I. KATHIMERINI - Cyprus leader calls for peace
Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias on Saturday took advantage of a high-profile trip by visiting Pope Benedict XVI to condemn Turkey’s occupation of northern Cyprus, noting that stability in the region was at risk. "The international community must exert its influence on Turkey,” Christofias said. “Otherwise, justice and stability in the whole area of the eastern Mediterranean will be jeopardized.” Christofias, who last month resumed stalled peace talks with the new hard-line leader of the Turkish Cypriots, Dervis Eroglu, told the pope that Cyprus has been “experiencing the painful military occupation of more than 36 percent of its territory” since its invasion by Turkey in 1974. The pope, leaving the island yesterday after a three-day visit, described the division of Cyprus as “distressing.”
A pro-Palestinian group which helped organise the Gaza aid flotilla intercepted by the Israeli navy in a raid which cost nine lives last week on Monday announced the closure of its headquarters in Cyprus. In protest at the lack of cooperation with the mission from the Cyprus government, the Free Gaza Movement's office is to close down on Tuesday and relocate at a later date to London. The Cyprus government banned ships and passengers from leaving the island to join the sea convoy which was anchored off the island before heading for Gaza when it came under Israeli attack in international waters on May 31. "We leave tomorrow (Tuesday) and the office will be closed because we feel we are not welcome anymore on Cyprus and the government has made that clear," the movement's Audrey Bomse told AFP. She said her group had not been informed in advance of a "secretive" executive order banning the use of Cyprus as a staging post for the attempt to break Israel's blockade of Gaza. "If we knew about it, we would never have brought European MPs to Cyprus to join the flotilla," she said. Bomse said Cyprus had cooperated with several past missions to break the blockade by sea, allowing the Free Gaza Movement (FGM) to ferry passengers headed for Gaza into international waters. This time, the government said it issued the ban to protect the island's "vital interests," although it has joined international criticism of Israel's deadly intervention as a "criminal act." FGM is a registered charity in Cyprus with an office established on the island since December 2008. "If this is how they treat Cypriot charities, it's time we moved elsewhere," said Bomse. The pro-Palestinian group has used Cyprus as platform to challenge the Israeli blockade on Gaza since August 2008, managing to breach the siege on five out of nine attempts to date including last week's bid. The group says it will still continue to challenge Israel's sea blockade but not from Cyprus.
III. TIME - How to Blockade
Israel apparently has learned its lesson: no more commandos from the sky (one at a time--I mean, how stupid). This time, the aid ship Rachel Corrie was stopped and boarded in traditional fashion from the sea. There was no violence, no injuries. The ship will be taken to Ashkelon, where the humanitarian aid shipped will be unloaded and taken to Gaza. That was easy. And that's what should have happened last week. Let me reiterate one other point, though: So long as Hamas refuses to recognize Israel and seeks arms from Iran, it must be assumed that a state of war exists between Israel and Hamas. Under those circumstances--and given the history of rockets and bombs flying from Gaza to Israeli towns--an arms blockade makes complete sense. The question here is whether building supplies, steel and cement, should be blockaded. The Israelis say yes, those materials can be used to build fortifications. True enough. But there are an awful lot of innocent Gazans who seek to rebuild their homes, schools and hospitals. And if this continuing bull-headed boycott costs Israel a crucial ally (Turkey), heightens tensions in the region, creates more potential terrorists and makes like more dangerous for American troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, then it is hardly worth the candle. Granted, Hamas is maddening...but it has happened onto a successful strategy. It stonewalls, refusing to release a lone Israeli soldier--Gilad Shalit--an act that, in itself (according to Israeli officials), would result in a loosening of the blockade. It does this so that Israel will seem the inflexible villain. Israel foolishly plays along. I mean, if Netanyahu really wanted to be creative, he'd organize international teams of peace activists to go into Gaza and rebuild houses. But Netanyahu doesn't want to be creative. He wants to be...strong. In the process, he is vastly weakening Israel's international position. Once again, Israel is justified in maintaining an arms blockade for as long as Hamas insists on maintaining, in effect, a state of war.
IV. JTA - Iran to send aid ships to Gaza
Iran's Red Crescent said it would send two aid ships to Gaza. The organization announced Monday that it would send two ships to Gaza by the end of the week, one carrying humanitarian supplies and the other carrying Iranian relief workers, according to reports. Iranian Red Crescent Director Abdolraoof Adibzadeh told the Iranian English language Press TV that the aid would be transported into Gaza through the Rafah border with Egypt. Egypt opened up its border crossing last week to allow people to cross freely in and out of Gaza, but so far has not allowed any goods to pass into Gaza. The Red Crescent sent an aid ship loaded with food and medicine to Gaza in December 2008, which was intercepted by Israel's Navy. On Sunday, Iran's Revolutionary Guards reportedly said it was willing to escort aid flotillas to Gaza.
V. FOXNEWS - Al Qaeda in Iraq Has Been Devastated
A string of setbacks for Al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq has left the insurgent group "devastated" and struggling to cope with a double whammy of a leadership vacuum and a money squeeze, the top U.S. military officer said Sunday. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he found it particularly encouraging that gains against Al Qaeda have been made in operations carried out jointly by U.S. and Iraqi military forces. That makes it more likely, Mullen said, that after U.S. troops leave in 2011 the Iraqi government will be able to handle what remains of Al Qaeda's capability to launch terror strikes. Mullen's remarks echoed an assessment made Friday by Gen. Ray Odierno, the top American commander in Iraq. Odierno told reporters that over the last three months, "we've either picked up or killed 34 out of the top 42 Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders." He said the group is trying to reorganize but has "lost connection" with the top-rung Al Qaeda leaders who are hiding in western Pakistan. Mullen said he could not estimate how much longer Al Qaeda will remain a factor inside Iraq. But he expressed confidence that whatever its lifespan, the Iraqi government is showing encouraging signs of being able to contain the group well after the U.S. departs. "Every single operation" against Al Qaeda in recent months "has been Iraqi-U.S. combined, and in fact Iraqi-led for all intents and purposes," he said.
VI. B92 - Spanish envoy on Kosovo and EU bid
Spanish Ambassador Inigo de Palacio Espana says that he believes that Serbia will continue the EU integration process with no Kosovo status as precondition. “Many top-ranking European officials said that this issue will not be set as prerequisite to Serbia's EU admission. I still believe that Serbia will be able to make progress toward EU,” the Spanish ambassador said. He added that at the same time, an agreement between Belgrade and Priština (Kosovo Albanian authorities) should be reached in future. “I am not certain whether the status of Kosovo will be changed in future, and Belgrade and Priština are to decide what kind of future they would like to have, while many issues need to be addressed in the field,” Espana stated. UK Ambassador in Belgrade Stephen Wordsworth stated last week that the Kosovo issue and Serbia's EU integration were “no longer separate paths”, and that “no one in EU wants new Kosovo status negotiations”.
VII. THEREPUBLIC - Religion: The Orthodox question for 2010
The first Orthodox missionaries to reach Alaska traveled with the early Russian explorers and, in 1794, a party of monks established the Orthodox Christian Mission to America. When Orthodox believers venerate icons of the "Saints of North America," many of the images are of missionaries. One is St. Herman of Alaska, a pioneer monk, and another is St. Innocent, an early missionary bishop. Then there is St. Tikhon of Moscow, who envisioned one united Orthodox body in America, a church without ethnic divisions. He later became Russia's patriarch, but died a martyr in the Bolshevik era. "Before the 1920s, there was only one jurisdiction in North America -- that of the Russian Orthodox Church, which, as we know, was open to ... the widest variety of ethnic communities," said Archbishop Justinian of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, during last week's Episcopal Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Hierarchs in North and Central America. "Much has changed since that time. The tumultuous events of the 20th century forced many citizens of traditionally Orthodox countries to leave their native homes and seek refuge in other countries, which led to the rise of large ethnic Orthodox communities beyond the boundaries of corresponding local churches." But the key to conditions today, he stressed, is the fact that an "increasing number of our faithful belong to the Orthodox Church not as the result of their ethnic background, but of a conscious choice in favor of Orthodoxy's truth." There's the rub, the source of one of the tensions that pulled the bishops behind tightly closed doors in New York City. Even in the public speech texts, it was clear they were wrestling with this question: Is America best described as a mission field in which Orthodoxy is growing or as a strange land in which immigrants have found shelter during a painful diaspora era? How the hierarchs answer that question will help shape the future, especially if there is to be a way to unite Greeks, Russians, Arabs, Ukrainians, Serbs, Romanians and other Orthodox believers into one American church, with one hierarchy -- as required by Orthodox tradition. If America is truly a mission field, that would favor the Russian roots of the Orthodox Church in America, which now worships in English. Its claim to be an autocephalous, or independent, national church is based on a declaration to that effect by leaders of the giant Russian Orthodox Church. Meanwhile, a "diaspora" framework favors leadership claims by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Istanbul, the symbolic "first among equals" of the Orthodox patriarchs. Last week's assembly was led by Archbishop Demetrios of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and was one of 12 meetings in regions containing multiple Orthodox bodies. However, Demetrios declined Bartholomew's request to exclude Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America. Jonah was seated as a bishop -- but not as the OCA primate. He is a convert to the faith. At this point, said Demetrios, it's impossible to end the overlapping jurisdictions, which means that bishops from ethnically defined flocks control their own parishes in the same locations. America is both a mission field and part of a diaspora phenomenon caused by immigration, he said. So the new Episcopal Assembly is in control -- for now. "The vital presence of our churches ... bears witness to the ongoing work of pastoral care of our flocks who have moved around the globe," he said. "It also bears witness to the continuous preaching of the Gospel that has brought an abundance of converts to the faith. Neither of these realities stands in opposition to the other. They are merely the facts of our existence." But it's time to see the big picture, stressed Metropolitan Philip of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, another flock affected by thousands of converts. If anyone is living in diaspora, he claimed, it's the tiny Orthodox flocks in Jerusalem, Constantinople and other besieged Old World cities. Meanwhile, the Orthodox in America, he said, are "no longer little children to have rules imposed on us from 5,000 miles away. Orthodoxy in America has its own ethos. We have our own theological institutions and we have our own theologians, authors, publications and magazines. ... We have been here for a long, long time and we are very grateful to the Almighty God that in our theology and worship, we do express the fullness of the Holy Orthodox faith."