Whore on the move...
The leader of 1.1 billion Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI, is completing a significant theological shift of the Roman Catholic church – a sweeping change that not only eclipses 40 years of a more moderate and collegial Catholicism, but seeks to reassert the spiritual supremacy of the Vatican and more openly proclaim the authority of the office of pope among all Christians.
Babylonian sorcerers...
The vocation of the Catholic physician consists in transmitting Christ's healing love to patients as a good Samaritan, says Cardinal Barragán. "This is the Catholic identity of the physician, to reveal Christ the healer. The Christian medical profession is therefore centered on love, but not on self-interested and poor love."
Satan's envoys...
The Vatican has one of the world's busiest but least-known diplomatic services. Does it deserve its special status? Instead of claiming to practise a form of inter-governmental diplomacy, it could renounce its special diplomatic status and call itself what it is—the biggest non-governmental organisation in the world.
Selling Berlin as a world city is hard. Well-heeled Germans pay the odd visit, but prefer to live in more opulent places like Munich [Nineveh] or Hamburg.
First it was pilots, then doctors, now Germany's train drivers are breaking ranks to negotiate their own pay deals. As German skilled workers demand wage increases in line with their counterparts abroad, could this signal the end of collective bargaining?
The economic consequences of the rise of English. In recent years Brussels has been a fine place to observe the irresistible rise of English as Europe's lingua franca. For native speakers of English who are lazy about learning languages, Brussels has become an embarrassingly easy place to work or visit. English is increasingly audible and visible in this scruffily charming Belgian city, and frankly rampant in the concrete-and-glass European quarter.
Countin' their chickens before they hatch...
In the end, it was a fight between globalisation and nationalism—and globalisation won. Aerospace is one of the last redoubts of economic nationalism. In many other industries European governments have already given way to pressure from globalisation. Resistance to cross-border mergers within Europe is crumbling. The resolution of the long and bitter battle for Airbus proves the same point: that governments that try to resist the pressure of globalisation may win time, but they will ultimately lose the fight.
Heralding a new era of cooperation, France and Britain vowed Friday to intensify cooperation on terrorism and make a joint push in the UN Security Council to deploy thousands of peacekeeping troops in Sudan. It is also a first indication of how the arrival of 2 new leaders over the past 2 months could reshape the political landscape in Europe.
(LX op-ed: A new entente)
The US and its European allies have put on hold plans for a UN Security Council resolution on Kosovo's future after encountering Russian opposition. The French Ambassador said discussions would now be renewed outside the UN.
German press...
Hardly a week goes by these days without yet another conflict between the West and Russia hitting the headlines. Now, Moscow is refusing to cooperate with London in the Litvinenko case - and has kicked out 4 British diplomats. German commentators wonder on Friday how the West should react.
Not so good...
Two Germans kidnapped near Kabul in Afghanistan this week have been killed, a spokesman for the Taleban has said. He said the Taleban's demand that Germany withdraw its 3,000 troops in Afghanistan had been ignored.
Paranoid Protestant's Premier Prophecy Propaganda Poopist...
According to the most recent intelligence reports, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's gesture for peace – disengagement from Gaza – may have set the stage for the next phase of war. Israel's catastrophe comes, according to the prophet, as part of a catastrophe that involves many nations. A major war between Israel and Syria and its allies fits Isaiah 17:13 like a glove
"The Iranian regime is basically a messianic apocalyptic cult." So says Israel's once and perhaps future prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. If he is right the world is teetering on the edge of a terrifying crisis. If Iran really is no more than the "messianic cult" of Mr Netanyahu's imagination, it would be worth running almost any risk to stop it acquiring nuclear weapons. But as our special report argues, Iran is not that easy to read. Iran is obstinate, paranoid and ambitious. But it is also vulnerable. But time is short.
Germany is investigating scores of companies suspected of aiding Iran's nuclear program. Officials said 50 German companies may have been involved in the sale dual-use systems and material required for Iran's nuclear project. They said Berlin has determined that the shipments were being used to complete Iran's nuclear energy plant at Bushehr.
An uncompromising Iran and an uncomprehending America may be stumbling to war.
This is a wake-up call that we are about to experience another 9/11-WMD experience. Such events could take a number of forms. As even Patrick J. Buchanan observed, with 3 US aircraft carrier battle groups in congested waters off Iran, another Tonkin Gulf incident could easily be engineered to set us at war with Iran. (If Bush's intentions were merely to bomb a nuclear reactor, he would not need 3 carrier strike forces.) Alternatively, false flag "terrorist" strikes could be orchestrated in the US.
Is this would-be president brave or crazy? Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican congressman from Texas, likes to say what he thinks.
Getting rid of a bad name is difficult; but a consistent message can do it, as Ben Bernanke has proved. Once caricatured as "Helicopter Ben" for suggesting that cash scattered from the sky would cure deflation, the Federal Reserve's chairman is now widely accepted as a champion of low inflation. Bernanke, a distinguished scholar of the Great Depression of the 1930s, has shown that he is equally versed in the lessons from the Great Inflation of the 1970s.
When oil prices last approached $80 a barrel, a year ago, pundits put it down to the "fear factor". Oil was not in short supply and stocks were increasing. But producers were pumping flat out, leaving little spare capacity. A nasty hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico or a political storm over Iran would, the theory ran, create a shortfall. When neither fear materialised and stocks continued to climb, the price quickly subsided. This time around, however, facts have replaced fears: the world is consuming more oil than it is producing.
If the conflict-ridden and oil-rich Middle East today is crucial to the national interest of superpowers and stability of the global economy, future worldwide dependency on the region for oil will push the international system into new frontiers of conflict and chaos.
An epic tragedy brought about by hubris, confused thinking and lack of planning. Sixty years ago this August one of the greatest and most violent upheavals of the 20th century took place on the Indian subcontinent. In 1947, faced with irreconcilable differences over the demand for a separate state for India's Muslims, Britain decided, with the consent of a majority of India's political leaders, to partition the country and give each bit its independence. Tragedy followed.
Today in Scripture
"In the 30th year, in the 4th month on the 5th day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of ELOHIM..." (Eze 1:1-3:15)
"In the 30th year, in the 4th month on the 5th day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of ELOHIM..." (Eze 1:1-3:15)
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