Benedict XVI says contemplating the history of the Church should lead the faithful to be awed by God's great work of salvation. The Pope said this when dedicating his reflection at the general audience to Eusebius of Caesarea, the first to write a history of the Church.
(Full text: B16 on Eusebius of Caesarea)
(Full text: B16 on Eusebius of Caesarea)
An unbelievable meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and the Russian Orthodox patriarch of Moscow could take place within a year, a senior cardinal said. No one is against the meeting, even among the Orthodox. There is the hope that Benedict XVI and Alexy II can meet within a year."
Catholic bishops have the right and the duty to point out Catholic teaching to the public and to remind politicians, especially Catholics, "that public acts usually bring public consequences," said Cardinal Pell of Sydney.
The Vatican has urged all Catholics to stop donating money to Amnesty International, accusing the human rights group of promoting abortion. According to Roman Catholic doctrine, life - which begins with conception - must be respected.
[WAR: Really? Does the Whore really know what she's talking about when it comes to when life begins? What about "the BREATH OF LIFE"? Does this not indicate that LIFE begins at birth?]
German press...
Next week European leaders will gather in Brussels for the final event of Angela Merkel's EU presidency. According to German commentators, though, the summit is shaping up to be a showdown between Merkel and her neighbors east of the Oder River: Poland's Kaczynski twins.
Prime Minister Blair gave a strong hint he will resist efforts to resurrect elements of the failed EU constitution. It could be a big step back for Angela Merkel.
Chancellor Merkel has called for a roadmap for a new EU constitution to be adopted at next week's bloc summit. And she has warned of the repercussions if no agreement is made. "This is not just up to us, but we will do our part. If that doesn't succeed, it will not be the downfall of Europe, but it will have extremely serious consequences for the future of Europe."
(BBC: Merkel warns EU over treaty)
A short 22-page document signed 7 years ago in the French city of Nice laying out citizen's civil, political and social rights is one of the major sticking points of the current negotiations on a new treaty for the EU.
A former Dutch UN observer describes how he witnessed how Israel provoked their Arab neighbors in the run up to the 6-Day War.
Hamas militants have seized the headquarters of their rival Fatah's Preventive Security force, tightening their control over the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, the top Palestinian umbrella group, the PLO, has recommended that the unity government be dissolved and a state of emergency declared.
Two years after Israel's unilateral retreat from the Gaza Strip, the territory today fell into the near complete control of the Hamas terror group, which now administers Gaza and its borders with Israel and Egypt. A senior Palestinian Authority official from the Fatah party told WND today "Gaza has fallen. It's now Hamas land. We (Fatah) have lost."
Both Sunni and Shias Iraqis have accused the US of being behind the bombing the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, one of the holiest Shia religious sites, in order to further incite sectarian violence between the two rival Islamic groups and provide a justification for the American surge.
A new grass-roots activist group is warning that some "spectacular" attacks probably are being lined up against US and coalition forces in the war on terror, especially in a few months as Congress will be evaluating the progress made in Iraq, and whether more funds should be allocated.
The creation of an "oil for food" programme has been proposed as a way of ending Sudan's conflict in Darfur.
In an astounding development that has completely failed to register any attention amongst mainstream US media, China promised to escalate preparations for war in advance of a potential conflict, after President Bush shook hands with a Taiwanese government official yesterday.
Iran isn't willing to suspend its nuclear program, calling itself a "master" of enrichment technology and accusing some UN atomic agency members of having a hidden agenda to widen inspections in the Islamic Republic.
This is the world that oil built, an imperfect place where the morality of human rights and concerns about states like Iran getting nuclear weapons carry only modest weight against the hard reality of energy needs. Faced with such an unpromising political environment for diplomacy to talk Iran out of going nuclear, the worry is that a frustrated Bush administration might conclude that in a world of ruthless realpolitik over Iran's oil, maybe some ruthless power politics with air power is the only way to proceed. And who knows what the oil price would reach then.
Earlier this week, warmonger and Israel Firster Joe Lieberman said "I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," predicating, as neocons are wont, his argument on allegation. Now we have yet another Israel Firster and former United States Institute of Peace—as in war is peace—board member nominee, Daniel Pipes, calling for an attack against Iran.
Of course...
The Navy admiral tapped to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said he favors a diplomatic approach in dealing with Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. "I'm concerned about what Iran's doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, broadly providing capability to which we are losing American soldiers on the ground and Marines on the ground, and I consider that not to be acceptable."
We will maim and murder countless Asians from Iran to Japan. The reason the catastrophe will be so immense is because our nuclear missiles will be vaporizing nuclear sites. When these sites are vaporized, all the enriched uranium and plutonium stockpiled there will be shot into the atmosphere as "weaponized" particles, along with the radioactive particles from the warheads themselves. These radioactive particles will then be carried eastward by the jet stream and the trade winds across Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the other "stans," to India, China, and Japan.
Experts debate what the "blowback" of our nuking Iran will be. I say we shall reap the whirlwind. Cities will riot and whole nations will erupt. American businesses will be burnt to the ground. American tourists will be lynched in the streets. What is certain is that China and Japan will instantly dump all of their dollars on what remains of the world money market before an evil American cloud brings death, destruction, and deformity raining down on their own populations. And that dumping of trillions of dollars of American debt will mean the end of the American economy as we know it. In the flash of a nuclear blast, we will be like Germany at the end of WW1. And then, God save us… and forgive us... all.
[WAR: And then the beginning of Jacob's Trouble...]
Prime Minister Tony Blair is stepping down on June 27 after a decade in 10 Downing Street. On the eve of his departure, Der Spiegel spoke with him about the results of the G-8 summit, the war in Iraq, and his feelings about leaving office.
It's official. Mark your calendars. The crash of the US economy has begun. It was announced the morning of Wednesday, June 13, 2007, by economic writers Pearlstein and Samuelson in the pages of the Washington Post, one of the foremost house organs of the US monetary elite. Other writers with less prestigious platforms than the Post have been talking about an approaching financial bust for a couple of years.
European bond markets took their steepest slide in a year Wednesday, a day after a similar dive in the US sent shivers around the globe at the prospect that the cost of long-term borrowing would be heading sharply higher. The return on the 10-year Treasury bond - a benchmark security whose value influences a host of other interest rates paid by companies and consumers - closed in the US at nearly 5.25% Tuesday, a level it had not hit since 2002. Bond markets fall when yields rise because, as investors dump bonds, sellers are forced to offer higher rates to attract buyers.
Losses on its derivatives portfolio and a widening credit spread teamed to deliver a hit to Freddie Mac's 1st-quarter results, with the mortgage-finance giant reporting a loss of $211 million.
Scientists have criticised a major review of the world's remaining oil reserves, warning that the end of oil is coming sooner than governments and oil companies are prepared to admit. scientists led by the London-based Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, say that global production of oil is set to peak in the next 4 years before entering a steepening decline which will have massive consequences for the world economy and the way that we live our lives.
Baron Guy de Rothschild, the patriarch of the French branch of the famous banking dynasty who rebuilt and expanded its Paris bank after it was seized during WW2 and then saw it survive another government takeover in the 1980s, died Tuesday in Paris. He was 98. Lean and charming, the aristocratic Baron Guy was an heir to the House of Rothschild, whose several branches were financiers of kings and princes when Europe was a royal family affair.
Kurt Waldheim, a former UN secretary-general and Austrian president who became tainted by revelations that he hid his past in Nazi Germany's officer corps, died today at age 88.
Mars was the blue planet 2-billion years ago, scientists say today. Half-mile-high features on the planet's surface are the former shorelines of vast oceans that once covered a third of its surface, according to a radical new theory.
They're healthy, have miraculous health-giving properties and are cheaper than ever.
Today in Scripture
"By the 27th day of the 2nd month the earth was completely dry..." (Genesis 8:14...)
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