The Balkan states of Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina are artificial constructs that are dependent on international organizations to function. Unlike in Iraq, there is no end in sight for this foreign rule and Europe seems to have little in the way of an exit strategy. Today, Bosnia-Herzegovina is a country that resembles what Iraq was until recently. A horrible war claimed about 100,000 lives and left behind deep wounds, in a country that is now occupied and that is weighed down by deep ethnic and religious conflicts. In the Balkans, the EU is trying to pursue a policy that the United States has just abandoned: nation building. But while control of Iraq will gradually be handed over to that country's elite, the nations that have been created in the Balkans, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, remain deeply dependent on the armies of officials, soldiers and skilled personnel brought in by international organizations. There is no timetable for the gradual transfer of power to national governments. In other words, Europe has no exit strategy. As a result, these artificial constructs remain dependent on their creators indefinitely. But dependency leads to addiction. Dependency creates the very things it is intended to stamp out, such as corruption. When a prime minister in Sarajevo died unexpectedly a few years ago, it was discovered that he had €20 million ($28 million) in his bank accounts -- despite a monthly salary of just €1,000 ($1,400). But corruption is not just endemic among the domestic elite. In Kosovo, members of international organizations apparently siphoned off €60 million ($84 million) in funds during the construction of an airport and several power stations. Dependency also makes people greedy. Even if it arises in the name of humanity, it prolongs the maladies it is intended to combat. And dependency is a good excuse, both for the dependants and the well-intentioned global community. The dependants claim that they would like to govern themselves, but are not permitted to do so. The global community cites the lack of experience in democracy as justification for extending its stay. This provisional arrangement gradually turns into a permanent state of affairs. Bosnia-Herzegovina is a curiosity. It consists of two so-called entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for the Bosnian Muslims and the primarily Catholic Croats, and the Republika Srpska, for the Orthodox Serbs. Altogether this small, ethnically divided country has three presidents, 14 parliaments and 180 ministers. Bosnia-Herzegovina is not really a country but a construct, a monstrosity, a protectorate. At regular intervals, the EU has verbose reports prepared on the situation in the country, which make impressive reading but have little to do with reality. People are no longer dying in the Balkans, unlike in Afghanistan. For this reason, there is no public debate over the benefits and duration of foreign powers' efforts to instruct the local populace on how to establish new nations. As a result, large bureaucracies are able to spend massive amounts of money that no one seems to miss. Meanwhile, the work on the Kosovo entity continues. The EU was supposed to replace the UN as the region's nation builder a year ago. The UN is remaining in the country, where it will be responsible for the handling of its Serb minority. The Belgrade government can cite good reasons for its insistence on protection for Kosovo's Serbs. This has produced a double administration in Kosovo, with Europe tending to the Albanian majority and the UN to the Serb minority. These are complicated changes to address complicated problems, so complicated, in fact, that a solution is becoming more and more remote.
Protesting Kosovo Albanian war veterans threw firebombs at the parking lot of the fledgling country's seat of government in Pristina on Thursday. Nobody was injured and there were no arrests after the incident, which came after a day of protests for a better status for the war veterans. Former fighters of the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) threatened to radicalize their protest, saying they would next toss Molotov cocktails at government cars if their demands are not met. The Albanians are a 90-per cent majority in Kosovo. The KLA launched an insurgency against Belgrade's rule in the latter half of the 1990s, which led to an all-out war in 1999 and, eventually, a NATO intervention against Serbia. An interim United Nations administration was deployed after NATO ousted Serbian forces from Kosovo a decade ago. Backed by its superpower ally Russia, Serbia has so far blocked Kosovo's promotion in the UN.
Newly re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday his next government "would bring down the global arrogance," signaling a tougher approach by Tehran toward the West after last month's disputed election. Ahmadinejad, in his first provincial trip after the June 12 presidential vote, said Iran's enemies had tried to interfere and foment aggression in the country, referring to mass opposition protests against the official election result. The hardline president, who often rails against the West, said the Islamic Republic wanted "logic and negotiations" but that Western powers had insulted the Iranian nation and should apologize. Iranian leaders often refer to the United States and its allies as the "global arrogance." "As soon as the new government is established, with power and authority, ten times more than before, it will enter the global scene and will bring down the global arrogance," he told a big crowd in the northeastern city of Mashhad. "They should wait as a new wave of revolutionary thinking ... from the Iranian nation is on the way and we will not allow the arrogant (powers) to even have one night of good sleep," Ahmadinejad said. Iran has accused Britain and the United States, which have criticised a crackdown on opposition protests, of interfering in its internal affairs. London and Washington reject the charge. "In this recent election the enemy tried to bring the battlefront to the interior of this country," Ahmadinejad said. "But I have told the enemies ... that this nation ... will strike you in the face so hard you will lose your way home," he said in comments translated by English-language Press TV. He also voiced continued defiance in a row over Iran's disputed nuclear ambitions, saying major powers "will not be able to take away the smallest amount of Iran's rights." Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful power purposes. Western countries suspect it is aimed at making bombs.
An Islamic centre in Washington DC in the US has accepted a Turkish Republic of North Cyprus flag to be on display with other nations’ flags. The Islamic Centre of Washington DC agreed to have the flag flying from one of their flag poles after an initiative by the Northern Cyprus Cultural Society (NCCS). President Bahri Aliriza of the NCCS worked with the Islamic Centre to permanently hang the Turkish Cypriot flag on one of their flagpoles. The Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) provided the Centre with the TRNC flag. Both NCCS President Bahri Aliriza and ATAA Project Director Gamze Ergur attended the ceremony at the Islamic Centre on 30 June and raised the Turkish Cypriot flag amongst the flags of other Muslim countries. The action marks a significant step in the TRNC’s quest for international recognition as the Islamic Centre is located in one of DC’s busiest spots in Massachusetts Avenue, known locally as embassy row. Turkey has always had close ties with the Islamic Centre and the exquisite tiles that adorn the walls and floors of the Centre came thanks to a generous donation of the Turkish government in 1969. The Islamic Centre serves as a mosque and has been frequently visited by diplomats and many American Vice-Presidents.
The Greek American community will organise various events to mark the 35th anniversary of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and condemn Turkey’s continuing illegal occupation of the island’s northern part. On Sunday, July 19, Archbishop Demetrios will conduct a memorial service for the victims of the July 1974 military coup against the government of the late Archbishop Makarios and the Turkish invasion which followed, at Saint Catherine’s church, and then he will deliver a speech. On Monday, July 20, the Cyprus Federation of America and PSEKA will host a cultural event in Astoria to include songs, poetry and testimony reading. Archbishop Demetrios and Cypriot and Greek diplomats will address the event. The protection of Cyprus’ cultural heritage, which is in peril due the continuing Turkish occupation, will be the focus of various events to be hosted on 21, 22 and 23 of July in Washington. On Tuesday, July 21, the Helsinki Commission of Congress (consisting of Senate and House of Representatives members) will host a briefing at Congress with the issue of “Cyprus’s religious and cultural heritage in peril”. The panelists of the briefing include Charalampos Chotzakoglou, Professor of Byzantine Art and Archaeology, Klaus Gallas, Art Historian and Byzantine expert Michael Jansen, author of “War and Cultural Heritage: Cyprus after the 1974 Turkish Invasion.” A report prepared by the Law Library of Congress, “Destruction of Cultural Property in the Northern Part of Cyprus and Violations of International Law” will be released at the briefing. A press release issued yesterday by Senator Benjamin Cardin, Chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and Co-Chairman Congressman Alcee Hastings, says that “the 35-year-long artificial division of Cyprus has taken a tremendous toll on the lives of the people of that country. Despite clear international commitments on the importance of preserving religious and cultural heritage, hundreds of churches, chapels and monasteries in the northern part of Cyprus remain in peril. Thousands of icons, manuscripts, frescos, and mosaics have been looted from sites in northern Cyprus -- many ending up on international auction blocks.”
America’s Senate opened its confirmation hearings into Sonia Sotomayor’s appointment to the Supreme Court. A version of health-care reform was passed by a health committee in the Senate. There were reports that Eric Holder, the attorney general, is planning to appoint some form of prosecutor to determine whether CIA operatives illegally tortured terrorist suspects. Canada imposed rules requiring visas for all visitors from the Czech Republic and Mexico, following a surge in arrivals seeking refugee status. Manuel Zelaya, the ousted president of Honduras, declared in Guatemala that his followers would have “the right to insurrection” to see him restored to office. In another example of Mexico’s drugs-related violence, the tortured bodies of 12 federal police were found in Michoacán state, killed in apparent reprisal for the arrest on July 11th of a suspected drug boss. Iran’s thwarted presidential challenger, Mir Hosein Mousavi, was reported to be planning a new front with a former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the most powerful politician to have come out in opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ruling clerical establishment. A Caspian Airlines plane crashed in Iran shortly after taking off from Tehran, killing all 168 people on board. Barack Obama went to Ghana, one of Africa’s most successful countries, on his first fleeting visit to the continent as America’s president. Nigerian rebels belonging to the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, better known as MEND, which says the federal government has impoverished people in the oil-rich Delta region, for the first time attacked the country’s commercial capital, Lagos, killing eight navy guards and setting fire to fuel tanks. Two French security officials were captured by rebels while trying to advise Somalia’s beleaguered government in Mogadishu, which is under persistent attack from jihadists. Professing his “love for humanity” and claiming he had fought all his life to “do what I thought was right in the interests of justice and fair play”, Charles Taylor, Liberia’s former president, launched his defence against 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity at a UN-backed special court for Sierra Leone in The Hague. South African construction workers ended a week-long strike over pay that had threatened to derail preparations for the 2010 soccer World Cup championship. For the first time since terrorists attacked last year in Mumbai, the prime ministers of India and Pakistan met to talk about how to restart peace talks. After Taro Aso’s Liberal Democratic Party was humiliated in Tokyo’s municipal elections—the ruling coalition lost its majority in the city’s Assembly and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan became the largest party—Japan’s prime minister called an early election for August 30th. Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, compared China’s treatment of its Turkic-speaking Uighur minority in Xinjiang to genocide. China demanded that Australia not show a film about a Uighur leader in exile in America. Kevin Rudd, Australia’s prime minister, raised his government’s alarm after China arrested some Shanghai-based executives of mining giant Rio Tinto-Zinc (including one Australian) and accused them of stealing state secrets. A South Korean television station, citing unconfirmed and anonymous intelligence reports, claimed North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Il, was suffering from cancer of the pancreas, a disease that kills 80% of patients within a year. At a ceremony in Ankara, several countries, including Turkey, signed up to the planned Nabucco pipeline through south-eastern Europe. A fresh spate of killings hit Chechnya, in Russia’s north Caucasus. The last United Nations monitors left Georgia’s disputed territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, after Russia had vetoed an extension of their mandate. In its first plenary session, the newly elected European Parliament chose a former prime minister of Poland, Jerzy Buzek, to be its president.
Religious tensions remained in Israel Thursday, after the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that a Jewish baker's belief in Jesus Christ does not make her baked food unkosher. In its verdict, the Court overturned a decision by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, the country’s highest religious governing body, to remove the 'kashrut', or Jewish dietary law, certificate because Pnina Conforti's faith that Jesus is the Messiah. Conforti, 51, said she was pleased with the decision. "I've been waiting for three years for this decision," said Conforti, who added that without kosher certification her business had been failing. "Finally I won. This is my baby," she told Israeli media. Conforti said that when she opened her first bakery in Gan Yavne in 2002 she enjoyed impressive business success. But after her faith was publicized in an article in a Messianic Jewish magazine, she allegedly suffered from demonstrations outside her bakery and posters with her picture distributed throughout the city warning that she was a missionary. Conforti petitioned the Supreme Court and claimed that her religious belief could not be used as a valid reason to revoke her kashrut certificate. The Rabbinate argued that since Konforti was an apostate, she cannot be considered trustworthy according to Jewish law. In addition former customers and haredi anti-missionary groups began picketing her bakery. "I should be allowed to praise God in any way that I want," said Conforty, who grew up in a traditional Yemenite family. "No one can force their religious beliefs on me." The Court agreed. The Supreme Court ordered the Rabbinate to pay her 200,000 Israel New Shekels ($52,000) in legal fees and ordered the Rabbinate to issue Konforti a certificate as long as she adheres to the usual requirements. However in a sign of more tensions, The Orthodox Rabbinate has condemned the ruling.