Pope Benedict XVI will visit the US in April 2008, for a major address at UN headquarters. Although rumors about a papal visit have circulated in the US media for the past week, the Vatican has not yet confirmed the trip. However informed sources have told CWN that plans are quickly taking shape for a spring trip to eastern US.
Flirting with the Whore...
A new Roman Catholic bishop of Beijing has been consecrated in the Chinese capital, the first for over 50 years to have tacit approval of the Pope.
Once known as the "German Rome," this international business center is over 800 years old and is the 3rd largest city in Germany with a history dating back to the 9th century.
The proposal to turn marriage into a kind of time-share arrangement has shocked Germany. It comes from Gabriele Pauli, who is running to become head of the Bavarian conservative Christian Social Union party. Pauli is determined to shake up the party, which has ruled Bavaria for the best part of 6 decades. Catholic bishops called yesterday for Pauli to be thrown out of the CSU. So too did Edmund Stoiber, who is head of the party and prime minister of Bavaria until next month.
Deutsche Bank's CEO has admitted that the bank's 3rd-quarter profits will be hit by the global credit crisis. The bank's shares fell by 3% Thursday as the markets reacted to the news.
Just hours after the UN Security Council authorized NATO troops to remain in Afghanistan for another year, Germany's parliament began clearing the way for an extension of its soldiers' deployment there.
Germany's top spy chief has criticized private security firms operating in combat zones. A recent shooting in Iraq shows the potential backlash countries face in using private security in war zones.
France and Germany - for years this meant one of the strongest alliances in Europe. Yet the skies between Berlin and Paris have become clouded ever since President Sarkozy took over.
As President Sarkozy assumes the role of Europe's most dynamic leader, smashing taboos has stripped away paralyzing French hypocrisy.
The back story of this flat country of 10.4 million is of a bad marriage writ large - two nationalities living together that cannot stand each other. Now, more than 3 months after a general election, Belgium has failed to create a government, producing a crisis so profound that it has led to a flood of warnings, predictions, even promises that the country is about to disappear.
European industrialists are concerned that the euro's rise is hurting exports and could lead to job cuts in European manufacturing.
It was supposed to be the center-piece of NATO's post-Cold War transformation. But the rapid response force envisioned by the alliance may be mothballed. Member states have not honored their commitments.
The US secretary of state has said the upcoming Middle East peace summit must address substantive issues and advance the cause of a Palestinian state. Condoleezza Rice said there was no point inviting the Israelis and the Palestinians to the conference, expected in November, just for show.
What should be clear is that the lands from the Mediterranean to the Gulf have become extraordinarily volatile, and there could hardly be a worse time for Syria to be provoking Israel or for Israel to be provoking Syria. Anonymous sources have told different stories to American and British papers.
Benjamin Netanyahu was chacteristically at the centre of a controversy yesterday after appearing to be the first Israeli politician to confirm an air strike against Syria two weeks ago. With reporting in Israel covoered by military censorship, Netanyahu startled television viewers – and reportedly shocked the office of the Prime Minister – by answering a question about the supposed air strike in an interview.
Premier Paranoid Protestant Prophecy Propagandist Pushing Poop...
Damascus is the oldest continually inhabited city on earth. Although conquered many times, its status as an economic and cultural center of antiquity preserved it intact to this day. Isaiah describes the destruction of Damascus in much the same terms that would be used today to describe the effects of all-out, no-holds-barred Israeli retaliatory strike against a Syrian gas attack.
Are we on the verge of another Middle East war, to accompany those underway, recently suspended, or in the offing in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza? Is the US trying to head off this latest conflict, or has it given Israel the green light? A Middle East literally in flames from the Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean is by no means a distant or unrealistic prospect. So finding out exactly what the US is doing to forestall a war between Israel and Syria would seem important.
Osama bin Laden declared war on Gen Musharraf, the president of Pakistan, calling him "a tyrant" and "an apostate". It was the first time that bin Laden has directly threatened Musharraf, prompting concern that attacks on Pakistani security forces may intensify.
Al Qaeda urged Sudanese Muslims to fight African Union and UN peacekeeping troops in Darfur as rebels cast doubt on whether peace talks to pave the way for the force could succeed. Al Qaeda's 2nd-in-command called for a holy war on the troops that he said were invading Darfur, and criticized Sudan's president for accepting the 26,000-strong joint AU-UN operation.
A conference called "Iran - Business Opportunities for German Exporters" opens in Darmstadt, Germany, despite objections of Zionist regime.
As European leaders argue about whether to tighten sanctions against Iran, it is not just a diplomatic debate. Here in this industrial city, German exporters gathered Tuesday to learn about "market opportunities" in Iran, which they complain are drying up. Germany has long been one of Tehran's largest trading partners, but its exports to Iran plunged 17% in the first half of this year. To some critics, the mere fact this meeting was held illustrates why Germany is not taking as hard a line toward Iran as the US or France. German companies, they say, are determined to preserve their ties to a country that has been one of their most durable trading partners.
Gates trying to take down Cheney?...
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked a former air force chief of staff to conduct an independent investigation into the unauthorized transfer of nuclear weapons aboard a B-52 bomber last month. The Pentagon has not explained what happened, or even officially confirmed that nuclear weapons were involved.
If and when there's the equivalent of an international Nuremberg trial for the American perpetrators of crimes against humanity in Guantánamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the CIA's secret prisons, there will be mounds of evidence available from documented international reports by human-rights organizations. While the Democratic Congress has yet to begin a serious investigation into what many European legislators already know about American war crimes, a particularly telling report by the International Committee of the Red Cross has been leaked that would surely figure prominently in such a potential Nuremberg trial.
Values voters were mostly perplexed by Ron Paul. He admonished them to be wary of the government. America can attack countries unable to defend against her bombs, and should be encouraged to do so, according to values voters and their warmongering favorites. George Bush and any number of his neoconservative sycophants can exclaim "you are either with us or against us," which is exactly opposite of what Jesus said, and values voters eat it up.
Few parts of the world are as loved and loathed with the intensity that is felt for the American South. Thanks to a long line of contributions to the popular culture from Gone with the Wind to Borat, via Deliverance, Dixie, the great muggy swath of the southeastern US, from Washington DC to Texas, has a firm grip on the imagination of Americans and foreigners alike.
Australia's once-in-a-century drought has tightened its grip on the country's major food growing zone and could kill off the region's orchards and vineyards, Prime Minister John Howard said today. In his weekly radio address, Howard said that the continued lack of rain meant permanent plantings, such as fruit trees and grape vines, were dying. "We are dealing with a genuine crisis."
[WAR: "Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands." (Hag 1:10,11)]
Crude oil prices jumped above $84 a barrel late on Thursday after production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were shut down ahead of a threatened tropical storm.
The world dumped the dollar on Thursday, pushing the greenback to an all-time low of $1.40 against the euro and to parity with the Canadian dollar for the first time in 3 decades as currency traders around the world digested the full implications of the US Federal Reserve's new course for interest rates. The frenzied selling began early in the day in Europe, never let up, and reached across the Atlantic as traders concluded that the lower borrowing costs the Fed introduced on Tuesday would dampen the appeal of dollar-denominated assets like stocks, bonds and real estate just as other central banks are raising rates to create the opposite effect.
Six weeks ago, the Federal Reserve thought the US economy would easily weather problems in the credit market. One week ago, the Bank of England warned against the risks of bailing out those who had made risky loans. This was a week to say, "never mind."
Subprime lending in the US housing market is a storm on the verge of turning into a hurricane and quite a few banks are likely to take a direct hit, especially overexposed giants like Citigroup and Bank of America, which control many specialised finance companies. In Europe financial institutions like the Deutsche Bank, Barclays and BNP Paribas are also said to be in trouble and might go down; same for insurance companies like Axa and many pension funds. But that is only the tip of the iceberg.
In a series of multibillion-dollar deals, Dubai, Qatar and Abu Dhabi reached out to acquire significant stakes in 3 stock markets and a US private equity firm, illustrating their increasing appetite for investing the growing wealth from record oil prices in high-quality assets abroad.
If you're worried about the close connection between negative household savings in the US and world economic instability, you need look no further than the 'sub-prime lending' crisis of 2007, an instructive lesson in how quickly a set of apparently unrelated factors can combine to produce the threat of financial meltdown. The danger is that the world financial system is already dangerously fragile; as the US dollar falls, a further speculative crisis could send the world economy into a tailspin.
In Europe and Canada debate is raging about Naomi Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. This interview with Klein considers why US public debate is unable to ask fundamental questions about our economic system. The book tells the history of how the American version of "free market" capitalism has spread in moments of crisis and catastrophe, when societies are too traumatized and disoriented to challenge the introduction of radical economic policies that go against their own interests.
The aftermath of the meteorite strike in Peru just keeps getting weirder. Reports from Peru now claim that more than 600 people have fallen ill after coming into contact with the "glowing rock" or having inhaled "toxic gases" while visiting the massive 30 metre wide crater. A crashed, ripped apart spy satellite powered by Pu238 (plutonium) fuel cells would also explain the bizarre accounts of Peruvians who visited the crater suffering from radiation sickness. It will be fascinating to see how this story unfolds, particularly how it is reported in the mainstream media.
Eating a diet high in white rice, breakfast cereal and white bread could be linked to a potentially fatal liver condition, a study has found. Starchy carbohydrates which are quickly digested are known to contribute to weight gain but doctors also believe they damage the liver in what is becoming a 'silent epidemic'. It is now thought that a condition known as fatty liver is caused by high consumption of starchy refined carbohydrates which encourage the body to store energy as fat. Fatty liver can lead to hepatitis, liver failure and death.
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