President Barack Obama played bartender-in-chief on Thursday at a "beer summit" of the main players in a racially charged case that he hoped would be a "positive lesson" in a national dialogue on race. Obama, the first black U.S. president, said it was a "friendly, thoughtful" conversation over beer at the White House with prominent Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, who is black, and police Sergeant James Crowley, who is white. Crowley arrested Gates, a well-known documentary filmmaker, for disorderly conduct on July 16 after a confrontation at the professor's home, sparking a media frenzy as Gates, 58, accused the policeman of racial profiling. Crowley, who had taught courses against racial profiling, denied that. Obama inflamed the situation by saying he thought police "acted stupidly" in arresting his friend. Crowley said it was a private and frank discussion, adding he and Gates have different perspectives. "I think what you had today was two gentlemen who agreed to disagree on a particular issue," Crowley told reporters. "I don't think that we spent too much time dwelling on the past. We spent a lot of time discussing the future." Asked about the president's contribution to the meeting, Crowley said: "He provided the beer." Gates said he and Crowley had been cast together "through an accident of time and place" and must use the opportunity "to foster greater sympathy among the American public for the daily perils of policing on the one hand, and for the genuine fears of racial profiling on the other hand." Obama's job approval rating has fallen from 61 percent in mid-June to 54 percent now, in part due to his handling of the Gates-Crowley situation, a Pew Research Center poll found.
A prosecutor in northern Greece Friday placed a photographer in pretrial detention on suspicion of spying for Turkey. Ozer Telatoglou, 30, was arrested on the island of Samothraki Sunday while taking pictures of a military installation. Police later said they found at his home some 300 photographs of Greek army camps and state facilities in the Evros region bordering Turkey. The suspect could be jailed for up to a year until a judicial council meets to examine his case and decide whether to send it to court. Telatoglou lives near the Greek-Turkish border. If convicted he could face a prison sentence of up to 20 years. Greece and Turkey are longstanding regional rivals who nearly went to war in 1996 over an uninhabited Aegean Sea islet group. The two North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies have unresolved disputes over Turkish-occupied Cyprus and Turkey's territorial claims in the Aegean Sea. Relations improved after Greece announced its support for Turkey's bid to join the European Union a decade ago, but overflights by Turkish fighter aircraft in disputed airspace remain a habitual source of tension.
The leader of South Ossetia has demanded Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili be tried in court as a war criminal for giving orders to attack the republic's capital, Tskhinvali. "Saakashvili is a criminal who should be sitting in prison and we will accomplish this," South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity said in an interview with RIA Novosti on Friday. He said the Georgian president is one of many people on a list of those who "organized the genocide of the Ossetian people." Russia recognized the independence of South Ossetia and another former Georgian republic, Abkhazia, after Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war last August. Georgian forces had attacked South Ossetia in an attempt to bring it back under central control. Kokoity said South Ossetia had started a criminal case against Saakashvili and others who had "organized aggression" against the republic's citizens, adding that this is considered an international crime and should be punished. "As the person who was responsible, who gave the commands, who ordered the attack on Tskhinvali, who declared war on South Ossetia and along with his subordinates realized...the operation, [Saakashvili] will be charged with the crime." He said South Ossetia would be a good neighbor to the Georgian people, but not the current government. "We are not a vengeful people. One way or another, we will build normal, good neighborly and friendly relations with [our] neighboring country, but not with the current criminal regime, which we will prosecute," Kokoity said.
Associations of refugees from Croatia held a news conference ahead of the 14 anniversary of Croatia's military onslaught against that country's Serb areas. They say that the attack, known as Operation Storm, started on August 4, 1995, and ended with more than 200,000 Serbs forced to flee their homes, 2,500 murdered, while 2,300 are still listed as missing. 14 years later, there are no conditions for the refugees to return since their rights are not guaranteed. "More than 8,000 families are still waiting for their houses to be rebuilt. Several hundred houses have not been returned to ethnic Serb owners, while about 40,000 Serbs with ownership rights are awaiting restitution," President of the Association of Refugee Societies Milojko Budimir told reporters in Belgrade on Friday. He also said he expects good cooperation with new Croatian PM Jadranka Kosor when it comes to property rights issues of Serbs driven out of Croatia. "Since after the war she herself moved into a Serb apartment, she could lead by example now and show good will and move out," Budimir said of the Croatian premier. Refugee Commissioner Vladimir Cucić stressed that one of the basic preconditions for European integration ought to be the question of return and realization of other personal rights for refugees from Croatia, and singled out their right to receive pensions.
Greek FM Dora Bakoyannis says the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) is denied Euro-Atlantic integrations because of the policy of its government. She also said that it is necessary to find a solution for that country's name - the Republic of Macedonia under its Constitution - that would pave the way to future cooperation and security. The policy of the government in Skopje has so far denied their Euro-Atlantic future from that country and its people, Bakoyannis said, speaking at the 7th General Assembly of the World Hellenic Inter-Parliamentary Association. Speaking in connection with the open conflict with the neighboring state over its name, the Greek foreign minister underscored that the stand Greece maintains on that issue has been accepted by its international partners, both at the NATO summit in Bucharest and within the EU summit in Brussels.
A handful of recent clashes between Muslims and Christians has again raised the spectre of sectarian discord in Egypt. The incidents, though relatively minor, highlight longstanding tensions between the country's Muslim majority and its Christian minority. Interfaith relations have traditionally been peaceful in this country of 82 million, of which Christians are estimated to represent between six and 12 percent, although precise figures are difficult to ascertain. Most Christians belong to the Egyptian Orthodox, or Coptic, Church, while the rest of the national population is almost entirely Sunni Muslim. According to Egyptian law, the construction of churches - unlike mosques - requires formal government approval. Many Copts complain that Christian communities face undue bureaucratic obstacles when trying to build or renovate their places of worship, while efforts to build mosques face little if any official obstruction. In an effort to mollify Christian sentiment, a 2005 presidential decree gave provincial governors authority to grant permission for renovating or enlarging churches. Previously, permission had to be obtained directly from the President. Critics, however, say the order has had little effect.
The Halki Orthodox Theological Seminary, located on the island of Halki off the coast of Istanbul, was the key Patriarchical institution for educating the Greek Orthodox Community and training its future clergy for more than a century before it was closed down by the Turkish government in 1971. Although it was established in 451 AD, Turkish authorities refuse to recognize the Patriarchate as “Ecumenical” or International. Turkish law has relegated this 2,000 year-old church, which serves as the focal point of Orthodox Christendom, to a Turkish institution. As a result, the Turkish government also controls the process by which the Ecumenical Patriarch is selected. Through illegal decrees, the government has imposed heavy restrictions on the election of the Ecumenical Patriarchs, requiring the Patriarch and the Hierarchs that elect him to be Turkish citizens. The very existence of the Ecumenical Patriarchate has been put in jeopardy as a consequence of these decrees. Turkish law requires that even priests must be Turkish citizens. This excludes eligible clergy from around the world from attending to Turkey’s Greek community, which now numbers less than 3,000—most of which are elderly and not eligible candidates. There are currently roughly 200 Greek Orthodox Clergymen who live in Turkey and are Turkish citizens. Without the Halki Seminary, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has been forced to send its future clerics outside the country for training. Unfortunately, most do not return home. These restrictions severely limit not only who can become a priest, but also who can become the Ecumenical Patriarch. These policies are wearing away at the Christian presence in Turkey and threaten to eventually wipe out the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which stands as a 2,000 year-old spiritual beacon for more than 300,000 million orthodox Christians around the world. Despite direct stipulations in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne that Turkey must legally recognize and protect its religious minorities, Christian communities in Turkey currently face unfair official restrictions regarding the ownership and operation of churches and seminaries. The Turkish Government interferes in the selection of their religious leaders. Christian education has all but vanished, while freedom of expression and association, although provided for on paper, tend to get people killed. This political climate of religious repression has, for decades, encouraged extremists to attack the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul defacing its walls and desecrating its cemeteries. In 1955, riots broke out in Istanbul and quickly turned into pogroms against Greeks as 73 Orthodox churches and 23 schools were vandalized, burned, or destroyed; 1,004 houses of Orthodox citizens were looted; and 4,348 stores, 110 hotels, 27 pharmacies, and 21 factories were destroyed. The Greek Orthodox population in 1955 was 100,000. In 1998, a Greek Orthodox official was murdered at his church, Saint Therapon, in Istanbul. The church was then robbed and set on fire.