THE DAILY WAR!
Non-pagan/papal date: 11-23
THE HOLY ROMAN
A press conference was held in the Holy See Press Office to mark the 75th anniversary of Vatican Radio. The title of the conference was "Vatican Radio at 75. New ways to serve the Church and future prospects."
Vatican diplomats have launched a world-wide campaign to reduce the tension over the Mohammed cartoons using the Holy See's extensive but little known diplomatic network. As an independent sovereign state the Vatican has diplomatic relations with 174 countries -- including most of the Arab nations and Iran -- with ambassadors in the capitals of most of them. B16 has said he wants to extend the network even further.
Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, who was the head of the Vatican Bank at the time of the “God’s Banker” scandal in 1982, has died in Sun City, Arizona. He was the president of the Institute for Religious Works, which linked the Vatican to Banco Ambrosiano of Italy, which collapsed in 1982 with debts of $3.5 billion.
(LX: Obituary)
EMPIRE OF THE GERMAN NATION
A court in Austria sentenced
Angela Merkel has called for her party to review its basic beliefs and renew its emphasis, appealing for more "solidarity." She took the opportunity to call for fundamental change, but stressed the need to keep Christian values at the core of the party's ideology. The head of the CDU's workers' wing told the Passauer Neuen Presse that the CDU "needs to unconditionally stand up for Christian social teachings and social justice."
[WAR: Remember it's going to be the HOLY Roman Empire of the GERMAN Nation!]
Stressing Germany's stance against lifting the EU arms embargo, talking tough on human rights and deepening business ties -- Steinmeier will have his hands full when he visits China today.
Germany's Deutsche Boerse has called for merger talks with the Paris-based Euronext exchange. A combination of the two would leapfrog the London Stock Exchange as Europe's biggest market for securities trading. Both Deutsche Boerse and Euronext have expressed interest in taking over the LSE.
E.ON, the German energy group, was on a collision course with Brussels last night after launching a surprise E55 billion bid for Endesa, the Spanish power company. The bid to create the world’s biggest power company came just a week after the European Commission threatened to crack down on the Continent’s dominant energy companies for shutting out competition and foreshadowed scrupulous examination of deals in the energy sector.
EUROPE/RUSSIA
In a blistering attack on protectionism in Europe, the man overseeing the European single market took aim at the governments of Poland, France and Luxembourg for unfairly seeking to stop cross-border deals.
Today's review considers the reported arrest of Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect General Ratko Mladic, Europe's readiness to deal with an outbreak of bird flu, and whether anti-Semitism played a role in the fatal abduction and torture of a Jewish man in France.
The Russian secret services moved the WMD from Iraq to Syria, US security official said.
MIDEAST/AFRICA/ASIA
Europeans are supposed to prefer soft to hard power, jaw-jaw to war-war and appeasement to confrontation. Iran's foreign minister's rude reception in Brussels reflects Europe's hardening attitude towards the Islamist regime in Tehran.
With hopes fading for a deal to move Iran's uranium enrichment program to Russian soil, the war of words over Tehran's controversial nuclear ambitions continues to escalate. Germany has renewed the threat of sanctions against Iran.
The talks with the Iranian delegation in Moscow demonstrated the Islamic country's final stance on the nuclear problem to the whole world. “Tehran does not intend to avoid the attack. It is ready for an armed conflict,” a specialist said when the results of the futile negotiations were exposed.
If the dramatically escalating crisis over Iran is not immediately overcome, it could reach the point, within a few weeks, of a military strike against Iran by either the US or Israel. The conflict would have the potential of leading to a strategic catastrophe and a collapse of the world financial system.
A large explosion has heavily damaged the golden dome of one of Iraq's most famous Shia religious shrines, sending protesters pouring into the streets. The explosion at the Golden Mosque in the northern city of Samarra was the third major attack against Shia targets in Iraq in as many days.
Dick Cheney is pushing for Bibi to again become Prime Minister of Israel, so that he can start a war against Syria, in case resistance to a planned war against Iran succeeds.
HOUSE OF ISRAEL
Repeatedly through our history, the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution have been threatened in war by an overreacting government and then reaffirmed in peace by calmer leadership. George W. Bush’s presidency is another era of overreaction at the expense of constitutional rights.
MISC
EIR Strategic Alert (PDF document)
What Must Be Done Now; Financial System Reminiscent Of Former East Germany; Unsustainable Imbalances In Euro-Zone.
#11-23
