"The WAR on error"
Pope Benedict XVI came to Turkey on Tuesday carrying a surprise gesture of goodwill that could blunt much of the Muslim anger against him: Publicly reversing his own personal objections, the pope gave his blessing to Turkey's deep and long- stalled desire to join the European Union. The Vatican does not play any formal role in EU process, but the pope's gesture was nonetheless a deft piece of political stagecraft at a delicate time in relations between Muslims and the West and for this pope's own damaged reputation among Muslims.
[WAR: Either B16 knows that ultimately the EU won't let Turkey join or he's possibly anticipating the coming collapse of the EU - so this is really just an empty "jesture of goodwill".]
A delegation of the Israeli government visited the Holy See to renew its invitation to Benedict XVI to visit Israel and to establish an agenda of negotiations. The Israeli representative added that during the meeting, an agenda entailing two meetings was established to overcome the present divergences in the implementation of the Fundamental Treaty between the Holy See and the state of Israel.
Vatican officials have given the latest Hollywood re-enactment of the Gospel accounts of Jesus' birth a thumbs up after hosting the film's world premiere Nov. 26. Thunderous applause broke out several times during the film's 90-minute showing.
Harlot daughters...
Because Protestants have spent their time debating about Mary, they have rarely attempted to claim her as their own. Consequently, she has become little more than a delicate piece in a Christmas crèche, whom we bring out without comment at Christmas and then wrap up gently until we see her again next Advent. But there are signs that those days are coming to an end. On the horizon today is nothing less than a Protestant reclamation of Mary.
As I was saying...
Now that the Finnish plan has officially failed to make any progress, Germany and Austria have made statements against Turkey’s European Union membership process. Chancellor Merkel said that Turkey had not fulfilled its responsibilities in regards to the Customs Union. This situation could not be “ignored,” she added. “If this situation persists until the end of the year, the negotiations may not go on.”
Press review...
Chancellor Merkel has emerged at least temporarily strengthened from the annual party conference of her Christian Democrats in Dresden. But she hasn't managed to close the left-right rift in her CDU party which remains unsure what direction to take to win back voters.
NATO was divided at its summit yesterday on deploying more troops to Afghanistan's volatile south, with Germany resisting any permanently expanded presence. Chancellor Merkel made clear that her country would not permanently expand its 2,900-strong force, though she said German forces could be deployed in the south in an emergency.
The flow of the legendary Rhine had been forcibly changed through dams and channels that destroyed an ancient landscape while creating a new agrarian countryside dotted with farms. Other parts of Germany were similarly redesigned over the course of two centuries, beginning with Frederick the Great in the late 1700s. This is the subject of Blackbourn's magisterial, freshly conceived narrative, which is subtitled "Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany."
Lately European leaders seem seized by acute Islamophobia. Most Western European nations are tightening their immigration laws while fretting over free speech in cartoons, plays and print. All the while, right-wing xenophobic parties are on the rise across the Continent. One year after riots set French housing projects ablaze, Europe appears to be shifting sharply to the right.
A rash of pop prophets tell us that Muslims in Europe are reproducing so fast and European societies are so weak and listless that, before you know it, the continent will become "Eurabia," with all those topless gals on the Riviera wearing veils. Well, maybe not. The historical patterns are clear: When Europeans feel sufficiently threatened - even when the threat's concocted nonsense - they don't just react, they over-react with stunning ferocity. One of their more-humane (and frequently employed) techniques has been ethnic cleansing.
When Finland assumed the presidency of the European Union six months ago, it listed progress in relations with Russia among the three priorities of its "reign" in united Europe. The Russia-EU summit in Helsinki last Friday showed that this is too much of a challenge for Finnish diplomacy.
The Kremlin mounted a concerted campaign yesterday to point the finger of suspicion at the billionaire businessman Boris Berezovsky over the death of his friend, Alexander Litvinenko. Senior figures in the Russian establishment lined up to implicate Mr Berezovsky, who employed and funded the former KGB spy.
UPI analysis...
Call it coincidence, but the Bush administration and Israel's prime minister appear to have launched into a simultaneous peace offensive aimed at settling the Middle East's two burning issues: the war in Iraq and the Palestinian question.
[WAR: "Coincidence"? Puh-leaze! Bush and Olmert just had a meeting at the White House - probably to coordinate these actions.]
As President Bush and his top diplomats try to halt the downward spiral in Iraq and Lebanon, they seem intent on their strategy of talking only to Arab friends despite increasing calls inside and outside the administration for them to reach out to Iran and Syria as well.
At the moment, the greatest single threat to the U.S. military forces trapped in President Bush's wildly irrational evasion of elementary truths of the region, comes not so much from the addled head of the President himself, as from the same perennial menace to civilization, de facto British agent Sir Henry A. Kissinger.
The thrust of today’s talks in Jordan between George Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is clear in advance. Bush, accompanied by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will insist that the Iraqi leader bow down to US demands for a bloody crackdown against the largest faction in his own government, the anti-occupation Sadrist movement headed by cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and its Mahdi Army militia. Just three weeks after the November 7 congressional election produced an unambiguous repudiation of the Republican Party and a vote for an end to the war, a new and even bloodier stage of the Iraq conflict is looming.
A well-placed and highly reliable source has provided the following account of Dick Cheney's visit to Saudi Arabia. The report coincides with other evidence of a scheme to induce the United States to self-destruct. While the source may have missed some elements of the picture emerging from the Cheney visit, the essential details appear to be accurate.
The climate is being set for an Israeli military raid on Iran's purported nuclear weapons sites, which would lead to a mobilization of support for a larger attack on Iran, involving the United States and other nations—with the quiet but enthusiastic backing of many frightened Sunni Arab regimes, which are being stampeded by the Cheneyacs in Washington into this suicidal stance.
Iran's 10-day war games this month were aimed at intimidating U.S. allies in the region and dissuading them from cooperating in a potential strike against the Tehran government, American military officials and analysts have concluded.
Getting the truth out...
Iran, which disputes that Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis, is to hold a conference next month to allow historians to clarify "hidden angles" of the Holocaust, the foreign ministry has revealed. The December 11 and 12 international gathering aims to "create opportunities ... for a suitable scientific research so the hidden and unhidden angles of this most important political issue of the 20th century become more transparent."
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written a letter to the American people that will be released at U.N. headquarters in New York on Wednesday, a state newspaper reported. The newspaper gave no details of the letter, an apparent attempt by the firebrand president to reach out to Americans over the head of their government.
Democrats won Nov. 7 for two reasons Republicans would rather not talk about: education and media. Conservative pundits and pollsters imagined that because the Democratic Party didn't have a consistent message, or because the class-warfare theme was wearing thin, the left couldn't win an election. Forty years of failure in education policy and media strategy have come back to bite us.
The dollar tumbled to a near 15-year low against sterling yesterday on fresh signs of economic trouble in the United States. An 8.3% crash in US industrial orders and an admission by the Federal Reserve chairman that Washington does not know how bad housing really is set off another day of wild gyrations on the currency markets.
European finance ministers struck a relaxed tone about the renewed strength of the euro Tuesday as it traded above $1.32 for the first time in a year and a half, signaling a tolerance, at least for now, of gains that do not appear to threaten the European economic recovery. "Should the upward trend of the euro to the dollar and the yen continue, it would be cause for serious concern at some point. But we have not reached that point yet."
EIR Strategic Alert (PDF)
Housing Meltdown Poses “Systemic Risk” / Rubin On Threat To US Dollar / “America Risks A 1929-Style Crisis”
Well, duh...
Women also speak more quickly, devote more brainpower to chit-chat - and actually get a buzz out of hearing their own voices, a new book suggests. The simple act of talking triggers a flood of brain chemicals which give women a rush similar to that felt by heroin addicts when they get a high. The areas responsible for communication, emotion and memory are all pared back the unborn baby boy. The result is that boys - and men - chat less than their female counterparts and struggle to express their emotions to the same extent. "Women have an eight-lane superhighway for processing emotion, while men have a small country road."
Mom was wrong...
Research suggests that we would be far better off slouching and slumping. Today’s advice is to let go and recline. Using a new form of magnetic resonance imaging, a team of radiologists have found that sitting up straight puts unneccesary strain on the spine and could cause chronic back pain because of trapped nerves or slipped discs.
(Op/ed: Backtrack)
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