The world is hungry for the message of hope that the Gospel brings. Even in countries as highly developed as yours, many are discovering that economic success and advanced technology are not sufficient in themselves to bring fulfilment to the human heart.
Democracy is not just about following rules, but about accepting the dignity of every human person and his rights, says Benedict XVI. He affirmed this in an address given to Singapore's new ambassador to the Holy See.
"Economic success needs a firm ethical grounding if it is to bring lasting benefits to society. Indeed the needs of the person must always be placed at the heart of economic enterprise, since [...] the human person is 'the source, the center, and the purpose of all economic and social life.'"
"Likewise, an authentic democracy is not merely the result of a formal observation of a set of rules, but is 'the fruit of a convinced acceptance of the values that inspire democratic procedures: the dignity of every human person, the respect of human rights, commitment to the common good.'"
(Also: Full text of address)
(Also: B16 address to Kuwait ambassador)
Pope Benedict won't be making a trip to Israel anytime soon. The Vatican is ruling out a papal visit until long-standing differences with Israel over tax exemptions, visas and certain properties are settled.
Germans, particularly women, young people and Catholics, are more religious than originally thought, according to a new study. But more are turning away from traditional forms of religion to find their own path.
Good for them...
The German government is refusing to negotiate with Israel over new compensation claims for Holocaust survivors. The dispute is causing tension between Israel and the Jewish Claims Conference - which Germany says is its correct negotiating partner.
The mission in Afghanistan is becoming more and more dangerous for members of Germany's armed forces, the Bundeswehr. As large numbers of Taliban fighters move northward, NATO officials expect the situation to become increasingly precarious.
German press...
The US, so keen on flexing its muscles in world politics under President Bush, has ceded global leadership to the Europeans in tackling climate change, say German newspapers.
The Court of Auditors of the EU has announced, for the 13th year in a row, that it will not sign off on the accounts of the EU's $190 billion budget, since it is again riddled with fraud, fiddles and dubious or unaccountable spending.
Hungary has become the first of the EU's members to endorse the Lisbon Treaty. But the bloc's biggest reforms planned in years won't take effect unless the other 26 states also agree to it.
So with a European Treaty back on the agenda, what attitude would Lady Thatcher have adopted towards the Reform Treaty? Much of the debate in the UK has focused on the similarities and differences between the Reform Treaty and its parent, the Constitutional Treaty, and whether there should be a referendum in the UK. This debate has generated a lot of noise and heat, but little light.
Perhaps we should apply the "Thatcher test" to the Treaty? What would the Iron Lady have made of the latest EU proposals on the table? The background to the current Treaty is enlargement, and Lady Thatcher was a strong advocate of this policy.
The enlarged EU of 27 member states, encompassing the former communist countries of eastern Europe, has dramatically shifted the nature of the Union. It has moved away from its Franco-German axis to a much more favourable position for the UK, since in Lady Thatcher's words, "these eastern European states were and are Britain's natural allies".
The increase in the UK's voting weight in the European Council from 8.4% to 12.2% would have been welcomed by Lady Thatcher. So while Lady Thatcher today, and indeed some of her heirs, might now oppose the Reform Treaty, the evidence suggests that the Lady Thatcher of the 1980s might have supported it. The treaty envisages a streamlined, more effective EU and bolsters Britain's role within it - it easily passes the Thatcher Test.
Analysis
The EU is not based on the foundations of democratic legitimacy, but only on the will of a clique of politicians, a new class of supra-national gray Eurocrats that gravitate around Brussels and Strasbourg, invisible and without a face, but with the cheek of assuming that they speak for the people and look after their interests.
For that very reason, without this stamp of popular approval, any Treaty of Lisbon that opens the door to provide decisions at the national level with national consequences, is condemned, opening the crevices that in the future will provoke the collapse of the EU project.
Little Belgium is in serious political trouble. The historically shaky marriage between 6.3 million Flemish in Belgium's north and 4 million French-speaking Walloons in the south is at the point of dissolution.
Interestingly, many Belgians are feeling they don't need their own dysfunctional, inept governments. Given the huge, ever-growing political and economic superstructure of the EU transnational government based in Brussels, Belgians could readily do without their own wretched politicians. One senses a similar new political feeling in Spain, where the government in Madrid is becoming increasingly redundant, and even in Scotland, Wales, and parts of highly decentralized Germany.
Russia has threatened to target 2 proposed American bases in Europe with its nuclear missiles if the Pentagon pressed ahead with its plans for a missile defence shield. In an escalation of the Cold War-style threats favoured by President Putin, the general in charge of Russia's ballistic arsenal said that he could target the bases in Poland and the Czech Republic that will host the missile-interceptor shield if America insists on building them.
America insists that its new shield will carry only a few missiles, designed to intercept warheads fired from rogue states, such as Iran. But Gen Solovtsov dismissed that concept as a lie, claiming that America was determined to surround Russia with its military might.
"If the Americans signed a treaty with us that they would only deploy 10 anti-missile rockets in Poland and one radar in the Czech Republic and will never put anything else there, then we could deal with this," he said. "However they won't sign, they just tell us verbally, 'We won't threaten you'."
He said that believing such verbal assurances in the past had seen Russia encircled by the Western military alliance, NATO. "Verbally they already told us that when we re-unite Germany there won't be one NATO soldier there. Now where are they? They already cheated Russia once."
AFP correspondent Michael Piper has just released the first book ever to address the danger the world faces from what he calls "the problem of Israel"in particular, the existence of Israel's huge arsenal of atomic weapons of mass destruction. His book is entitled The GolemIsrael's Nuclear Hell Bomb and the Road to Global Armageddon. As you'll see in a moment, the title is both appropriate and frighteningly profound.
The nuclear "golem" is the bizarre and dangerous cornerstone of Israel's national security policy. In Israel today the strange and frightening Talmud-based legend of the golem remains a much-celebrated force in popular culture, inextricably linked to Israel's national security mindset and thinking.
About 300 Turkish troops have crossed into northern Iraq, Iraqi officials have said. The lightly-armed soldiers entered Iraq overnight and moved up to 2 miles inside. Turkish President Gul said the army was doing "what is necessary".
The US has denied approving the Turkish attacks on PKK targets in northern Iraq on Sunday morning. The Turkish army claims the US provided intelligence and gave tacit approval by opening Iraqi airspace to Turkish jets.
(Also: Turkey: Another ally lost)
When Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki finally sent the so-called "oil law" to be passed by the parliament in July, George Bush phoned to congratulate him personally. Maliki's failure to push the legislation through had been a source of growing frustration and anger in Washington for more than a year. The law was needed to legitimise one of the main aims of the illegal US invasion of Iraqto allow foreign corporations to assume control over the country's state-owned energy resources on the most lucrative of terms.
The sordid wrangling between factions of the Iraqi elite underscores the fact that the various competing "oil laws" are to legitimise corporate profiteering on a vast scale under a US-led occupation that is completely illegitimate and illegal.
Nigeria's main militant group Monday urged all armed factions in the restive southern oil heartland to unite and cripple Africa's biggest petroleum industry. "We call on all genuine militant groups to unite and cripple the oil industry in Nigeria once and for all and stand strong to face a common enemy. The time has come for all breakaway factions to come together and wage war of a different kind in 2008."
Nigeria's oil infrastructure is relatively unprotected - militants could quickly damage the oil-pumping gear. The militants are trying to force the federal government to send more of the oil funds it controls to the Niger Delta region, which is deeply impoverished despite the great petroleum riches.
Neocon wet dream...
Iran confirmed on Monday that it had received the first fuel shipment for its nuclear power plant at Bushehr, but also indicated for the first time that it was building a 2nd nuclear power plant.
"Transitioning from the civilian nuclear energy track to a military one is a matter of a few months only," Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the Knesset Monday afternoon. "That the Iranians continue on the civilian track at the moment gives us no rest, and we are considering the worst case scenario."
Heck no!...
The release of the National Intelligence Estimate concerning Iran's nuclear status marks the latest in a series of assaults by the Pentagon and the intelligence community against the war posturing of the Bush administration. The Bush White House has tried to use the report to assert that Iran remains intent on acquiring nuclear weapons and is a threat.
The covert operations taking place in Iran, if they are stepped up, could provoke retaliatory acts by Iran against US personnel or facilities in Iraq or the Gulf. Any action by Iran deemed by the Bush White House to be hostile to the US or Israel could be instantly seized upon by the president to carry out air strikes against Iran. This could ignite a deadly chain reaction.
"I think the publication of this NIE, rather than cooling the atmosphere, as many analysts predict, is actually going to lead to a more dangerous and unstable situation in the region."
The endorsement of a candidate in the Republican presidential primaries by a former Democratic candidate for vice president is a political event with little, if any, historical precedent in the US.
The decision by Lieberman to endorse McCain is one more indication that, whatever mealy-mouthed antiwar rhetoric is heard on the primary campaign trail, the Democratic Party will in the end support the continued occupation of Iraq as well as the buildup for new and even bloodier wars of aggression, including a potential attack on Iran.
A US judge ordered the Secret Service on Monday to disclose records of visits by 9 prominent conservative Christian leaders to the White House and Vice President Cheney's residence. The ruling, in response to a legal watchdog group's suit, could shed light on the influence leaders like James Dobson of Focus on the Family have had on President Bush's administration.
"We think that these conservative Christian leaders have had a very big impact. The White House doesn't want to talk about how much influence these leaders have, and we want to talk about how much they do have."
What's actually happening in our rapidly dying Democratic Republic (maybe it's already dead) is now crystal clear: The American people are in ultimate conflict with an American version of a neo Nazi Party.
Call this fascism if you wish, but it would be well to remember that another member of the Royal Bush Family, Prescott Bush (the grandfather of G.W.) tried to sell America to the Nazis in the 30's.
But didn't the Nazis cease to exist after WW2? Clearly not! They had pockets all over the planet (Argentina comes to mind) in which, like cancer in remission, they kept their satanic flames alive, waiting, waiting, waiting . . . waiting for another chance to get a Bush to sell out America.
The European Central Bank has allocated $502bn to banks at a below-market rate in a refinancing move to ease tightened credit markets.
Oil edged higher in early trade as news broke that Turkish troops have moved into northern Iraq, although gains were capped by ongoing fears that easing US growth will translate into poor demand next year. Reports that workers at a refinery operated by Total are striking over pay are also underpinning the market, traders said.
Wheat prices surged above $10 a bushel for the first time ever Monday amid concerns that strong demand globally could result in a grain shortage in the US next yearworsening food price inflation.
Peak oil, peak metals, and this year peak food. Every bookshop has a corner warning that mankind will soon outrun the basic resources of the globe. It was ever thus. Variants of the theme emerge at the top of each commodity super-cycle, only to be deferred for another 20 years or so as new supply comes on-stream and technology outwits the pessimists. Shortage can turn to glut very fast once inflation forces central banks to hit the brakes.
The question for investors who have sunk $150bn into commodity index funds - and trillions in mining and energy stocks - is whether the roaring boom of the last 5 years is another bubble, or whether the Malthusians are closer to the mark this time.
The rapid aggravation of the global systemic crisis as its phase of impact unfolds has brought our researchers to estimate that the contemporary global financial system will reach a breaking phase in the course of 2008.
Crisis follow-up indicators now show that we should no longer only fear the failure of some large financial institution (and of many small ones) in the US first and the in the rest of the world, but that the global financial system itself is structurally hit.
Indeed it is no more a matter of competence or of magnitude of the corrective actions implemented by central bankers. These times are over since summer 2007 and we are now witnessing an increasing divergence in economic interests among the different components of the global financial system.
This break point will entail numerous disastrous effects for the world's largest financial institutions, in particular for all those who do not yet fully understand the meaning of ongoing tendencies and therefore who remain largely involved in the US dollar system currently imploding.
The coming collapse of the modern day banking system
Economists are beginning to publicly acknowledge what many market analysts have suspected for months; the nation's economy is going into a tailspin. Most people have no idea how grave the present situation is or the disaster the country will face if trillions of dollars of over-leveraged bonds and equities begin to unwind.
The Fed has no magical powers and will not allow itself to be crushed by standing in the path of a market-avalanche. As foreclosures and bankruptcies increase; stocks will crash and the fed will step aside to safety. In the last few weeks, Bernanke and Paulson have tried a number of strategies that have failed.
The banks don't have the reserves to cover their downgraded assets and the Federal Reserve cannot simply "monetize" their bad bets. There's no way out. There are bound to be bankruptcies and bank runs. "Structured finance" has usurped the Fed's authority to create new credit and handed it over to the banks. Now everyone will pay the price.
Some politicians believe that the public's money is up for grabs. Others think that the people ought to keep their own. So it was. What appears to be battle over fundamental ideology and political philosophy is, however, a complete illusion in our time.
There is one reason: the central bank. This is what has changed everything. No longer are taxes the main way the federal government guarantees its liquidity and funds its empire. If the state had to tax us for everything it spent, the country would be obviously and fiscally bankrupt instead of being covertly and financially bankrupt as it is in fact.
So today there are 2 ways the state can extract money from the population: stealing or counterfeiting. The political class favors the latter to the former. What's best for the country and the economy, taxes or credit expansion? That's a tough call. Republicans are right that new taxes can cause recession. Democrats are right that government just can't keep accumulating debt forever without regard to the eventual results.
So long as the issue is only about taxes, however, the political class is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. Keep them open and follow the money to the source.
A powerful jet of particles from a "supermassive" black hole has been seen blasting a nearby galaxy. Galaxies have been seen colliding before, but it is the first time this form of galactic violence has been witnessed by astronomers.
It has been 50 years since scientists first created DNA in a test tube, stitching ordinary chemical ingredients together to make life's most extraordinary molecule. Until recently, however, even the most sophisticated laboratories could make only small snippets of DNA - an extra gene or 2 to be inserted into corn plants, for example, to help the plants ward off insects or tolerate drought. Now researchers are poised to cross a dramatic barrier: the creation of life forms driven by completely artificial DNA.
Scientists in Maryland have already built the world's first entirely handcrafted chromosome - a large looping strand of DNA made from scratch in a laboratory, containing all the instructions a microbe needs to live and reproduce.
In the coming year, they hope to transplant it into a cell, where it is expected to "boot itself up," like software downloaded from the Internet, and cajole the waiting cell to do its bidding. And while the first synthetic chromosome is a plagiarized version of a natural one, others that code for life forms that have never existed before are already under construction.
The cobbling together of life from synthetic DNA, scientists and philosophers agree, will be a watershed event, blurring the line between biological and artificial - and forcing a rethinking of what it means for a thing to be alive.
Conventional medicine adherents have consistently asserted that its methods are scientifically verified, and they have ridiculed other methods that are suggested to have therapeutic or curative effects. In fact, conventional physicians have consistently worked to disallow competitors, even viciously attacking those in their own profession who have questioned conventional treatments or provided alternative modalities.
And yet, strangely enough, whatever has been in vogue in conventional medicine in one decade has been declared ineffective, dangerous, and sometimes barbaric in the ensuing decades. Surprisingly, despite this pattern in history, proponents and defenders of "scientific medicine" tend to have little or no humility, continually asserting that today's cure is truly effective.
History provides us with a tremendously diverse body of evidence about our past, but ultimately, only a small portion of history is told in our history books. The interpretation of our past and the select use of certain historical facts and figures taint our understanding of what really happened.
Women, not pigs, cause early death!... ;-)
A bachellor who was believed to be the worlds oldest man has died at the age of 116 in Ukraine. Born, according to family documents, on 15 March 1891, Hryhoriy Nestor, a former farm labourer, put his long life down to the fact that he never married. He also led a healthy life. He loved to get outside and would run barefoot through the grass. Vodka he drank in moderation, and his favourite food was simple country fare with his greatest luxury a slice of sausage in a bread roll.
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