St. Paulinus of Nola is the Father of the Church to whom we turn today. A contemporary of St. Augustine, to whom he was bound by deep friendship, Paulinus exercised his ministry in Campania, in Nola, where he was first priest then bishop.
The theology of our times has found precisely in the concept of communion the key to approach the mystery of the Church.
Germany's security agency has called on the Interior Ministry to have its legal and financial means expanded. The Federal Criminal Office, or BKA, and its various state offices in a report to the Interior Ministry said that in the wake of several terror suspects arrested in the country, means to investigate potential terror plots should be expanded.
The BKA also wants to extend the monitoring of Internet cafes and called on the intelligence services to cooperate better with police in case of an ongoing investigation against terror suspects.
The owners of battered German lender WestLB emerged from crisis talks on Wednesday saying that they would be happy to sell a stake in their subprime-hit bank. The comments are the latest sign of the worsening condition of German banks in the wake of the subprime storm. Germany, Europe's biggest economy, has taken an especially hard beating from the credit market turbulence.
British Euro MPs led a noisy protest yesterday at a signing ceremony for a new EU rights charter. Around 100 heckling Eurosceptics from Britain, France, Poland and Italy wrecked what was supposed to be a solemn event at the Strasbourg Parliament. They waved placards and banners, stamped, booed and chanted "referendum". Opponents called them "hooligans" who shamed Britain.
The ceremony marked the signing of the charter by the EU's three institutions, the Parliament, Commission and the European Council.
EU leaders converge on Lisbon today to sign a landmark treaty which they hope will revitalise the expanded bloc and allow them to refocus their energies on wider issues after years of navel-gazing. One notable absentee at the morning signing ceremony of heads of state and government and foreign ministers will be British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The EU leaders deem the 250-plus page treaty vital to streamline the functioning of a regional grouping which has ballooned from 15 to 27 nations since 2004 while pushing deep into the former Soviet bloc.
Many EU governments, including France and the Netherlands, have said there will be no need for national referendums this time around. The treaty "does not transfer sovereignty to the EU ... and there is no judicial reason to resort to a referendum."
(Also: EU leaders sign landmark treaty)
(Also: Q&A: The Lisbon Treaty)
Kosovo-Metohija is the very heart and soul of the Serbian nation. Kosovo province is to Serbs what Westminster Abbey is to Britons, Paris is to the French or Jerusalem is to the 3 world religions. It is not something the Serbian nation is willing to surrender to NATO, Albanian Muslims or the US State Department, however mighty they might think they are, and however persistently they demand to steal it.
Unilateral declaration of independence would constitute a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 as well as the UN Charter, and it will subsequently be null and void in the UN. Russia, which holds a veto in the UNSC, will demand that any such decision be cancelled or be annulled.
Vladimir Putin could become a leader of a united Russia-Belarus state. This development may result from talks that begin today in Belarus. Putin has unexpectedly revived efforts to create a single state from the two former Soviet republics - a merger that would expand his options for exercising power after he steps down from the Russian presidency next year, the AP reports.
Back to the future...
Russia's next president, Dmitri Medvedev, known to his friends as Dima, is a fan of the rock groups Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. He swims a mile every day, and he is very flattered when anyone tells him he looks the spitting image of Russia's last czar, Nicholas II. Welcome to the new Russia, which is starting to look like a modernized version of the old Russia before the Communists took over and the revolution of 1917 toppled the czar and marginalized the Orthodox Church.
The first peace negotiations in 7 years between Israelis and Palestinians began badly amid tension over Palestinian militant activities and a fresh land dispute in Jerusalem. Delegates met in an unnamed Jerusalem hotel in line with undertakings made at last month's peace meeting in the American city of Annapolis.
The session ended without any achievements. An Israeli official described the atmosphere as "tense" and a Palestinian official reported "not an inch" of progress.
Iran has strongly condemned the killing of a top Lebanese army officer, and said Israel is the only one to benefit from unrest in Lebanon, state television has reported. "We strongly condemn the assassination, which was aimed at disrupting agreement among Lebanese factions to resolve disputes. Enemies of the Lebanese, especially the Zionist regime, profit the most from creating insecurity in Lebanon."
"The Syrian government sends its deepest condolence to the Lebanese army, its command and the family of al-Hajj," SANA said. The agency quoted an official media source as saying Damascus condemned the killing, which "targets Lebanon's military establishment with its anti-Israeli beliefs." Israel and its allies in Lebanon stood to benefit from the crime through the killing of a national Lebanese figure, who held the Lebanese army's belief, supported the resistance (against Israel), worked for a united Lebanon and rejected its division, the source said.
(Also: Pics of scene)
The US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has harshly criticized the US's NATO allies for not stepping up to the plate in Afghanistan. He singled out German-led police training efforts as "disappointing."
Gates' stern remarks are the latest manifestation of the Bush administration's frustration with what it sees as an overly passive NATO reponse to the Taliban. US officials have repeatedly called on other NATO members to provide more troops as well as military and police trainers -- without much success.
The US Defence Secretary has said that even though Washington was working with Pakistan to combat Al-Qaeda in its border areas, American forces should be ready to act "unilaterally" to take out terror targets, reports Indian media.
President Ahmadinejad will become the first Islamic Republic Head of State to make a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. His advisor said that Ahmadinejad had accepted King Abdullah's invitation to go to Mecca and Medina for the next Hajj, the annual pilgrimage of Muslims.
A date has not yet been set for the visit, but the climax of the Hajj is next Tuesday, when pilgrims will gather on Arafat near Mecca, and the day after the Eid al-Adha celebration which marks the end of the pilgrimage.
The head of the Oil Pension Fund Tuesday announced that oil and economy ministers were holding talks on the setup of Oil Bourse and the center would become operational in the near future. Oil Minister Nozari said that his talks with the Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance on the running of the Oil Bourse would be finalized soon.
Russian nuclear fuel producer TVEL says uranium supplied to Iran is not enriched enough to be used for nuclear weapons production. "Fuel for the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant will not exceed the uranium enrichment level achieved by the Iranians."
Israel's army chief of staff hinted Wednesday that the Israeli military may have to act itself to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, if the international community was unsuccessful in doing so.
A senior Israeli official has fiercely criticized President Bush's administration for the way it has dealt with the Iranian nuclear issue. The official said that the administration was not doing what was required of it to create an international coalition and wide agreement to pressure Iran over its nuclear program.
Of course...
Some Republicans in Congress are 2nd-guessing a government intelligence report that Iran has abandoned its nuclear weapons program. They want a 2nd opinion. "We just see politics injected into this. When it comes to national security we really need to remove politics. We're saying, let's take a 2nd look."
US Jews appear to have become more opposed both to Israel's making key concessions in renewed peace talks with Palestinians and to the US carrying out a military attack against Iran's nuclear facilities, according to the latest in an annual series of surveys of Jewish opinion released here this week by the American Jewish Committee.
While Jews make up only about 2% of the US population, their exceptionally high rate of voter participation gives them almost twice the voting power. In addition to solidly Democratic New York and California, their numbers are also concentrated in several "swing" states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida, and Illinois
A "lefty" who gets it...
The left wing of the antiwar movement has some very serious problems, mainly our inability to recognize that the antiwar sentiment in the US resonating far beyond the confines of the so-called "left."
Whether we're beer-drinking rednecks from Tennessee or pot smokin' hippies from Oregon, we need to come together. And working to keep the movement away from supporting a pro-war candidate like Hillary Clinton is an important endeavor.
Dan Abrams examined the Bush administration's unprecedented use of signing statements in the second installment of his week-long MSNBC series on "Bush League Justice."
"President Bush doesn't like to veto laws. He doesn't have to. Since he took office, he's been attaching conditions to laws already passed by Congress, allowing him to essentially disobey the will of Congress and dramatically expand his own power."
Bush has issued 1100 signing statements — almost twice as many as all previous presidents put together — often completely reversing the intended effect of legislation.
The office of the president is a secular office in a secular government. There is not a word in the Constitution that authorizes the president or anyone else in the federal government to make a religious decision. Why then are both voters and candidates wasting their time talking about religion?
The personal religious beliefs of the candidates should be considered irrelevant. Furthermore, people should not forget that there are a lot more professors of religion than practitioners. What a person claims to believe and how that person leads his or her life are often quite different.
Laws are, in the final analysis, words on paper. They cannot and do not control human behavior. If they could, there would be no crimes. Americans, especially politicians, have developed the bad habit of thinking that there ought to be a law to cover every conceivable human action. Consequently, there are so many laws today that no human being can possibly know what they all are.
As for religion, people should recognize that all the world's religions have failed to eliminate sin, and therefore no one should expect the government to do that. Christianity in particular is based on the twin concepts of sin and forgiveness. Governments are better at finding sin than at forgiving.
The US dollar was dumped yesterday by investors disappointed by the Federal Reserve's decision to cut interest rates by just 0.25% instead of the 0.5% many thought was needed to bolster confidence and liquidity.
Taken as a whole, the central banks' measures are a barometer of the seriousness, depth and global scope of the financial crisis. Martin Wolf, the business columnist for the Financial Times, wrote: "The central bank helicopters are planning a coordinated drop of liquidity on troubled market waters. The money to be dropped is not that large. But if this does not work, more will surely follow. The helicopters will fly again and again. One point is clear: central banks must be pretty worried to take such a joint action."
Home owners and borrowers were given fresh hope yesterday after an unprecedented intervention in the faltering financial markets by the world's largest central banks. The Bank of England joined its counterparts in America, Europe, Canada and Switzerland in pumping billions of dollars, euros and pounds into the international money markets in a desperate attempt to ease the credit crisis.
It is the first time the world's major central banks have taken co-ordinated action to pump extra money into the financial markets and it highlights the depth of concern over the global economy. The only recent economic parallel was after the 9/11 attacks - when banks around the world cut interest rates.
If there is a precedent for yesterday's joint operation to inject liquidity into the international finance system by the western world's 5 leading central banks, we have yet to find it. There was some co-ordination of activity after 9/11 but this operation is of a wholly different magnitude. The new multi-billion dollar facility is the starkest illustration yet of the alarming scale of the collapse of credit.
There is a nagging fear that we have seen only the tip of the sub-prime iceberg and until a clearer picture emerges of the scale of exposure, banks will continue to sit on their hands, and their assets.
The concerted rescue effort launched by the world's central banks yesterday was, in 2 ways, an admission of failure by the stewards of the global financial system. The problem in the banking world has not been the cost of borrowing, but the shortage of funds. This has not been a traditional credit crunch, but a liquidity crisis.
Like waves of cavalry entering the battlefield late but still hoping to carry the day, the world's leading central banks have unveiled a joint plan to pump an unprecedented level of financial support into the short-term funding markets.
Anthony Bolton, the legendary Fidelity fund manager, has warned that the contagion gripping global credit markets will seep into stock markets like cancer in 2008. Bolton fears that the combination of tightening credit, increasing pressure on consumer expenditure and falling property prices will have a severe impact on the economy.
The Continent has paid a heavy price in blood for religious fervor and decided some time ago, as a French king once put it, that "Paris is well worth a Mass." Mitt Romney, a Republican candidate for the presidency and former Massachusetts governor, was dismissive of European societies "too busy or too 'enlightened' to venture inside and kneel in prayer." In so doing, he pointed to what has become the principal trans-Atlantic cultural divide.
Europeans still take their Enlightenment seriously enough not to put it in quote marks. European sources of alarm at Bush's presidency have been manifold, but unease at his allusions to divine guidance - "the hand of a just and faithful God" in shaping events or his trust in "the ways of Providence" - has been particularly acute. Such beliefs seem to remove decision-making from the realm of the rational at the very moment when the West's enemy acts in the name of a fanatical theocracy.
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