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The headlines go from bad to worse for the UK and EU establishment as yet another new poll this weekend, by Opinium, shows "Brexit" leading by a remarkable 19 points (52% chose to leave the EU against 33% choosing to keep the status quo). This result comes after 2 polls Friday night showing a 10-point lead for "leave" which sparked anxiety across markets. This surge in "leave" probability comes despite an additional 1.5 million voters having registered this week (which many expected to increase "remain" support). Further anger towards EU was exposed when former cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith warned...

The Israeli Left has a serious flag problem. Well, a problem with the Israeli flag to be precise. The one with the six-pointed blue star. Not the ISIS flag. The Left intensely dislikes people who wave Israeli flags, although I think it would be okay with those radical anti-Trump protesters waving Mexican and Iranian flags. At the Israeli Left's own rallies, like one widely reported recently, one sees oodles of Stalinist red flags, lots of PLO flags, and sometimes one may see Hamas flags, but no Israeli flags. In a few famous cases, the Left's contempt for the flag goes...

Tbilisi, June 10, Interfax - The Georgian Orthodox Church will not participate in the Pan-Orthodox Council in Crete which is slated for June 16-27. "This decision was adopted during today's session of the Holy Synod of the Georgian Orthodox Church in which the Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of All Georgia participated," the report of the Georgian Patriarchate said. Ilia II said in February that the Holy Synod rejected the document 'The relation of the Orthodox Church towards the rest of the Christian world' which was prepared for discussion at the Pan-Orthodox Council. The Synod also opposed a number of other documents...

Documents on the upcoming Great and Holy Council 1. Communication of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia to the Clerics and Faithfulhttp://www.synod.com/synod/eng2016/Holy%20Synod%20Response%20to%20Preconciliar%20Documents%20en.pdf2. OBSERVATIONS ON THE TEXT PREPARED FOR THE PAN-ORTHODOX COUNCIL: “RELATIONS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH WITH THE REST OF THE CHRISTIAN WORLD” by Dr. Demetrios Tselengideshttp://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/90489.htm3. A SECOND INTERVENTION-CONFESSION OF FAITH: ON THE DOCUMENT "ORGANIZATION AND WORKING PROCEDURE OF THE HOLY AND GREAT COUNCIL" by Dr. Demetrios Tselengideshttp://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/90694.htm4. METROPOLITAN OF LIMASSOL: "WHAT UNITY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT? THOSE WHO DEPARTED FROM THE CHURCH ARE HERETICS AND SCHISMATICS"http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/90619.htm5. A WORD ABOUT THE "COMMON CUP" AND...

Nicosia, June 10, Interfax - The Orthodox Church of Cyprus opposed the idea to postpone the convocation of the Pan-Orthodox Council, which has been prepared for over half a century and has been slated to take place on Crete in late June, the message of the Archbishop Chrysostom of Cyprus said. "We invite all of the local Orthodox Churches to participate in the work of the Holy and Great Council with a spirit of love, humility, and common mind, so that our witness to the world may be fruitful and effective," the message said. The document said that earlier the...

A ten-year project to decipher inscriptions on the ancient Greek “Antikythera mechanism” has revealed new functions, including the first hint that the device was used to make astrological predictions. The writings also lend support to the idea that the gadget, often called the world's first computer because of its ability to model complex astronomical cycles, originated from the island of Rhodes. Until now, scholars have focused on decoding the sophisticated array of gearwheels inside the 2000-year-old artifact. The new publication tackles instead the lettering squeezed onto every available surface. “It’s like discovering a whole new manuscript,” says Mike Edmunds, emeritus...

The work stoppages have extended to refuse collections. Police removed blockades outside rubbish collection depots around Paris, but workers inside subsequently walked off the job. As rubbish piled up on the streets of several cities one Parisian restaurant owner said: “Customers can smell this rubbish, so they avoid the place. Can you imagine drinking coffee around this stink? They just walk away.” A woman driver said she saw a plague of “huge rats.”

"Unity is an objective, not a given," says the Rev. John Chryssavgis, an archdeacon and theological adviser to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. "It may be there spiritually and liturgically and sacramentally, but to make it visible is hard, painful, slow work, and it takes time." In a sense, the “Great and Holy Council of the Orthodox Church”, conceived as a gathering of all the heads of the 14 independent Orthodox churches around the world in Crete June 16-27, has been at least a millennium in the making. More proximately, planning has been underway since 1961, meaning more than a half-century....

Belgrade, June 9, Interfax - The Serbian Orthodox Church joined a number of local Churches which do not consider participation in the Pan-Orthodox Council slated for late June on Crete possible. "Our Church sees obstacles to participation in the Holy and Great Council and proposes to postpone it for the time being," the letter of the Serbian Orthodox Church Synod to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who is responsible for coordination of the preparations of the Council, said. Before holding this historical event it is necessary to resolve the differences between the local Churches, reach a consensus and revise...

An angry war of words has erupted between Greece and Turkey after Turkish authorities permitted a daily Koran reading to be broadcast from Turkey’s famous Hagia Sophia, a former Byzantine cathedral. Turkish national broadcaster TRT Diyanet will broadcast the sahur or Islamic predawn meal along with daily readings from the Koran during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan which began Monday. Greece’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the move in a statement calling it “bigotry” and “not compatible with modern, democratic and secular societies.”

Off the coast of the Greek island Zakynthos, an ancient “lost city” was discovered beneath the surface. There were paved floors, courtyards, column bases. But there was something strange about it: no one could find any of the artifacts that typically come with the ruins of a city—pottery, coins, things that indicates people lived there. So, in what sounds like it could possibly be a diss to the ancient Greeks, the archaeologists first tried to decide whether the structure was Hellenic stonework. Turns out, the ruins were indeed ancient, but not made by humans. Instead, this “lost city” was created...

LONDON— When Poland’s right-wing Prime Minister Beata Szydlo swept to an election victory late last year, one of the first things her government did was remove the blue European Union flag from the backdrop of her news conferences, and leave only the red and white Polish flag. It was a symbolic, patriotic gesture that signaled a more distant relationship with Brussels. At the same time in Austria, more than 260,000 citizens signed a petition that forced the Austrian parliament to open a discussion on a referendum to leave the European Union. Eurosceptics in both countries are now watching Britain’s march...

Hundreds of people, mainly families with children, were evacuated from Moira camp during the night as rival groups of Afghans and Pakistanis clashed with clubs and stones. As riots engulfed the camp, migrants set alight tents which sent plumes of smoke billowing from the compound of the village outside the island's capital. The majority of injured people were treated by medical staff or NGOs. Tensions have been building in the centre, which houses nearly 3,000 migrants, following the recent deal to send all new arrivals to Lesbos back to Turkey. Frustration have been growing for weeks as around 50,000 migrants...

France has delivered the first of a series of Mistral warships to Egypt, the Egyptian news website Al Ahram reported Thursday. The helicopter carriers were initially constructed for the Russian Navy, but France pulled out of the deal following Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. France paid to Russia 950 million euro ($1 billion) as compensation for breaching the deal. The official ceremony was attended Egyptian Minister of Defence Sedki Sobhi, the commander of the French naval forces and other top military officials from France and Egypt. The warship was named after the former president of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser. A...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stated that he sees Israel as the victim in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and he would “100%” come to its defense if it was attacked in an interview broadcast on Monday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel.

Assyrian community speaks Aramaic, provides a warm welcome to Israelis ADABASHI, Turkey, Feb. 27 (JTA) — I never intended to visit Adabashi. I was heading toward the border crossing between Turkey and Iraq, hoping to get to northern Iraq before the widely anticipated war began. But the Turkish border authorities would not hear of any journalists running around in that Kurdish-dominated part of Iraq. Not just Israeli journalists, any journalists. As a result, I and a group of fellow journalists found ourselves traveling along the long Turkish border between Iraq and Syria — until we spotted a church tower off...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel would upgrade its ties with the 28-member NATO military alliance by opening a permanent mission to its Brussels headquarters. "I declare that Israel will accept the invitation and open an office, in the near future," Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting. "The countries of the world want to cooperate with us because of our determined fight against terror, our technological know-how, our intelligence network and other things," his office quoted him as saying. The Israeli foreign ministry said in a statement late Tuesday that NATO had invited the...

A Palestinian-American activist asserted earlier this month that the United States and Israel share a common legacy of ethnic cleansing as the foundational basis of the two nations in a video posted to the online news outlet The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). In the clip Osama Abu Irshaid, the National Director of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), claims that the "Zionists" have co-opted the "racist" narrative of the founding of America to mirror that of the establishment of the State of Israel in order to convince Americans that the two peoples have a similar history. "We came to...

Palestinian tries to stab Israeli soldier, shot dead: army AFP Mike Smith June 2, 2016 Israeli security forces inspect the scene of a stabbing attack at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Tulkarem on June 2, 2016View photos Israeli security forces inspect the scene of a stabbing attack at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Tulkarem on June 2, 2016 (AFP Photo/Jaafar Ashtiyeh) More Jerusalem (AFP) - A female Palestinian tried to stab an Israeli soldier in the West Bank Thursday and was shot dead, the army said, the latest in a series of such incidents...

Visiting Berlin on Wednesday (2 June) NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Germany is “at the heart of Europe and of the NATO Alliance”. Speaking with the media in a joint press conference with Chancellor Merkel, Mr. Stoltenberg said that Germany makes “outstanding contributions” to NATO operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo. “You play a major role in our Baltic Air Policing mission, and you also have a lead role in our new high-readiness joint task force, and Germany was key in establishing our presence in the Aegean Sea coping with the migrant and refugee crisis”, he said. The Secretary...