"The WAR on error"
At present, Chancellor Merkel seems to be in control of affairs, both domestic and foreign. Given the present political situation in Europe, she is apparently considered by other world powers to be the sole European leader at present who not only could build a European consensus on various critical issues of global importance. For the chancellor, time is currently in her favor: the Bundestag elections are far in the future; CDU member Hans-Gert Poettering was elected as the new president of the European Parliament; and Edmund Stoiber will renounce power in September 2007.[?] As of now, it may be surmised that Merkel is firmly in command of German and European affairs for the coming months.
The cabinet's decision signals not merely the quantitative expansion of Germany's military operations in Afghanistan, but a real turning point. It marks a development that will lead to German forces being involved directly in the war in the Middle East. The deployment of Germany's armed forces in southern Afghanistan is directly connected with the fact that open warfare has prevailed in this area since last summer, and the military strategists in the Pentagon want to bring the situation under control in order to be able to concentrate on suppressing the resistance in Iraq and preparing an attack against Iran.
German tanks may be rolling in Afghanistan soon, after a leasing request for Leopard 2 tanks came from the Canadian armed forces. Ottawa has asked Berlin if it could lease roughly 20 Leopard 2 A6M tanks especially protected against land mines.
Ukraine is interested in attracting foreign investment, particularly from Bavaria's world-famous companies. Ukrainian President Yuschenko said this on Friday at a meeting with Bavaria's Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber. The president praised Ukraine's ties with Bavaria and thanked Stoiber for his personal contribution to the development of our partnership.
MEETING IN MUNICH
Frank speeches and serious discussions: In the conference hall and back rooms of the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy has once again justified its motto "Peace Through Dialogue". The Russian President's speech, in particular, emphasized the very importance of articulating different interests in an open and non-governmental debate. The conference has again underlined its character as a venue for an unrestrained and clear exchange of ideas.
Europe's editorialists commented on President Putin's speech at the Munich security conference in which he accused the US of making the world a more dangerous place.
Putin's speech had become the talk of the conference, invoking for some the rhetoric of the Cold War. But others heard Putin as speaking for a confident, stable and rich Russia no longer saddled with high debts and the chaos of the mid 1990s.
Putin's tough speech in Germany this weekend is a wake-up call to the harsh realities in EU-Russia relations, early reactions from European politicians say.
The NATO secretary general has opened a potentially fierce tug of war over the future of the alliance, urging members to agree by 2009 on a new "strategic concept" for the body.
Ségolène Royal, the presidential candidate of the Socialist Party, unveiled a long-awaited, 100-proposal platform, veering sharply to the left on economic policy while also stressing discipline and traditional values.
On the surface, Ségolène Royal, the socialist candidate for the French presidency, seems just like any other modern centre-Left politician: undoctrinal, unspecific, charismatic, Third Way. She speaks almost wholly in clichés, contriving always to give the impression that her views chime with everyone else's. Then again, the opinion of the French people is unlike that of any other European electorate.
Kosovo Albanian leaders appealed for calm yesterday after two people died in clashes between the police and Albanians who were protesting a plan by the UN that the demonstrators said fell short of full independence from Serbia. The violence underscored Western fears of mass unrest if a decision on the Albanian majority's demand for a Kosovo state did not come soon.
To dig ...
Prime Minister Olmert said yesterday that Israel would not let the Muslim opposition dictate what sort of activities could be done on Israeli territory in the Old City of Jerusalem.
...or not to dig...
Controversial construction work near the holiest site for Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem is to be put off to allow public consultations, officials say.
The growing Sunni-Shiite divide is roiling an Arab world as unsettled as at any time in a generation.
"That Iran is willing to threaten Israel is wrong. If we are conducting nuclear research and development we are no threat to Israel. We have no intention of aggression against any country."
Ahmadinejad said yesterday his country will make an announcement in April about new nuclear achievements. Ahmadinejad said Iran will not come to the negotiating table with Western nations if suspension of Tehran's nuclear program is a precondition for talks. "If you seek negotiation why do you insist on suspension? If we suspend, what do we want to talk about?"
President Ahmadinejad says US accusations Tehran is fomenting violence in Iraq are an attempt to hide Washington's own failures. He made the comments in a rare US television interview today. He said the accusations were "excuses to prolong the stay" of US forces and that no peace would come to Iraq while foreign troops remained.
The mainstream media's most recent justification that the Bush White House is telling the truth about Iran and the need to start another war is, incredibly, that the administration used lies to start the last one.
Amid the continuing US military build up in the Persian Gulf, the Bush administration is already conducting an economic war against Iran aimed at bringing the country to its knees. US demands go far beyond the limited sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council in December over Iran's nuclear programs. They hit directly at the economic ties with Iran established by Europe and Asia. What is undeniable is that the Bush administration is waging an economic offensive against Iran in order to undermine its economy and to weaken the government as the US prepares for military aggression.
The Iranians have reason to feel paranoid. Some view the spiraling attacks as a strand in a worrisome pattern. At least one former White House official contends that some Bush advisers secretly want an excuse to attack Iran. "They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for." Sunni insurgents in Iraq need only kill some Americans and plant Iranian IDs nearby to start a full-scale war. Like so many times in this complicated relationship, this is a moment of opportunity. And one of equally great danger.
The Minister of Defense and Armed Forces' Logistics said that the least violation of Iran's territorial integrity would be met with a crushing response. "Though considering enemies' attempt as a psychological war to test public morale, Iranian armed forces are much powerful and would give a crushing response to the least violation of the country's territorial integrity."
The historic delcine of the US (part 1)
Increasingly, US policy assumes a form of madness in which every military intervention creates new problems and more enemies, which then have to be eliminated by increased military force. This madness, however, is not simply the product of the members of the Bush administration. It is lodged within the crisis confronting world capitalism as a whole, and the US in particular. The central contradiction is this: right at the point where, because of the globalisation of production, US capitalism finds it ever more necessary to assert its hegemony, it no longer has the economic power to do so.
Something interesting is happening in California. Gov. Schwarzenegger seems to have grasped the essential truth that no nation — not even the US — can be managed successfully from the center once it reaches a certain scale. Moreover, the bold proposals that Mr. Schwarzenegger is now making point to the kind of decentralization of power which, once started, could easily shake up America's fundamental political structure. He has also put his finger on a little discussed flaw in America's constitutional formula. The US is almost certainly too big to be a meaningful democracy. What does "participatory democracy" mean in a continent? Sooner or later, a profound, probably regional, decentralization of the federal system may be all but inevitable.
Foreign exchange traders in the Japanese yen face a rough ride this morning after finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the Group of Seven leading economies launched a barrage of warnings at the weekend over rampant speculation against the currency.
The Bush Regime has taken the US outside the boundaries of international law and is acting unilaterally, falsely declaring American military aggression to be "defensive" and in the interests of peace. Much of the world realizes the hypocrisy and danger in the Bush Regime's justification of the unbridled use of US military power, but no countries except other nuclear powers can challenge American aggression, and then only at the risk of all life on earth. The solution is nonmilitary challenge. The Bush Regime's ability to wage war is dependent upon foreign financing. If the rest of the world would simply stop purchasing US Treasuries, and instead dump their surplus dollars into the foreign exchange market, the Bush Regime would be overwhelmed with economic crisis and unable to wage war.
Now we live in a world of globalized, faith-based, denatured currencies. We don't know how many dollars walk the earth...when they will depart it...or how much each one should be worth. Entire fortunes are put at risk. Billion-dollar bets are placed. Trillions of dollars float on a sea of liquidity. And nobody really knows what anything is worth...or when it might stop being worth anything at all.
A science student in Kentucky says when the Bible records God spoke, and things were created, that's just what happened, and he can support that with scientific experiments. "If God spoke everything into existence as the Genesis record proposes, then we should be able to scientifically prove that the construction of everything in the universe begins with a) the Holy Spirit (magnetic field); b) Light (an electric field); and c) that Light can be created by a sonic influence or sound."
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