. A large weapons cache was discovered there recently, after Macedonian police engaged an ethnic Albanian gang from Kosovo. Such actions could lead to a destabilization of Macedonia, stated Allied Joint Force Command Naples Commander U.S. Admiral Mark Fitzgerald. “The amount of weapons which was discovered is very large and it represents a great concern for us,” he said in Priština this Wednesday. “Such actions could destabilize countries like Macedonia, so it’s obvious that we’re concerned,” he stated. Fitzgerald also commented on the Kosovo Albanian government's decision to disable Belgrade-based mobile and landline telephone networks in Kosovo. He requested that “everyone finds non-violent ways to address and solve these issues through established institutional forms”, said reports. “We’ve asked the (Kosovo) government to be more transparent and to provide information to the public in advance when they make such decisions,” Fitzgerald concluded.
Iran on Wednesday kicked off new war games and military maneuvers in the strategic Persian Gulf waters, the country's second military show of force in less than a month. The exercises reflect Iran's desire to flex its military muscle at a time of a deepening standoff with the West over Tehran's controversial nuclear program. The war games, held annually since 2006, also act as a warning, should U.S. or Israel consider a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. The new maneuvers, dubbed "Velayat 89," are to last eight days in the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman and cover about 97,000 square miles (250,000 square kilometers) of Iranian territorial waters, reported state TV. In late April, Iran's Revolutionary Guard held five-day maneuvers in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's leaders have in the past said that if attacked, the country would respond by shutting off the Strait of Hormuz, the mouth of the Gulf through which around 40 percent of the world's oil and gas supplies passes, as well as by attacking American bases in the Gulf. Navy chief Adm. Habibollah Sayyari was quoted by the TV as saying Wednesday that Iran's Navy, backed by the air force, will "show its might" in the latest exercise. The exercise comes as the Obama administration is lobbying hard at the U.N. Security Council for tougher punishment of Iran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can produce either a warhead or fuel for a nuclear reactor. The West accuses Iran of seeking to build a weapon, a claim Tehran denies, insisting its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes, such as power generation. The exercise also comes against the backdrop of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remarks on the sidelines of a nuclear treaty conference at U.N. headquarters in New York dismissing the threat of further economic penalties for Iran. Ahmadinejad has recently been lobbying China and Russia, the two among the Security Council's five veto-wielding permanent members that have been reluctant to endorse further sanctions against Iran, and also rotating members such as Uganda and Brazil. As the sole head of state to attend the once-every-five-years Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty gathering, Ahmadinejad argued in New York that any new sanctions would mean President Barack Obama has given up on his campaign to engage Iran diplomatically.
U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell will meet in Jerusalem with Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the start of proximity talks. Mitchell and the Israeli prime minister were scheduled to meet Wednesday afternoon. Netanyahu has said he is ready to launch the talks at the meeting. Mitchell is scheduled to meet Friday with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, but talks are not likely to start before at least Saturday, when the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee is set to meet to approve the talks. Abbas was meeting Wednesday in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Netanyahu met with Mubarak on Monday, when he reportedly updated the president on the status of the peace process. Israel's deputy prime minister, Dan Meridor, told the Jerusalem Post in an article published Wednesday that indirect talks will fail. "Everyone will want to pull America to their own side, and they won't get closer, they will get further apart," Meridor, also the minister of intelligence, told the newspaper. "I think we need to go quickly to direct talks." Abbas put the start of the indirect peace negotiations in doubt on Tuesday after a West Bank mosque was burned down in a fire that Palestinian officials blamed on residents of neighboring Jewish settlements. Israeli police said the fire was caused by an electrical short. "This criminal attack threatens efforts to revive the peace process," Abbas said.
V. STRAIGHTTIMES - U.S. base stays in Okinawa
To the dismay of long-suffering Okinawans, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama yesterday went back on his word to relocate the United States Futenma airbase outside the prefecture. Visiting the prefecture for the first time since he took office last September, the Japanese leader told Okinawa prefectural governor Hirokazu Nakaima he had no choice but to ask the people of Okinawa to continue to shoulder the burden of the US bases. "As a practical issue, it is difficult to move all the functions of Futenma outside the prefecture," said the Prime Minister. The ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) led by Mr Hatoyama had promised in last August's general election to move Futenma outside the prefecture, if not outside Japan entirely. But Mr Hatoyama told the Okinawa governor yesterday: "There was talk about moving Futenma out of the country. But considering the Japan-US security relationship, and the security of neighbouring countries, in terms of providing a deterrent force, it is not possible in reality." He added: "I apologise to the people of Okinawa."
The United States has scored poorly on a campaign group's list of the best countries in which to be a mother, managing only 28th place, and bettered by many smaller and poorer countries. Norway topped the latest Save the Children "Mothers Index", followed by a string of other developed nations, while Afghanistan came in at the bottom of the table, below several African states. One factor that dragged the US ranking down was its maternal mortality rate, which at one in 4,800 is one of the highest in the developed world, said the report. "A woman in the Unites States is more than five times as likely as a woman in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece or Italy to die from pregnancy-related causes in her lifetime and her risk of maternal death is nearly 10-fold that of a woman in Ireland," the report said. It also scored poorly on under-five mortality, its rate of eight per 1,000 births putting it on a par with Slovakia and Montenegro. Norway headed the list of developed countries at the top of the list of best places to be a mother, followed by Australia, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. At the bottom was Afghanistan, followed by Niger, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Sudan, Eritrea and Equatorial Guinea. The report recommended more funding for women's and girls' education and better access to maternal and child health care, particularly in the developing world. In the United States and other industrialised nations, it called on governments and communities to work together to improve education and health for disadvantaged mothers and children.
Saint Nicholas Cathedral [in Washington, DC] invites all Orthodox parishes in the US to add the names, ranks, and photographs of their US military veterans to the newly established Orthodox Veterans Memorial web page, a 21st century extension of the cathedral's continuing commitment to praying for our Orthodox fallen. "Our chaplains serve Orthodox of all jurisdictions and, as such, our War Memorial will honor all Orthodox Christians whose names have been submitted to be honored," wrote His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah, in a letter to the faithful and friends of Saint Nicholas Cathedral. "We must never forget their sacrifice and those who have, as Abraham Lincoln so eloquently stated in his Gettysburg Address, 'given their last full measure of devotion.'" The Orthodox Church has a longstanding tradition of dedicating churches to the memory of Orthodox Christians who have fought and died in defense of Church and country. Saint Nicholas Cathedral, modeled after the 12th century Church of Saint Dmitri in Vladimir, Russia, was built in the early 1960s as the National War Memorial Shrine. A decade-long effort to raise funds for the cathedral's construction had been blessed by the Holy Synod of Bishops in 1949. The cathedral was dedicated in 1963 to the memory of Orthodox Christians who died fighting for freedom in the Russian Revolution, World Wars I and II, and the Korean War. A bronze dedicatory tablet hangs at the entrance of the cathedral, and a book listing the names of the fallen, collected from parishes across the nation, is kept in the altar. Each year, on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, these names are read aloud during the Divine Liturgy. The cathedral's new Veterans Memorial web page features a growing list of Orthodox veterans by jurisdiction and parish. On-line visitors can find the webpage by clicking the tab labeled "Veterans" on the navigation section of the cathedral's website, www.stnicholasdc.org. A link from the OCA website, www.oca.org, to the webpage of the Veterans Memorial will be available shortly. New names and photographs will be added as they are received. Additions to the web site should be submitted by e-mail to veterans@stnicholasdc.org. Please include the words "VETERANS" in the subject line of all emails. Names should be submitted in the following format: *** Jurisdiction, Name of Home Parish, Location of Home Parish (e.g., GOARCH, Hagia Sophia Cathedral, Washington, DC) *** Full Name of Veteran, Rank, Branch of Service, Years of Service, Wartime Service, Awards for Valor, Active/Retired/Deceased/KIA/MIA. (e.g., Pappas, George J., COL, US Army, 1948-1978, Korea, Vietnam, Silver Star, Retired.) Please address all hardcopy correspondence concerning the Veterans Memorial to Veterans Memorial Coordinator, Saint Nicholas Cathedral, 3500 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20007. Names of service members killed in action (KIA) or are missing in action (MIA) not already included on the cathedral's listing of the fallen will be added and duly commemorated in the Divine Liturgy on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend.