With little fanfare, Benedict XVI today will mark the 2nd anniversary of his formal installation as pope, a threshold at which his immediate predecessors had established themselves in the public mind. Yet he remains an enigma to many who thought they knew him well, and something of a blank slate to a world curious to see what this new pontiff would be like.
Benedict XVI reiterated again the central message of his pontificate - God is love - when visiting the tomb of St. Augustine. "I wish to again spiritually offer to the Church and to the world my first encyclical, which contains precisely this central message of the Gospel: 'Deus caritas est,' God is love."
In a letter to the Mexican bishops made public last Friday, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his concern over efforts to legalize abortion in Mexico City, calling on the nation to "firmly protect and defend the right to life of every human being from the moment of conception."
The Vatican's 2nd-highest ranking doctrinal official forcefully branded homosexual marriage an evil and denounced abortion and euthanasia as forms of "terrorism with a human face". The attack by Archbishop Amato, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was the latest in a string of speeches made by either Pope Benedict or other Vatican officials as Italy considers giving more rights to gays.
The Vatican made public today the letters exchanged between Benedict XVI and Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, discussing the upcoming G8 summit to be held this June 6-8 in Heiligendamm.
Party political leaders in Germany lined up as expected behind the successful candidates emerging from the first round of the French presidential elections. Edmund Stoiber, veteran head of the Christian Socialist Union, described the 31% vote gained by conservative candidate Nicholas Sarkozy as "a good day" for Germany and for Europe. Stoiber said Sarkozy's policy of rejecting Turkey's application for membership of the European Union dovetailed "precisely" with that of the CSU.
German press...
Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal will face off in 2 weeks for the runoff vote to become the next French president. German newspapers argue that the election will be decided in the political center and place their bets with conservative Sarkozy.
Germany has reason to believe it is about to finalize a billion-dollar deal with Japan on military equipment. Japanese military officials will visit Germany and examine Bundeswehr military equipment, such as the Eurofighter jet, choppers and submarines.
Chancellor Merkel is hoping to revive the European constitution by negotiating a watered-down, less "constitutional" draft. According to a Spiegel report she's even sent a confidential letter to other European leaders ahead of the EU summit in June.
By calling it a "treaty," the current German EU presidency has begun reviving the stalled approval process for a new constitution for the union. But not everyone is happy about the strategy.
The first round of France's presidential election has set the stage for an epic duel between left and right, and between two sharply different visions of the modern post-industrial state, whose outcome is likely to determine the future of Europe.
The European Commission is heading for a hefty scuffle with member states as it pursues its plans to break up large energy companies in the face of resistance from Germany, France and Spain.
The US ambassador to Germany joined the debate about Europe's growing dependence on Russian gas imports and Moscow's use of energy as a political instrument by calling on Russia to liberalize its energy markets to prove it was a reliable energy supplier. His remarks reflected growing concern by the US administration over Europe's - and particularly Germany's - increasing dependence on Russia for its energy needs.
Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is pushing hard, as he put it, to create "a predominantly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe." Why is that his goal?
Russia has threatened to veto in the UN Security Council a plan to give Kosovo a form of supervised independence.
The "Frontier-2007" exercises have thus entered the second stage. The first stage took place in Moscow last week without any firing drills. The generals were discussing legal issues, such as the legitimacy of joint assistance to an ally if attacked by a foreign aggressor. The collective rapid reaction forces are currently testing out the decisions at the Liaur testing ground near Dushanbe. The main purpose of the maneuvers is to practice quick decision-taking in redeploying joint armed forces to combat operations areas within the Collective Security Treaty.
Ethiopian tanks are pounding parts of the Somali capital, stepping up a week-long campaign against insurgents and fighters of the Hawiye clan.
At least 74 workers have been killed in an attack on a Chinese-run oil field in eastern Ethiopia.
Irritated by the prospect of a huge European gas development deal with Iran, the Bush administration said it will argue that such transactions undercut international bargaining power over Iran's nuclear program. The prospective gas development deal between Iran and an Austrian firm would not violate UN sanctions against Tehran, and the United States cannot block it outright.
The EU should adopt an independent position to that of the US regarding Iran's nuclear programme, President Ahmadinejad said in an interview. "If the European Union wants to play an appropriate role in international relations, it should act independently. If the European Union wants only to transmit the words of the United States, we can hear directly what the United States has to say to us, we don't need Europe to translate for us."
President Ahmadinejad has proposed holding talks with President Bush. "Last year, I announced readiness for a televised debate over global issues with his excellency Mr. Bush. And now we announce that I am ready to negotiate with him about bilateral issues as well as regional and international issues."
Iran's top nuclear negotiator dismissed as 'a very big joke' the claim of the US Defense Secretary Roberts Gates that Iran assists al-Qaeda, saying it is an escape forward. "In my opinion, that's a very big joke. They themselves know this pretty well. They (Americans) are aware of our difference with al-Qaeda better than any one else. We have never supported such terrorist movements, rather we are opposing them. They are involved in some activities which we have always resisted."
On April Fool's Day, the Sunday Washington Post published an unusually wild and colorful article headlined: "The once and future republic of Vermont."
A 2004 analysis of data by the US Census reports that 60 million Americans now live on less than $7 per day. That's 1 in 5 in the U.S. living on less than $2,555 per year. At the same time, the richest 1% now garners about 16% of national income, double what they earned in the 1960s. While global income inequality is probably greater than it has ever been in human history, with half the world's population living on less than $3 per day, and the richest 1% receiving as much as the bottom 57%, the fact that so many Americans are living on so little, is particularly confounding. The so-called "wealthiest, most abundant nation on Earth" now has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation. In light of the fact that $1 spent in the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia buys what $3 or $4 does in the US means the quality of life for tens of millions of Americans is now on a par with huge populations living in the developing world.
When Cho killed 32 people at Virginia Tech, the horrific slaughter revealed not only the poisons lurking in popular culture but the crisis of young males in a feminised society.
In both campaigns, Sarkozy and Royal advisers began aggressively courting the 6.8 million voters who answered Bayrou's centrist call. Those voters, a colorful mix of stalwart centrists, disillusioned Socialists and conservatives wary of Sarkozy, are quite likely to determine who will be the next president of France.
ABN AMRO, the largest Dutch bank, agreed to be acquired by the British bank Barclays for €67 billion in a deal crafted to reduce the chances of another bidder swooping in. ABN AMRO, in a surprise move, also arranged to sell LaSalle Bank, its US business, to Bank of America for $21 billion in cash after the initial deal, worth $91 billion. The combination of Barclays and ABN AMRO would create the world's largest bank by total assets, about $3.1 trillion.
With the modern gilded age in full gear, hedge fund managers and their private equity counterparts are comfortably seated atop one of the most astounding piles of wealth in US history. Their ascendancy has been aided by easy credit, robust markets and a fee structure that can produce staggering amounts of individual wealth. Naturally, some look upon these masters of the new universe as this generation's robber barons, using wealth to create wealth, often in secretive ways, and leaving little that is tangible in their wake.
Now the environmental movement must face a monster of its own making. The very success of environmentalism threatens to undo two of mankind's most significant environmental victories. Global warming hysteria - a boon for the ethanol and other biofuel enterprises - has boosted demand for crop-based fuels worldwide. This now threatens to reverse a half century of gains not only against world hunger, but also in holding the line against conversion of undeveloped land.
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