THE HOLY ROMAN ...
... EMPIRE OF THE GERMAN NATION
Future emperor speaks...
"Europe is a community of values, and I say yes to close cooperation, to friendship with Turkey — but if we want to make the European Union an intellectual center ... then I say Turkey has no place here," said Bavarian governor Edmund Stoiber, the leader of the conservative Christian Social Union.
Chancellor Angela Merkel warned her Christian Democrats' arch conservative Bavarian sister party the two must pull together if the grand coalition government in Berlin is to succeed.
Next month Angela Merkel will mark her first anniversary as chancellor. Yet to judge from recent squabbles, her coalition is in danger of coming apart. The press is now as negative as it was in the dying days of the government under Gerhard Schröder. Despite the overhaul of the federal system, state premiers still have substantial veto power. Indeed, they have even more say than under Mr Schröder; most are CDU heavyweights who influence coalition decision-making before reforms reach the upper-house Bundesrat, where states are represented. The premiers are best seen as the country's most powerful lobbyists.
So she should also consider a second option: to plan for an early election. It is not straightforward to call one in Germany, but it might be possible to engineer an early poll in the second half of next year.
EUROPE/RUSSIA
What the fate of the Washington consensus reveals about the Brussels one. In short, the Brussels consensus blurs the line between things that are consensual and things that are not, and takes as consensual things that should properly be debated. It unduly depoliticises the political process.
The Balkan endgame is starting to look messy. Expectations that Kosovo would be independent by early next year have just suffered a blow.
The ex-communist countries have been an economic success—but risk becoming political failures.
(Op-ed: Europe's fraying fringe)
MIDEAST/AFRICA/ASIA
A huge flow of refugees, a stronger U.S. presence in the region and economic pressures that could impact the stability of its government -- those are the worst fears for China in the event its neighbour, North Korea, collapsed.
POUNDING PERSIA
Germany's foreign minister on Saturday said there is currently no prospect of successful nuclear talks with Iran but that pressure on the country would be applied gradually, leaving the door open to future negotiations.
Germany's Foreign Minister says there is still time for Iran to agree to talks on its nuclear program and avoid international sanctions.
The EU will officially announce an end to negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program and will recommend that the issue be taken up by the UN Security Council. However, officials maintain an offer stays on the table.
A European Union diplomat has strongly denied a report claiming that EU foreign ministers are to formally end negotiations with Tehran at talks in Luxembourg.
Iran said a year-old offer from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for foreign countries to handle its uranium enrichment activities still stands as a way to break the deadlock over its nuclear programme.
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said that the old policy of divide and rule among followers of faiths and ethnic groups is revived in our region today.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the victories of Palestinian people and Islamic resistance in Lebanon have disrupted the 60-year equations of the world bullying arrogant powers in the Middle East.
HOUSE OF ISRAEL
As Americans go to the polls in two months, they should have one thought fixed in their minds: they will be voting on whether to commit the nation to fighting World War III against large segments of the world’s one billion Muslims. Beyond the cost in blood and treasure, this war will mean the end of the United States as a democratic Republic.
If the administration won't abide by time-tested nuclear treaties, why should anyone else?
An Argentine official regarded the intention of the George W. Bush family to settle on the Acuifero Guarani (Paraguay) as surprising, besides being a bad signal for the governments of the region. He pointed out that this situation could cause a hypothetical conflict of all the armies in the region, and called attention to the Bush family habit of associating business and politics.
Alligators have been dragged from abandoned swimming pools. Foxes had to be removed from the airport. Coyotes are stalking rabbits and nutria (a sort of countrified rat) in city streets. And armadillos are undermining air conditioning units.
The head of the hard-line trade union "Action Police" Michel Thooris wrote to Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to describe conditions in housing developments turned slums as "intifada": "We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists."
ECONOMY
China's booming export trade is set to push its foreign exchange reserves, the world’s largest, over the $1 trillion mark before the end of the year.
Investors flock to the world's largest-ever listing, but ICBC reflects China's murkier side as well as its promise.
Compassionate conservatism has been an expensive bust in Washington. But an intriguing alternative is emerging around the country: compassionate capitalism. To hard-core free-marketeers, the corporation’s only mission is to generate profits for shareholders.
MISC
Spare the knife, spoil the wife...
A devout Muslim woman was attacked and stabbed to death, allegedly by her husband, after their 17-year-old daughter announced she was embracing Christianity. "It is the Islamic way that if a son or daughter does or plans to do something that is unacceptable or wrong for a Muslim then it is the mother who is automatically at fault and will bear the brunt of the blame."
