THE DAILY WAR!
Non-pagan/papal date: 11-09
THE HOLY ROMAN
Breaking with tradition, B16 decided to present personally his encyclical "Deus Caritas Est" to readers of Famiglia Cristiana, the biggest weekly magazine in Italy.
Perhaps the most intriguing reaction to B16’s first encyclical is the generally positive response of liberal Catholics who were the most apprehensive about the election to the papacy of Ratzinger. Many praised the document’s lofty, positive tone.
One often hears the lament that the great history of Catholic social teaching is among the best-kept secrets of even the progressive Catholic community.
EMPIRE OF THE GERMAN NATION
This article is excerpted from her speech Saturday to the 42nd Munich Security Conference and is reprinted by permission of the German Foreign Ministry.
A commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guards lashed out at German Angela Merkel over her remarks on Tehran's nuclear programme, saying she "thinks she's Hitler." "In her childish dreams, Merkel imagines she's Hitler and thinks that now she occupies the chancellor's seat she can dictate orders to the world and to free countries."
(Also: IRGC deny Holocaust)
A public sector strike in one state is threatening to spread nationwide in a dispute over working hours. As the labor unrest simmers, Germany's media considers the potential implications, both economic and social. Plus, papers weigh in on the new head of the Council of Muslims in Germany.
Germany's trade surplus hit a record in 2005, underlining the nation's export strength, government figures show.
For the first time, one of Germany's largest Muslim organizations has a chairman of German origin who converted to Islam in 1963.
EUROPE/RUSSIA
It sometimes seems the only people who now openly question whether the world needs NATO are the politicians that are supposed to be leading it.
The closing of ranks between the European powers and the US evident at the Munich Security Conference does nothing to lessen the contradictions that were at the heart of differences over the Iraq war 3 years ago.
"This feels to me like a defining moment. It is a crunch time for Europe and Islam. It is an extremely dangerous moment," one that could lead to "a downward spiral of mutual perceptions, and not just between extremists."
"It's about more than the caricatures. There are forces that want a confrontation between our cultures."
"Denmark was always a provocateur, and they always supported international terrorism. As for the Danish organizations that work in Chechnya, we won't let them in any longer. We banned everything that comes from there, and they won't stay in our republic."
To ignore the concrete insult means ignoring the context: The caricature did not start the continuing desire to insult Muslims who live in Western Europe.
The international crisis caused by the cartoons continues to attract considerable comment in Europe's papers.
Germany supports Russia’s full membership in the “Group of Eight”, an informal club of some of the world’s most powerful countries, the German Finance Minister was quoted as saying.
Georgia officially launched the process to oust Russian peacemakers from its territory yesterday. The chairman of the parliamentary Committee for Defense and Security Georgy Targamadze told reporters that Russia was waging an unofficial war against Georgia.
MIDEAST/AFRICA/ASIA
Israel's acting prime minister said that he wants to establish the country's permanent borders, with Israel giving up large parts of the West Bank but keeping the largest Jewish settlement blocs.
Israel's Ambassador to the US said that Iran is the biggest problem facing the world since WW2.
EIR Strategic Alert (PDF document)
Orchestrating the Nuclear Showdown with Iran; Iran Issue Dominates “Wehrkunde” Conference; The London Gathering on Jan. 30
"The shattering calamities hitting the Bush-Cheney Administration, have brought the role of the Blair government more prominently into focus. Shades of Sykes-Picot, the British Foreign Office, flanked by France, have assumed a controlling role in the regional developments of the Southwest Asia region."
HOUSE OF ISRAEL
What happened to a formerly conservative press to reduce it to political partisanship and warmongering? Today, the WSJ's editorial page is a fount of neoconservative war propaganda. When the editorialists describe Iran's current leaders as "possessed of an apocalyptic vision," they could just as well be describing Bush's evangelical supporters and the neocon Jacobins.
Unlike most speechwriters, who tend to be segregated from policymaking, Gerson has always been an influential figure in the White House, in part because he shares Bush’s belief in the power of faith—both men are evangelical Christians.
Burn 'em all!...
Church burnings are common. The nation sees 15 to 20 church arsons a week. Nearly 1,000 churches burned between 1996 and 2000 nationwide.
ECONOMY
"An Iran confrontation or even a more limited military strike against Syria, would be merely a fuse. The bomb, that would be detonated by any such action, is the blowout of the entire global financial and monetary system."
This problem faces every contrarian investor who has decided that the dollar will not reverse from the course it has been on since 1913: a 95% reduction in purchasing power.
The underlying goal of the drive for so-called free-trade agreements has always been control of national sovereignty.
MISC
Scientists have found a "lost world" of unknown and rare species that are unafraid of humans high in the mist-shrouded jungles of western New Guinea.
The real men and women of the Old West were truly as legendary as classic Hollywood cinema and traditional Western fiction have led us to believe.
A look at how liberal cultural elites gave "blockbuster" stature to a perverse movie -- Brokeback Mountain [a.k.a. Buttcrack Mountain] -- and what they hoped to accomplish.
Some of the "Top 10 Signs You're a Gay Cowboy," courtesy of David Letterman: You enjoy ridin', ropin' and redecoratin'; Instead of a saloon, you prefer a salon; Native Americans refer to you as "Dances With Men."
#11-09
