Pope Benedict XVI has become the first and only icon of style of the 21st century in the world of priesthood. Benedict, who is considered to be a champion of discipline and humility, unexpectedly brought new tendencies in the Vatican,
The pope's bold statement is a sign of the rebirth of the resistance to the plainly evil forces that have had the upper hand until now. It is the pope, not the heretical Novak, who gives a more accurate picture of what is happening today in the Middle East. We in the peace movement are grateful to him for bluntly – as always – rebuking the evil in our midst and defying the would-be princes of the earth in the name of a higher power.
No institution has exercised a more profound influence on Western civilisation than the Roman Catholic church. The phenomenal success of The Da Vinci Code attests to the power it continues to wield over minds and imaginations even when it no longer does so over bodies and souls. Edward Norman's concise, lucid and thought-provoking illustrated history of the Church is therefore welcome and timely.
Syria has enlisted the help of Germany to push forward economic reforms and attract foreign investors. In bilateral talks, Germany has renewed its commitment to Syrian development.
Chancellor Merkel's plan for a transatlantic economic partnership is running into opposition from Washington. "At the working level, US blockade attempts are increasing," says a high-ranking official.
Dutch EU minister Frans Timmermans has called for a "smaller, leaner" European treaty to replace the one rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands. But he says any reference to the word "constitution" should be dropped from any rewritten document.
Just weeks ahead of the planned riots at the upcoming G-8 summit in Germany (June 6-8), the chief ideologue of the international pro-terrorist autonomist mob came out with an indictment of the nation-state, and support for globalization. By doing this, he is providing the cover for assassination operations, which will be unleashed by his synarchist controllers, against any European politician who dares to seriously oppose globalization, represented in Europe by the Maastricht system.
Serbia's president said Tuesday his country can never agree to let go of Kosovo. "Serbia will never agree to independence for Kosovo. We will not give up any right that is granted to any other country in the world."
A new Russian foreign policy, published by the government in recent days makes it clear that Moscow believes the era of American hegemony is now over. "The myth about the unipolar world fell apart once and for all in Iraq," the review says. "A strong, more self-confident Russia has become an integral part of positive changes in the world."
Russia and the US clashed sharply over Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia on Tuesday as the UN Security Council debated renewing a UN mission in the Caucasus state. Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin, speaking to reporters, charged that the US had made a "serious diplomatic and political mistake" in refusing to allow Abkhazia's "foreign minister" to come to New York.
Faced with an ever-more ruthless insurgency in Baghdad - despite President George Bush's "surge" in troops - US forces in the city are now planning a massive and highly controversial counter-insurgency operation that will seal off vast areas of the city, enclosing whole neighbourhoods with barricades and allowing only Iraqis with newly issued ID cards to enter.
The Turkish army crossed 20 kilometers into Iraq in an effort to destroy camps located to the east of Zaho. Elsewhere in northern Iraq security forces went 30 to 40 kilometers in.
The leader of the largest country in Central Asia has called for a union of the "stans" to boost living standards and improve stability in the region. A "Uni-Stan" across Central Asia would have, at 55 million, a population smaller than Britain's but would cover an area almost as large as the European Union, sandwiched between the Middle East and the booming economies of Russia, China and India.
The EU on Tuesday urged Tehran not to defy the UN, increasing international diplomatic pressure on Iran after it claimed to be able to enrich uranium on an industrial scale.
Iran's announcement that it has started enriching uranium on an industrial scale further raises the stakes in its confrontation with the US and the UN Security Council, and brings it closer to a possible military showdown with Washington.
While the world press has focused on Iran's plans to move ahead with enriching uranium, Tehran continues to wage economic war against the US dollar behind the scenes. Tehran has reached a decision to end all oil sales in dollars, according to statements by Iran's central bank governor.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, just back from a trip to Syria that sparked sharp criticism from Republicans and the Bush administration, suggested Tuesday that they may be interested in taking another diplomatic trip - to open a dialogue with Iran.
The coming season of Atlantic hurricanes in the USA is said to bring highly dangerous storms. Meteorologists expect at least 17 hurricanes to ravage the Atlantic Coast of the USA. One of the hurricanes, they say, can carry the power of Hurricane Katrina that leveled New Orleans in 2005.
On May 1 it will be 300 years to the day that the Act of Union, merging the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain, came into effect. For me, there is no question: 300 years of shared history has made both countries stronger and richer.
Gold isn't going up; it's simply a meter on the waning value of the dollar. The reality is that the dollar is tanking big-time, and the main culprit is the widening trade deficit. Now that foreign purchases of US debt are dropping off, the greenback could plunge to even greater depths. There's really no way of knowing how far the dollar will fall. That puts us at a crossroads. We are so utterly dependent on the "charity of strangers" (foreign investment) that a 9% blip in the Chinese stock market (or even a .25 basis point up-tick in the yen) sends Wall Street into a downward spiral. As the housing market continues to unwind, the stock market (which is loaded with collateralized mortgage debt) will naturally edge lower and foreign investment in US Treasuries and securities will dry up. That'll be doomsday for the greenback as central banks across the planet will try to unload their stockpiles of dollars for gold or foreign currencies.
Riding the crest of globalization and technology, English dominates the world as no language ever has, and some linguists are now saying it may never be dethroned as the king of languages.
A new analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years.
The radical Christian right has no religious legitimacy. It is a mass political movement. It is interchangeable, in many ways, with other traditional political movements ranging from fascism to communism to the ethnic nationalist parties in the former Yugoslavia.
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