I. REUTERS - Diggers discover Phoenician army complex in Cyprus
Archaeologists in Cyprus have discovered what could be the remains of a garrison used by Phoenician soldiers in an ancient city founded by a hero of the Trojan war.Buildings overlooking a previously discovered Phoenician complex more than 2,000 years old were found at the ancient city of Idalion, the island's Antiquities department said on Friday. The complex, linked by a tower, were found to discover metal weapons, inscriptions and pieces of a bronze shield. "The complex may have been used by the soldiers who guarded the tower," the department said in a news release. Idalion was founded by Chalcanor, a descendant of Troy's King Priam, according to the Antiquities department. The earliest remains of human occupation in the area date to 7,000 B.C. Phoenicians captured the city in the middle of the fifth century B.C, and governed it for 150 years. The wider complex, believed to be either a palace or administrative center, is considered to be the largest identified so far in Cyprus. Excavations started in 1991. Strictly defensive in character, the complex has interior streets and courtyards guarded by towers, while inscriptions have been found in the area recording tax collecting, the antiquities department said. It said it planned to open the complex to the public soon.
NATO urged Macedonia on Friday to resolve the long-standing dispute with neighbouring Greece over its name so it can join the alliance as quickly as possible. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Skopje would be invited to start accession talks as soon as a mutually acceptable solution could be found to the dispute, which dates from Macedonia's 1991 independence from Yugoslavia. Athens has been blocking the landlocked Balkan country's efforts to join NATO since 2008 over the dispute. Greece says its northern neighbour's use of the name Macedonia implies territorial claims on its own region of Macedonia, and has threatened to also block Skopje's attempts to join the European Union. "At some stage courageous political decisions will be needed from all sides so that your country's strategic goal of NATO and EU membership can be achieved", Fogh Rasmussen said after meeting with Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski during a brief visit to Skopje. Although not a NATO member, the country has had 242 soldiers in Afghanistan since 2002 as part of the NATO-led presence there. It has another 14 military personnel in missions in Bosnia and Lebanon.
Armenia and Azerbaijan could be on the way to reconciliation over the issue of Nagorny-Karabakh. Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk group, which mediates the talks between the states, will visit the region next month. That's according to Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian. He said the meeting between the leaders of two Caucasian countries, which took place in St Petersburg, paved the way for the Minsk Group visit. The body is co-chaired by representatives of Russian Federation, France and the United States. “The process is continuing. We can say the negotiations were quite constructive and useful. They played an important part in the regulation of the problem of Nagorny-Karabakh,” said Nalbandian. According to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, such meetings always give hope of finding new ways leading to a mutually-acceptable resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. “Azerbaijan’s position is that there exists a document submitted by the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides enabling the sides to reach a new level of negotiations,” stated the spokesman for Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, Elhan Polukhov. Russia is also optimistic about the future of the problem. “We have seen the convergence of positions in several objectionable parts of the text on basic principles of the settlement,” said Russian Presidential spokesperson, Natalya Timakova. The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan met at the invitation of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The leaders of both Caucasian republics voiced their readiness to continue discussions on reconciliation over the disputed territory. This was the sixth meeting between Azerbaijan’s Ilkhan Aliyev and Armenia’s Serge Sargsyan, initiated by the Russian President. Nagorny-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the southern Caucasus. The territory is populated by both ethnic Azerbaijanis and Armenians, and has been at the core of bitter conflicts since the late 1980s. The conflict claimed thousands of lives and created hundreds of thousands of refugees on both sides. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been immersed in peace talks since 1994, mediated by the OSCE Minsk group.
IV. BOSTONHERALD - Two men in Boston charged with aiding al-Qaeda
Tarek Mehanna, 27, of Sudbury and Ahmad Abousamra, 28, of Syria were charged yesterday in a federal indictment with conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization: al-Qaeda. The two men were previously charged with providing material support to terrorists conspiring to kill U.S. nationals and with providing false information to law enforcement. They face life imprisonment. It is alleged in the indictment brought by a U.S. District Court grand jury in Boston that the two men were on a jihad recruitment drive meant to “increase AQ (al-Qaeda) membership a billionfold.”
A radical Islamist group critics say has links to Al Qaeda is gearing up to host its second annual U.S. recruiting event. The group, Hizb ut-Tahrir America, which is committed to establishing a caliphate, or international Islamic empire, kicked up controversy in Chicago last year with its first U.S. conference, “Fall of Capitalism & Rise of Islam.” Speakers at the conference blamed capitalism for everything from two World Wars to Michael Jackson's decision "to shed his black skin." It drew more than 500 attendees, dozens of protesters and a heavy police presence. Now the group is coming back to the Windy City with its second conference, “Emerging World Order: How the Khilafah Will Shape the World," scheduled to begin July 11 at the Chicago Marriott Oak Brook. According to a video promoting the event, the goal is to persuade attendees to “answer the call” to "join the campaign" for a Khilafah, or global Islamic empire. “Hizb ut-Tahrir realized that U.S. laws, in this stage, allow them to work undetected as long as they use a narrative that fools the public and law enforcement,” Walid Phares, director of the Future of Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told FoxNews.com. He said the group’s vision of a worldwide caliphate is "is identical to the Taliban regime but spanning on three continents, as a first stage." Former Hizb ut-Tahrir member Ishtiaq Hussain agreed. "They don’t believe Israel should exist, some of their leaders have denied the Holocaust, and they believe homosexuals should be thrown off the highest building," Hussain, now a trainer for the Quilliam Foundation, told FoxNews.com. "... It's actually a very dangerous group." Phares said Hizb ut-Tahrir's list of alumni -- including confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Al Qaeda in Iraq's onetime leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- speaks for itself. “The bottom line here," he said, "is that we are witnessing the emergence and the expansion of a jihadist recruitment factory in our midst, openly calling for jihad and for the establishment of a caliphate instead of many governments... and in its last stage to what they call jihadism against America and its allies, that is, technically speaking, terrorism and massacre."
VI. CNN - Iraq powerless against recent attacks
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said in an interview with CNN that Iraq is powerless to respond to foreign military strikes, such as those by Turkey and Iran, because Iraq has no army, no air force, and no clear foreign policy. Allawi said there is a political vacuum in Iraq and that it is important to expedite the formation of a new government. But, he said, "I think we are still far away from this." The Turkish military said this week it sent three commando divisions and a special forces brigade two or three kilometers into Iraqi territory in pursuit of Kurdish rebels. The Turkish Foreign Ministry said Thursday that troops have now completely withdrawn. Neighboring Iran has staged a series of military strikes against Iraq's Kurds, targeting rebels it says are attacking Iran. When asked about Iran's recent bombings of the town of Ali Rash, near the Iran-Iraq border, Allawi suggested holding negotiations with Tehran "to try to find a solution to the problem." Meanwhile, the U.S. combat mission in Iraq is scheduled to end Aug. 31. Allawi told CNN that the departure of American troops would cause a further deterioration of security in Iraq. Allawi said that Iraq "needs a lot of support to get out of this bottleneck and to secure its borders, to secure its stability, and to form a government."
VII. B92 - Serbian patriarch travels to Kosovo
Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Irinej will today be visiting the Patriarchy of Peć in the west of the province. He will be accompanied by Minister for Kosovo Goran Bogdanović and Minister of Religion Bogoljub Šijaković, it has been announced. Patriarch Irinej and the ministers will visit the priests and monks of the Peć Patriarchy, Tanjug reported. This will be the first visit of the new patriarch to Peć since his entronement at the Cathedral Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Belgrade on January 24. Irinej is to have a ceremonial enthronement in Peć as well in October this year. The patriarchy has been the seat of Serbian patriarchs for centuries. It was built in the 13th and 14th centuries as represents one of the most important monuments of Serb heritage. Since 2006, it has been placed under protection of UNESCO. Since the end of the 1999 war in the province, the patriarchate complex is guarded by KFOR's Italian troops.