When Benedict XVI travels to Naples next month to participate in the interreligious prayer meeting for peace, he will meet with Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople.
Summorum Pontificum, the motu proprio with which Pope Benedict XVI encouraged wide use of the Roman Missal of 1962, will take effect today (Sept 14). Benedict explained that his motu proprio was an effort to promote "interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church."
Outgoing Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber is to advise the European Commission on how to cut bureaucratic red tape that is holding back business, EU sources said. Stoiber, a conservative Christian Social Union politician who has often been critical of Brussels, will head a 15-member panel from business, trade unions non-government organisations and the media to recommend ways to simplify regulation.
The dispatching of a German submarine to the port of Algiers underscores the German government's military interest in Algeria. Berlin permits the training of Algerian soldiers in Germany and would like to incorporate this North African country into the NATO through so-called anti-terror measures. Germany is also supplying its military partner, Algeria, with large quantities of arms.
The Franco-German axis, so long the EU's spinal column is in danger of osteoporosis; the bones brittle. Germany's understated European leadership is being threatened by the new French Napoleon. Just at a time, therefore, when Europe's leaders need to present a common and united front there are widespread signs of fission and friction. Faced with this cumulation of difficulties, this sea of troubles, the European enterprise is in danger of a serious setback.
At last the EU as a group is getting tougher with Russia. But it doesn't mean Europe is wholly united against Russia.
German press...
Vladimir Putin's surprise nomination of a bland, politically weak bureaucrat to be Russia's new prime minister - within spitting range of Putin's job - has German papers wondering whether Putin wants to return for a 3rd term after all.
A senior European Parliament official said on Wednesday that the EU and Syria were waiting for the political climate to improve to allow the signing of an association agreement. The accord, on which the two sides completed negotiations in October 2004 but which needs ratification, aims to set up a free-trade zone by 2010. Syria will become the last Mediterranean country to have an accord with the EU.
Turkish intelligence provided Israel with information on the Syrian targets allegedly attacked by the Air Force last week without the Turkish government's authorization.
A carefully constructed compromise on a draft law governing Iraq's rich oil fields, agreed to in February after months of arduous talks among Iraqi political groups, appears to have collapsed.
Thousands of furious Hindus took to the streets after the Indian Government claimed that the epic that forms the cornerstone of their religious beliefs was a work of fiction. The row erupted when the Archaeological Survey of India, an arm of the Culture Ministry, told the country's highest court that there was no evidence to support the existence of the characters in the Ramayana, a revered ancient text. Nor was there any historical record that Lord Ram, one of Hinduism's most popular heroes, was a real person or that any of the events in the epic took place.
The Iranian Interior Minister says the US should change its policies, as the world cannot be ruled by the law of the jungle.
The EU is trying to fend off moves by the US Congress to punish foreign firms that do business in Iran, diplomats say. They say Brussels fears the US moves could set Western allies against each other and undermine unity against Tehran. The EU is particularly alarmed at a bill passed by the House of Representatives that would end a presidential waiver sparing European companies from US sanctions on firms that invest more than $20 million in the Iranian oil and gas sector.
A long-running battle in Kurdistan's hills flares up. Will it trigger a larger conflagration between the US and Iran?
America and Iran's struggle is increasingly about pre-eminence in the Middle East rather than lofty ideas about freedom, democracy, or even stability. Unless a significant shift is made toward robust diplomacy, the clash is likely to be violent.
As Bush ratchets up the rhetoric, Russia, China and, reportedly, Germany are balking at new UN sanctions. That leaves Bush only the military option if he wishes to effect the nuclear castration of Iran. And Gen. Petraeus just provided him the rationale. Petraeus' charge that Iran is fighting a "proxy war" against America comports with the new War Party propaganda line that we have been at war with Iran since 1979 and Bush needs no authorization from Congress to fight it more aggressively.
I contend that should some civilian order you to initiate a nuclear attack on Iran, you are duty-bound to refuse that order. I might also suggest that you should consider whether the circumstances demand that you arrest whoever gave the order as a war criminal.
The Bush administration seems intent on flouting Congress' mandate to restore the primacy of FEMA in dealing with disasters. Far better that Congress defend its own primacy by firmly establishing that America is a nation of law, not runaway executives.
The habit of branding Jewish dissidents – those of us who reject the nationalist notion that as Jews, our fate is tied to that of Israel, or the idea that our people's historic suffering somehow exempts Israel from moral reproach for its abuses against others – as "self-haters"is not unfamiliar to me. The need to turn back every deviation from Jewish orthodoxy may actually reflect a loosening of control within the political world of American Jews, and a new opening, a Jewish glasnost.
The flight of the nuclear-armed US bomber has the most ominous significance. The silence of the media and the politicians is aimed at concealing the dire implications of this event from the people of the US and the world.
Shortly before 10 am on the morning of September 11, 2001, amid rumors of a 4th hijacked plane headed for Washington, DC, a mystery aircraft appeared in restricted airspace over the White House. There has never been an official explanation for this incident, which has provided abundant fuel for 9/11 conspiracy theories. CNN has now learned from 2 government sources that the mystery plane was a military aircraft and has determined that the blurry image on video appears to match photos of the Air Force's E-4B, a specially modified Boeing 747 with a communications pod behind the cockpit. CNN acknowledges that, despite its identification, the absence of the aircraft from official investigations, together with the Pentagon's denial that it was a military plane and the insistence by the Pentagon, Secret Service, and FAA that they have no explanation for the incident, may continue to raise suspicions.
"No tropical cyclone in the historical record has ever reached this intensity at a faster rate near landfall. It would be nice to know ... someday ... why this happened."
Finance ministers and central bankers have long fretted that at some point, the rest of the world would lose its willingness to finance the United States' proclivity to consume far more than it produces - and that a potentially disastrous free-fall in the dollar's value would result. "This is all pointing to a greatly increased risk of a fast unwinding of the US current account deficit and a serious decline of the dollar. We could finally see the big kahuna hit."
(Economist: Another shoe to drop)
Globalisation is eating itself. The past few weeks have seen the world's financial system turn itself upside down. Not so long ago it was the bankers who decided the fate of the lowliest in society. Now, in a bizarre reversal of fortunes, it is America's poorest who hold the fate of Wall Street and the City's richest financiers in their hands. By Tuesday night we will have an idea of whether the crisis will last much longer. The Federal Reserve is due to decide on US interest rates then. If it does anything less than cut rates by half a percentage point, markets will take an even deeper tumble.
To paraphrase Gordon Gekko, sin is good. Or in this case, at least a little better than investing your conscience. The Vice Fund, based in Dallas, has invested substantially in "sin stocks," companies that may promote drinking and gambling as well as military contractors and tobacco companies. "Our ultimate goal: to just make money."
Wheat prices surged to record highs Wednesday on expectations that rising global demand for US wheat will deplete stockpiles to the lowest level in 3 decades — a situation likely to drive up costs in the grocery aisle. As the climbing costs of raw materials from grains to gasoline trickle down to the supermarket, Americans are likely to pay more for meat, poultry, dairy and other groceries.
High-profile claims against Russia and China this year, accusing them of mounting cyber attacks against Western state computer systems could be the first publicized salvos of a secret cyber war involving many nations.
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