Israeli President Peres visited Benedict XVI and they discussed hopes for an end to the 60 years of conflict that has plagued the Holy Land. Peres later described his 35-minute audience with the Pope as full of "friendship and understanding." Regarding the Fundamental Agreement with the Vatican, which was signed 13 years ago while Peres was foreign minister of Israel, he said that that 80% of the issues have been resolved, including some of the most difficult ones. "I do believe that this year, we may conclude the remaining outstanding issues, and then we will have to put it in writing."
Benedict XVI stressed the Christian identity of Europe in an address to members of the government and the diplomatic corps in Austria. The Pope said today in an address in the reception hall of Vienna's Hofburg Palace, the seat of the Austrian presidency, that "Europe cannot and must not deny her Christian roots. These represent a dynamic component of our civilization as we move forward into the 3rd millennium."
(Zenit: B16's greeting at airport)
(Zenit: B16's address to politicians)
(Zenit: B16's homily at shrine of Mariazell)
The divisions between Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants are partly responsible for the divisions in Europe and the secularization of the continent, said Cardinal Kasper. He linked the question of the visible and full union of all Christians with the problems facing Europe: "Christian unity is subordinate to world unity and, in particular in our situation, to the unification of Europe."
Religion has found its way back into German society. Yet though church and state are kept separate, many Germans are asking themselves how much religious symbolism should influence their daily lives.
German press...
Foiled terror attacks in Germany have confronted the country with a new question: How to combat home-grown terror? As Friday commentaries show, how you answer that question depends on where you are on the political spectrum.
(Reuters: Suspects had deadline for attacks)
The preamble to the EU's reform treaty will not mention God. Yet Germany's major churches would have preferred a reference. Most EU members do not include God in their national constitutions.
Sometimes it is right for a country to recognise that its job is done. The country has become a freak of nature, a state in which power is so devolved that government is an abhorred vacuum. In short, Belgium has served its purpose. A praline divorce is in order.
(LT op-ed: Would we miss Belgium?)
Polish lawmakers on Friday cleared the way for an early election on Oct. 21, expected to be a close race between the nationalist, conservative governing party and a more business-friendly center-right rival. The lower house of parliament voted overwhelmingly to dissolve itself — cutting short its term by 2 years.
Poland will join Britain in opting out from the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights, Poland's foreign minister announced after arriving for talks in Portugal on the EU's new Reform Treaty. Poland's embattled conservative government dislikes the charter for its supposed liberalism on moral issues, but at the same time it has been under pressure from trade unions - who support the charter's social rights catalogue - to sign up to the charter.
The EU is an economic giant with surprisingly little clout. A collection of essays being published next week by a Brussels think-tank, Bruegel, constructs a careful case that the EU is a "fragmented power" in which institutions, member governments and citizens do not agree on how to exploit or defend Europe's economic strengths. There is also the tiny problem that, on economic matters, the EU does not agree what unity might be for.
(EO: This week in the EU)
Serbia disregarded EU calls for less provocative Serb rhetoric on Kosovo at the weekend and warned that the US was leading the West down a path of force to make the province independent. Serbia, backed by Russia, is on a collision course with the West over Kosovo and hopes to persuade hesitant EU member states to resist big power pressure for recognition of independence as the only viable solution to deadlocked talks over its future. Serbia "is faced with a direct threat by the US that it will recognize the independence of Kosovo ... in an illegal way. Using the policy of force, the US threatens openly that it will not respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia, which is an internationally recognized state and a UN member."
Nearly two-thirds of the Turkish public named the US as their country's greatest future threat, a recent Pew Global Attitudes Project survey has revealed – the highest percentage of any Middle Eastern or Islamic country polled.
A new video tape made by Osama Bin Laden has urged the American people to embrace Islam in order to stop the war in Iraq. He makes no overt threats to the US and did not directly call for attacks, according to transcripts of the tape obtained by several media organisations in the US.
(BBC: Excerpts from video)
(CNN: Transcript)
Iran on Saturday rejected a US federal judge's ruling that the Islamic Republic must pay $2.65 billion to the families of the 241 US service members killed in the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut. Iran has denied responsibility for the attack. It did not respond to the 6-year-old lawsuit and was represented only by an empty table in the US federal courtroom. "The American judge's ruling is baseless. Americans have taken repeated measures contrary to legal principles. ... This ruling against Iran is politically motivated and the result of pressures."
Iran has established a sophisticated spying operation at the head of the Arabian Gulf in a move which has significantly heightened tensions in its standoff with the US. The US military says that the spying post, build on the foundations of a crane platform sunk during the Iran-Iraq war, is equipped with radar, cameras and forward facing infra-red devices to track the movement of coalition naval forces and commercial shipping in the northern Arabian Gulf.
President Ahmadinejad says Iran's enemies should know that Iranians will not ignore their nuclear rights nor will they ever sit back. Reiterating that Iran's nuclear program is a closed case, he said the enemies of the Iranian people are trying to force others to agree with their opinions concerning Iran's nuclear program. "There are only one or two countries that do not comprehend the reality. They assume they can force the Iranian nation to surrender."
The IAEA chief Mohammad ElBaradei has criticized US detractors for not giving Iran a chance to come clean on past nuclear activities. The UN nuclear agency had not seen any evidence that requires going beyond diplomacy, he said, addressing those saying that the solution is to bomb Iran. ElBaradei said the talk of bombing made him "shudder" because the rhetoric was reminiscent of the period before the Iraq war.
The chilling report that the Pentagon is planning a "3-day blitz" targeting Iran hasn't gotten much play here in the US The British press, meanwhile, has been buzzing with what the Bush administration's plan is for Iran, and the news isn't good.
Israeli warplanes may have been testing air routes for a possible attack against Iran when they were fired on by Syrian forces, experts said yesterday. The official Syrian Arab News Agency quoted a military official as saying that Israeli jets broke the sound barrier flying over northern Syria earlier in the day, then "dropped munitions" onto deserted areas after being shot at by Syria's air defenses.
Probably...
Who ordered the loading of Advanced Cruise missiles on to a B-52 in violation of Air Force regulations? The quick reaction of the Air Force and the issuing of a public statement describing the seriousness of the issue and the launch of an immediate investigation, suggests that whatever occurred, was outside the regular chain of military command. If the regular chain of command was violated, then we have to inquire as to whether the B-52 incident was part of a covert project whose classification level exceeded that held by officers in charge of nuclear weapons at Minot AFB. The most obvious governmental entity that may have ordered the nuclear arming of the B-52 outside the regular chain of military command is the last remaining bastion of neo-conservative activism in the Bush administration.
There is considerable circumstantial evidence to argue that the nuclear armed B-52 was part of a covert operation, outside the regular chain of military command. The most plausible authority responsible for this was Vice President Cheney. He very likely used the Secret Service to take charge of a contrived National Special Security Event involving a nuclear armed B-52 that would be flown from Minot AFB. The B-52 was directed to Barksdale Air Force base where it would have conducted a covert mission to the Middle East involving the detonation of one or more nuclear weapons most likely in or in the vicinity of Iran. This could either have occurred during a conventional military strike against Iran, or a False Flag operation in the Persian Gulf region.
CIA director Michael Hayden warned on Saturday that al Qaeda was plotting fresh attacks on the US aimed at sowing death and destruction on a massive scale. "Al Qaeda is focusing on targets that would produce mass casualties, dramatic destruction and significant economic aftershocks."
This remarkable piece of historiography will change the way you look at American politics. It shows that the corruption of American "conservatism" began long before George W. Bush ballooned the budget and asserted dictatorial rights over the country and the world. The American Right long ago slid into the abyss. People who have read it swear that it is the best account ever of how the old right was subverted to become a propaganda branch of the state, not just recently but 50 years ago. This book has been the best-kept secret in political writing for the last half century. Now at last it can be revealed to the world. Betrayal of the America Right is the tell-all book that shows why and how the ideological world turned upside down.
Chinese military hackers have prepared a detailed plan to disable America's aircraft battle carrier fleet with a devastating cyber attack, according to a Pentagon report obtained by The Times. China's ambitions extend to crippling an enemy's financial, military and communications capabilities early in a conflict. Describing what is in effect a new arms race, a Pentagon assessment states that China's military regards offensive computer operations as "critical to seize the initiative" in the first stage of a war.
A DePaul University professor who has drawn criticism for accusing some Jews of improperly using the legacy of the Holocaust agreed to resign immediately "for everybody's sake." In his most recent book, "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History," Norman Finkelstein argues that Israel uses the outcry over perceived anti-Semitism as a weapon to stifle criticism.
Great ruling!...
Alcoholics Anonymous, the renowned 12-step program that directs problem drinkers to seek help from a higher power, says it's not a religion and is open to nonbelievers. But it has enough religious overtones that a parolee can't be ordered to attend its meetings as a condition of staying out of prison, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. In fact, said the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the constitutional dividing line between church and state in such cases is so clear that a parole officer can be sued for damages for ordering a parolee to go through rehabilitation at Alcoholics Anonymous or an affiliated program for drug addicts.
[WAR: Not only is AA a religious cult, it basically doesn't work! They only address the symptoms of the literal disease, and not the causes. This is why AA and 99% of rehabs (alcohol and drugs) have such a big revolving door for people to continually go in-and-out -- looking for relief/help, but not getting it.]
Employers in the US eliminated 4,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department said Friday, bringing an end to 4 years of uninterrupted job growth. Economists said the report provides the Federal Reserve with ample justification to lower interest rates at least a quarter point when it meets Sept. 18. But the numbers also raised fresh fears of a recession and suggested that the damage from the recent turmoil in financial markets could be spreading.
Britain's biggest banks could be forced to cough up as much as £70bn over the next 10 days, as the credit crisis that has seized the global financial system sparks a fresh wave of chaos. Almost 20% of the short-term money market loans issued by European banks are due to mature between September 11 and 19.
Based in the heart of the City of London, the Bank of England symbolises the UK's economic strength and stability. So it is ironic that the "Old Lady of Threadneedle Street" was originally built on a swamp. Over the last month, financial markets in London and elsewhere have suffered from a shocking crisis of confidence. There are now justified fears this global credit-crunch could spread to the "real world", causing a full-blown recession in the US and beyond.
"Not only is there no God," said Woody Allen, "but try getting a plumber on weekends." That just about sums up the problems of today's financial markets. The plumbing is badly blocked, and nobody seems able to fix it, not even the central banks, the market's immortals. The problem is the apparent reluctance of banks to lend to each other, particularly over 3 months. That problem arises, in part, from uncertainty about who will pay the bill for America's subprime-mortgage collapse.
A sharp drop in foreign holdings of US Treasury bonds over the last 5 weeks has raised concerns that China is quietly withdrawing its funds from the US, leaving the dollar increasingly vulnerable. Data released by the New York Federal Reserve shows that foreign central banks have cut their stash of US Treasuries by $48bn since late July, with falls of $32bn in the last 2 weeks alone. "This comes as a big surprise and it is definitely worrying. We won't know if China is behind this until the Treasury releases its TIC data in November, but what it does show is that world central banks are in a hurry to get out of the US. They don't seem to be switching into other currencies, so it is possible they are moving into gold instead. Gold is now gaining momentum across all currencies."
Alarm bells are ringing as huge wealth funds run by governments take stakes in our strategic industries. They are a new breed of marauding investor – secretive investment firms with a voracious appetite for deals and the fire-power to send shockwaves through the world's financial markets. Welcome to the often murky world of sovereign-wealth funds, government-sponsored investment firms flush with cash.
The debate about the social responsibilities of companies is heating up again. In the past decade, "corporate social responsibility" (CSR) has become the norm in the boardrooms of companies in rich countries, and increasingly in developing economies too. Criticism of CSR has come mostly from those on the free-market right, who intone Milton Friedman's argument that the only "social responsibility of business is to increase its profits."
Some sex differences that look biological are really cultural.
In the US today, science is no longer a pure study. The science primarily publicized today is science that supports the interest of business. You see this in many areas, but most notably in medical and environmental science. Medicine is a field where so-called science stops resembling science. Instead, it becomes propaganda designed to sell drugs. The clinical trials used by the FDA to make drug approval decisions are conducted almost entirely by the drug companies themselves. These companies go out of their way to hire scientists willing to design and run these studies to produces precisely the result that the drug companies want.
Book review...
The Western world may believe that it has liberated itself from clerical power, but divinity just keeps on breaking in.
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