Here is the 2nd part of a Vatican translation of Benedict XVI's Q&A session with priests from the dioceses of Belluno-Feltre and Treviso, Italy, during the Pope's vacation.
Speaking to reporters in Moscow, a senior Vatican official has urged reporters not to place undue stress on the prospects for a "summit meeting" between Pope Benedict XVI and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II.
Here is the text of Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone's keynote address at the annual convention of the Knights of Columbus.
(Zenit: Bertone's homily at opening mass)
(Zenit: Bertone's meeting with the press)
The leader of the federation of German expellees called for a national day to be declared to remember the victims of the expulsion of millions of German-speakers from eastern Europe at the end of WW2. While the meeting drew little attention from German media, there was strong interest in Poland.
Serbia urged the return of its army and police to Kosovo, an official said Friday, a move that could increase ethnic tensions in the breakaway province.
Russia has resumed long-range patrols by its bomber planes for the first time since the end of the Cold War, President Putin announced yesterday. He said the bombers - which can carry conventional or nuclear weapons - would again circle the world, 15 years after their flights were suspended. He claimed that the move was a response to the threat posed to Russia by other nations - a clear reference to the US - which has continued its own long-range missions.
The Bush administration is preparing a case to designate the Horn of Africa nation of Eritrea a "state sponsor of terrorism" for its alleged support of al-Qaida-linked Islamist militants in Somalia. The "state sponsor of terrorism" designation is rarely used and represents a near death sentence for diplomatic relations with the US.
Fifteen years after the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union, a covert Cold War has sprung up over the issue of developing the energy assets of the Caspian, with Russia and the US once again at odds. Both sides have had successes and failures, and the shadow conflict is not destined to end anytime soon.
President Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Israel was the standard bearer of Satan and the Jewish state would soon fall apart. "The Zionist regime is the standard bearer of invasion, occupation and Satan. When the philosophy behind the establishment of a regime is in question, it is not unlikely that it will find itself on a course of decline and dissolution."
Enemies are trying to replace Islam and Christianity with misleading man-made schools of thought by sowing discord among divine religions, President Ahmadinejad said. "People of the world are fed up with inefficient man-made schools of thought in addressing problems facing the world nations. People of the world dislike the existing situation despite all abrications and concealing of the facts on the part of world arrogant powers. Our duty has gone beyond the geographic borders of the Islamic world. Muslim scholars must invite world population to monotheism and Islam."
Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said they would not bow to pressure and threatened to "punch" the US, in their first response to Washington's plan to list them as a terrorist organization, newspapers reported Saturday. "America will receive a heavier punch from the guards in the future. We will never remain silent in the face of U.S. pressure and we will use our leverage against them."
(PTV: Top general warns US)
(LT: RG amass secret fortunes)
Once again, W. doesn't get it. Bush actually thinks he is peeling off the progressive, younger elements from the Iranian theocratic regime, when he is actually driving them into the same corner where ethnicity, religion and history overcome all.
The New York Times on August 16 published an editorial in response to reports that the Bush administration plans to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. The editorial by the organ of the liberal, Democratic Party wing of the US political establishment, entitled "Amateur Hour on Iran," exemplifies the hypocritical and 2-faced character of its critique of the Bush administration's policy toward Iran and the Middle East as a whole. The editorial underscores the fact that the differences within the American ruling elite over Iran are entirely of a tactical character. They concern not the goal of removing Iran as an obstacle to US hegemony in the Middle East and Central Asia, but rather the means for achieving that goal.
The Cheney Cabal wants ostensibly to deprive Iran of its inalienable rights by an act of war: bombing the geewhiz out of every activity or facility that could conceivably be associated with Iran's nuclear program, peaceful or otherwise. Condi and her munchkins want ostensibly to deprive Iran of its inalienable rights by what only amounts to an act of war – imposing and enforcing crushing economic sanctions on every "person" or activity that could conceivably be associated with any of Iran's energy programs, including the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. Of course, that's not what either cabal – or a seemingly large majority of our Congresspersons – really wants. What they all really want – for myriad self-serving reasons – is "regime change" in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
You can't find the story now, they removed it after DU'ers, and other people possibly, exposed the story a little group called Family Security Matters was running. But, just because they removed it, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist anymore. President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming "ex-president" Bush or he can become "President-for-Life" Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court.
Two years and truckloads of money after Hurricane Katrina swamped the Big Easy, people are asking themselves whether the new protective measures have been well prioritized, for whom, and will it really help if another huge hurricane comes.
Black helicopters, the Illuminati, Gov. Rick Perry and the Trans-Texas Corridor are all now part of the vernacular of the global domination conspiracy theorists. Perry's push for the Trans-Texas Corridor super highway is part of a secret plan, the conspiracy theorists say, to create the North American Union — a single nation consisting of Canada, Mexico and the US with a currency called the Amero.
Indeed, it's important for "veterans and civilian workers to tell their stories for the record" - honest stories; not tales that perpetuate a war mythology that has blinded US war planners [and COG "prophets"] ever since we won the "Good War."
As the US Federal Reserve soothed jittery global markets by lowering a key interest rate, German Finance Minister Steinbrück said on Friday his government was actively involved in attempts to calm the financial markets.
In the aftermath of recent turbulence on the global financial market, Chancellor Merkel reiterated her call for greater transparency, especially as far as hedge funds are concerned.
A group of German state banks said they would rescue a local German lender that had been hit by US subprime mortgage difficulties. SachsenLB has become the 2nd German bank to run into serious trouble. The group of powerful German savings banks extended a credit line of more than 17 billion euros to keep the state bank's stricken investment vehicle afloat.
German press...
Volatility in the global financial markets rocked by troubles in the American subprime mortgage sector has sent the markets on a wild roller-coaster ride, heading mostly - and steeply - down. German commentators say we should buckle our seatbelts but not panic.
The stock market is on a stomach-churning ride, the nation's once high-flying housing market is sinking deeper into gloom, and credit, the lifeblood of the economy, is drying up. If consumers get nervous enough, many economists believe, all of these troubles could become the perfect storm that will plunge the country into a recession. And the odds seem to be increasing with every new turbulent day on Wall Street.
Neither Bush nor his colleagues at the Federal Reserve will use the present crisis to bring about the sweeping changes that would strengthen the middle class, build confidence in the financial system, or eliminate inequities in the present distribution of wealth. Instead, they will choose the path of least resistance, that is, Bernanke will eventually lower interest rates and set off a hyperinflationary cycle that will destroy the currency, strip workers and pensioners of their savings and retirements, and plunge the country into Third World poverty.
The sudden turnaround suggests an organised intervention, possibly orchestrated by the President's Working Group on Financial Institutions, sometimes known colloquially as the Plunge Protection Team. But no serious observer believes the Fed's intervention has solved the underlying problems in credit markets that are responsible for the crisis. It was, at best, a holding measure—until further problems bubble to the surface.
(LX cartoon: Spreading the risk)
By deciding to ante up $38 billion for a hopeless bailout of predatory Wall Street hedge funds and the banks that stand behind them, Federal Reserve Chairman Helicopter Ben Bernanke has placed the bankrupt US dollar on a direct course towards the precipice of hyperinflation. In so doing, he has given new momentum to the backers and controllers of Dick Cheney, who favor an insane flight forward into general war with Iran, deluding themselves that they can thus escape from both military defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and from the death agony of the dollar.
A war of nerves has developed between the European Central Bank and financial markets, which now see a reduced likelihood that the bank will carry through with a planned increase in borrowing costs in September after the Federal Reserve surprised markets Friday by cutting a key interest rate. More and more bank watchers are calling more loudly for the ECB to wait until markets have settled down, a process that could take weeks or months.
What appears to be happening right now is that the Federal Reserve, which oversees the US economy on behalf of the financial, corporate, and government elites, is deliberately trying to squeeze as much debt out of the economy as it can. It is doing this with interest rates that are high relative to actual conditions, while trying to avoid the Armageddon scenario.
This weekend marks a pivotal moment in the history of Western capitalism. The melt-down of America's high-risk mortgage market now threatens the most serious financial crisis since global share prices collapsed back in 1987. Yes, stocks rallied on Wall Street on Friday. And, yes, after the selling spasm of last week, that was a huge relief. But no one knows what will happen when the markets open tomorrow.
(LX op-ed: The market test)
We have to stop the long line of Wall Street professionals into government. The terrorist elites are not in Iran; they are in our corporate fascist government culture. Could it be we are seeing an omen? We have had one of the hottest summers ever. Could it be that we are emulating 1934?
The credit creation which has supported our consumption binge for many years now is merely an updated, far more vast and dangerous expression of Ponzi's hustle, carried to global extremes.
Hedge funds created what can only be described as giant betting pools — huge amalgamations of money from pension funds, university endowments, rich individuals, and corporations — whose assumptions about risk were derived from the assumed low risks of the home loans (hence the term "derivatives"). Investors in these hedge funds had little or no understanding of what they were buying, because hedge funds don't have to disclose much of anything. Hedge funds have been operating huge financial casinos without having to disclose what they're betting on, or why. The credibility of the whole financial system has become shaky.
Twenty-four hours after I reported China's announcement that China, not the Federal Reserve, controls US interest rates by its decision to purchase, hold, or dump US Treasury bonds, the news of the announcement appeared in sanitized and unthreatening form in a few US news sources. The Chinese made no threats. To the contrary, one of the officials said, "China doesn't want any undesirable phenomenon in the global financial order." The Chinese message is different. The message is that Washington does not have hegemony over Chinese policy, and if matters go from push to shove, Washington can expect financial turmoil.
The answer lies in the nature of our banking system, in the fact that both commercial banks and thrift banks (mutual-savings and savings-and-loan) have been systematically engaging in fractional-reserve banking: that is, they have far less cash on hand than there are demand claims to cash outstanding.
What are the reasons behind the spate of murders by feral gangs of youths? And can we as a society do anything about it? Teenage boys need different treatment to girls to become responsible members of society. They need a role model. We have failed to provide a safe, disciplined and principled environment in which young people can relax, find themselves and channel their best efforts. Instead we have relegated many of them to a ghetto of violence and despair. The results stare us in the face.
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