Israel Turkey Relations Worsen After UN Report

Turkey's foreign minister says his government plans to apply to the International Court of Justice this week for an investigation into Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. The move is expected to further deepen the diplomatic crisis between the two countries and comes despite calls from the U.N. secretary general to end the crisis. 

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s comments were made after Turkey suspended military agreements with Israel and moved to downgrade diplomatic relations on Friday.

The Turkish moves follow the release of a U.N. report into last year's killing of nine Turks during an Israeli operation to stop a flotilla ships trying to break its blockade. The report concluded that Israel used excessive force against the flotilla, though its blockade of Gaza was legal.

Tensions have steadily increased over Jerusalem's refusal to meet Ankara's demands for an apology and compensation to the families of the dead.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet that while his government regrets the deaths caused by the flotilla raid, the naval commandos defended their lives against violent activists.  Netanyahu also said he hoped to mend ties with Turkey.

But Turkish Political columnist Asli Aydintasbas says that is unlikely unless Jerusalem meets Ankara's demands.

"Knowing the prime minister's personality and knowing the importance of this issue for Turkey, I do not see how Turkey can accept anything short of an apology," said Aydintasbas.

The deepening diplomatic crisis follows calls for restraint by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

"Both sides are very important countries in the region," he said. "Their improving relationship, normal relationship will be very important in addressing all the situations Middle East."

Observers warn the deepening Israeli-Turkish crisis could threaten to further destabilize an increasingly volatile Middle East.

Political scientist Soli Ozel explains.

"There lies a powerful struggle between Turkey and Israel over who is going to be the top honcho [leader] in the eastern Mediterranean," said Ozel.

Tensions could rise even further with reports Erdogan is planning to visit Gaza in mid September. Turkey's Islamic-rooted ruling AK Party has strong ties with the Hamas leadership of Gaza.

Israel says it needs to maintain a naval blockade on Gaza to prevent arms smuggling to the ruling Hamas Islamic movement, classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the European Union and the United States. Palestinians say the blockade causes undue suffering on the entire population of Gaza and violates international law

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Kosovar Admits Killing 2 US Airmen During Trial for German Attack

A 21-year old man from Kosovo went on trial in Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday and confessed to killing two U.S. Air Force personnel and wounding two others earlier this year.

Arid Uka admitted his guilt and apologized on the opening day of his trial, saying he had been influenced by Islamist propaganda.  He added that he could not understand how he could have acted that way.  

German prosecutors charged Uka with two counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder for the March 2 attack at Frankfurt airport.
Uka was employed at the airport at the time of the attack.  He said he came to the airport with a gun and two knives with the intention of killing Americans soldiers to prevent them from going to Afghanistan.

U.S. federal prosecutors have also filed murder charges against Uka. They say he chanted "God is great" in Arabic and kept shooting until his gun jammed. U.S. officials believe he acted alone and was not a part of any terrorist group.

Uka was arrested at the scene faces a possible life sentence for murder and attempted murder. A verdict in the trial is not expected until early 2012.

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London carnival finale peaceful despite riot fears

Huge crowds of revellers partied in the streets of London Monday at the finale of the Notting Hill Carnival, with little sign of trouble despite fears of fresh riots at Europe's biggest street festival.

The second day of festivities passed largely peacefully with 6,500 police officers, the biggest number in recent years at the Caribbean-themed extravaganza, on duty as spectators watched Samba-style dancers perform on floats.

"It's wonderful, there hasn't been any trouble," Francesca, 42, from French Guiana, told AFP.

"We were a bit frightened because of the riots but it is very safe, we are having a great time."

Monday, a public holiday, is the second and busiest day of the two-day festival which attracts around a million people, and there were fears gangs could hijack the event and go on the rampage in a repeat of this month's riots.

The frenzy of violence, which erupted in the north London district of Tottenham on August 6 before spreading across the capital and to other cities, were the worst riots in England since the 1980s and left five people dead.

One man was in a serious condition after being found in Labroke Grove late Monday with stab wounds to his abdomen and hand, but police said they were happy with the event's overall mood.

"We are very pleased," police spokesman Steve Rodhouse told BBC television. "It's a great event for London. We want to showcase London to the world but equally we want to keep it safe."

Nevertheless, he added that police would remain vigilant as there were gangs at the carnival intent on causing trouble.

Despite the stabbing, arrest figures were relatively low, with 88 detained on Monday and 82 the previous day for offences ranging from possession of drugs to theft and possession of weapons, police said.

Cloudy weather did not deter hordes of party-goers from flooding the streets to cheer on dozens of floats and shimmering dancers in feathers parading through the west London neighbourhood.

Revellers milled between the stalls and thumping sound systems, drinking, dancing, and tasting jerk chicken as the smells of open-cooked Caribbean food wafted through the air.

"It's a really good vibe, everyone's enjoying themselves," said Oliver Prennan, a 22-year-old student.

If the carnival is entirely peaceful, it would be a huge relief for organisers. Coming just three weeks after the riots and with a reputation as a magnet for troublemakers, many had feared this year's event would be axed.

But organisers refused to admit defeat, especially because the carnival was originally a positive response to rioting.

It was founded in 1964 following the disturbances in Notting Hill six years earlier that saw clashes between whites and newly arrived immigrants from the West Indies.

London mayor Boris Johnson said he was determined to make sure the party went ahead.

"I thought it was very important," he said. "Obviously there was quite a few people who wrote to me saying 'for heaven's sake, scrap it'.

"But we said 'no, that would be wrong, because that would be an admission of defeat after what happened earlier in the month'."

Police chiefs and organisers came to an agreement to allow the festival to go ahead -- including closing early at 7:00 pm (1800 GMT) to allow revellers to disperse before darkness falls.

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England's rugby player Moody ready for Argentina return

Lewis Moody is adamant he will have "no qualms" about being pitched straight into England's World Cup opener against Argentina.

Injuries have meant England's squad captain has played just over an hour of Test rugby this year and the 33-year-old flanker headed out to New Zealand on Monday still trying to regain full fitness following a recent knee problem.

That meant he missed England's two final warm-up matches, including last weekend's 20-9 win away to Ireland.

England begin their World Cup campaign against Argentina in Dunedin on September 10 and Moody - one of several survivors from the epic 2003 World Cup triumph - said he had "absolutely no qualms" about making his comeback in a match involving the physical Pumas.

"It has never fazed me coming back because you are conditioned so well so when you come back, it becomes the norm," said Moody, who started the 2007 World Cup with a calf problem.

"You have done it a million and one times in the past."

Moody's morale, and that of the whole squad, was buoyed by victory in Dublin which undid some of the damage caused by losing the second of two warm-up matches against Wales a fortnight earlier.

"Someone asked me last week if I was excited about the World Cup and I genuinely haven't been excited about it yet because there was such frustration from that loss against Wales," Moody said.

"Our focus was so much on Ireland and winning and putting everything into that I woke up this morning and thought, 'happy days'.

"I am genuinely now excited about getting on the plane and going to the World Cup."
England are bidding to reach a third successive World Cup final but face a tricky first obstacle in Argentina, who upset the odds to finish third in France four years ago.
"Our prospects are very good but as you well know World Cups are the toughest environments," Moody said.
"It is the biggest stage in the world and teams will want to come and show what they can do."

He added: "It is very sad and boring I know but it is the truth and as a player you focus your attention purely on Argentina from now on.

"They are a tough team -- they will demand the utmost respect from us and we have to be right on our game for that first challenge."

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EU official: market turmoil threatens recovery

BRUSSELS (AP) — Turmoil in global financial markets threatens the economic recovery in the European Union, the bloc's top economic official said Monday.

The warning from EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn came after a turbulent summer for markets across the globe, as investors worried about a potential new recession in the United States, the eurozone's ability to resolve its debt crisis and the health of European banks.

"The financial markets and the real economy move now more in synchrony, which makes me seriously concerned about continued financial turbulence spilling over to and potentially harming the recovery of the real economy," Rehn told European lawmakers.

That statement is a sharp turnaround from comments in recent months, when Rehn consistently pointed out that growth in the EU was strengthening despite the market jitters.

As a result, the European Commission now has a somewhat bleaker view of economic growth in Europe than this spring, Rehn said, adding that a new forecast will be released Sept 15.

In May, the Commission, the EU's executive arm and economic watchdog, predicted the 27-country bloc would grow 1.8 percent this year, while the eurozone would expand 1.6 percent.

The European Parliament's economic affairs committee had called Rehn, as well as European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker, to an emergency hearing on the eurozone's recent problems.
Investor concerns over the currency union have been worsened by delays in implementing both a second bailout for Greece and changes to the eurozone's bailout fund, which were agreed at a summit on July 21.

Eurozone countries remain locked in discussions over a demand from Finland to receive collateral to secure its contributions to the new Greek rescue package.

Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg who also chairs the meetings of eurozone finance ministers, said the collateral issue won't scupper the bailout deal and that he expected a solution within days or weeks.

"The Eurogroup is working on a proposal, which I hope all eurozone member states will be happy with," Juncker told lawmakers.

Rehn, meanwhile, sought to dampen expectations that so-called Eurobonds — debt backed by the entire eurozone — could be a quick and easy solution to the currency union's crisis.

"It is clear that Eurobonds, in whatever form they were to be introduced, would have to be accompanied by a substantially reinforced fiscal surveillance and policy coordination," Rehn said.

Such moves "would have unavoidable implications for fiscal sovereignty" and would require "substantive debate in euro area member states to see if they would be ready to accept it," Rehn added, indicating investors should not expect them to be introduced anytime soon.

The Commission is currently working up a feasibility study for Eurobonds at the request of the European Parliament. However, the common bonds have been opposed by several countries, including Germany, the eurozone's biggest economy.

The testimony of the top three representatives of the euro currency project brought no new proposals on how the bloc could finally resolve its debt crisis, which has dragged on for some 22 months.

Juncker, Rehn and Trichet urged governments to speed up the implementation of the second Greek bailout and approve the plan to give new powers to the eurozone's bailout fund, such as the right to buy distressed government bonds to stop countries from sliding further into crisis.

"The fact that markets are dysfunctional is, in our opinion, the responsibility of governments," Trichet said.

The ECB in August reluctantly started buying Italian and Spanish bonds, as the two countries saw their borrowing costs jump amid the wider market turmoil, but Trichet made it clear that he expected the bailout fund to take over that role as soon as possible.

"We expect that the governments themselves will, as they have decided the 21 of July, take the appropriate steps to settling the financial stability in the euro area," said the ECB chief.

While Trichet was speaking in Brussels, the ECB said it bought euro6.65 billion ($9.64 billion) in government bonds last week, down sharply from euro14.3 billion and euro22 billion in the two previous weeks.

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David McHugh in Frankfurt contributed to this story.

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1:12 PM | 0 comments

Russians Mark 20th Anniversary of Men Killed Opposing Coup

Muscovites gathered Saturday night to recognize three virtually unknown men whose deaths 20 years ago changed the direction of world history.

In life, they stood unarmed, facing Soviet tanks that were clanking through a Moscow underpass to attack the democratically elected government of Boris Yeltsin. In death, they catalyzed a massive popular protest that broke the back of a military coup by communist hardliners.

On Saturday, standing above the underpass and a red smear of modern cars stretching into the Moscow night, Russian Orthodox Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin makes the sign of the cross:

He hails the three Moscow men for their role in helping to end nightmarish decades of communist control.

Rabbi Zinovii Levovich Kogan, recites the Kaddish , the traditional Jewish prayer of mourning for the three men.

The failed coup attempt backfired on the plotters. Within four months, the Soviet Union was formally and peacefully dissolved.

Rabbi Kogan says that the men’s sacrifice spared the Soviet Union from a blood civil war that could have cost millions of lives.

He says the men may be little known now. But eventually, people in the 15 nations that emerged from the Soviet Union will appreciate their actions.

Agreement came from Lyubova Komar, mother of one of the men, Dmitry Komar. He was a 22-year-old mechanic when he was caught under the treads of a tank and crushed to death.

Carrying a bouquet of red roses, she says in an interview with VOA that Russia will probably only appreciate her son’s sacrifice on the 50th anniversary of his death. Now,  she doubts that history books write more than three words about the event.

The small gathering of 75 people Saturday seems a world away from the events of 20 years ago, when as many as half a million Muscovites turned out to block the coup.

Twenty years ago, a few weeks after the failed coup, I drove past the site. It was a typical communist tableau, an intersection bounded by shabby state stores and dingy government institutes.

Today, the small stone memorial is framed by a French health food restaurant and a South Korean luxury hotel, where the rooftop bar sells champagne at $80 a glass.

As drivers of luxury cars honked their horns at the inconvenience of a street closing, Gennady Nikolaevich Veretilnii, says Russia has taken the wrong path.

He says Russia is now run by “a dictatorship of the oligarchs.” Fingering his right shoulder where a Soviet tank commander shot him during the coup attempt, he says he now wonders if democracy will ever come to Russia.

Standing nearby is Sergei Filatov, a former defense aide to the late President Boris Yeltsin. During the coup attempt,  he sent to teams to local garrisons to persuade commanders not to attack.

Now the president of a socio economic research institute here, he agrees, that Russia is going through an authoritarian phase.

But he also says that Russia’s leadership will discover that democracy is the only way forward for the nation.

With most of the crowd over 50 years of age, many people gathered for the 20th anniversary felt comfortable taking the long view when talking about Russian history

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10:43 AM | 0 comments

Norwegian King Leads Memorial Service for Massacre Victims

Norway's King Harald sought to comfort his grieving nation Sunday, as mourners marked the end of a month largely dedicated to honoring the 77 people killed July 22 by a right-wing extremist in a bombing and shooting massacre.

Harald delivered an emotional address to nearly 7,000 people in Oslo. He said his thoughts have focused especially with those directly affected by the massacre. The killings included a bombing in Oslo that claimed eight lives and a shooting rampage that killed 69 others at a youth camp on a lake island northwest of the capital.

Speaking to relatives of the slain, Harald said "as a father, grandfather and a husband, I can only imagine your pain. As the country's king, I feel with every one of you."

The nationally televised ceremony, including a memorial concert, was attended by Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, as well as Norwegian lawmakers and a host of leading politicians and royals from neighboring countries.

Anders Behring Breivik has admitted to killing his 77 victims, in carefully planned attacks designed to protest an influx of Muslims into Norway and to punish lawmakers for embracing multiculturalism.

Lawyers for the 32-year-old confessed killer say their client has denied criminal responsibility because he believes the killings were necessary to save Norway.

On Saturday, about 1,000 survivors and relatives traveled to Utoeya island to view the scenes of the shootings.  Five hundred relatives of the dead visited the island Friday.

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