I. EURONEWS - Chile salutes its new hero
Hollywood has already reportedly pencilled in Matt Damon to play his role if a film is made of the Chilean miners’ rescue, and Manuel Gonzales fits the bill for a hero. He was the first rescue worker down the rescue shaft, and the last to come out. He made the decisions underground; who would be rescued first, and evaluated the safety risks once there. “When I arrived in the mine everyone hugged me. They thanked me for being the first. But I was the happiest to see them. The first impressions were the strongest, the men wearing shorts because it was 40 degrees centigrade down there, and I was thinking ‘I’m going to be in this heat for 24 hours and they’ve had to survive it for 70 days’. They were very, very well-prepared, they’re organised guys, and they helped us a lot to run a smooth operation until the end,” he told reporters the day after the operation. The rescuers certainly had something to congratulate themselves about. Together they helped 33 men cheat almost certain death and Chile, indeed the world, salutes them.
II. RIANOVOSTI - Russia, Germany, France to talk security
The leaders of Russia, France and Germany will discuss European security, the Russia-EU visa regime, the power industry and Iran's nuclear program next week in northern France, a Russian presidential aide said Friday. Sergei Prikhodko said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev would arrive in Deauville, northwest France, on Monday and would have a working dinner with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Three-party talks are slated for Tuesday, to be followed by a joint press conference. "A three-sided meeting is not an exclusive club to work out decisions separately from other states, but rather a convenient format for discussing our common vision in a trustful frank atmosphere with our closest partners in Europe," Prikhodko said. Regarding European security, Prikhodko said Russia wants to promote Medvedev's European security treaty initiative. Medvedev proposed drawing up a new European security pact in June 2008, and Russia published a draft of the treaty in December 2009, sending copies to heads of state and international organizations, including NATO. However, the proposal has been met coolly by Western powers.
III. JPOST - Arabs may ask UN to recognize Palestinian state
Arab nations may seek UN recognition of a Palestinian state if Israel continues to build settlements in the West Bank, Egypt's foreign minister said Friday. Ahmed Aboul Gheit said an Arab League request to the UN may come next month. "If Israel does not respect the settlements freeze," Gheit said, "the Arab League will study some other option aside from the peace process such as going to the United Nations and ask for the recognition of the Palestinian state." Gheit spoke as he arrived at a Friends of Democratic Pakistan meeting in Brussels. The group is made up of two dozen nations and international institutions committed to stabilize Pakistan with long-term economic support. US-sponsored, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks resumed last month after a hiatus of nearly two years. But they already have run aground over Israel's refusal to renew a moratorium on West Bank settlement construction. On Thursday night, Israel's government said it has approved the building of 238 homes in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, ending a nearly yearlong, unofficial freeze on new building there.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen says the alliance is ready to help in the Afghan government's efforts to pursue peace talks with the Taliban. At a NATO meeting in Brussels Thursday, Rasmussen said the NATO-led force in Afghanistan is willing to provide "practical assistance" for reconciliation efforts. He did not elaborate but noted the alliance will keep up military pressure on the Taliban. His comments came a day after a NATO official said the alliance has helped secure passage of Taliban commanders to Kabul, and that such trips would be very difficult without NATO's consent. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who attended the meeting, said they support Afghan reconciliation efforts. But they cautioned the process may not be successful. In Kabul, a top adviser to Afghan President Hamid Karzai called for NATO forces to cease military operations in areas where militants are willing to begin talks. Also in Kabul, the head of Afghanistan's new peace council -- Burhanuddin Rabbani -- said the Taliban is willing to take part in negotiations to end the country's nine-year war. Rabbani, the former Afghan president, said the insurgent group has never rejected talks completely and instead has set tough conditions for peace. Earlier this week, President Karzai acknowledged his government has held informal discussions with the Taliban but the group has denied his claim. The militants have demanded all international troops leave Afghanistan before peace negotiations can begin. U.S. officials have called for Taliban fighters to lay down their arms, cut ties to al-Qaida and support the Afghan constitution.
V. B92 - Croatia: Serb victims remembered
The Veritas Documentation Center is marking the 19th anniversary of executions of Serbian civilians in the Croatian town of Gospić in the fall of 1991. According to Veritas, at least 123 ethnic Serbs, including 35 women, were killed. Almost half of them were executed on October 17 and 18, 1991. Veritas points out that the entire political, military and police leadership of Croatia as well as representatives of the international community knew about the killings. They “pressured” then Croatian President Franjo Tuđman into ordering an investigation into the execution of Gospić Serbs, the center's representatives say. Even though the collected evidence pointed to those who had ordered and committed the murders, the bodies of the victims were moved from the original into secondary graves, which still have not been revealed and which hide about 100 corpses, the Veritas announcement reads. The Municipal State Prosecution in Rijeka in March 2001 raised an indictment against certain members of the Croatian military and police for war crimes against civilian population, unwarranted arrests and execution of at least 50 people. The Municipal Court in Rijeka sentenced Tihomir Orešković to 15, Mirko Norac to 12 and Stjepan Grandić to 10 years in prison in March 2003. The Veritas Documentation Center asked why others, that the court determined “beyond reasonable doubt” that they were planning, arresting and participating in liquidation of Gospić Serbs under command and individual responsibility, did not stand trial. “There are several dozens of them, some of them today hold high positions in Croatian military, police and government,” the announcement points out. The families of the victims are especially disturbed by the fact that former Croatian President Stjepan Mesić pardoned Grandić by reducing his sentence by two years, that Orešković is often allowed to spend time outside prison, while Norac has been allowed to lead an “almost normal life”.
Turkey's top Roman Catholic bishop has publicly accused Turkish ultra-nationalists and religious fanatics of being behind the slaying of the country's senior bishop in June. Monsignor Luigi Padovese, the Vatican's apostolic vicar in Anatolia, was stabbed to death by his driver outside his home in Iskenderun on June 3, a day before he was to leave for Cyprus to meet Pope Benedict XVI. The slaying shocked the Turkish church and cast a cloud over Benedict's visit. It was the latest in a string of attacks in recent years on Christians in predominantly Muslim Turkey, where Christians make up less than 1 percent of the 70 million population. Turkish officials have insisted the slaying was personal and not religious or politically motivated, and the driver's lawyer has said the suspect had mental problems. But the head of Turkey's bishops' conference, Monsignor Ruggero Francheschini, told a Vatican meeting Thursday that Padovese was the victim of "premeditated murder" by the same forces that Padovese had denounced for killing a priest in 2006 and three Christians in 2007. In speech to bishops gathered for a meeting about the plight of Christians in the Middle East, Francheschini said Padovese's killing was part of a "dark plot of complicity between ultra-nationalists and religious fanatics, experts in schemes of tension." The driver, Murat Altun, was arrested soon after the slaying. His lawyer, Cihan Onal, said Friday that prosecutors in Iskenderun are still investigating the case and it's not clear when they will issue an indictment. While some church officials and diplomats have quietly said the murder seemed suspect, Franceschini's comments were unusual in their bluntness. He said he wanted to set the record straight to erase the "intolerable slander circulated by the same organizers of the crime."
Press reports here on Wednesday claimed that Turkey's General Directorate of Foundations (Vakiflar Genel Mudurlugu) has decided to re-register the historic Greek Orthodox orphanage on Büyükada (Prinkipo) -- billed as the world's second-largest wooden structure -- with the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarchate. According to a newspaper report, the Turkish state organisation just barely met a three-month European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) deadline -- Wednesday was the last day -- to re-register the property, following a relevant ECHR ruling last June. If confirmed, the development would mark the first time that such a property has been returned to a recognised religious minority by the Turkish foundation. According to the same report by the "Haberturk" newspaper, registration of the property at the Turkish cadastre office in the name of the Patriarchate is expected to take place next week. Ecumenical Patriarchate Bartholomew has previously stated that the orphanage will be turned into an inter-faith centre for dialogue and peace. The orphanage was originally built as a hotel by renowned French architect Alexandre Vallaury in the 1890s; it was subsequently bought in 1903 and donated to the Patriarchate by Hélène Zafiropoulo-Zarifi, the wife of Ioannis Zarifi, a banker to then Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid ll, with the stipulation that it be used as an orphanage for ethnic Greek children. The orphanage was closed in 1964 at the height of tensions over Cyprus.