I. THEWASHINGTONPOST - Rhee: Election result "devastating" for D.C. schoolchildren
Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee made it increasingly clear Wednesday evening that she has no long-term interest in serving as Vincent C. Gray's schools leader. Speaking at the Newseum to an auditorium studded with Washington A-listers gathered for the red carpet premiere of the edu-documentary "Waiting for Superman," Rhee said she would not "mince words" about Tuesday's Democratic primary defeat of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. "Yesterday's election results were devastating, devastating," Rhee said. "Not for me, because I'll be fine, and not even for Fenty because he'll be fine, but devastating for the schoolchildren of Washington, D.C." "I would say that the biggest tragedy that could come from yesterday's [Tuesday's] election results is if the lesson people take from this is that we should pull back. That is not the lesson," Rhee said. "That is not doing right by what Adrian Fenty has put into this effort for the last three and half years, that is not the right lesson for this reform movement. We cannot retreat now. If anything, what the reform community needs to take out of yesterday's election is now is the time to lean forward and be more aggressive and more adamant." "Waiting for Superman," a new documentary by Davis Guggenheim, the director of "An Inconvenient Truth," explores the failures of public education through the stories of several schoolchildren and reform figures such as Rhee. The film, completed way before the election, treats Rhee as a heroic figure. But her scenes, which include her surprise 2007 introduction by Fenty on the steps of the Wilson Building and footage of her marching down school hallways with laptop open, have a poignant tone given this week's election. Rhee said she "absolutely" felt guilt over Fenty's loss and said her original prediction to the mayor when they first met -- that hiring her as chancellor could be his political undoing -- turned out to be accurate. "I think part of the problem in public education to date has been that we all have to feel good, let's not ruffle too many feathers," she said, noting that when she arrived in 2007, eight percent of the District's eighth graders were doing math at grade level. "I am not going to sugarcoat that," she said. "I am not going to make you feel better about that. That is an outcome that is absolutely criminal."
Heads of the Russian and US defense ministries have signed two important agreements in Washington, resuming cooperation suspended in 2008. Anatoly Serdyukov has become the first Russian minister of defense to visit the Pentagon since January 2005. The main issues of his talks with US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Wednesday were the reform of the armed forces and cooperation in the military sphere. Serdyukov and Gates signed a joint statement and memorandum of understanding that replaced the previous document agreed in 1993. They also discussed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and missile defense. The meeting is considered as part of resetting Russian-US relations. Military cooperation between Moscow and Washington hit its low point in 2008 after the events in Caucasus. US Department of Defense officials said Serdyukov and Gates “opened the door to military-to-military relations between their countries that have been mostly closed for the past two years.” The agreements signed in Washington will encourage the two parties “to have more joint activities, exercises, and programs to be undertaken on several fronts,” Gates noted. The memorandum envisages the creation of working groups that will meet at least once a year. According to Gates, the document “provides a forum through which to execute orders given to defense ministers by Presidents Obama and Medvedev.” A plan of military cooperation will now be developed every year and additional groups could be created to determine joint positions on any aspects of military cooperation. The heads of Russian and US defense ministers will also meet at least once a year. Serdyukov has already invited his US counterpart to visit Moscow.
III. RIANOVOSTI - Greece eager to help Russia hold Winter Olympics
Greece wants to boost cooperation with Russia in organizing the 2012 Winter Olympics to be held in the Russian Black Sea resort city of Sochi, the country's deputy foreign minister has said. "We should revive our cooperation with Russia... not only with Russia's political authorities, but also with the chairman of the Sochi Olympics Organizing Committee, Mr. [Dmitry] Chernyshenko," Spyros Kouvelis told reporters on Wednesday. The Greek authorities are planning to hold a conference in Athens in cooperation with the Sochi Olympics' organizers in order to help Greek companies join preparations for the Games, he said. Greece hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 2004. Greek officials earlier expressed their readiness to help Russia hold the Games. Greek businessmen are interested in organizing cruises off the Sochi coast and investing in infrastructure projects in the city ahead of the Olympics. The 22nd Winter Olympic Games will open in Sochi on February 7, 2014. Later on Thursday, a new terminal with a capacity of 1,600 passengers per hour and a special international sector will open at Sochi Airport. The opening ceremony will take place on the first day of the Sochi-2010 investment forum, which will run until September 19.
IV. IOCC - Help send relief to Pakistan
The lives of millions of children are at stake in Pakistan. Threatened by the current flooding – they require clean water, food and medicines to be able to survive the largest disaster their country has ever faced. IOCC is reaching out to the people of Pakistan through direct food assistance provided by the Orthodox Church. We are also reaching out through partners to provide medicine to treat people afflicted with cholera and other diseases caused by the lack of safe drinking water. Please join us in providing this life-saving aid by making a contribution today to the IOCC International Emergency Response Fund. We hope that you will also visit the IOCC website to read the reflections of Sigurd Hanson, IOCC's country representative for Ethiopia, who spent more than a decade in Pakistan. During his years in Pakistan diarrheal diseases were already killing over 250,000 Pakistani children every year. And now with the floods, so many wells, streams, springs and ground water sources have been contaminated by human waste and dead animals. "These are painful scenes," writes Hanson, "But I also know that God can use such painful scenes and events in our world to enlighten our hearts and minds. The current Pakistan flood is no exception. Each one of us is called to show Christ's love in action ... in whatever way we can." Please join with us to show Christ's love to our neighbor in this time of need and click here.
V. THEGUARDIAN - Treatment of the Roma: the shame of a continent
Rarely has a leak done more valuable work. A memo from France's interior ministry this week confirmed that President Nicolas Sarkozy's war on Traveller camps had an explicit racial dimension, with Roma people being deliberately targeted. By doing so, it has jolted the European commission out of indulging the Sarkozy stunt, and into a full-throated attack on Paris. It has stirred overdue introspection in France about how minorities are treated, even while its politicians stampede to use the law to persecute those few Muslim women who wear a face veil. And it has highlighted how Europe's largest minority, the 10 million-plus Roma people, suffer right across the continent's boundaries. For France is not alone. The systematic discrimination against Roma in eastern Europe – where Gypsy children have often been routinely packed off to schools for the "mentally deficient" – is an acknowledged if underreported reality. But with the EU's eastward expansion and the migration that followed, eastern attitudes have been spreading west. While the Danes have been seeking to expel some Roma, Swedish police have been caught illegally forcing others out of the country. As Germany has repatriated Gypsy children to Kosovo, the Belgians have driven a camp out of Flanders and the Italians have used the presence of Roma as reason to declare a state of emergency. The same facets of Roma life, however, make it easy to paint them as an underclass whose ambitions are irreconcilable with the wider community's, and easy as well to get away with rounding them into camps. After his pre-presidency crackdowns in the banlieues, and after trying and failing to revive his flagging poll ratings by banning the burqa, Mr Sarkozy is once again after a scapegoat. If his motives were different he might instead note that the great majority of Europe's Roma are not in fact vagrant, and pause to consider whether it might be possible to engage with Roma people through meaningful targeted policies on housing and jobs. Instead, the French establishment retains its peculiar historic insistence to being perfectly colour-blind. Even as the racialised language of the leaked memo emerged, the immigration minister claimed: "The concept of ethnic minorities is a concept that does not exist among the government." Diversity has undermined French hopes that ethnic differences can somehow be washed away through a process of assimilation. There was always an imperialist undertone to that stance, but it is simply not tenable in a frequent-flyer world where some immigrants do not stay long enough to put down roots. But the Roma – who are discriminated against in the south-eastern European "home" that angry westerners demand they return to – will also continue to represent a wider problem right across a continent for as long as that continents continues to treat them so badly. It would be a bitter irony if Europeans as a whole cannot find a way to reconcile their cherished right to free movement with a community of their fellow citizens whose one great sin is a tendency to move freely.
VI. FINANCIALMIRROR - Cyprus government solves water shortage problem
The government has made the necessary steps to solve the problem of water shortage, an issue which has been affecting Cyprus for decades, President of the Republic of Cyprus Demetris Christofias has stressed. The President, who inaugurated Tuesday the Waste Processing Plant of Vathia Gonia, in the Nicosia district, said in his speech that the government has addressed the water problem in a responsible manner. “We are now in a position to tell the people of Cyprus that one more problem, which has been affecting our country for decades, is heading towards solution”, he stressed. The President said that by the end of next year, Cyprus will be fully independent from rainfall to cover its water needs. ''Based on the government’s action plan and the measures we are taking, we will not experience again water cuts and we will not be importing water from abroad, as we had to do in 2008”, he said. Meanwhile, Minister of Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Demetris Eliades, told a press conference that three desalination units are under construction, two of which will fully operate by the end of 2011. He said that the total water reserves reach now 158 million cubic meters, “which will cover Cyprus’ needs until the end of 2011”. The Minister explained that by the end of 2011, two of the three new desalination units will start operating, “meaning that Cyprus will no longer be dependent on rain”.
VII. GREEKREPORTER - Greek Kosovo Force Reopens Damaged St. Uros Cathedral
St. Uros Cathedral in Urosevac was one the religious sites affected by the fury of protestors who caused severe damage during the violent events of March 2004. A few days ago the bells of the Cathedral sounded again, thanks to the generous efforts for the reopening of the Church by the Greek Kosovo Force. As it was stated to ANA – MPA by the Commander of the Greek Kosovo Force Colonel George Chatzitheofanous, recently on September 11th, the Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral Amphilochios (Amfilohije), officiated Divine Liturgy with other Serbian Priests and Father Parthenios of Thessaloniki. The Divine Liturgy was attended by 150 Serbians and old residents of Urosevac who left during the war and returned a few days ago from their permanent residences in Serbia. As noted by the Greek Colonel who was present at the Divine Liturgy along with other officials of the Greek Kosovo Force and Greek policemen of EULEX, the atmosphere was very overwhelming. The construction of the Cathedral of St. Uros was completed in 1933 by architect Joseph Mihajlovic. It was the largest church in the city of Urosevac. The Cathedral was built in honor of the patron saint of the city; an old Serbian king who became a saint. During the serious events of March 2004 the church was taken over by Albanian demonstrators and suffered severe damage. The Greek Kosovo Force which guarded the Church had to withdraw under extremely difficult circumstances as it could not control the civilians. Since then the cathedral of St. Uros remained closed with barbed wire, piles of trash dirt, rubble, as well as plant growth. This image of abandonment was exactly what the Greek Force wanted to change and in this effort it earned many allies and helpers. Regional bodies, the Mayor, the Imam, the Catholic Bishop and others assisted Colonel Chatzitheofanous. Additionally KFOR military priests which included an American Colonel, an Ukranian Colonel, and a German Lieutenant Colone responded to this appeal, along EULEX representatives and the OSCE.