Since hotly disputed presidential elections in June, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been the focus of the opposition’s contempt; Sunday was certainly no exception. Protesters chose Shiite Islam’s most significant religious holiday, Ashura, when Iranians traditionally take to the streets for festivities, to demonstrate against the government of Ahmadinejad. But Iran’s security forces, on full-alert since dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri died last week at the age of 87, were armed and ready for unrest. Iran's state-owned Press TV on Monday quoted a spokesperson of the supreme national security council as saying that eight people had been killed in Sunday's clashes between protesters and security forces in the capital of Tehran. It was also reported that the nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi was among those killed in Sunday's clashes, which marked the worst violence since June's contested elections. According to witnesses and opposition websites, thousands of protesters ignored official warnings not to use the religious celebrations as a pretext for a political demonstration and began chanting “death to the dictator” in reference to President Ahmadinejad. One Israeli newspaper painted the protests as a political “earthquake” for the Iranian leadership. “To refer to what has been happening in Tehran over the last few days as ‘riots’ is to gravely underestimate… the unrest,” wrote Zvi Bar’el in Haaretz, the Israeli daily. “The latest events are best described as further symptoms of an ongoing earthquake.” “The country has seen major events since June,” Bar’el continued. “The death of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the reformists' spiritual leader; the heckling of a speech by former president Mohammad Khatami; the violence of the Ashura holiday; the show trials; the revelations about torture and executions.” “These factors have been coming together to create the perfect backdrop for the street protests that have refused to abate for nearly half a year.” Dr. Evgeny Satanovskiy, President of Middle Eastern Studies, says the ongoing demonstrations may spell the end for the Iranian regime. “These increasingly violent protests,” Satanovskiy told RT, “indicate that the regime is not legitimate for a large number of people. “It might happen later, or it may happen sooner, but this regime will ultimately fall,” he concluded, while warning of a potential “Iranian-style Tiananmen Square”.
Islamist militants from the North Caucasus have claimed responsibility for the killing last month of a Russian Orthodox priest. A statement on a website linked to Chechen rebels, kavkazcenter.com, said Daniil Sysoyev had been killed by a man who had sworn loyalty to Doku Umarov. Umarov is the self-proclaimed leader of the "Caucasus Emirate" that has sought to unite militant Islamist groups in Russia's North Caucasus and establish Islamic Shari'a law in the region. There was no way to verify the claim of responsibility. Sysoyev, who had been an outspoken critic of Islam, was shot dead in his church in Moscow by an unknown assailant.
Cyprus police said on Monday that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation is assisting in the hunt for the body of former president Tassos Papadopoulos stolen by graverobbers.Police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos said an FBI agent attached to the US embassy in Athens visited the Mediterranean island last week on a fact-finding tour and went to the violated grave site. "We are waiting for the FBI to determine what kind of assistance we should be requesting," Katsounotos told reporters. He said the FBI official will file a report to his headquarters in Washington based on the evidence collected in Cyprus before deciding on the next step. Greece and Israel have also offered their assistance in the investigation into one of the most shocking crimes in Cypriot history after the island's authorities launched an appeal through international police organisation Interpol. Police have yet to establish a motive for the macabre December 11 tomb raid which they say was "deliberate and carefully planned" as it would have taken three or four people to remove the heavy 250-kilogramme (550-pound) stone grave slab. The grave-robbers used quicklime to cover their tracks but police have still managed to recover some traces of DNA from the crime scene. President Demetris Christofias has voiced concern over the lack of progress in the investigation and ordered police to intensify their efforts. Papadopoulos died of lung cancer in December last year at the age of 74.
Greek Antenna, better known as ANT1 TV, will become the new owner of Belgrade Fox television starting January, a Belgrade tabloid is reporting. ANT1 TV owner Minos Kyriakou bought Fox for one dollar and took on all potential debts of the company, Blic writes. The daily also states that the long negotiations ended several days ago for the sale of Fox, and that the deal will be announced in January. According to unofficial information, the station ownership changed hands as Fox boss Rupert Murdoch decided to sell all of his Southeast Europe outlets. With this move, Murdoch wants to pull all so-called land frequencies in the region and invest solely in cable-satellite systems such as Sky, which has 18 million subscribers in the UK, five million in Italy, and about eight million in Germany and Austria. Murdoch and Kyriakou are good friends and were able to reach an agreement quickly on the sale of Serbia’s Fox, say newspaper reports today.
Greek military authorities on Friday, Christmas Day, reported that up to eight Turkish warplanes violated Athens FIR regulations after entering the region south of the eastern Aegean island of Limnos. At least two instances of violations of Greek airspace were also cited in the northern and central Aegean. According to reports, Hellenic Air Force fighter planes were scrambled to identify and escort all of the intruding warplanes out of the Athens FIR. The latest instance of Turkish military violations in the eastern Aegean on Christmas Day, a religious and national holiday for predominately Eastern Orthodox Greece, contravenes the so-called Papoulias-Yilmaz memorandum, which calls for the avoidance of military exercises during the peak summer tourism season and on major national and religious holidays in either nation.
A Turkish archaeologist has called on his government to demand that Italy return the bones of St Nicholas to their original resting place. The 3rd Century saint - on whom Santa Claus was modelled - was buried in the modern-day town of Demre in Turkey. But in the Middle Ages his bones were taken by Italian sailors and re-interred in the port of Bari. The Turkish government said it was considering making a request to Rome for the return of the saint's remains. While Christmas is by and large not celebrated in Muslim Turkey, the Christmas figure of Santa Claus certainly is in the Mediterranean town of his birth. He was born in what was then the Greek city of Myra in the third century, and went on to become the local bishop, with a reputation for performing miracles and secretly giving gold to the needy - on one occasion being forced to climb down a chimney to leave his donation. After his death he was canonised as Saint Nicholas, and venerated in much of the Christian world. But when Myra was occupied by Arab forces in the 11th Century, Italian sailors came and took the saint's bones to the port of Bari, where they remain interred to this day. Prof Nevzat Cevik, head of archaeological research in Demre, says Saint Nicholas had made it clear during his life that he wanted to be buried in his home town. Even without the bones, the town of Demre has not been shy about cashing in on its most famous native son - today visitors to the Byzantine church there are greeted by a large, plastic Santa statue, complete with beard and red snow-suit. To read more about St. Nicholas, please click here.
VII. WASHINGTON, DC: Miraculous Kursk-Root icon of the Sign of the Theotokos at St. Nicholas Cathedral
On December 29 with the permission of His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion, Father Victor Potapov, Rector of St. John the Baptist, will bring the miraculous icon of the Sign of the Theotokos known as Kursk-Root and before which St. Seraphim was healed, to St. Nicholas. There willl be a Divine Liturgy concelebrated at 10:00 a.m. All are invited to the Liturgy and to venerate the ancient icon of the Mother of God. To read more about the Wonderworking Kursk Icon of Our Lady of the Sign, please click here.