"The WAR on error"
Continuing our journey among the leaders of the Christian origins, today we look at other collaborators of St. Paul.
At the UN the Holy See gives a voice to those who have no voice, says Archbishop Celestino Migliore. The Holy See's permanent observer to the UN made this comment when Benedict XVI received him at a private audience on Monday.
The football boot that has won 3 World Cups, been honoured with a statue outside the Berlin Parliament and even credited with restoring national pride is to lose its place on the feet of the German team. In a move that has provoked sporting, emotional and commercial angst, Adidas, the Bavarian company that has shod the national team for 50 years, has been outbid massively for the privilege by Nike. The country is in shock. Can Germany ever hope to win again with non-German boots? For most Germans, abandoning adidas is a betrayal.
"Money rules the world" is a well-known saying. However the exact role of the major companies and banks in political life is often hidden behind a veritable torrent of references to the "independence of the people's representatives" who are responsible "solely to their consciences," and "the people" who are, after all, the "supreme sovereign power in politics." Recent reports and studies by journalists now demonstrate, very concretely, how financial interests govern Germany and what interests are at stake.
Press review...
Foreign Minister Steinmeier has come under increased fire for his role in preventing the release of the German-born Turkish citizen who spent almost 5 years in US prison camps. German papers debate whether the criticism is appropriate.
Munich's Public Prosecutor's Office has ordered the arrest of 13 CIA agents suspected of being involved in the abduction of a German national of Lebanese descent kidnapped and tortured. So, this decision by the German court if not going to be very important from the point of view of justice. However, it is going to have important political consequences.
Poland and Germany have agreed to prepare a joint policy stance on compensation claims against Poland by a group representing Germans forced to leave Polish territory after WW2, according to the Polish and German foreign ministers.
Despite Germany's efforts to conduct negotiations on the EU constitution discreetly, the rifts between member states are spilling out into the open.
Tony Blair, rejecting opposition charges he was colluding in German attempts to revive the EU constitution, said Britain would not agree to a behind-closed-doors deal. Blair insisted there was no change in his stance on the need for a British referendum on any EU constitutional treaty.
Britain will refuse to sign up to minor changes in the running of the EU unless it secures a pledge that there will be no revival of the European constitution, The Times has learnt.
The Russian government tentatively approved two laws that would sharply restrict foreign ownership of oil and natural gas fields, putting into writing what is already well established in practice. One law would also ban foreign majority ownership of companies in the aerospace, military and nuclear power industries, while stating that all other sectors should be open equally to Russian and foreign capital.
The replacement tomorrow in the Al Aqsa Mosque of a key podium transported with the coordination of Israeli security forces is "proof" the Temple Mount belongs only to Muslims and will never be returned to Jewish sovereignty, according to the leader of the Wafq – the Muslim custodians of the Temple Mount. "This historic occasion proves that the extremist Jews will never achieve their goals of taking over the [Temple Mount.] It shows that we are much closer to liberating the Al Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem from Israeli occupation."
There are growing suspicions in Iraq that the official story of the battle outside Najaf between a messianic Iraqi cult and the Iraqi security forces supported by the US, in which 263 people were killed and 210 wounded, is a fabrication. The heavy casualties may be evidence of an unpremeditated massacre.
But so much conflicting information has been released that significant details — including the identity of the leader and the group's intentions — remain murky. Official accounts have raised numerous questions.
A group of British soldiers yesterday described their frantic attempts to stop an attack on their convoy by "rogue" US warplanes that left one dead and four injured. Staff Corporal Bell said there had been a flash as the first attack started. He had immediately radioed forward air control with the "Stop, stop, stop" instruction but had been told the planes were being flown by "rogue US pilots". "[The controller] could not contact the US pilots because they had switched frequencies and were talking to each other."
The president of China pledged nearly $100 million in grants and soft loans to Cameroon yesterday as he kicked off his latest tour of Africa, a growing supplier of oil and raw materials to his country. China has been offering low interest loans, debt relief and other incentives to increase its influence on the world's poorest continent in return for access to the natural resources it needs to feed its booming economy.
President Jacques Chirac said this week that if Iran had one or two nuclear weapons, it would not pose a big danger, and that if Iran were to launch a nuclear weapon against a country like Israel, it would lead to the immediate destruction of Tehran. The remarks, made in an interview on Monday, were vastly different from stated French policy and what Mr. Chirac has often said. On Tuesday, Mr. Chirac summoned the same journalists back to Élysée Palace to retract many of his remarks.
(IHT: 1st interview)
(IHT: 2nd interview)
Puckered butts...
European diplomats are increasingly anxious that the US is planning air strikes against Iran. "The clock is ticking," one European diplomat said. "Military action has come back on to the table more seriously than before. The language in the US has changed."
The behind-the-scenes struggle between the two nations could explode into open warfare over a single misstep, analysts and U.S. military officials warn.
A relentless and unmistakable American buildup for war against Iran is currently underway. Military preparations are being accompanied by a daily barrage of propaganda against Tehran issuing from US sources and relayed uncritically via a compliant media. The Bush administration views the eventual subjugation of Iran as a necessary stage in its long-held plans for US dominance over the Middle East and Central Asia and their rich reserves of oil and gas.
The president's decision to use force against Iranian "agents" inside Iraq could snare innocent pilgrims, and raises the risk of open warfare. Announcing open hunting season on all Iranian visitors to Iraq is like playing Frisbee with nitroglycerin. Bush has gone looking for trouble and is likely to find it.
The war has already begun and it has nothing to do with nuclear weapons and threats against Israel and everything to do with who rules America. According to US economist Jeffrey Sachs, "Bush recently invited journalists to imagine the world in 50 years…he wanted to know whether Islamic radicals would control the world's oil." Sachs pointed out that stoking fears over who will control the world's petroleum reserves is not new to the Bush administration. Peek below the surface, and the hostility to our own interests of the recurrent pattern of capitalist-driven expansion at the expense of the sovereignty of other countries becomes evident.
Attempting to stem the tide of rising Islamic fundamentalism in Europe, a group of British evangelical leaders hosted a conference in London on Sunday seeking to rekindle the faded force of Christian Zionism in the United Kingdom.
Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, the final volume of his Blowback trilogy, is about to storm your local bookstore. It is a reminder of just how far we've moved from the sort of democratic America that the president is always holding up as a model to the rest of the world. As with Blowback and The Sorrows of Empire before it, Nemesis, Johnson's grand, if grim, conclusion to our American tragedy, is simply a must-read.
In America...
It is so easy to get sucked in to the vacuous hole that is America - country of extremes and excess. America is a cocoon. I had no idea what was going on in the rest of the world.
Interest groups also block any effort to enlist the government by invoking the arguments of Market Fundamentalism: privatize everything, rely on yourself and expect nothing from your government. Market fundamentalism has become like the air we breathe; we hardly notice it. Like religious fundamentalism, it is based more on faith than on reason.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his allies in Ecuador and Bolivia have riled the markets with their fiery rhetoric and interventionist policies.
Venezuela's National Assembly granted President Hugo Chavez unprecedented power to rule by decree on Wednesday, vastly increasing his authority to move forward on his leftist agenda in every area of the country's life from the oil industry to telecommunications to banking. Chavez was given the special powers for 18 months by a legislature fully controlled by his party and a handful of allies.
On January 15, Ecuador's new president, Rafael Correa Delgado, was sworn in, promising to build "socialism of the 21st century" to overcome the poverty and instability of the small Andean country. "The long night of neoliberalism is coming to an end. A sovereign, dignified, just and socialist Latin America is beginning to rise."
Men with rugged jaws and chiselled, masculine facial features might have no problem getting dates but women don't always see them as marriage material, according to a US study.
Is there proof that giants once lived and raised families in North America? Stories and newspaper accounts attest to amazing discoveries of huge elaborate caves and mines, gold spears and polished granite inscribed with mystical symbols. Witnesses have reported their discoveries to the Smithsonian Institute and have been promised compensation. Yet, the Smithsonian, archaeologists and other scientists are silent as to the discoveries and have hidden all evidence that is contrary to Darwinian theory of evolution. The following are actual accounts of giants in North America.
Awesome!...
Comet McNaught lost its tail among the Southern Lights during a geomagnetic storm over New Zealand.
At first glance, the moon looks remarkably gray. There are light-gray lunar highlands, dark-gray lunar seas, and miles and miles of gray moondust everywhere. Not so fast! Astronomers have long known that the moon's terrain is actually rich in subtle color. What do these colors mean? Blue denotes areas rich in titanium, while orange is titanium poor. Pink traces iron-poor, aluminum-rich feldspars found in the lunar highlands.
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