Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday that a new Middle East is being carved out that will be free of the United States and Israel, as he backed the revolts rocking the Arab world. Massive crowds of Iranians, waving flags and chanting: "Death to (Egyptian President Hosni) Mubarak!" and: "Death to America!" descended on Tehran's Azadi (Freedom) Square to listen to the hardliner, who lashed out at the West and Israel in a speech marking the 32nd anniversary of the Islamic revolution. "We will soon see a new Middle East materialising without America and the Zionist regime and there will be no room for world arrogance (the West) in it," Ahmadinejad told the cheering crowds, who gathered despite the cold and cloudy weather. In a speech directed in good part at the Arab uprisings, Ahmadinejad said Egyptians needed to be vigilant of the United States. "They (the United States) have adopted a friendly face and say 'we are friends of the people of North Africa and Arab countries', but be watchful and united. You will be victorious ... but your path of resistance is a lengthy one," he said. "The Iranian nation is your friend and it is your right to freely choose your path. The Iranian nation backs this right of yours." Iran -- which has no diplomatic ties with Egypt -- has backed mass protests there, now in their 18th straight day, with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urging the people to establish an Islamic regime in the Arab world's most populous nation... The United States accused Iran of "hypocrisy" over the jamming and its own suppression of protests. "The recent arrests and effort to block international media outlets underscores the hypocrisy of the Iranian leadership," National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said. "For all of its empty talk about Egypt, the government of Iran should allow the Iranian people the same universal right to peacefully assemble, demonstrate and communicate in Tehran that the people are exercising in Cairo," Vietor said. The director of the BBC World Service, Peter Horrocks, said: "This jamming should stop immediately. "The events in Egypt are being viewed by the entire world and it is wrong that our significant Iranian audience is being denied impartial news and information from BBC Persian TV..." Ahmadinejad appealed to the messianic beliefs of Iran's majority Shiite faith, saying the world was witnessing a revolution overseen by Imam Mehdi, its 12th imam who disappeared as a five-year-old in the 10th century and who the faithful believe will return before judgement day. The president, wearing his trademark jacket, hit out at the United States, calling it an "accomplice to the oppression of the Zionist regime." "If you want people to trust you, first of all do not interfere in affairs of the region, including in Tunisia and Egypt. Let them be by themselves," he said.
The head U.S. intelligence official says unresolved issues regarding Kosovo — including the future of Serb-majority areas in northern Kosovo — remain a challenge to stability in Europe. In written testimony to a House committee on Thursday about global threats, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper said that a number of issues in the Balkans are “sources of tension requiring Western diplomatic and security engagement.” The testimony cited Belgrade’s efforts to reopen the question of Kosovo’s status as well as Pristina’s weakness in rule of law and democracy. A coalition government declared Kosovo independent from Serbia in 2008. Since then, the government in Pristina has struggled to establish Kosovo as an independent country. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence. The testimony also said that “ethnic Serb rhetoric about seceding from Bosnia will continue to inflame passions” in the region.
III. VOR - Russia, NATO start ABM talks
Talks on Russia-NATO cooperation on a European ABM system have gotten under way in Brussels. Representing Russia is Deputy Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, RIA Novosti reports. The parties in principle agreed to jointly work on the so-called Euro-ABM in November 2010 at the Russia-NATO council meeting in Lisbon. However, NATO insists on building Euro-ABM as two separate but coordinated systems, namely a Russian and a NATO one. Meanwhile, Russia proposes introducing segment responsibility in order to ensure anti-missile defense.
It would be better if Serbia and Russia coulod develop a Spceial Eastern European Slavic relationship in which Serbia would not need to join the EU., Serbia could depend on Russia and China FOR FUTURE ECONOMIC assistance instead of the IMF and EU, this would be preferential.Furthermore, Serbia could form an economic relationship in which neither Serbia or Russia needs future dependence upon the EU or the NATO at all, but the inverse (let NATO and the EU come to Russia and Serbia for trade instead). This is not merely a pipe dream. Russia is an extemely vast territorial country, possessing most of the vital natural resources the United States and the EU necessitate importing for continued existance. Fellow Slavs ought to stick together and help one another, anyway.
Georgian opposition members gathered for a rally in front of the country's parliament on Friday ahead of President Mikheil Saakashvili's annual address to the nation. "Why do you force us out of our homes? Why do you condemn us to starvation? Why do you deprive us of our childhood? Saakashvili, bring us our native land back!" the protesters said. The participants of the rally, called One Citizen - One Accusation, blame the president for holding unfair elections, dispersing protests, expelling refugees and sacking schoolteachers. A member of the Conservative Party, Lasha Chkhartishvili, said the symbolic action gathers the representatives of various social groups who have problems "authored" by the country's president. Alexander Shalamberidze, the People's Party secretary general, said: "The action's aim is not reconciliation and the fight for our rights and freedoms. Rather than the government solving our problems, Saakashvili himself has become the problem." Eka Beselia, who heads the oppositional Solidarity to Illegal Prisoners movement earlier called on the opposition in the Georgian parliament to demand Saakashvili's resignation.
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has promised to help Israel get closer ties with the European Union and gain access to European markets, in a meeting Thursday with a visiting delegation of American Jewish leaders. The promise is another sign of the fast improvement in once cool ties between Athens and Jerusalem. It is also seen as a drive to promote investment in Greece, a country severely hit by the economic crisis. Relations between the EU and Israel hit a low point two years ago after Israel's operation against Hamas in Gaza. Since then, Israeli efforts to upgrade its relations with the EU were put on hold, the Europeans repeatedly denouncing construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and linking EU-Israel upgrade to progress in the Mideast peace process... The Greek Prime Minister also said Greece would use its influence to call on Egypt to continue to observe its peace agreements with Israel. He said Greece would urge the EU build democratic institutions, drawing on its experience in post-Communist eastern Europe.
On Sunday, February 13, 2011, Orthodox Christians observe the beginning of the pre-lenten season of the Church year and start to make use of a liturgical book known as the Triodion. Use of the Triodion begins with the Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee -- the 10th Sunday before Holy Pascha and the 22nd day before the beginning of Great Lent, which in 2011 starts on Monday, March 7, and ends on Great and Holy Saturday, April 23. It is in the Triodion that the texts for the services of the pre-lenten season, the days of Great Lent proper, Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday, and Great and Holy Week are found. The Gospel reading for the first pre-lenten Sunday – Luke 18:10-14 – offers a striking contrast between the pharisee, a genuinely religious man, and the publican, an equally genuine sinner, a tax collector known for cheating others. In his prayers, the pharisee boasted before the Lord: "God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess." The publican, meanwhile, "standing afar off," begged for mercy: "[He] would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’" The pharisee’s religious yet boastful piety did not justify him, while the publican’s humble repentance – that repentance to which we especially aspire during the season of Great Lent – is revealed as the first step in our salvation. The pharisee sought adulation; the publican sought – and received – great mercy. On the second pre-lenten Sunday, the Parable of the Prodigal Son – Luke 15:11-32 – is read. In it, Our Lord reveals that our heavenly Father offers to us unconditional forgiveness and mercy if, like the prodigal son, we "come to our senses," see ourselves for who we really are, and turn away from the "hunger" of "riotous living" in a "far country." The prodigal son discerned his need to return to his true home, his father’s house, and acted decisively: "When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him," exclaiming "’for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’" In the same way, our heavenly Father unconditionally forgives and receives us, His prodigal children – but it is we who, laying aside our pride, must "come to our senses," acknowledge that we "have sinned," and return to our "true home." The Parable of the Last Judgment – Matthew 25:31-46 – is read on the third pre-lenten Sunday, commonly referred to as Meatfare Sunday, since it is the last day on which we partake of meat before Holy Pascha. In this parable, Our Lord reveals that, while it is important for us to desire Him, to repent and seek His mercy, to see ourselves for who we truly are, and to return to Him, we also must discern His very presence in everyone around us, in the "least of the brethren," and minister to them as if we were ministering to Christ Himself – and for the sake of Christ Himself. Our Lord reveals that our salvation and judgment depend on how we put our desire, repentance, and the mercy we receive into action, in the midst of others, for their sake as well as for the sake of the One Who feeds us, clothes us, ministers to us, and ultimately calls us to the life of His Kingdom. "Good intentions," as Our Lord reveals, are insufficient; crucial as prayer, fasting and almsgiving indeed are, they certainly are not mere "religious exercises" performed for their own sake, and surely not for the sake of acquiring a sense of "pride in accomplishment." Discerning Christ’s presence in everyone – and especially in those who so often are ignored, forgotten, abandoned, or despised – while offering them the same loving kindness that He first offered to us is the ultimate "fruit" of genuine repentance. Forgiveness Sunday – commonly known as Cheesefare Sunday, since it is the last day on which we partake of dairy products before Holy Pascha – falls on the eve of the first day of Great Lent. In the day’s reading from the Gospels – Matthew 6:14-21 – we hear Our Lord’s teaching about forgiveness: "If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." We also hear His teaching about fasting: "When you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father Who is in the secret place; and your Father Who sees in secret will reward you openly." Like Adam, exiled from Paradise, we lament our sins. Forgiveness and mercy are ours, but if only we fast from those things, those passions that, with Our Lord’s help, we can bring under control, even if we all too often allow them to control us. The pre-lenten Sundays prepare us for our "lenten journey." They arm us with that which we need to "enter the Fast with joy," to make the most of the "time for action," for as we sing on the first day of Great Lent, "salvation is at the door." 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