"The WAR on error"
Spreading her legs for new envoy...
Benedict XVI says that "more than ever" the pursuit of peace is a priority in global relations. The Pope explained this today when receiving in audience Kagefumi Ueno, the new ambassador of Japan to the Holy See.
Benedict XVI received in audience a Muslim philosopher from Algeria who is known for his commitment to battling religious hatred. Speaking about the audience, Cherif said that the pope assured him that Christians and Muslims are "allies and friends."
Pope Benedict XVI will gather the leaders of the Roman Curia for a meeting on November 16, to discuss critical questions including the bid for broader use of the traditional Latin Mass.
Representatives of more than 150 Catholic universities worldwide will gather in Rome this week for the International Conference on the University and Catholic Social Doctrine.
Here is the address delivered the Holy See's permanent observer to the United Nations, to the General Assembly's committee addressing the topic "Eradication of Poverty and other Development Issues: Implementation of the First United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006)."
A prominent Anglican supporter of "Centesimus Annus" insists that "we haven't realized the potential the Church has to tackle poverty." Lord Brian Griffiths, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, recently participated as a key lecturer in an Acton Institute conference in Rome on "Globalization and Poverty."
To the dismay of Germany's mainstream parties, the far-right NPD party has done well in the three years since a bid to have it outlawed failed. Now a second attempt is being considered, but it's doubtful whether the country will succeed in ridding itself of the fiercely anti-immigrant party.
Experts...
Leading German politicians have again called for a ban on Germany's NPD, but neither this nor financial problems are likely to hurt the country's far right, experts say.
German press...
German politicians have again called for a ban on the far-right National Democratic Party after the NPD's party congress in Berlin. But commentators feel a ban would be the wrong move at the wrong time.
In the depressed hinterlands of Eastern Germany, scores of gentry are quietly returning to hard-luck realms, buying back from governmental agencies and other quasi-public holders the lands, buildings and, yes, castles that would have been their inheritances, had history not intervened.
Chancellor Angela Merkel again ruled out deploying German troops in volatile southern Afghanistan despite growing pressure from NATO's chief.
Two Afghan policemen were wounded during an attack using a RPG on German troops in the north of Afghanistan. The attackers fired their Russian-made missile Sunday evening at a 3-vehicle German patrol in the northern region of Kunduz. The Germans were not injured. The frequency of attacks against the Germans by Taliban insurgents has increased in recent months.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has left for Libya at the start of a 5-country tour of North Africa. Steinmeier's first stop on Tuesday is the Libyan town of Benghazi, where he is to open a 3-day German-Libyan economic forum. The forum is particularly important for Germany as Libya had considerable oil and natural gas reserves.
Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the conservative Russian immigrant party Yisrael Beitenu, unleashed a barrage during his first week in government that might have been designed to discomfit his new coalition partners.
The first cracks in the united front over Iraq between Tony Blair and President Bush appeared last night as the Prime Minister offered Iran and Syria the prospect of dialogue over the future of Iraq and the Middle East.
President George W. Bush, sticking to his guns despite a stinging election defeat, rejected calls for new overtures to Iran and Syria and opposed a fixed timetable for a US withdrawal from Iraq.
The Olmert-Bush summit failed to provide any real news. The prime minister said that his stance against an international peace convention was backed by the American president. "There will be no international convention on the Palestinian issue which will replace direct negotiations," Olmert said, quoting Bush.
[WAR: "The town of Aczib will prove deceptive to the kings of Israel." (Micah 1:14)]
What happens next in the Middle East? Der Spiegel spoke to Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, to find out. A widely respected foreign policy expert, Haass warns that the Middle East could become dangerous for years to come.
Under the Romans, Baalbek was known as Heliopolis, or the City of the Sun. In more recent times, the ancient settlement in northern Lebanon's fertile Bekaa Valley has been associated more with storm clouds; last summer, Israeli airstrikes caused considerable material damage, disrupted agricultural produce and kept the tourists away.
Iran is trying to form an unholy alliance with al-Qa'eda by grooming a new generation of leaders to take over from Osama bin Laden. Western intelligence officials say the Iranians are determined to take advantage of bin Laden's declining health to promote senior officials who are known to be friendly to Teheran. The revelation will deal a major blow to Tony Blair's hopes of establishing a "new partnership" with Teheran.
Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency delivered Iran's protest letter to the IAEA Director General detailing Israeli threats of a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
President Bush, responding to concerns Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert brought to the White House, called for worldwide isolation of Iran until it "gives up its nuclear ambitions."
[WAR: "The town of Aczib will prove deceptive to the kings of Israel." (Micah 1:14)]
Tehran has long been threatening to shift its foreign exchange reserves out of U.S. dollars, but the battle against Tehran, its nuclear program, as well as plans to end trading oil in dollars seems to have already started.
The tide is slowly turning in America. Things that seemed completely immutable just days before the elections are no more so, as more and more people open their eyes to the grim reality. Even if Rumsfeld is gone, there is still the political reality of a Bush-Cheney duo remaining in charge of American foreign policy, until January 2009, assisted by a powerful pro-war lobby and by neocon politicians deeply embedded in Congress.
Cheney may not have felt the need to call attention to himself, but the resignation of his great partner and ally, Donald Rumsfeld, had added another layer of mystery to Cheney's role in the administration. Cheney was involved in choosing Gates to succeed Rumsfeld, and one can assume that the vice president was mindful of choosing an ally. The bottom line seems to be that Cheney doesn't need Rumsfeld to remain the administration's pre eminent policy maker.
Hopes that this shift will lead to real changes in policy are, as Cosmo Kramer might say, "kooky talk." Nor should the antiwar movement expect much help from the Democrats in preventing the insanity of attacking Iran. The slow drumbeat has begun, just as it did with Iraq, to manipulate public opinion and convince the US public that it is in our interest to engage in more senseless military adventurism.
Based on the 11th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1911.
Today in Scripture
"On the 21st day of the 7th month, the word of YHWH came through the prophet Haggai ... 'In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come...'" (Hag 2:1,6,7)
"On the 21st day of the 7th month, the word of YHWH came through the prophet Haggai ... 'In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come...'" (Hag 2:1,6,7)
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