Monday

THE DAILY WAR!
 
Non-pagan/papal date: 10-29
 
THE HOLY ROMAN
 
The Vatican is preparing for fresh controversy over the Inquisition after allowing an official to appear in a television documentary to offer a defence of the "Holy Terror".
 
The old pope was dead. And a potential new one, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a man who somehow combined scholarly humility and muscular certainty, gave a speech now famous among many Roman Catholics.
 
Here is a translation of the address B16 gave before reciting the midday Angelus from the window of his study with thousands of people gathered in St. Peter's Square.
 
 
EMPIRE OF THE GERMAN NATION
 
Who was Marie-Antoinette? She was a Habsburg, the daughter of the emperor and empress of Austria, married into the French royal family to protect the quarrelsome interests of what remained of the Holy Roman Empire.
 
Papers...
Following her visit to Israel, Angela Merkel travels to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The German press explores the implications of her decision not to meet the Islamists from Hamas despite their resounding election victory last week.
 
Germany will help Israel buy 2 submarines at a discounted price, a junior defence minister responsible for armaments was quoted as saying. ''The sole reason for this is Germany's special obligation to help secure the existence of the state of Israel.''  
 
 
EUROPE/RUSSIA
 
Papers continue to debate Europe's response to the Hamas surprise victory in last week's Palestinian elections. A German daily calls for tighter construction regulations following the Polish trade hall disaster and in France there is criticism of the country's attitude to foreign takeover bids.
 
Religious leaders and conservatives rejected the European Parliament's resolution against homophobia, but others hailed it as an important signal to EU countries where gays and lesbians still face discrimination.
 
 
 
MIDEAST/AFRICA/ASIA
 
"Israel must remove the two blue stripes from its national flag. The stripes on the flag are symbols of occupation. They signify Israel's borders stretching from the River Euphrates to the River Nile."
 
There is a new player in Israel's parliamentary election campaign - and its name is Hamas. While the Islamic militant group's election landslide last week will overhaul Palestinian politics, the shock of a new Hamas-led government may also alter the landscape of a parliamentary vote in Israel this March.
 
The overwhelming sense among politicians and intellectuals in the Middle East last week was that America's little chemistry experiment had blown up in its face.
 
Iran has rejected the threat of a referral to the UNSC, arguing that the only solution to the nuclear dispute is through negotiations. Meanwhile Angela Merkel called Iran "a threat" to democracy.
 
India plans to abstain from a vote on Iran's nuclear programme at a meeting of the UN's atomic watchdog this week.
 
The beleaguered Bush administration may try to escape mounting woes by launching an air campaign against Iran to whip up war fever among Americans before mid-term elections, boosting Republican fortunes. But this is dangerous business because, like the supposed jolly little colonial adventure in Iraq, a war with Iran could go terribly wrong.
 
King of the South...
If Osama bin Laden and the radical Islamist movement embodied by Hamas possess a pantheon of heroes, a Sudanese intellectual with a British education will be among them. Hassan al-Turabi built Africa's first Islamist state when he dominated Sudan throughout the 1990s.
(Op/ed: Murder will out)
 
 
HOUSE OF ISRAEL
 
There is a high likelihood of a major terrorist attack next Sunday, say international terror analysts and intelligence sources.
 
Alas, we cannot expect too much from a population in thrall to disinformation. The poll thus reveals the American public as grist for the neoconservatives’ war mill.
 
To the casual observer, it might seem utterly ludicrous to imagine that the administration is seriously contemplating yet another invasion of a Middle Eastern nation when it is still losing troops every week in an occupied, but unpacified Iraq. But the war drums are again being beaten by the talking heads and the signs are unmistakable.
 
 
ECONOMY
 
Oil prices climbed to above $68 a barrel, shrugging off a likely rollover in OPEC production to focus on key talks over Iran's nuclear program and more militant attacks in Nigeria.
 
Alan Greenspan will end his 18-year rule on Tuesday with a rate hike of a quarter percentage point and the message that borrowing costs may go up again in March if warranted by growth and inflation.
 
The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is a poor reflection of the world. But it is a useful mirror of the West's received wisdom about the world.
 
MISC
 
Not gonna happen...
The UN has a plan to make every Miss America Pageant contestant happy by bringing about "world peace." All it will take, says the draft of a visionary proposal by the UN Development Program, is to getting rid of all the pesky nations of the world.
 
 
 
#10-29
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