House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knows her place. The California Democrat took issue today with a Tuesday attack via press release from the House Republicans’ campaign operation that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal should “put her in her place” on the issue of Afghanistan. “It’s really sad, they really don’t understand how inappropriate that is,” Pelosi told reporters today. “I’m in my place, I’m speaker of the House, the first woman speaker of the House. And I’m in my place because the House of Representatives voted me there. That language is something I haven’t even heard in decades.” McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has called for an escalation in U.S. troops, and has warned of mission failure without them. Pelosi has not signed on to that plan, and publicly expressed doubts that there are enough votes in the House to support that strategy. Republicans have been hitting Pelosi hard on the issue, suggesting she is trying to dictate military policy over the commanders on the ground. But the wording of the attack on “her place” in the debate, has sparked rebukes from Pelosi allies. Writing for the Huffington Post, Columbia University Professor Lincoln Mitchell said today: “McChrystal will not, of course, put Pelosi in her place. The voters of San Francisco and the other members of the House of Representatives have already done that and put Pelosi in her position as Speaker of the House. By questioning McChrystal, Pelosi is fulfilling her constitutional duty.” In response to Pelosi’s remarks today, Joanna Burgos, a spokeswoman for the House Republican campaign operation, said Pelosi “would rather make party politics a higher priority than our national security” and that the speaker “self-righteously believes she is better suited to craft our country’s military policy.”
The Knesset opened its winter session Monday, amid its members' promise for a stormy winter. The Knesset's factions are set to spend the next several months debating settlement freeze, the forming of a biometric database, a reform in the Israel Land Administration, a controversial budget cut and a referendum bill, to name a few. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dedicated most of his speech to a harsh attack on a United Nations report on the Israeli operation in Gaza, which accused Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes in Gaza.He mentioned Hamas' war crimes and stressed, "We will not let (former Prime Minister) Ehud Olmert, (former Foreign Minister) Tzipi Livni and (Defense Minister) Ehud Barak, who sent our sons to war, reach the Hague International Criminal Court... The right for a Jewish state and the right for self-defense are two of the foundations of our people's existence," the prime minister said at the start of his speech. "These two rights are interlocked. Without a state of our own, we won't be able to defend ourselves, and without the ability to defend ourselves we won’t be able to defend the State. "These basic rights of the people of Israel are under an ongoing attack, an attack which has increased since the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead. Our first mission is to ward off this attack." Netanyahu went on to harshly slam the Goldstone Report. He started by addressing the Goldstone committee's authority to probe "the violations of international law on the part of the Israeli occupying force against the Palestinians." He turned to the Knesset members and stressed, "I want you to pay attention to the wording, 'The Israeli occupying force'. And this is after we evacuated every centimeter of Gaza. "This distorted report, written by this distorted committee, undermines Israel's basic right for self-defense. This report encourages terror and endangers peace. I want to clarify here: Israel will not take any chances for peace if it cannot defend itself."
Two days ahead of the official release of a European Commission report on Kosovo, media reports in Pristina, quoting a leaked draft, said that the EC would portray a negative picture troubled by corruption and political interference, while acknowledging progress in political stability, new laws and protection of ethnic minorities. Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008, is recognised by 22 out of 27 European Union member states. For reasons including its disputed status, Kosovo was omitted from a recent EC recommendation to exempt a number of Western Balkans states, including Serbia, from Schengen visa zone requirements. According to reports in Kosovo media on October 12 2009, the EC report due on October 14 would say that the bloc believed that corruption was dominant in many areas in Kosovo. There was political interference in civil service appointments, in courts and the media, the draft was reported to say. Another problem was a lack of transparency in public procurement deals. Freedom of speech was not fully guaranteed in Kosovo, according to the draft, as quoted in media reports. Serbia was maintaining "parallel structures" in Kosovo, whose independence it vehemently rejects, encouraging ethnic Serbs in the country not to recognise Pristina’s institutions. Kosovo had no effective control over the northern part of the country, the report said.
Whether a short meeting in Istanbul between Antonio Milososki and Georgios Papandreou means new momentum in relations between Skopje and Athens or the course of the Greek prime minister and foreign minister is merely a political gesture it is to be seen, Macedonian television A1 said today. Adding to this the lack of disputer on the disputable constitutional name of Macedonian by the Greek authorities at the conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe / OSCE / in Athens, which was involved in a Macedonian parliamentary delegation, maybe these are the first signs of change in Greece's policy in relations with Macedonia, the media says, adding, however, should not forget the political consensus among policymakers about the new Greek abbreviation of the name Macedonia, which would be for international use.
Russia could open a trade mission in Abkhazia in early 2010, a top Russian Economic Development Ministry official said Monday. Sergei Chernyshev, director of the ministry's department for economic cooperation with the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States, told journalists that the Russian and Abkhaz economics ministries agreed to set up trade missions last week at a forum in Sukhumi, the capital of the former Georgian republic. "It'll take a certain amount of time to form a staff for it [the Russian trade mission]. I think at the beginning of next year. We won't delay," he said. Russia recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, another former Georgian republic, after the end of a five-day war with Georgia in August 2008.
While every region of the world has its own traditional cuisine, perhaps none is as well known, and studied as that of the Mediterranean. Rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, olive oil and fish, it is a diet revered for being low in artery-clogging saturates and transfats, high in fibre and antioxidants and rich in heart-healthy unsaturated fat. Food habits from the Mediterranean first made headlines in the early 1990s when researchers noted its exceptional nutrient content and health benefits. Almost 20 years later, it is still making waves. Study findings released earlier this month in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that a Mediterranean-style diet beat out a low-fat diet in terms of controlling diabetes, a disease that is estimated to affect one in five people in the UAE. Researchers randomly assigned either a low-fat diet or Mediterranean-style diet to 215 overweight people who were recently diagnosed with type-2 diabetes. After four years, they found that only 44 per cent of the people eating the Mediterranean food required drug treatment to control their diabetes, compared to 70 per cent in the low-fat group. What’s more, the Mediterranean group achieved greater weight loss and a healthier body-mass index overall. A Mediterranean-style diet has also been found to offer protection from cardiovascular disease and cancer. One of the largest studies to date on its health benefits was released in 2003 by Harvard researchers. After analysing the diets of over 22,000 people who live in Greece, it was found that those who closely followed a Mediterranean-style diet tended to live longer and were less likely to die from heart disease and cancer than those who do not. Contrary to most other healthy diets, the Mediterranean diet stands alone in that it doesn’t limit fat, instead it promotes the intake of healthy fat. Olive oil is a cornerstone of the diet and is used almost exclusively for cooking. Olive oil is rich in monounsaturated fat, which lowers unhealthy LDL cholesterol and raises healthy HDL cholesterol.
Metropolitan Jonah's first visit to the Church of Georgia as the guest of His Holiness, Catholicos-Patriarch Iliya of All Georgia, coincides with one of the Georgian Church's most important holy days, the Feast of the Commemoration of the Appearance of the Pillar above the Robe of the Lord, celebrated on October 14. Metropolitan Jonah will also conduct formal discussions with Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia. A major issue of these talks will concern pastoral care for the growing number of Georgian Orthodox immigrants in North America, many of whom are attending parishes of the Orthodox Church in America. According to ancient tradition, Christianity in what is now Georgia traces its roots to the evangelistic efforts of the Apostle Andrew. Saint Nino, Enlightener of Georgia and Equal to the Apostles, spearheaded more extensive missionary work in the region in the early 4th century. The Georgian Church was originally part of the ancient see of Antioch, which granted it autocephaly in 466 AD. Christian culture flourished for centuries in the region, and it remains especially known for its large and beautiful monasteries. With annexation of the Eastern Georgian kingdom by the Russian Empire in the early 19th century, the autocephaly of the Patriarchate of Georgia was abolished in 1811, and the Georgian Church was thereafter governed by an exarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. The last Exarch of Georgia in 1915-17 was His Eminence, Metropolitan Platon [Rozhdestvensky], who served as Archbishop of North America from 1907 until 1914 and as Metropolitan of All America and Canada from 1922 until his death in 1934. With Russia in the midst of revolutionary turmoil in 1917, the Church of Georgia once again declared its autocephaly and the patriarchate was reestablished.