"The WAR on error"
Benedict XVI says that he hopes the world Synod of Bishops on Scripture will help the Church to rediscover the importance of the word of God in daily life.
Pope Benedict XVI's meeting yesterday with the prime minister of Vietnam marked an important step toward establishing diplomatic relations, the Vatican said. It was the highest-level meeting between the Holy See and the Communist government, and followed decades of tension.
As media reports accusing Foreign Minster Steinmeier's of rejecting a 2002 US offer for the release of a Guantanamo Bay inmate increase, the minister said he would not hand in his resignation.
Merkel’s support for Bush is not new. But behind Merkel’s masquerade of a friendly, open and even occasionally naive manner lurks a power politician who knows no scruples. First of all, she demands that German companies have access to markets in Iraq, or to put it more precisely, that German business has its share in the plundering of Iraq. And, secondly, she is attempting to dissuade the US government from undertaking a military strike against Iran—fearful of the repercussions for German energy supplies and the considerable economic interests Germany shares with Teheran.
In her keynote speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Chancellor Merkel called for closer trans-Atlantic cooperation, saying it would benefit both American and European economies.
Germany has laid out a detailed timetable for negotiations on the EU constitution with Chancellor Merkel to be personally involved in the run-up to a crucial summit in June.
Germany's foreign minister has called on French politicians to avoid upsetting the EU constitution process by using it as an issue in the country's presidential elections in April.
Representatives of the 18 EU nations that have ratified the European constitution are to meet today to find a way out of the stalemate over the charter. The meeting places Germany in an awkward position. Chancellor Merkel has pledged to resolve the constitutional crisis with quiet diplomacy and sees the Madrid meeting as an unhelpful public venting of frustration. Wary of dividing the EU even more, Berlin will only send its ambassador to Spain as an observer.
For a Frenchman and a convinced European, celebrating the latest enlargement of the EU in Warsaw was a puzzling experience, combining a sense of triumph over history and uneasiness about the future. There may be more members in the EU, but there is less Europe. We have not yet surmounted the shock of the French and Dutch "no" to the EU constitution. We remain in a kind of institutional limbo: Who are we? What are we to become?
NATO chiefs, meeting today, will gird the alliance for a rough ride ahead, with the threat of a new Taliban offensive in Afghanistan and ethnic tensions in Kosovo sparked by a UN ruling on its independence claim. "We are heading into a spring period that could be very hot indeed," said one NATO diplomat.
A number of simultaneous recent events and trends in the Balkans evidence a startling yet indisputable conclusion: that across the board, the Western influence that had for so long seemed so hegemonic is on the wane, or has at least encountered very serious stumbling blocks. Quietly, almost unexpectedly (at least for those who had hubristically expected domination ad infinitum), non-Western powers have expanded their "spheres of influence" in the region.
Russian Military Intelligence Analysts are reporting today that President Putin has ordered the immediate lockdown of all Russian Embassies in both the US and Europe over fears of an ‘imminent’ terrorist strike. According to these reports, the fears of the FSB were heightened after the disappearance of David Dahan who is the head of the Israeli Defense Ministry Mission to Europe, and who many in the World’s Intelligence communities consider to be Israel ’s top spy running ‘rogue’ agents in both the US and Europe . These reports further detail the alarming tracing of the route, and agents, involved in the joint CIA-Georgian undercover operation which led to the recovery of nuclear-bomb-grade uranium being smuggled out of Russia, but, and according to these reports, was only a small portion of the full amount that has been declared missing.
Chancellor Merkel confirmed the EU's commitment to Middle East peace in talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
A member of Prime Minister Olmert's Kadima party yesterday proposed transferring control of the West Bank to a European task force until the establishment of a Palestinian state.
UPI analysis
The war between Sunnis and Shiites that began several centuries ago in Mesopotamia was re-ignited in modern Iraq following the US invasion. More recently it has spread to Lebanon bringing that country dangerously close to the precipice of civil war one more time.
Israel is launching a campaign to isolate Iran economically and to soften up world opinion for the option of a military strike aimed at crippling or delaying Tehran's uranium enrichment programme.
Attacking Iran to halt its nuclear programme would be "catastrophic" for the region and the world, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said yesterday. "If there is military action, it will have catastrophic results, not only in the region, but the whole world."
An attack on Iran would be catastrophic and encourage it to develop a nuclear bomb, Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said yesterday. "It would be absolutely counterproductive, and it would be catastrophic."
The escalation of US military planning on Iran is only the latest chess move in a 6-year push within the Bush Administration to attack Iran. Efforts to ignite a confrontation with Iran date back long before the post-9/11 war on terror.
Brown's arrival in 10 Downing Street could be bad news for those who favor a special Anglo-American security relationship.
German papers
President Bush sounded conciliatory in his State of the Union speech this week, but German papers are left wondering if he knows what he's doing in Iraq - or whether the president is just a lame duck.
The White House reaction to the Senate resolution opposing President Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq came from Vice President Dick Cheney.
A BBC international opinion poll suggests there is widespread disquiet about the United States' role in Iraq and its other foreign policy priorities.
Hedge fund money, which now exceeds $1 trillion, has emerged in the past several years as a potentially powerful force in US politics, as underscored by the significant role it is playing in the presidential aspirations of Clinton and Giuliani.
Today in Scripture
"In the 12th year of our exile, in the 10th month on the 5th day, a man who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said, "The city has fallen!" (Eze 33:21)
Be a WARrior and support the WAR effort by:
* Clicking on the ever-changing and news-related ads at the top.
