Bulgaria looks to Greece to ease Russia gas supply worry

"We are working to reverse natural gas via an existing gas pipeline with Greece as we could receive additional quantities between 1 to 3 million cubic ...

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Pavlos Fyssas memorial stone unveiled in Keratsini, Greece

Please note: the text contained in "Pavlos Fyssas memorial stone unveiled in Keratsini, Greece" has not been corrected, edited or verified by Demotix ...

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Mideast Christians urge Arab Muslims To lead fight against Islamic State

GENEVA, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Middle East Christian leaders called on Muslim governments and religious authorities on Tuesday to condemn Islamic State for its assault on minority religious communities and to take the lead in efforts to destroy its power in Iraq and Syria. They told a news conference that the reaction so far from Arab countries had been "timid" to the militant group's killings and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Christians in massacres against all religious and ethnic minorities. "The situation of Christians and other minorities amid the massacres and atrocities of (Islamic State) is dire and our future in the region is at stake," said Patriarch Ignace III of the Syrian Catholic Church of Antioch. "The leaders of Arab countries and the Arab League have to stand up and do something." Patriarch Sako I of the Chaldean Catholic Church said in Iraq over 10,000 Christians -- who have had large communities in the Middle East for some 2,000 years -- in Iraq had been killed by the militants and some 170,000 expelled from the north. In areas under Islamic State control in Syria, around half a million Christians had been forced to flee areas where they had long lived at peace with their Muslim neighbors. "We are calling on the religious leaders of the Muslim countries to issue a fatwa (religious edict) against the killing of any human being, not just other Muslims," said Patriarch Sako. "So far, their voice has been very timid." GLOBAL THREAT A parallel statement from the two patriarchs and 6 other church leaders including Greek Orthodox and Coptic prelates said the ideology of Islamic State was against human rights, and was a threat to society in the Middle East and across the world. "If not strongly condemned and effectively destroyed, then this ideology will damage the entire system of human rights," the group said. The top priority was to defeat Islamic State and "do away with its murderous policies". The two leaders told the news conference, called by the Vatican mission to the United Nations in Geneva, that they were nervous about the U.S. bombing campaign against Islamic State, saying it could boost Arab popular support for the militants. "It needs boots on the ground, just bombing is no solution," said Patriarch Sako. "But these should perhaps be Arab boots. The Arab League should be involved. This is primarily the responsibility of the Arab states." In intense efforts over the past few days, U.S. diplomats have found little concrete support from regional countries seen as wary of stepping into a sectarian war between the Sunni militants of Islamic State and its Shia opponents. But Patriarch Ignace said there was a reluctance among Arab political and religious leaders in countries where Islam and the state were closely entwined to recognize the human rights of Christians and other minorities. "(Islamic State) was born in this context, an amalgam of religion and the state," he said. "Our Arab friends tell us they want us to stay but we have to ask them: what are you doing to stop the fanaticism of your fellow Muslims?" (Reported by Robert Evans; editing by Ralph Boulton)

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Art And Violence

The reason I decided to call my collection of essays Theater of Cruelty is that many of them deal, in one way or another, with violence. I don't like horror movies or great fountains of cinematic blood. But I am interested in the way artists and writers deal with our violent impulses, not so much out of prurience, though that can never be dismissed, as out of fear. There is a commonly held Romantic notion that great suffering is the source of great art. If this were true, the world would probably be blessed with far more great art. Suffering can certainly inspire artistic expression. Turbulent times often do so. People who live through them at least have something to say. But bad times are no guarantee for good art. A certain degree of freedom is essential, too, and, of course, talent. But fear, I believe, is the greatest spur that drives humans to describe, depict, or act out forms of violence and cruelty which most of us would do anything to avoid in real life. Death is frightening, violent death even more so, and so is the infinite human capacity for cruelty. Indeed, deliberate cruelty may be one thing that separates human beings from other animals. For animals rarely, if ever, kill out of sheer malice. Nor do they engage in torture. Fear must be one reason why violent death is such a common feature in religious art. The central image of Christianity, even though it is propagated as a message of peace, of turning the other cheek, is one of a very violent death. Christian art is soaked in blood. For every Madonna and child there is a depiction of a saintly man or woman being ripped to shreds or burned at the stake. Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim altarpiece, painted in the early 16th century, is one of the great masterpieces of Christian art. It is also one of the most gruesome, for not only is Christ a bloody martyr, but he is covered in plague-like sores. The painting was made for a monastery that cared for the sick. This terrifying image -- and few things were as terrifying then as the "Black Death" -- was comforting too, for it showed that Christ shared in the patients' suffering. Buddhism is a philosophy of peace and compassion. But some Buddhist imagery is full of violence, death and decay. Such frightening and disgusting pictures were meant to loosen the bonds of believers from material life. But their other purpose was to help overcome the fear of death. Images of Hell were a warning too, as in other religions. And grotesque demons were sculpted or painted to protect people against even more fearful dangers. The origin of Spanish bullfighting is doubtless religious as well. For it is a ritual of death, a kind of theater that sublimates our fear of violence and extinction. The bull is sacrificed to appease our fears of death, as humans once were in certain cultures. Most theatrical traditions no longer demand the actual sacrifice of humans or beasts. But violent death is a staple of theatre, from Greek tragedies to Shakespeare to Quentin Tarantino. Hollywood or Hong Kong schlock movies are just debased forms of something very ancient. We act out what we dread, or we watch others acting out our deepest anxieties, so we can go home feeling better about being alive. This is why it is a naive idea that violence in the arts should be banned, as though such bans would stop humans from behaving violently. The same applies to depictions of sex. I doubt whether sexual unorthodoxy, or aggression against women, would vanish in the unlikely event that pornography would cease to exist. It is true, of course, that murderers or rapists sometimes express a fondness for violent or pornographic fantasies. A killer might have watched a bloody movie just before his fatal act. Pornography might stimulate or even suggest a sexual crime. Gangsters often like watching gangster movies, and professional soldiers trained to kill might be fond of watching videos full of blood and gore. But is highly unlikely that gangsters would cease to kill and rob without the stimulus of crime pictures. And violence in war does not depend on the latest Vin Diesel movie. Should a distinction be made between schlock and art? Is Vin Diesel more damaging to our morals than Shakespeare's Macbeth? This claim is made in the case of sex. The ban on Lady Chatterley's Lover was lifted by the Supreme Court in 1959 because of its "redeeming social and literary value." This seems a doubtful distinction. To be sure, D.H. Lawrence's novel is a work of literature, whereas most straight pornography cannot be classified as such. But I fail to see the case for a moral difference. People still need to see their fears, their lusts, and their darker impulses sublimated in fantasy. Some will demand more sophisticated expressions than others. But I still think Oscar Wilde had it right: "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all."

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Greece asks IMF chief for more information on death threat claims

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief, Christine Lagarde, could soon be called to participate in a second judicial investigation after claiming that she received death threats when she spoke out on tax evasion in Greece. The inquiry, announced by a ...

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Missing Greek youth jumps from Bosphorus Bridge, ending social media campaign

Surveillance camera footage has emerged showing Teodoros Mastikopolo, a Turkish citizen of Greek origin who went missing more than three weeks ...

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Greek second division postponed indefinitely

Clubs have been hit hard by the decision of the Greek Organisation of Football Prognostics (OPAP), which has a monopoly on lottery and sports ...

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