Works of charity, prayer and fasting are spiritual weapons to combat evil, Benedict XVI said during Mass on Ash Wednesday.
President Putin will visit the Vatican and meet with Pope Benedict XVI on March 13. In Orthodox Church circles there are unconfirmed reports suggest that a representative of the Moscow patriarchate might be part of Putin's delegation for the visit to the Vatican.
In his last grand speech as Bavarian Premier, Edmund Stoiber got a little confused. Or did he? After 30 years in politics and countless slips of the tongue, maybe he finally knew what he was doing.
Prime Minister Romano Prodi has resigned after far-left senators in his ruling coalition rebelled over a key foreign policy motion. It's déjà vu for Prodi, whose last spell in office ended similarly in 1998.
Parties in Italy's governing coalition have agreed a 12-point deal backing Romano Prodi to continue as prime minister.
When it comes to matters European the British haven't always been on time. When Continental Europe adjusted its calendar, for instance, in accordance with the papal edicts of Gregory XIII, Britain did not rush to join. ... For there is much that could be achieved by a close Franco-British partnership at the heart of the Union. With the 50th anniversary of the EU approaching, it is time for a new 'Entente Cordiale'.
As the half-way mark of the German presidency looms, even the most basic parameter-setting agreement on the EU constitution looks difficult as France is politically absent, the UK is opposed to a substantial text and Poland is taking a tough man stance.
Pending job cuts at Airbus are expected to top the agenda at a meeting between Chancellor Merkel and President Chirac in Germany today.
The Airbus case shows once again that French industrial policy is anything but laissez-faire. The government reacts quickly when it sees a threat to national interests. Meanwhile, the Germans are at risk of missing the boat.
The Russian Foreign Minister underlined Moscow's skepticism about plans to resolve Kosovo's status, saying Russia would not sign on to any solution imposed by outsiders. "A decision on Kosovo can only be reached by the parties," he said after meeting with the German Foreign Minister. "No one can impose this decision - at least Russia will not participate in such a scheme."
Cyprus is determined to press ahead with offshore oil and gas exploration, despite Turkish objections that Greek Cypriots would reap all the benefits.
A reported Syrian troop build-up near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights has fuelled speculation in Israel about a future conflict.
The Islamic militant group Hamas accused the US of trying to thwart European efforts to ease an economic blockade of a new Palestinian unity government.
German press on...
Blair's announcement that the UK will withdraw a large part of its forces from Iraq was bound to cause strong reactions. The German dailies wonder where this will leave Bush, and whether the UK is actually raising the white flag.
Imagine if Ethiopia, that land of skin-and-bone children that defined African famine in the 1980s, could turn from the world's largest recipient of food aid into a bread basket, not only feeding itself, but its neighbors also. Ethiopia actually produces more maize than east African neighbors Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania combined, but since most Ethiopian farmers are subsistence growers, only 30% of that food actually reaches the market.
Doesn't matter...
Rafsanjani today reassured the West that Iran was not seeking to build a nuclear bomb. Warning the Western statesmen to discontinue their bullying tactics vis-a-vis Iran, he noted: "If you continue bullying you would definitely create numerous problems for yourselves, the regional countries and the entire world."
The deputy chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the German Parliament has called on the US to join the nuclear negotiations with Iran a bid to finally resolve the ongoing row. "The Americans are the only ones from the point of view of the Iranians who can deliver on the security issue. The Europeans cannot do that."
A group of German professors and luminaries have warned on the consequences of a possible US military attack on Iran, and have written an open letter to Chancellor Merkel requesting her to take any possible action to prevent such an action. They have warned that any military attack on Iran would have dire political and economic consequences not only for the Middle East but the entire world.
Tony Blair has declared himself at odds with hawks in the US Administration by saying publicly for the first time that it would be wrong to take military action against Iran. Britain has also privately expressed concern over the handling of the US military briefing last week which alleged that the "highest levels" of the Iranian Government were behind the supply of weapons to Iraqi militias.
The Chief Foreign Commentator of The Times looks at what happens next after the IAEA's report on Iran's nuclear programme.
The configuration of the New Middle East most certainly has no place for more than one regional power broker, namely Israel. Under such an arrangement — subservient Arabs and Iran governed by an all powerful Israel and supervised, even from afar by the seemingly philanthropic US — would ensure Israel's 'security', which has for long served as a casus belli, and supposed American interests in the region; regardless of what one thinks of such logic, in Washington, it is still prevailing. Of course, Israel knows well the disastrous affect that a war on Iran will bring to the waning American empire (even if merely by observing the Iraqi situation) but it matters little in the end, as long as the Iranian threat is eliminated, or so goes the Israeli logic.
The most significant aspect of Vice President Dick Cheney's keynote speech in Sydney was what he did not say. He made not the slightest reference to Iran or to the menacing US military build-up in the Persian Gulf. His glaring silence on Iran in his set-piece speech should fool no one. It merely signifies that the Bush administration, with Cheney at the very centre, is still putting the pieces in place for the next target in the US "war on terror". A deceptive calm before the storm.
The London Telegraph political cartoon
In their whining, complaining, often maudlin closing arguments, Scooter Libby's defense counsel averred that the prosecution had "cast a dark cloud over the White House" – as if that was, in itself, a bad thing, and, in the current context, a very bad thing. It's always been clear that something more than mere perjury and obstruction of justice is at the heart of Fitzgerald's investigation. Yet Fitzgerald never directly implicated Cheney, or Bush, as he did in his closing arguments, and this has got to be significant as a possible premonitory rumbling of the political earthquake to come. The Libby trial was a dress rehearsal for the main event: the trial of the vice president, and, perhaps, a number of others in his office. The other shoe, as they say, has yet to drop – but if and when it does it is going to demolish the main headquarters of the War Party – or, at least, that part of it that's in the government – and the sound of the crash is going to reverberate from one end of the planet to the other.
Can it happen here? Is it happening here already? That depends, as a recent president might have said, on what the meaning of "it" is. To Sinclair Lewis, who sardonically titled his 1935 dystopian novel "It Can't Happen Here," "it" plainly meant an American version of the totalitarian dictatorships that had seized power in Germany and Italy.
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is heading into what's billed as his final major address Sunday, and some Muslims are wondering if the fiery orator - now slowed by poor health - will try to repair old divisions between his movement and mainstream Islam.
Oil prices climbed to settle near $61 a barrel, their highest closing level this year, after the US government reported surprisingly large drops in gasoline and heating oil inventories. Tensions between Western powers and Iran also boosted prices.
The Bush administration said that there was no need for greater government oversight of the rapidly growing hedge fund industry and other private investment groups to protect the nation's financial system.
Relatively calm weather was the standard forecast for the Sun, which is near the end of another 11-year solar cycle, but raging solar storms just spotted at its south pole now tell a different story.
It is little more than a dark smudge near the surface of a lake - but it could still signify the birth of a new legend. For this shadowy image is causing more than a ripple of interest among monster aficionados. "It just came out of the blue. The water was incredibly peaceful and then this huge thing appeared, diving and thrashing around." It appeared to be 50ft long, when compared to boats nearby. The sighting comes just months after scientists visited the lake to examine claims by a tourist about a 20ft "serpent-like" creature.
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