Where do we find the source of Christian joy if not in the Eucharist, which Christ has left us as spiritual food while we are pilgrims on earth?
In Hamburg, the trade union had invited 3 prominent politicians from the conservative Christian Democratic Union to serve as the main speakers at the demonstration. Until now, it has been quite rare for leading CDU politicians to appear at large trade union rallies, and certainly not as the main speakers.
Over the weekend, Chancellor Merkel's left-of-center coalition partners sharply criticized US plans to put parts of its missile shield in Europe. They said the project could spark a new arms race.
Member states are gearing themselves to varying degrees of festivity this week as the EU approaches its 50th birthday, with projects ranging from a Franco-German love film to prayers for the bloc.
Although Merkel can boast of success after her Poland trip, Germany faces "an uphill task" for consensus on a revised draft of the EU constitution by the end of its EU presidency, Britain's Foreign Secretary said.
As is always the case with political projects, the truth isn't anything like the official story. The EU is certainly not an exception to this rule. Peace may be a real aim, but the effect of the bizarre pan-European political project is more likely a total breakdown and perhaps even a European "civil war."
Not all stories from the past have relevance today. But here is one not very well-known story about the Jews in Napoleonic France that has much relevance to French Muslims in our own time. Two hundred years ago, in one of his lesser-known demonstrations of megalomania, Napoleon reconvened what he called the Great Sanhedrin. This council of French Jewish leaders was summoned to resolve a series of issues left unsettled since the French Revolution.
Can US have access to oil without dominating the region? Can Israel accept the fact that others also feel insecure and need guarantees for their security? US by trying to exert total control over the region has lost control and paradoxically made Israel less secure. Today the best way out for the Middle East is a negotiated settlement between US and Iran. If that doesn't take place, then war is inevitable.
The UN Security Council braces this week for a dramatic showdown with President Ahmadinejad over a vote on new sanctions to prod Tehran to comply with demands that it suspend uranium enrichment.
Russia's security chief issued a veiled warning to Washington on Sunday not to use the Iranian nuclear issue to try to change Tehran's political course. "We oppose this question being used as an instrument of pressure, being used to interfere in Iran's internal affairs."
A new, and perhaps the deadliest, confrontation between the War Allies US, Britain and the World has emerged recently with the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court stating that the War Leaders, Bush and Blair, could face war crimes charges in the Hague.
Four years after the invasion of Iraq, and the War Party is still in the driver's seat. The Lobby is increasingly buffeted by blowback stemming from its own arrogance, and the day of reckoning approaches. Whether that day comes before or after we go to war with Iran is, largely, a matter of chance…
Four years after the invasion of Iraq, the high and growing demand for US troops there and in Afghanistan has left ground forces in the US short of the training, personnel and equipment that would be vital to fight a major ground conflict elsewhere, senior US military and government officials acknowledge. More troubling, the officials say, is that it will take years for the Army and Marine Corps to recover from what some officials privately have called a "death spiral," in which the ever more rapid pace of war-zone rotations has consumed 40% of their total gear, wearied troops and left no time to train to fight anything other than the insurgencies now at hand.
Accounts of a Feb. 28 "literary luncheon" at the White House suggest that President Bush's reading tastes – until now a remarkably good predictor of his policy views – are moving ever rightward, even apocalyptic, despite his administration's recent suggestions that it is more disposed to engage Washington's foes, even in the Middle East.
George III to the 3rd George...
King George III would be so proud. He and his aristocratic friends laughed at America's quaint "experiment" with self-government. To them it was unthinkable that common people were enlightened enough to rule themselves. Today that experiment is the envy of a world where people in fewer than 100 countries live under democratic governments. Yet here in the US, old King George may yet be right.
Maybe, just maybe, it's time to pull the plug on this failed democratic republic called The United States of America. Turn off the life support. Disconnect the IVs. Bring in the priest for last rites. The US of A is brain dead with no chance for revival.
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