Greek students honored the OXI (no) day in a big parade in Athens remembering the refusal their government to surrender to the Italian forces in 1940. Athens, Greece, 20/10/2010. Hundreds of elementary and high school students paraded in front of government officials in Syntagma square, Athens in memory of the no-day of 28 of October 1940. It was named no-day (OXI in Greek) because of the refusal of the Greek government to surrender to the superior Italian forces led by the dictator Benito Mussolini and honors the heroes who gave their life fighting a better equipped and superior in numbers enemy. The message of the day as it was announced by the minister of education Mrs Anna Diamadopoulou is that Greek people today, like in October 1940, in times of crisis remain united and keep fighting the common enemy. Among the participants in the parade were Special Olympics athletes, scouts and people dressed in traditional costumes.
The president of Cyprus has given a damning indictment of Turkey's "intransigent" stance on tackling the Cyprus problem. Speaking in Brussels, Demetris Christofias castigated Ankara for its "disappointing" response to his proposals aimed at finding a solution to the island's long-running division. His comments came as EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton told a meeting of parliament's foreign affairs committee that the EU "remains fully committed to finding a comprehensive settlement" to the problem. In his speech, Christofias said, "The immediate rejection of this package of proposals by both the Turkish government and the Turkish-Cypriot leadership, although not surprising, is still disappointing and regrettable. "The rejection demonstrates yet again the intransigent position adopted at the negotiating table by Turkey, which while publicly proclaiming that it wishes a settlement of the Cyprus problem by the end of the year, it does nothing in practice towards that direction." Christofias, who was addressing a debate on the future of the island, organised by the European Policy Centre think tank, added, "Keeping the Cyprus problem unresolved does not serve anyone’s interests, Turkey’s included. On the contrary, its just resolution would, among other, facilitate Turkey’s accession process to the EU. "The EU, as a whole, has been abundantly clear that Turkey will not be able to join the EU without a prior solution of the Cyprus problem. "The Republic of Cyprus has supported Turkey’s EU orientation from the beginning, believing that the prospect of accession could act as a catalyst in the efforts to resolve the Cyprus problem. "This support, however, is not unconditional. Turkey, like every other country aspiring to join the EU, has to be evaluated on performance and implementation of all the contractual and other obligations it has undertaken towards the EU and all its member states, including those pertaining to Cyprus," he told the debate on Wednesday. "Regrettably, to date, Turkey has persistently refused to fulfil any of the obligations relating to Cyprus. Turkey needs to finally realise that its disregard of fundamental EU rules and the failure to fulfil its contractual obligations cannot continue without consequence but can seriously affect its accession process." He said that two years after the start of the negotiations in September 2008, the progress achieved "is not what we expected and wished for." He added, "My experiences from the negotiations of the last two years make me believe that Turkey is not ready yet to make Cyprus a priority and to take the decisions that would lead to a solution."
An American whose U.S. Air Force bomber was shot down over the Balkans during World War II is on a new mission in the region: Correct a historic injustice against a former Serb guerrilla leader. In the summer of 1944, Lt. Col. Milton Friend's B-24 Liberator was downed by German fighter planes over central Serbia. He said Gen. Draza Mihailovic saved his life -- and those of 500 of his fellow airmen -- in the largest air rescue of Americans behind enemy lines during a war. The former Air Force navigator, now 88 and living in Boynton Beach, Florida, is to testify at a Belgrade court Friday at a hearing to exonerate the Serb general, whom Yugoslav communists sentenced as a Nazi collaborator and executed in 1946. Mihailovic was not "a villain, but a hero," Friend said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. "He saved 500 people and helped them rejoin their families. He did not save only 500 lives, but thousands of their future generations now living in the United States," Friend said. About 500 U.S. pilots and other airmen were downed over Serbia between 1942 and 1944 while on bombing runs targeting Adolf Hitler's oil fields in neighboring Romania, according to U.S. government field station files, stored in the National Archives. Along with the Americans, some 100 British, French and Canadian airmen also were saved in the rescue operation, dubbed "Halyard," a word meaning a rope used to raise or lower a flag. Friend said the airmen were hidden in villages by Serbian guerrilla fighters, known as Chetniks, who were led by Mihailovic. The prewar military officer launched the first Balkan resistance against the Nazis in 1941, before also turning against the communists led by Marshal Josip Broz Tito. "Mihailovic told us that an American escape committee has been formed and that an airstrip will be built to help our rescue," said Friend, adding that he spent two months sheltered by the Serbs. Three American intelligence agents strapped with radio transmitters were airdropped on Aug. 2, 1944, near Mihailovic's headquarters in central Serbia to set up the rescue operation, Friend said. Dozens of U.S. military cargo planes flew in over the months to pick up the airmen. Serbian villagers had helped them build an airstrip by the village of Pranjani, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the capital, Belgrade. According to historians, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt then decided to follow British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's lead and abandon support for Mihailovic in favor of Tito's partizans, the strongest grass-roots guerrilla force fighting the invading Nazis and Italian fascists. "This was a purely political decision," Friend said. "In the first two years of the war, there were no partizans fighting the Nazis in Yugoslavia." Increasingly isolated, Mihailovic was alleged to have later collaborated with the Germans. After the war, when communist Yugoslavia was established, he was sentenced to death in what many claimed was a rigged trial. He was put to death in 1946, and his remains were buried at a secret location because the communists feared the grave could one day become the shrine for his loyalists. U.S. President Harry Truman posthumously awarded Mihailovic the Legion of Merit for the rescue. However, historians say the honor was classified secret by the U.S. State Department for decades to avoid disrupting the friendly U.S. policy toward Tito.
Osama bin Laden has threatened France with terror attacks for passing a law that bans Muslim-style face veils. A newly released audio tape of the al Qaida leader appears to be authentic, the French foreign ministry said. The voice on the audio tape threatens to kill French citizens to avenge their country's support for the war in Afghanistan and in revenge for the veil ban. The tape was obtained by the Al-Jazeera television station. The foreign ministry said the tape's "authenticity can be considered established based on initial verifications". The message "only confirms that reality of the terror threat," a foreign ministry spokesman said. A series of terror warnings has put France and other European countries on high alert in recent weeks. Speculation on the source of a potential terror threat in France has focused on a group called al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. That group, an offshoot of bin Laden's network, has claimed responsibility for the abduction of five French citizens in Niger and is believed to have taken them to neighbouring Mali. The French hostages, as well as a Togolese and a Madagascar national, were kidnapped on September 16 while they slept in their villas in the uranium mining town of Arlit. About 4,000 French troops are deployed in and near Afghanistan.
Russia and Germany will coordinate their positions in the run-up to a series of top level meetings, including a NATO summit, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle will visit Russia on November 1-2, Andrei Nesterenko said, adding that he would meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. A Russia-NATO Council summit is due on November 20 in Lisbon, Portugal. Other events include a G-20 summit in Seoul and an OSCE summit in Astana. Topics on the NATO agenda will include such priorities as Euro-Atlantic security, regional conflicts, disarmament, nonproliferation, international terrorism, missile defense and arms control, Nesterenko said. The Russia-EU visa facilitation process will also feature prominently during the talks, he added. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen will visit Moscow on November 5 to discuss cooperation on Afghanistan, in particular expanding rail transit of NATO shipments via Russian territory and the training of Afghan anti-drug specialists. Other topics will include "Euro-missile defense," the fight against international terrorism and sea piracy.
Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed at a summit in Russia Wednesday to swap prisoners of war and exchange the bodies of soldiers killed in their conflict over the breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced the deal to "urgently exchange prisoners of war and carry out the return of victims' bodies" after meeting in the city of Astrakhan with the leaders of Armenia, Serzh Sarkisian, and Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev. There was, however, little sign of progress in resolving the two countries' longstanding conflict over Karabakh, though Medvedev expressed hope that an agreement on the basic principles of a peace deal could be reached by early December. Medvedev said the prisoner-exchange deal was aimed at "strengthening trust" between the two sides. Medvedev said he hoped the two countries could agree on the first step in resolving the conflict -- a deal on the basic principles of a resolution -- in time for a summit of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Kazakhstan on December 1-2. Azerbaijani defence ministry spokesman Eldar Sabiroglu told AFP that two Azerbaijani soldiers and the bodies of two soldiers were currently being held in Armenia. Armen Kaprielian, a representative of Armenia's state committee on prisoners of war, told AFP that six Armenian soldiers and one civilian captured in the last two years were being held in Azerbaijan. It was unclear how many soldiers from Karabakh's rebel forces Azerbaijan might also be holding. A Kremlin spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, sought to stress the significance of Wednesday's agreement, even though he acknowledged that the number of soldiers in the exchange would not be significant. "It is not the quantity that matters," he told AFP. "It is important that people agreed to that." International mediators have been struggling for years to push for a resolution to the conflict over Karabakh, where ethnic Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan broke from Azerbaijani control during a war in the early 1990s that left 30,000 dead. Armenia on Tuesday had accused Azerbaijani forces of killing an ethnic Armenian soldier in a bid to disrupt the summit talks. Armenia's defence ministry said in a statement that a 20-year-old soldier with Karabakh's defence forces had been killed after Azerbaijani forces opened fire along a ceasefire line. It accused Baku of "destabilising the situation" before the summit. Tensions over Karabakh have been increasing this year amid the stalled peace talks, with the number of deadly skirmishes along the ceasefire line on the rise for months. At least 20 soldiers on both sides have been reported killed in clashes this year, including eight soldiers killed last month alone.
'So, what's it going to be tonight?' asked our babysitter, some years ago, 'Church? A Bible study? Or a fun evening out at the prison?' We laughed, but he was right. In the early years we looked forward to our prison visits with a mixture of excitement, anticipation and anxiety. Our involvement started through a friendship with a member of the Prison Fellowship, who asked us to do presentations to the prisoners. We would convene at our house, having rushed home from work for the hour long drive to the prison. Most of the journey would be spent in discussing what each of us had prepared, or not prepared, as the case often was. The fact is that we felt terribly inadequate. We would get together on a Sunday after lunch, and agree on the topic or focus for the presentation, and then struggle to think of anything that seemed relevant to their situation. 'What have we got to say to them that might be helpful?' we would moan. The first chaplain we worked with was an ex-borstal boy himself, who was very much 'one of the lads.' His relationship with them was like that of an older brother. They liked and respected him, and there was a free and easy atmosphere in the chaplaincy. Occasionally we would get troublemakers who would call out silly remarks and try to impress each other while we were talking. It wasn't until we very tentatively tried our first attempt at worship that we realised that many of them were nervous. When we began singing, there were waves of uncontrollable giggles. Despite this setback, at this time we had our first encouragement when the chaplain told us that they liked our presentations best of all the groups simply because we were ourselves and didn't try to put on a show. After a time our presentations settled into a pattern, and a very Orthodox one at that. We would focus on whatever Feast was current, and two or three people would speak, interspersed with a few short hymns, ending with a time of open prayer. Gradually, we learned to make points by telling stories, the more personal the better. We will always be indebted to the next - and current - chaplain, who altered the atmosphere in the chaplaincy in a subtle but very marked way. For a start, as a woman, they related to her quite differently from the previous chaplain. She became their friend, older sister or very often mother. They could let go and cry in her office - a near impossibility with a man. Secondly, she began by eliminating all those prisoners who were only coming to get out of their cells. She then spent long hours getting to know the remaining ones, and encouraging them in their search for faith. Gradually, the chaplaincy began to seem like a haven of peace in a very noisy and violent place, a place where they could be themselves and relax. Knowing that most of the groups who came to the prison chaplaincy relied on rousing hymns and talks as their staple fare, and remembering the waves of giggles which had met our first attempt at singing Orthodox music, it was a long time before we dared to introduce Orthodox worship. When we finally did, we did it properly, or as properly as possible in the circumstances. We lit many lampadki, turned out the harsh overhead lights and, as it was around the time of Theophany, ended the service by inviting them to come up and drink some holy water. There was practically a stampede to get there first, and that was when we first realised that Orthodoxy had something distinctive and precious to offer to these - by and large - totally secularised young men. The soft lights had the instantaneous effect of helping them to relax, and the music was no longer greeted with giggles. They showed great eagerness to take something away with them, be it small paper icons, or even, once, a handful of incense which a prisoner persuaded me to give him before I realised that it would cause consternation amongst the drugs squad, and had to ask for it back. Once they understood that censing means censing the image of God in each person, they would bow their heads with reverence when the censer came near them. Without mentioning anything about it, we would notice a number of people imitating us and crossing themselves. One of us would always start by going around the room asking each prisoner for names to be prayed for, and then they would all be mentioned in a long litany. All of them had family problems; most were very young parents with girlfriends and babies, and many of the relationships would break up before they got outside. 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God'. Having puzzled over the meaning of these words for years, I think that I have at last discovered something of their meaning during our fifteen years of visiting prisoners. I was once asked by a prisoner during a Bible Study why I liked coming in. My answer was instantaneous and completely truthful. 'Because I get a lot out of it, and feel close to God here', I replied. Prison is a terrible place; it is violent, brutal, lonely and full of despair. Yet despite this, or probably because of it, God is present there in a very immediate way. This is where the poverty of spirit comes in. Prisoners have little to lose, at least if a safe and caring environment is created for them where they can drop their pretences. They crave goodness. Their pain is so strong that they are more receptive to God's mercy. What has Orthodoxy got to offer prisoners? The present generation of prisoners has largely been brought up with very little idea of Christianity. Christian culture has mostly bypassed them, and with it the tiresome prejudices against 'smells and bells'. Their response to the physical side of worship is usually simple and open. If it's a good thing, let's have it, and whatever comes along with it, be it holy water or icons- and the more the better. And we believe that they respond favourably to our theology. We often speak about dealing with failure and difficulties. We don't pretend to have it all 'sorted', and this is surely helpful to them, when they face such huge problems. We often use icons to illustrate points we are making or even as illustrations of stories we are telling. Many prisoners are illiterate, or semi-literate, and greatly appreciate this simple approach. The third point is that they respond to beauty - the beauty of the music and the beauty of the icons - and, as we all know, truth and beauty are closely intertwined. Two stories come to mind, which illustrate something of what conversion may mean in prison. One is of a prisoner, who was converted in prison, and was so successful an evangelist that his fame spread around the prison population in the South West of England. We eventually made contact with him, and found him indeed to be a very impressive person. He ended up marrying one of his visitors and set up a centre for ex-prisoners with her. Sadly, he turned out to be a fraud, and went off leaving her with huge debts. Or was he a fraud? Maybe it would be better to say that his problems simply got the better of him. The story is not finished. The second story is of a young prisoner, who we first noticed listening very quietly and attentively over a number of months. As time went on, his face changed and became more open and as if filled with light. He asked for and got the job of chaplaincy orderly, and he, the other orderly and the chaplain began every day with prayer. He confessed that he felt called to be a minister. The time came for his release and the chaplain arranged for him to go into a Christian-run hostel for ex-prisoners, so that he could avoid going home, which was drug-ridden. We kept in touch for a year or so, but were saddened and dismayed to hear that after a time he went back to prison. A few years after that a member of our parish met him at a Christian centre, and was told a story of terrible disappointments. He was, once again, struggling to get his life back on line. The final point I would like to make is that, in answer to our nagging question in the early years of our prison visits, 'What have we got to say that would be helpful to them?', we can only be helpful to them if our emptiness meets with their emptiness. In some mysterious way, we become channels of God's grace. Any attempt to evangelise from a superior vantage point would meet with resistance, be it active or passive. The previous prison chaplain once told us that an evangelist came in and began to harangue the prisoners about how they were all sinners. There was nearly a riot, and he had to be hustled out of the chaplaincy. Prison visiting brings you to a realisation of your own emptiness, and of your own inability to help. We know that many of them face great problems when they leave prison, and that many will reoffend. We can't pretend that we witness spectacular conversions which change the lives of hundreds of people. We can, however, testify to the fact that we have seen many unspectacular conversions, and have helped in a very small way, through God's grace, to keep these tiny but bright flames alight.