I. CHARLOTTEOBSERVER - J Lo cancels controversial north Cyprus show
Cyprus Jennifer Lopez called off a controversial birthday show in the breakaway north of Cyprus. Reports that Lopez would perform at a hotel in the breakaway Turkish north on her 41st birthday this month triggered a Greek Cypriot online campaign pushing for cancellation. Greek Cypriots viewed Lopez's July 24 appearance as helping legitimize the Mediterranean island's violent division. Cyprus was split into a Greek speaking south and a Turkish speaking north in 1974 when Turkey invaded. Turkish Cypriots declared an independent state in 1983 that is only recognized by Turkey, which maintains 35,000 troops there. A statement on the singer and actress' official website on Thursday said her advisers decided against her appearance after "a full review of the relevant circumstances in Cyprus." "Jennifer Lopez would never knowingly support any state, country, institution or regime that was associated with any form of human rights abuse," the statement said. It added that it was a team decision "that reflects our sensitivity to the political realities of the region." Greek Cypriots on Friday hailed Lopez's withdrawal as "a victory" and heaped praise on the star on social networking site Facebook. One entry on a dedicated forum titled, 'Against Jennifer Lopez Performing in Occupied Cyprus' read: "Thank you Jennifer!! You are true champion of Morality, Human Rights, Democracy and Freedom!" Greek-American groups such as the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association [AHEPA] weighed into the controversy, urging Lopez to call off the show. The group's president, Nicholas Karacostas, called news of Lopez's Cyprus gig "sad and disheartening" and warned that her celebrity would be "used to lend credence to an illegal entity."
The National Defense University (NDU) in Washington political science professor Steven Meyer says Serbia should demand a partition of Kosovo. The province's ethnic Albanians in February 2008 unilaterally declared independence, but Belgrade rejected this, and the territory has not been able to join the UN. North of the Ibar River is predominantly inhabited by Serbs, who also rejected the proclamation. “Belgrade should first recognize the independence of Kosovo south of the Ibar River,” Meyer told Belgrade weekly NIN. According to him, Belgrade’s next move should then be to immediately declare the area north of the Ibar River a part of the Serbian territory, and send it troops and police - "not to fight a war, but to help guarantee peace and protect Serbs in the area". Meyer pointed out that the Serbian government should also insist on the adoption of a "new UN resolution and a plan that would guarantee the lives and property of those Serbs south of the Ibar River". The current UN Security Council resolution, 1244, passed at the end of the 1999 war, guarantees Serbia's sovereignty over the territory, while establishing an international administration there. According to Meyer, Serbia’s move to include the International Court of Justice (ICJ) into the Kosovo status issue was a "naive decision". “Unless, of course, the government wanted to lose, and in that way secure an excuse for itself for the secession of Kosovo,” the American professor was quoted as saying. The top UN court has been asked to assess the legality under international law of the unilateral proclamation, and is expected to give its advisory opinion this year.
III. YNETNEWS - Iran says US must state position on Israeli nukes
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that the United States must make its position on Israel's nuclear strategy clear before talks on Tehran's atomic program could resume. Sanctions imposed by "arrogant" Western powers would not slow Iran's nuclear progress, he said. "The first condition (for talks to resume) is they should express their views about the nuclear weapons of the Zionist regime. Do they agree with that or not. If they agree that these bombs should be available to them, the course of the dialogue would be different," he said, speaking in Nigeria.
North Korea on Friday proposed military talks with the United States next week to discuss the sinking of a South Korean warship which Washington blames on the North. The proposal was made as diplomats said the U.N. Security Council would approve a statement condemning a torpedo attack on the warship Cheonan, without directly blaming the North. An international investigation concluded in May that North Korea torpedoed the vessel near the tense Korean sea border, killing 46 sailors. The North vehemently denies the accusations and has warned any punishment would trigger war. Late last month, the American-led U.N. Command, which oversees an armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953, proposed general-level talks with North Korea to discuss the warship sinking. The North, however, rejected the offer, urging Washington not to interfere in inter-Korean affairs under the name of the U.N. On Friday, however, the North reversed its position and proposed a working-level contact between colonels with the U.S. next Tuesday at the border village of Panmunjom to prepare for the general-grade talks. The U.S. stations 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the Korean War. South Korea has imposed some punitive measures against North Korea over the sinking, including trade restrictions and hauling the regime to the U.N. Security Council. South Korea had wanted the council to condemn North Korea. But China, the North's closest ally and a veto-wielding Security Council member, opposed a new round of sanctions against the North or a direct condemnation over the sinking.
V. USATODAY - Thousands donate to defend Arizona’s immigration law
A fund created by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to defend the state's controversial immigration law has received more than 9,000 contributions worth about $500,000, the Associated Press is reporting. The majority of the contributions, about 7,000, came from out of state, according to the AP. The law is the focus of several lawsuits, including one filed earlier this week by the U.S. Department of Justice. Brewer created the fund and a website, www.keepazsafe.com, in mid-June. Opponents of the Arizona law, including President Obama, say it could lead to profiling and a state-by-state patchwork of immigration laws. Proponents, such as Brewer, say states should step in because the federal government hasn't. Polls, such as this one by Gallup, show a majority of Americans support the state law. The law requires police to question the immigration status of suspects when there is "reasonable suspicion" they are in the country illegally.
VI. RIANOVOSTI - Tymoshenko says Russia swallowing Ukraine
Ukraine risks losing its sovereignty as it is being swallowed by its giant neighbor, Russia, Ukraine's former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko told the BBC Ukrainian Service on Friday. "Today we are witnessing a gradual step-by-step absorption of Ukraine and in my opinion this may be followed by more risky consequences for Ukraine, affecting its political sovereignty," Tymoshenko said in the interview. Russia and Ukraine have seen a thaw in their bilateral relations in recent months after President Viktor Yanukovych took over from strongly pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko. The two countries have strengthened their economic ties and plan to boost bilateral cooperation in aviation, shipbuilding, space and nuclear energy spheres. A number of joint ventures are expected to be launched. In late April, Yanukovych and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reached an agreement on extending the lease on the Russian base in Sevastopol for 25 years after the current lease expires in 2017, which may be further extended by another five years. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin also proposed a merger between Russian gas monopoly Gazprom and Ukrainian Naftogaz on April 30. Both moves have been fiercely criticized by the Ukrainian opposition. "The new authorities view relations with Russia as joint big business. That's why there is a fundamental swing towards Russian national interests and Russian strategic plans, at the expense of Ukraine, of course," Tymoshenko said. At the same time, the Ukrainian opposition leader stressed that her statement should not be regarded as an "aggressive policy against Russia." "Absolutely not," she said.
VII. PRAVMIR - Doubt and the Monastic Journey
Within the Tradition of our Church, monastic tonsure is considered a sacrament, a holy mystery, and thus forms for the monk or nun a liminal event in life. Many sources consider tonsure to the schema a “second Baptism,” and having been recently tonsured myself as a stavrophore monk, I can vouch for the aptness of this description. Tonsure is the beginning of another life: all sins are washed away, the old man is laid aside, and a new person is born with a new name, given by the abbot or abbess and taken by the newly-enrolled soldier of Christ in love and obedience. Like any mystery in the Church, tonsure itself and life as a fully professed monk is hard to put into words; I must admit I was a bit daunted by the task of speaking of doubt and tonsure simply because it defies expression on many levels. As with baptism or marriage, you cannot fully know what to expect on the other side of the font or the next day after the wedding. At these thresholds of our life in the Church, we have to leap out in faith, trusting that God is leading us along His path. I had been a monastic for five years before my tonsure, and when I first entered the monastery, I was chomping at the bit to be tonsured into the schema. I had no clue about the hard work, both physical and spiritual, that monastic life would lay on me in order to peel away at least some of the passionate crust around my heart in order to begin to see who I really was, and who God wanted me to be. Yet this process, as necessary as it may be, is also very frightening. Over the past few years, I’ve had to confront my own weaknesses in a very matter-of-fact way. I’ve had to humble myself (or be humbled, as it were) and deny myself: my way of thinking, my desires for my life, my understandings of where life was going. In preparing for crossing the threshold of monastic tonsure, I was faced with a huge battle centering on belief and doubt. To the reader, it will hardly sound surprising that the evil one is far from thrilled to hear that a man or woman wishes to profess monastic vows. If we imagine the whole body of the Church as an army of the faithful here on earth regarding the spiritual life, monks and nuns are like the elite special-ops teams. We stand on the front lines of the battle for the world, and the enemy sends the fiercest attacks against us. This onslaught I too had to face in the weeks before my tonsure. So many thoughts and questions barraged me, even thoughts against the basis of my faith, which hadn’t happened in a long time. Does God really exist? How do you know He answers your prayers? Don’t you want to have sex and a family? Will you really be satisfied as a monk? You’re such a sinner, how could you even dare to think you’re worthy of the schema? Why don’t you just do what you like doing? You’re good at academics, why throw a career away? Not pleasant at all, that swarm of thoughts. The Fathers teach us simply to disregard these suggestions (in Greek, logismoi), saying that the second we start listening to them, we start becoming entangled in the snare, and the harder it is to escape. For myself, I’ll simply say that after weeks of this kind of attack, I was at the bottom of the barrel spiritually speaking. I was faced with a seemingly huge choice. On the one hand, I had monastic vows before me. This meant a life of ascesis, of constant struggle to overcome my passions by God’s grace, of being rejected and scorned by the world, and often misunderstood even within the bosom of the Church. It meant being alone (this is the monos part in monastikos) and not having an exclusive partner to walk along life’s path with me. On the other hand, I had a life pleasing to the world and one leading away from life within the Church. This was a life that was easy, one according to my passions, one that could give me success and approval by many in society. Finally, after much prayer and some wintry solitude in the cold north of Alaska (another story for another blog entry, perhaps), God filled me with such clarity regarding monastic life, and I hastened with joy to petition for vows, which my spiritual father accepted gladly. But while the doubts about tonsure in general had been conquered, doubts about that life in a specific way still lingered. What will my life be like after tonsure? What name will I be given? Seeing as I’m currently a student, I thought of how this might impact my relationships and affairs with classmates and the administration. The day of my tonsure arrived, and even then, inclement weather forced the bishop to be delayed and the tonsure was moved to the next day. Many people came to me with sympathy, but I was laughing. God in His humor was showing me how utterly lacking in control I was, and how utterly provident and omnipotent He was. Tonsure would take place on His schedule and to His glory. It’s been nearly a month now since my vows, and life is so beautiful, so pregnant with meaning in ways I cannot put into words. As one of my brother monastics said to me, you can speak much of the life of a professed monk, but you’ll never know it until you take that leap of faith into that life of obedience. I think now that I needed to experience this doubt so that I could then turn not to worldly wisdom, but faith, and make that leap into the Father’s embrace in my vows.