THE HOLY ROMAN ...
After almost two decades of schism, Catholic traditionalists hope the Vatican will soon take them back into the fold by granting two key concessions and leaving unresolved the main issue that drove them away. "Things could speed up and come faster than expected."
Hell on earth...
All Catholics have a duty to bring faith to the forefront of political debates, says the bishop-author of a new booklet entitled "Catholics in the Public Square." The publication, written by Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, challenges Catholics to take a more active part in influencing the nation and the political process.
... EMPIRE OF THE GERMAN NATION
The gloves are off!...
At the Christian Social Union (CSU) party convention this weekend, party leader Edmund Stoiber unambiguously rejected EU membership for Turkey and sharply criticized the other half of the Grand Coalition. "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. I disagree very clearly with President Bush when he says that Turkey must join Europe for security policy reasons. I say, bring Nicaragua into the US and then we can talk about it."
[WAR: Wow, them are almost fightin' words! And it'll make this more interesting: Vatican confirms B16 trip to Turkey. Especially since: Turks seething over French bill.]
Traditionalist plodders and charismatic firebrands shared the university from the beginning. The heart of Clark’s story, however, takes place not during the Middle Ages but from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment, and not in France but in the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire.
EUROPE/RUSSIA
The EU and Russia will tackle a number of hot topics such as energy and human rights over the next week in a series of meetings which could define the relationship between the two powers for the foreseeable future.
It is the season of discontent across central Europe, with governments teetering, populists on the rise and frustrations with the failings of immature democracies boiling over.
An increasing number of Chinese business executives are arriving in Bucharest to set up a bridgehead before Romania's entry into the European Union in January.
MIDEAST/AFRICA/ASIA
The Italian navy Sunday handed over to German command the UN naval force tasked with intercepting arms shipments along Lebanon's coastline following Israel's war with the Shiite movement Hezbollah.
Paranoid propaganda...
Syrian President Bashar Assad has fortified positions along his country's border with Israel and is preparing the Syrian army for war with the Jewish state, according to an Israeli Defense Forces assessment.
[WAR: Well duh! Of course Syria is preparing for war - to defend itself when Israel/US attacks them! They see the handwriting on the wall!]
An international foundation is seeking to gather Jewish descendants of King David, the second biblical king of Israel, for a reunion next year in Jerusalem aimed at fostering Jewish unity.
"Victory is at hand,” Saddam told Iraqis in his letter, “but don't forget that your near-term goal is confined to liberating your country from the forces of occupation".
Iraq is sitting on a mother lode of the lightest, sweetest, most profitable crude oil on earth, and the rules that will determine who will control it and on what terms are about to be set. And the real gem - what one oil consultant called the "Holy Grail" of the industry - lies in Iraq's vast Western desert. It's one of the last "virgin" fields on the planet, and it has the potential to catapult Iraq to number one in the world in oil reserves.
During the first two weeks of October, conflict in the stateless country of Somalia entered a new phase as opponents to the Islamic Courts Council's (I.C.C.) bid to establish an Islamic state in Somalia mobilized for armed resistance throughout the country, raising the probability of civil and regional war.
Japan needs to discuss whether it should possess nuclear weapons in response to North Korea's claimed nuclear test, the ruling party's policy chief said yesterday.
POUNDING PERSIA
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Sunday that the Iranian nation will not give up one iota of its nuclear right and will continue in the path it has chosen.
Paranoid Propaganda...
Prime minister says should Iran acquire atomic bombs it is likely that Islamic Republic would transfer nuclear weapons to Hizbullah; warns international community to take tough stance against N. Korea.
The Bush administration has radically redefined America's nuclear use policy: U.S. nuclear weapons are no longer regarded as qualitatively different from conventional weapons. Many actions of the administration in recent years strongly suggest that an imminent U.S. nuclear use is being planned for, and this was confirmed by Bush's explicit refusal to rule out a U.S. nuclear strike against Iran. We have all been put on notice. The fact that North Korea is now a nuclear country does not change the agenda – quite the contrary.
HOUSE OF ISRAEL
The November election is shaping up as a national referendum on the war in Iraq – and the GOP, AKA the War Party, is in deep trouble.
Another Pakistani journalist is reporting receiving another threat – this one from a senior Taliban leader – warning all Muslims to leave the U.S. in anticipation of a major terrorist attack before the end of Ramadan.
MISC
Iraqi citizen death toll rises massively... The dog is in the pound... more probes into republicans... D.C. area real estate... more evidence of torture by CIA... Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance law already on the chopping block...
It takes an amount of faith to believe that North Korea and Iran are more interested in inoculating themselves against American military force than in immolating the world. But it takes a very blind faith indeed to believe that there is any effective means of permanently preventing a nation-state from going nuclear once it decides to do so, without resorting to utter barbarism.
When North Korea announced its nuclear test last week, it was just the latest sign that the effort to contain the spread of atomic weapons was breaking down: Several countries are on the verge of beginning uranium enrichment programs, and others have already started such efforts, policymakers and experts say.
