When FBI agents at O'Hare arrested David Headley en route to Pakistan earlier this month on charges he plotted to kill a newspaper cartoonist in Denmark, authorities say he held an additional airline reservation -- to Copenhagen. He was to depart Thursday. Headley's friend, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, who shared an extreme hatred for cartoons that depicted the prophet Mohammed, arranged for the flight, authorities said. The Chicago men, who knew each other from a military school in Pakistan, on Tuesday were accused of an international plot dubbed "The Mickey Mouse Project" that since late 2008 included scheming with others to "commit terrorist acts against overseas targets," according to federal criminal complaints made public in Chicago. The North Side men are accused of plotting to target employees of the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, which published cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in 2005, sparking violent riots across the Muslim world. The most controversial of the 12 cartoons depicted Mohammed wearing a bomb with a lit fuse as a turban. That cartoon was drawn by Kurt Westergaard, 78 -- who was targeted for assassination, authorities said. "I feel confident and safe in my private life," Westergaard said. "I'm angry because I have to live with threats, just because I have done my job. PET [police intelligence] has advised me to keep a low profile and don't give statements. I will follow that, but I'm allowed to say that I'm angry."
New Greek FM on Wednesday opposed a deadline to reach Cyprus peace and accused Turkey of pressuring sides for a deal. Dimitris Droutsas, who shares the foreign policy portfolio with Prime Minister George Papandreou, said Greece wanted to mend relations with neighbour and EU-candidate Turkey, but saw "Turkish pressure" in Cyprus talks. Greek and Turkish Cypriots need to negotiate a peace settlement with "no interference from Turkey or threats" that now is the last opportunity, he said. "It is no secret that the influence that Ankara is exercising on the Turkish Cypriots and also on (Turkish Cypriot leader) Mr (Mehmet Ali) Talat is sometimes not as constructive as it should be," Droutsas told Reuters. Droutsas also opposed a deadline as Greek and Turkish Cypriots engage in peace talks to reunite the island. Using "artificial" deadlines to exercise pressure is not helpful, he said. Droutsas represents Greece in EU foreign ministers' meetings, while Prime Minister Papandreou is the principal foreign minister. Whereas, widely credited with fostering closer ties with Ankara as foreign minister in the late 1990s, Papandreou's first visit after the election was to Turkey, and then to Cyprus. However, Turkish President Abdullah Gul and EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso are among those calling for a deal this year.
The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has exposed divisions in Nato by accusing the west of treating Iran unfairly over its nuclear programme and describing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, its vehemently anti-western president, as a friend. In a Guardian interview, Erdogan down-played western fears that Iran wants to build an atomic bomb as "gossip" and said a military strike against Iranian nuclear installations would be "crazy". He also strongly implied that those countries which were pressuring Iran to clarify its goals were guilty of hypocrisy because they all had nuclear weapons themselves. "There is a style of approach which is not very fair because those [who accuse Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons] have very strong nuclear infrastructures and they don't deny that," Erdogan said. "The permanent members of the UN security council all have nuclear arsenals and then there are countries which are not members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which also have nuclear weapons. So although Iran doesn't have a weapon, those who say Iran shouldn't have them are those countries which do." His comments are likely to further sour Turkey's relations with Israel, which have nose-dived dramatically following the war in Gaza last January. Erdogan indicated he accepted Iranian protestations that the programme was peaceful and said he was more concerned about threats – mainly from Israel – to "devastate" Iran. "Those who are criticising Iran do not present their arguments very well," he said. "Sometimes threats are made. If the idea is to devastate Iran or somehow erase it altogether I don't think that would be right. Erdogan is to visit Iran, Turkey's neighbour, for talks with Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader. Erdogan's presence will coincide with that of IAEA inspectors, who arrived in Iran yesterday to inspect a uranium enrichment facility near Qom.
An Iranian lawmaker says Iran will formally respond on Thursday to a U.N.-drafted plan to ship much of its uranium abroad for enrichment. Iran has been considering the deal — which Western leaders hope will ease concerns over Tehran's controversial nuclear program — for a week now. Lawmaker Mohammad Karamirad did not provide details, but Tehran's response is expected to be handed in at the U.N. nuclear agency in Vienna. Karamirad's remark was reported by the semiofficial ISNA news agency. Another lawmaker, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, says Iran's top security body will make a final decision on the proposal later Wednesday. Iran's state media have said the country will agree to the plan's general framework but will demand important changes.
Somali pirates said on Tuesday they had seized a yacht in the Indian Ocean with a British couple aboard and were taking the vessel to the Horn of Africa nation. "The British couple are in our hands now. We captured them as they were touring in the Indian Ocean," a pirate called Hassan told Reuters. He said the two captives were healthy and ransom demands would follow. A Seychelles government source said an emergency distress signal was picked up by the British coastguard after Paul and Rachel Chandler headed out into waters where pirate attacks are known to have taken place on October 22. "We are currently in touch with the family in the UK and the Seychelles coastguard who continues to monitor the situation and has conducted a search of the area," Matthew Forbes, British High Commissioner to the Seychelles, told Reuters. The kidnapped British couple were sailing to the east African country of Tanzania when they were seized. A final message on the couple's blog posted at dawn on Friday morning read: "Please ring Sarah". There has been no communication with the 38-foot yacht, Lynn Rival, since then.
Russian Ambassador to Serbia Aleksandr Konuzin says that his country supportes Serbia’s road towards EU. “Russia supports Serbia on its way towards European Union, but Serbia’s cooperation with the EU must not be at the expense of Serbia’s cooperation with Russia." "The cooperation has to be such that Serbia, Russia and EU all benefit from it. Both sides must benefit equally from the cooperation between Serbian and Russian businessmen,” Konuzin told a news conference in the town of Jagodina on Tuesday. He also met with Jagodina Mayor Dragan Marković Palma and with the members of a business-political delegation of Jagodina, which will travel to Moscow on November 1. The ambassador said that he had been present during the conversation of the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Marković in Belgrade last week, and that the Russian side was "very well informed about the arrival of the delegation from Jagodina". Marković stated that the main goal of their visit to Moscow "will be to establish business contacts between Serbia and Russia".
RESOLUTION: Welcoming to the United States and to Washington, DC, His All Holiness Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, Ecumenical Patriarch on his upcoming trip on October 20, 2009, through November 6, 2009.
Whereas Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is the spiritual leader of nearly 300,000,000 Orthodox Christians around the world and millions of Orthodox Christians in the United States;
Whereas Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is head of the largest Christian church headquartered in the Muslim world and convener of an ecumenical meeting which produced the first condemnation by Muslim leaders of the 9/11 attack on the United States as an anti-religious act;
Whereas the Ecumenical Patriarchate is the spiritual home of the world's oldest and second largest Christian church located in Istanbul, Turkey;
Whereas within the 2,000-year-old Sacred See of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the New Testament was codified and the Nicene Creed was created;
Whereas the disappearance of the See would mean the end of a crucial link between the Christian and the Muslim world since the continuing presence of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Turkey is a living testimony of religious co-existence since 1453;
Whereas Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew received on his first official visit to the United States in 1997, a gold medal, presented by the United States on behalf of the Congress in recognition of his outstanding and enduring contributions to religious understanding and peace, and was recognized by the United States in a manner reserved for a very small number of world leaders;
Whereas Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew's gold medal legislation received the highest number of members of the United States House of Representatives cosponsoring as any on record in the Congress or at the Library of Congress;
Whereas His All Holiness was the second living person in United States history allowed to be honored in the United States Capitol Rotunda as a recipient of the Congressional gold medal, the highest Congressional honor given to individuals like George Washington, Pope John Paul IV, and Winston Churchill, among others;
Whereas Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is recognized in the United States and abroad as a leader in the quest for world peace, greater religious understanding, and respect for the Earth's environment;
Whereas Ecumenical Patriarchate Bartholomew was selected by Time Magazine as number 11 among 2008's 100 most influential people in the world;
Whereas Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew enhanced greater religious understanding by initiating a joint declaration that it is man's duty to protect the earth, signed by himself and Pope John Paul IV, the spiritual leaders of nearly 1 out of every 5 people in the world;
Whereas Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is called `the Green Patriarch' by leaders of the international environmental community;
Whereas Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew received the prestigious Sophie Prize of Norway for his environmental work and also the internationally recognized Binding Institute of Liechtenstein;
Whereas the prize money was donated by His All Holiness to UNICEF's fund for destitute children and for environmental projects;
Whereas Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has led symposiums of international environmental leaders on the Adriatic, Aegean, Arctic, Baltic, and Black Seas, as well as the Amazon, Danube, and Mississippi Rivers, and His All Holiness was honored in New York through the Scenic Hudson River Initiative;
Whereas the Religious, Science, and Environmental (RSE) symposia are organized under the auspices of His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the pioneer of this movement;
Whereas patrons of past symposia have included Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Jacques Santer and Romano Prodi, Presidents of the European Commission, and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan;
Whereas the symposia have also reached out across different faiths and denominations, revealing the wisdom of diverse theological traditions, as well as a common imperative to protect the natural world;
Whereas during the 2002 Adriatic Sea Symposium, Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Bartholomew signed a joint declaration underlining the spiritual duty of caring for God's creation in the interest of future generations; and
Whereas the outstanding accomplishments of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew have been formally recognized and honored by numerous governmental, academic, and other institutions around the world:
Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) welcomes to the United States and to Washington, DC, His All Holiness Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, Ecumenical Patriarch, and recognizes the importance to the United States and the world of the Ecumenical Patriarch's recent environmental seminar conducted on the Mississippi River with some of the world's leading environment experts;
(2) recognizes the importance to the United States and to the world of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew's leadership on matters of environment, peace, and religion, and encourages United States foreign policy makers to continue to urge Turkey to grant religious freedom and property rights to the Ecumenical Patriarchate as well as to reopen the theological school at Halki; and
(3) offers whatever support the United States can give to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew's noble efforts for the betterment of human kind.