I. YAHOONEWS - Ahmadinejad calls for TV debate with Obama
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday to face him in a televised one-on-one debate to see who has the best solutions for the world's problems. The provocative proposal comes as Iran deals with a new wave of international sanctions -- driven by Washington -- aimed at putting pressure on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program. Ahmadinejad suggested such a debate last September, which was not taken up by Washington. He said Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, had declined similar invitations because he was "scared". Iran, the world's fifth-largest oil producer, says its nuclear program is a peaceful bid to produce electricity. But its uranium enrichment activities, a process which can have both civilian and military uses, has fed fears in some countries that it is trying to build a nuclear weapon. In his speech, the president mocked the sanctions and the potential for a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, an option that the United States and Israel say they do not rule out. "Who do you think is going to attack us? The Israeli regime? ... We don't consider the regime in our equations, let alone attacking us," he said. "They say we'll issue sanctions? Okay, do it. How many resolutions have you issued so far? Four? Make it 4,000," he said to loud applause from the conference. Both Iran and the United States have indicated willingness to return to nuclear talks which stalled last October, leading to the new sanctions. Amid the anti-American rhetoric in which he said U.S. policy was based on colonialism and the "law of the jungle", Ahmadinejad said he was ready for talks "based on justice and respect". "We are ready to hold talks at the highest level," he said. "We have always favored talks, Iranians have never, ever favored war."
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has expressed concern over Turkey's appointment of a new spy chief he called a "supporter" of the Jewish state's archfoe Iran, army radio reported Sunday. "Turkey is a friendly country, a strategic ally, but the nomination in recent weeks of a new chief of the Turkish secret services who is a supporter of Iran worries us," he told a meeting of his centre-left Labour party. Barak added that the appointment could result in "the Iranians having access to secret information," in a recording of his remarks broadcast by military radio. The Turkish official, Hakan Fidan, 42, was appointed to head the National Intelligence Organisation, known by its Turkish acronym MIT, on May 27 after serving as undersecretary for foreign affairs to the prime minister and representing Turkey at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The latter position placed him at the forefront of Turkey's efforts to resolve the international standoff over Iran's nuclear programme, according to the Turkish press. Israel has viewed Turkey's efforts with suspicion, especially a deal brokered with Iran and Brazil in May that would have seen Iran ship some of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for high-enriched uranium. The deal was promptly rejected by other world powers, which backed a fourth round of sanctions against Iran on June 9 over its refusal to halt its controversial uranium enrichment programme. Turkish-Israeli relations plunged to an all-time low following the deadly May 31 Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in which naval commandos shot dead nine Turkish activists, one of whom was also a US citizen. Israel views Iran as its greatest strategic threat because of the nuclear programme, which it believes is aimed at developing weapons, and the frequent predictions of the demise of the Jewish state by Iran's leaders. Like the United States, Israel has said it prefers to resolve the nuclear standoff peacefully but has not ruled out a military strike. Iran has always said its nuclear enrichment programme is for purely civilian purposes.
III. REUTERS - Rockets hit Israel and Jordan resorts
Rockets from Egypt's Sinai, an area where Islamist militants have operated in the past, struck Israel's and Jordan's Red Sea port resorts on Monday, killing a Jordanian civilian and injuring three others, Jordanian and Israeli police said. A Jordanian interior ministry source said one of the four injured when one rocket exploded near a five star hotel in Aqaba, died from his injuries. There was no word of casualties in the adjacent Israeli port and holiday resort of Eilat, police said. Israeli President Shimon Peres condemned the rocket fire and said Israel and Jordan were "partners in the uncompromising struggle to eradicate terrorism." "There is a real struggle in the Middle East between the peace camp of moderate countries and the camp of extremists, who want to sabotage any chance for peace," Peres said. Asked where the Aqaba rocket was fired, the Jordanian source said without elaborating: "It came from the west." Experts were investigating the site to find out where the short-range rocket had been launched, he said. Egyptian security sources were quoted by the state news agency as saying rockets could not have been fired from Sinai. Eilat District Police Commander Moshe Cohen told Israel Radio that his forces were still trying to confirm that five explosions heard in the morning had been caused by shelling. Two of the suspected rockets or mortar bombs appeared to have landed in the sea, while another hit Aqaba, he said. "It's a little early to say, but it is reasonable to assume that it came from the southern area," he said, referring to neighboring Egypt, whose Sinai desert has seen occasional violence attributed to Islamist militants. No group claimed responsibility for the attack. Jordan and Egypt are the only Arab states to have full peace accords with Israel. Those ties were frayed by Israel's crackdown in 2000 on a Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
IV. WASHINGTONTIMES - Recognizing Kosovo at expense of U.S., Serbs
We have humiliated, denigrated and dehumanized the Serbs, who were our allies in two world wars and rescued more than 500 downed American pilots in World War II at great sacrifice to themselves ("Kosovo cheers independence ruling," Friday, Page 1). We need to examine the Kosovars with whom we are getting so cozy. Kosovar Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, a former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), has been implicated by former chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte in the macabre harvesting of body parts of young Serbian soldiers. We have known since 1999 the terrorist connections of the KLA, when Washington Times reporter Jerry Seper wrote, "Some members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has financed its war effort through the sale of heroin, were trained in terrorist camps run by international fugitive Osama bin Laden." According to Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, Mr. Thaci is one of three KLA kingpins running the Albanian mafia rackets in Kosovo. For giving refuge to Kosovar Albanian refugees in 1999, America was rewarded with the attempted Fort Dix bombing. Four of the six terrorists involved were Albanians from the Kosovo region. One of the four plotters, Agron Abdullahu, was a former sniper in Kosovo, trained with the Egyptian military and admitted in 1999 as a Kosovar Albanian refugee. If the Serbs ethnically cleansed Kosovar Albanians, as has been claimed, why do Kosovar Albanians make up more than 90 percent of the population and the Serbs, once the majority, less than 10 percent?
V. FINANCIALMIRROR - Cyprus heat wave soars to 46 degrees
Temperatures soared to 46 degrees Celsius on Sunday, defying Met Office projections of 42 degrees in the capital Nicosia, forcing thousands of people to seek shelter on the beaches and in the mountains, while many others chose to stay home with their air conditioners blasting throughout the day. The heat wave conditions are expected to continue until mid-week, accompanied by high levels of humidity, particularly in the south-eastern coastal region. Senior Met officer Cleanthis Nicolaides told CyBC that some relief in the form of cooler breezes could be found on the east and west of the island in the coastal regions but that the heat wave was not expected to let up until Monday, after which the island will see a gradual drop in temperatures. Nicolaides noted however, that he did not expect temperatures to drop below 37 degrees Celsius before Wednesday, at least not inland, adding that this was normal for this time of year. Last week, humidity levels reached as high as 98% in Larnaca and 87% in Nicosia.
VI. FUTURESPROS - Gas fields in eastern Mediterranean Sea still untapped
An eastern Mediterranean Sea exploration boom could make it one of the world's biggest natural gas producing regions, if its reserves are fully exploited, a scientist from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said on Monday. Christopher Schenk, who heads a USGS team assessing global oil and gas reserves, said the Levant Basin Province lying mostly off the coast of Israel and Lebanon could hold 122 trillion cubic feet (3.4 trillion cubic metres) of recoverable gas -- making it one of the world's richest deposits. The survey of the basin, which the USGS completed in March, showed "great potential" and has already been validated by the discovery of two large offshore fields, Schenk told Reuters in an interview. Schenk was invited by Israel's Infrastructure Ministry this week to discuss the results of the survey of the area, which stretches from a few miles inland in Israel and Lebanon out towards the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. The discoveries have sparked an exploration fever in Israel, which this summer alone granted four new off-shore drilling licenses. Much of Israel's territorial waters have been divvied up, and some of Israel's drilling plans have alarmed Lebanon, which is also looking to get in on the action but may lose out because it lags behind and the hostile neighbours have no sea border.
In order for a parish to start, three spiritual things are needful: faithful people; God's blessing; the permission of the local bishop. Three practical things are also needful. These are: a group of people who wish to start a parish, including at least one who can sing; public-access premises to hold church services (private premises discourage visitors and encourage a ghetto mentality); a priest. Their importance is in that order, with the priest coming last. For example, if a group of faithful who have some musical ability have premises with public access, then sooner or later the local bishop will find them a priest, if only once a month at first, and later he may even be able to ordain a suitable candidate for the priesthood from among the faithful themselves. In our interactive age, some are critical that Orthodox laity appear to have no role to play in church life, and seem to be mere passive spectators of services. This impression is sometimes founded in reality, but only in dying parishes where laity may indeed have reduced their role to that of passive spectatorship. It is not the natural role of laity. Laypeople can only be passive if they wish to be passive. If there are individuals who complain that laity have no role in Orthodox parish life, then they are complaining without reason. Today, for example, many Orthodox parishes in the West have a younger priest who is often exhausted because outside services he also has to earn his living in a full-time secular job. This is either because the laity are too few in number to support him, or else too ungenerous to pay him a stipend whereby he could work fewer hours in a secular occupation. At the same time, within parishes there are retired laity who have time on their hands and nothing else to do. Such priests are only too glad if laypeople pull their weight. It must be a matter for concern if they do not carry out many of the tasks incumbent on them for which a priest is not essential. If a priest working full-time elsewhere scarcely has time and energy even to devote to services, including baptisms, weddings, funerals, house-blessings, confessions, memorial services and services of intercession, then most certainly the laity should be supporting the community by carrying out other tasks. What are they? Firstly, the very least that any laypeople who call themselves Orthodox can do, is to come to services, to support their local church in presence and prayer. At many services parishes churches are half-empty. And once at church, people should not stand passively. They should pray. And then, where are the acolytes? Where are for the candidates to be reader, subdeacon, deacon and priest? Where are the people to see to the sale of candles and prosphora? Where are the people to blow out candles at the Six Psalms, light them again at 'God is the Lord' and see to guttering candles? Where are the people to bake the prosphora? Where are the people to bring wine to church? (Eucharistic wine should be unadulterated, sweet red wine - speak to the priest, if you do not know what sort to bring). Where are the people to welcome newcomers and visitors? (Not bully then or interrogate them, but welcome them!). Where are the people to man the bookstall? Where are the people to write parish bulletins and service timetables? Where are the readers to read the Psalms, the Prophecies and the Hours? Where are the bell-ringers? Who prepares the boiling water before the Liturgy? Where are the people to light the lamps before the service begins? (A person complained in one church that olive oil was not used for the lamps. He was told that the church would be happy to use olive oil, providing that he bought it and came early to services to trim the wicks and light the lamps, making sure that he did not spill oil anywhere. After this, he stopped complaining!) Secondly, there are all the activities outside the services. Where are the people to do the sewing? (I know churches where there are no covers in the different liturgical colours for the lecterns, no tunics of different colours for the altar-boys, and even no vestments of different colours for the priest - there is no-one to sew them). Where are the people to clean the church and the church-hall once a week? (Especially, where are the readers to clean the altar, if the priest has no time?) Where are the people to paint? Where are the people to do the church garden? Where are the people to prepare coffee and tea after the service? Where are the people to prepare food for the parish feast and Easter? Where are the people to see to the children and teach Sunday school, if the priest has no time? Where are the people to visit the sick, if the priest has no time? Who is the prison-visitor in the parish, if the priest has a full-time job and cannot manage this? Thirdly, there are the organizational tasks and financial sacrifices. Where the people to organize meetings and pilgrimages? Where are the candidates for churchwarden, treasurer, secretary, auditor? Where are the members of the parish council? Who will see to administrative tasks and go to the Bank and the Post Office? And where are the people who are willing to donate money in collections and parish contributions so that the parish can live? Some may object that these are all menial tasks. We do not think so. These are essential tasks for if they are not done, a parish cannot live. A church cannot function if these tasks are not carried out. A church cannot live without bread and wine. If people want a community, then they have to work for it to create it. As they say: no pain, no gain. Today, especially in Western countries, many people seem to have adopted a Welfare State mentality, a consumer mentality, towards the Church. As a result they expect church services and activities to be laid on for them, as if it were their right. This is totally unrealistic. We have to combat the mentality which says that 80% of church activities are carried out by 20% of the parishioners and the remaining 20% of activities are carried out by the other 80% of the parishioners. To paraphrase an American President of some forty years ago: 'Ask not what your parish can do for you; ask what you can do for your parish'. There is nothing so dispiriting as entering a church which feels neglected and unloved by its own supposed members. Such churches close down. As our Lord said: 'Let the dead bury the dead'. Finally, there is the one activity which we have not yet mentioned, in which most laypeople can participate: the choir. In principle, everybody should sing in church. In reality, of course there will always be some who do not wish to sing and really cannot sing. Nobody should ever be forced to sing. On the other hand, the reality is that in many parishes, the choirs which sing on behalf of all the people in response to the priest, are often very small. People should be encouraged to sing. Even those who are not musical can learn to 'sing along' in certain parts of the services, in a low voice. Here one of the problems is that bigger parishes, and especially Cathedrals, tend to have semi-professional choirs and paid 'choir directors'. This tends to exclude ordinary lay participation. Although parishes do need people to lead choirs, the tendency to have 'choir directors' seems to me to have a secular origin in the mentality that church singing is a 'concert'. It seems to me that we should speak not so much of choir directors, but of choir leaders. True, every parish choir should have as large a musical repertoire as possible. One convert who came to our parish was astonished by the melodies he had never heard before. He had honestly thought that all parishes sang the same melodies, because at his church they only ever sang the same melodies for everything! On the other hand, most of the melodies sung should be fairly simple, so that they can be picked up by most people. Though the melodies should change, they should not change too often. There must be some continuity. Again every choir leader should ideally have one or two deputies. No parish should be dependent on one person. Others should learn how to sing and lead the choir. In the same way as any parish should eventually be able to provide a parish with a deacon and possible a second priest, so others should come forward to provide a parish with choir leaders. Here above are some considerations about the role of laypeople in contemporary Western Orthodox parish life. We pray that they may bear fruit in the hearts of those who read them.