"The WAR on error"
Pope Benedict XVI does not have a foreign affairs advisory board, and he has not asked Henry Kissinger to become one of his advisers, a Vatican spokesman said. Articles in Italian and U.S. newspapers reporting that the pope had asked Kissinger to become an adviser or consultant "are without any foundation."
Famous for his rigidity as a Cardinal, Benedict's trip to Turkey showed evidence that he's capable of responding to the moment suddenly. A two-way Roman truism says that every new Pope changes the papacy, and the papacy changes every new Pope. In the case of Benedict XVI, a casual observer might wonder if the man who once was an iron-clad Cardinal has recently gone soft.
Orthodox Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece will visit Benedict XVI and the Church of Rome from Dec. 13-16, the Vatican announced. The archbishop's visit is taking place after the Pope and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople signed a common declaration on Nov. 30 in Istanbul, giving strong impetus to the search for unity between Catholics and Orthodox.
The faithful need to beware of those who want to refashion society in a way that would exclude Christianity. This was the warning contained in Archbishop Vincent Nichols' homily on Nov. 26, the feast of Christ the King.
Germany's chancellor is pushing for the use of a European Union instrument that could freeze membership talks with Turkey for 18 months and possibly longer. Her Turkey policy also underscores a divide in Germany's coalition government on the issue between her conservative Christian Democratic Union and the more liberal Social Democratic Party.
Chancellor Angela Merkel will seek France's support for setting Turkey an 18-month deadline to open its ports to Cyprus and salvage Ankara's EU membership ambitions, a government spokesman said.
Can the continental polarity be overcome? The conviction that the East- West divide is unbridgeable is a mark of European defensiveness, the flip side of which is European aggressiveness. "The Ballad of East and West," from which the "twain" line comes, was written, after all, by Rudyard Kipling, the troubadour of European imperialism.
A chain of events has occurred this year across much of the region, with target dates for euro adoption being pushed back with numbing regularity. For years, the prospect of euro membership helped stabilize East European economies. But delays are shaking the faith of financial markets. Against this backdrop, the European Central Bank and the European Commission will issue their biennial reports on expansion of the euro zone tomorrow, and their verdicts are shaping up as grim ones.
Reports that KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko converted to Islam before his mysterious poisoning with radioactive polonium 210 is raising suspicions that he may have been involved in a plot to smuggle the deadly substance to terrorist groups willing to pay millions even for a gram. The biggest fear, a paper reports, is that Litvinenko, who died of polonium-210 poisoning in a London hospital, may have been helping al-Qaida or other extremist groups get hold of radioactive material to be used in a devastating "dirty" atom bomb.
The ex-president knows criticizing Israel and the U.S. will bring fallout. "I wrote the book because I wanted to stimulate a debate in this country about what is actually going on in the Middle East," Carter said during an interview. "This is a subject which, in my mind, has rarely if ever been honestly debated or discussed in the United States."
During last summer's Israeli-Hezbollah war, Condi Rice assured us that we were witnessing the "birth pangs of a new Middle East." Condi may be right. But that new Middle East appears to be one in which U.S. influence is visibly waning and America is on the way out.
Looking for an excuse?...
The Israeli Defense Forces has been instructed by the government here not to open fire or take any action against militants who are discovered launching rockets into the Jewish state, senior military officials told WND.
The 192-member U.N. General Assembly has approved by the usual lopsided majorities on 6 non-binding Middle East resolutions.
German press on...
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is currently traveling in the Middle East in a shuttle diplomacy effort to help keep the region from spiralling out of control. Be it crisis-ridden Lebanon, civil war ravaged Iraq or a tenuous cease-fire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Steinmeier is making clear that peace will not be possible without Syria's help.
The Middle East is facing the unprecedented danger of three potential civil wars erupting - Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories - with each dragging some of its neighbors into a far larger conflict.
French President Jacques Chirac’s warnings in 2003 that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would set the Mideast on fire, encourage terrorism, and produce a disaster have been tragically born out by events. Iraq is falling ever deeper into chaos and sectarian conflict. Lebanon teeters on the brink of civil war. The agonies of Palestine continue without relent. Iran’s power and influence are surging. Iraq’s neighbours deeply fear its chaos will spread across their borders, with dangerous, unpredictable consequences for all concerned, particularly Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Bereket Simon is advisor to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. For the first time, he said Ethiopia has declared war on Somalia. “Technically, we are war with Somalia. Everybody knows it is them who declared jihad on Ethiopia. So technically speaking, we are at war with them based on their declaration of war. Now, we have asserted our rights to defend ourselves."
Iran's president warned Washington's European allies today that Iran would reconsider its relations with them if they insist on punishing Tehran for its nuclear program, saying that would amount to an act of "hostility." "I'm telling you in plain language that as of now on, if you try, whether in your propaganda or at international organizations, to take steps against the rights of the Iranian nation, the Iranian nation will consider it an act of hostility. And if you insist on pursuing this path, Iran will reconsider its relations with you."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's months-long diplomatic effort to get five other powers to agree to a tough United Nations Security Council resolution on sanctions against Iran now seems certain to fail, because of Russian and Chinese resistance. The beneficiaries of that failure in Washington will be Vice President Dick Cheney and other hardliners, who have been anticipating that such a development would help them persuade President George W. Bush to begin the political-diplomatic planning for an air attack on Iran.
Predicting Iran will obtain nuclear weapons by the end of the decade, the defense establishment's new and updated assessment for 2007 does not foresee the United States undertaking a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear installations, The Jerusalem Post has learned. The chances of an American strike are deemed "low," according to assessments by the security establishment.
Washington insists on the discussion of the Western draft resolution on Iran at the UN Security Council. US politicians are perfectly aware of the fact that Russia would be against that. The USA is ready to undermine its relations with Russia and pay first priority to punitive measures against Iran.
The Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister said Iran, as an unbiased state, would accept the truthfulness of the Holocaust if substantiating evidence is presented in this regard. He further reminded that during the last year since President Ahmadinejad raised the controversial questions about the Holocaust, the world has just experienced hues and cries instead of receiving answers to those questions.
In a new blow to the dwindling number of hawks in top administration positions, President Bush accepted the resignation of his ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. He played a key role in furthering the goals of the coalition of aggressive nationalists, Christian Rightists, and neoconservatives led within the administration by Vice President Dick Cheney.
(LX: Bolton is forced to quit)
It turns out we’ve been reading the wrong Bob Woodward book to understand what’s going on with President Bush. As Mr. Bush has ricocheted from Vietnam to Latvia to Jordan in recent weeks, we’ve witnessed the troubling behavior of a president who isn’t merely in a state of denial but is completely untethered from reality. It’s not that he can’t handle the truth about Iraq. He doesn’t know what the truth is.
The conservative movement in the United States has been stamped out, not by liberals but by neoconservatives. Conservative philanthropic foundations, conservative print media, and conservative think tanks have been taken over by neoconservatives, who have exiled real conservatives to voicelessness and joblessness.
Large communities of migrants were living in virtual cultural isolation in Britain. Often making no attempt to learn English, or to accept the national identity that they had adopted, these immigrant groups had been left to their own devices. The policy of multi-culturalism, which saw itself as tolerant and benign, had in effect encouraged them to remain tied to their old national or ethnic loyalties, rather than to participate in mainstream British life.
This decline in the value of the dollar is simple to explain. The dollar loses value as the direct result of the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury increasing the money supply. The result is more dollars, both real and electronic – which means the value of every existing dollar goes down.
Should Washington unilaterally proceed with this insane plan, and eventually an intercontinental ballistic missile launch is made - whether intended against Iran or anybody else - a Russian retaliatory nuclear strike against the United States could follow, triggering the unthinkable. America is facing a clear and present danger, compared to which the worst nightmares of the "war on terror" will pale. It's time to start paying attention.
Earth-orbiting satellites detected a major X9-class solar flare this morning at 1035 UT (5:35 a.m. EST). The source: big, new sunspot 929, which is emerging over the Sun's eastern limb. Because of the sunspot's location near the limb, the flare was not Earth-directed. Future eruptions could be, however, because the Sun's spin is turning the spot toward Earth.
Paranoid Protestant Prophecy Propagandists...
From the end of the world to New Testament beginnings. The authors of the controversial but best-selling apocalyptic "Left Behind" series have gone back in time. In a new series, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins take on the four evangelists, starting with the John.
Archaeologists claimed yesterday to have uncovered one of the world's first churches, built on a site believed to have once housed the Ark of the Covenant. The site, emerging from the soil in a few acres in the hills of the Israeli occupied West Bank, is richly decorated with brightly coloured mosaics and inscriptions referring to Jesus Christ.
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World have been around forever it seems. Isn't it time for some "new" monuments to take their place? The people from New 7 Wonders think so. They're traveling the globe looking for the best of the best.
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