Moves to make wartime Pope Pius XII a saint have been delayed because Pope Benedict wants more study of documents. He has decided to set up a committee in his Secretariat of State, the Vatican's diplomatic section, to review old documents from the WW2 period and study new ones that have come to light.
Vatican sources say top cardinals have advised Benedict to go slow on Pius's sainthood process because of the repercussions it could have on relations with Jews and Israel.
Vatican officials said Monday that a papal visit to the Holy Land would not take place due to a variety of reasons, which include conflicts with the Israeli government over policies detrimental to Christians in the region. Pope Benedict XVI had on many occasions expressed his desire to travel to the Holy Land.
The Secretary of the Congregation for Oriental Churches, said that some problems with the Israeli government remained unresolved. He said that Vatican-Israeli discussions rarely passed beyond generalities.
"As long as we talk about God, about peace, the promotion of the rights of women and other human rights, it is easy to reach agreement. But when we start discussing the details, and I refer in particular to the issue of taxes, then differences emerge. Dealing with Israel is not easy."
The Vatican on Tuesday rejected condemnation by al Qaeda of a historic meeting between Pope Benedict and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, saying the militants were afraid of inter-religious dialogue.
Al Qaeda's 2nd-in-command, al-Zawahri, referred to Benedict as a Pontiff who had "insulted Islam and Muslims" and criticized King Abdullah's meeting with him last month.
Foreign Minister Steinmeier was in Moscow on Tuesday for a round of talks with President Putin's likely successor, Dmitry Medvedev. He also met privately with Putin himself. German sources described the talks, which went on for longer than expected, as "very friendly." They said the ministers had "gotten along well" and had agreed on a closer exchange of information in the future.
After almost 5 months without a government, Belgium looks set to get a new interim political leadership. But can the French- and Flemish-speaking parts of the country truly get along?
Several thousand Serbs in the Kosovan town of Mitrovica have demonstrated against the likelihood that the province will declare independence from Serbia. The demonstrators waved banners and flags while several hundred Serbs, shouting "Go Home", filed past the offices of the small EU team that is preparing to establish a mission of 1,800 police officers and administrators.
Serbian officials, who controversially opened a government office in Mitrovica last week, organised the rally under the slogan: "No to the illegal EU mission without a UN Security Council resolution, no to an independent Kosovo, and a big yes to Kosovo remaining a part of Serbia with Serbs as fully fledged Serbian citizens."
After some 18 months of talks, countless missions, painstaking mapmaking, hand-holding, and hand-wringing – the sticky situation of Kosovo's status will be taken up by the UN Security Council today.
The meeting, to take place in private, constitutes the first test at the highest level of diplomacy of whether Russia intends to make independence for the Serb province a difficult if not nasty process for the West.
Russia has loudly backed Belgrade's desire to retain Kosovo and says it will veto Kosovo independence in the Security Council – despite what US officials privately say was a prior "understanding."
President Putin could engineer moves that range from irritating to destabilizing, experts say. Moscow could declare Kosovo independence illegal, or recognize a potential independence declaration by Serbs in the flash-point Kosovo city of Mitrovica. Russia could also start to aid and comfort Serbs in a way that would restart a cold-war standoff.
Eighteen years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev was named TIME Magazine's Person of the Year for leading the political revolution that tore down the Iron Curtain and broke apart the Soviet Union. This year, Vladimir Putin, the man who restored Russia to a leading role on the world stage, has taken that title.
Israeli fighter jets on Monday violated the Lebanese airspace twice from south to north, Lebanese army said in a release. "Two Israeli warplanes have violated the Lebanese airspace from south and then flew to north, carrying out circular air motions on Shaka and Beirut." Afterwards, another 4 Israeli warplanes hovered over Tripoli and Shaka in northern Lebanon and over Beirut before returning to Israel from south. Israeli fighter jets penetrate the Lebanese airspace on a daily basis in breach of UN Resolution 1701.
The Naval Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran started the second stage of the maritime war games in the Arabian Gulf waters Tuesday. As part of the exercises surface-to-air missiles were fired at mock hostile targets and hostile warships were intercepted and destroyed completely.
The US Defence Department says Iran is continuing to send weapons and sophisticated technology to insurgents in Iraq. The report calls Tehran's backing a significant impediment to stabilising security in Iraq.
Israel does not have "smoking gun" intelligence that will force an American reassessment of its NIE that Iran halted its nuclear weapons plan in 2003, a government official told The Jerusalem Post Monday. The official's comments came as a delegation from Military Intelligence is in the US for meetings with American officials about Iran.
Another diplomatic official labeled as either "very arrogant" or "naive" the idea that all Israel had to do was reveal one piece of information to get the US intelligence community to say it erred and will "take it all back and follow Israel's line." He said it was clear that the Americans pretty much know what Israel knows about the Iranian nuclear program and that the difference is not over the facts but rather over their interpretation.
The proponents of a US military confrontation with Iran will not allow the release of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear weapons program to interrupt their march to WW3.
They refuse to accept the collective judgment of all 16 US intelligence agencies, and challenge their conclusions by charging that the "anti-Bush" spooks were trying to launch a "preemptive strike" against the White House aimed at undermining plans for air attacks on Iranian nuclear sites.
The Bush administration's new policy of penalizing Iranian banks is facing a critical challenge as financial institutions in Russia, China and much of the Middle East decline to cut ties, analysts and diplomats say.
The world reaction to the US sanctions on Bank Melli, which operates as Iran's central bank overseas, will determine whether President Bush's new tool against Iran is a failure or a success, analysts say.
The major powers debating a draft resolution for tougher sanctions over Iran's disputed nuclear program have postponed planned consultations. "It's been postponed for scheduling issues. They'll get together later in the week."
John Bolton is no longer in office, but he still has a lot to say about American foreign policy. Spiegel spoke to him about Bush's softness abroad, Rice having been taken hostage by the liberal State Department, and why it doesn't matter that the world hates the US.
With just days to go until Congress begins its holiday recess, the Democratic leadership has once again orchestrated a legislative capitulation to the White House that will ensure that the war in Iraq—which they claim to oppose—continues, while making no major substantive changes in the domestic agenda set by the Bush administration. The funding, which would pay for the wars until May or June, brings the total amount spent on both US interventions to $670 billion.
The House on Monday passed the domestic spending bill by a comfortable margin of 253 to 154, despite charges by the Republican leadership that the measure contained an excessive amount of "earmarks," specific funding mandates for pet projects sought by legislators for their home districts.
NO!...
America is facing twin challenges – one from within and one from without. The external challenge is from radical Islam, whose rebirth in the last 28 years has plunged the world into a renewal of the conflict that has defined history for the last 1,300 years.
The internal challenge, just as serious and perhaps even more so, is a clash of worldviews in which the Christian culture that shaped American history is under siege from ultra-secularism, multiculturalism and moral relativism.
Add to that an invasion of unprecedented scale from the south, as well as an upcoming presidential and congressional election that threatens to bring with it nothing short of a revolution in the American political landscape.
The big question: Is America doomed, with no way to reverse course? Or can America emerge triumphant, again, as it has so often throughout its history?
[WAR: Yes, America has already crossed the Rubicon. There is no hope for the country as a whole, only for individuals who repent from their evil ways - both the secularists and the Christians. The Xians keep referring to the "founding fathers" and the early "Christian culture", and wanting to return to that era of "morals".
Sorry, but Christianity is one of the biggest reasons for our problems and coming correction at the hand of the Assyrians (Germans). It's a deceptive pagan religion that leads only to suffering and death - even though it can make society semi-tolerable with their rules and traditions of men.
What this country needs (but won't do as a whole), is to go waaaay back to our original "founding fathers" (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and David) and have the obedience and living faith that they had - worshipping and obeying with our lips and hearts, according to the Scriptures and not pagan traditions of men.]
Asked about Republican rival Mike Huckabee's Christmas-themed ad, that has attracted attention in part because of the image of a cross that many see hovering over Huckabee's shoulder, GOP presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul said on FOX & Friends that:
"It reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once said. He says, 'when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.' Now I don't know whether that's a fair assessment or not, but you wonder about using a cross, like he is the only Christian or implying that subtly. So, I don't think I would ever use anything like that."
Paranoid Protestants that kill...
The warriors pose for the camera in a group shot - some holding their weapons in one hand and their holy book in another. Elsewhere, a poster bears a quotation calling for the killing of enemy leaders and forcing the defeated people to convert. If you think the images come from Islamic fundamentalist training camps in remote regions of the Middle East you'd be wrong. The photo depicts Army trainees at Fort Jackson, S.C. [where I went for basic], where in addition to basic combat training recruits may also attend "God's Basic Training."
Maj. Bullock, chaplain for the 2nd Battalion, 39th Basic Combat Training Bn., at Fort Jackson, said in an interview the weekly Bible study program is strictly voluntary. "I make a simple announcement for new soldiers: If you choose to come to this ... you are welcome to come, especially those from an evangelical protestant background."
Morgan Stanley, the 2nd-biggest US securities firm, reported a 4th-quarter loss of $3.56 billion, the first in the company's history, after $9.4 billion of writedowns on mortgage-related investments.
Its strategy of expanding in home loans and making bigger trading bets backfired as the firm's losses from securities linked to home loans more than doubled in November.
Morgan Stanley received a $5 billion investment from China Investment Corp., the nation's sovereign wealth fund, the New York-based company said today in a statement. China Investment will acquire as much as 9.9%, making it the company's 2nd-largest shareholder.
The Federal Reserve is providing $20 billion in loans to banks as part of an unprecedented auction process to ease a global credit crisis and make sure financial institutions can keep lending to their customers. The central bank today announced banks' use of a new auction facility that was created to encourage banks to seek cash directly from the Fed to help them overcome credit problems.
The US dollar's credibility as the world's benchmark currency will be put to the test as it loses value against other major currencies, said the senior economic adviser at UBS Investment Bank in London. "We're clearly at a point where credibility is being stretched, and we don't really know what comes afterward." Sovereign wealth funds are one example of institutions that are avoiding the falling dollar in favor of assets that will preserve their wealth, he said.
The subprime mortgage crisis constitutes the worst banking error in my lifetime. Nothing else comes close. It has visibly begun to unravel.
Through a complex combination of government-licensed monopoly (Federal Reserve System), implied government safety nets for mortgage investors (Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac), creative finance (asset-backed securities), and credit-rating services that were either stunningly naïve or compensated in ways not beneficial to objective analysis, brokers marketed a series of high-commission, fast-sale investment packages that sold like hotcakes until August, 2007. Then, without warning, they stopped selling.
Americans have seen all this before: the savings and loan crisis of the 1980's. That was the test of the mortgage carry trade. The system failed. We are now in the midst of another similar test. It is much larger. It is worldwide. It is affecting capital markets that were once far-removed from mortgages.
The economic losses are gigantic and will grow. The trickle of bad news is going to become a flood over the next year. It will wear down the resistance of perma-bulls, who believe that the Federal Reserve can save the day and save the stock market. All over the world, the repercussions of bad loans, carry-trade leverage, and relatively tight money are going to be felt.
This has been a huge pool of investment errors. This has sucked in the best and the brightest people on earth, those who allocate capital. They trusted Alan Greenspan. They trusted artificially low interest rates. They trusted fiat money. That trust has been betrayed, as always. But this time, it has been betrayed on a scale that puts the world's banking system at risk. The bailouts have only just begun.
The emergency bailout of SachsenLB, the state bank in the German federal state of Saxony, is a case where the connection between the unrestrained drive for profit and the emptying of the pockets of broad layers of the population is clearly visible. It says a great deal about the current state of society and deserves close attention.
In today's markets, enormous wealth is acquired on the basis of speculation, which is entirely illusory. The US mortgage market is only the tip of the iceberg. Now there is the threat of a chain reaction, which, according to some commentators, could rival the financial crash of the 1930s.
Good for her...
Chancellor Merkel is working with French and British counterparts to create a set of non-binding rules for hedge fund operators. "We are working on a self-regulation project for the hedge fund sector. I will present a set of proposals with Prime Minister Brown and President Sarkozy before the spring. There is no doubt that we need to find a new balance on the financial markets between liberty and regulation."
Merkel has repeatedly called for a code of conduct to govern hedge funds. But the call has found little favour with Berlin's partners in the G8, notably in Anglo-Saxon countries where a large number of the funds are based.
[WAR: If greedy human nature is not kept in check by the individual, then the state is forced to step in to keep it in check.]
In an "unforeseen and unprecedented" shift, the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the top food and agriculture official of the UN warned. The changes created "a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food." He blamed a confluence of recent supply and demand factors for the crisis, and he predicted that those factors were here to stay.
"We're concerned that we are facing the perfect storm for the world's hungry," said the executive director of the World Food Program. She said that her agency's food procurement costs had gone up 50% in the past 5 years and that some poor people are being "priced out of the food market."
To make matters worse, high oil prices have doubled shipping costs in the past year, putting enormous stress on poor nations that need to import food as well as the humanitarian agencies that provide it.
No hoax!...
The bright yellowish-orange "star" poised above the constellation Gemini is actually the planet Mars, and tonight the icy world will make its closest approach to Earth until 2016. Tonight's passage happens while Mars is in retrograde motion, or appearing to move westward across the night sky.
But experts say tonight's glimpse of the red planet will be nothing compared to the show-stopping passage of August 27, 2003, when a mere 35 million miles stood between the 2 bodies. "That was when the red planet came closer than it had ever been since the time Neanderthals walked the Earth."
Israeli scientists yesterday said they had created the world's smallest Hebrew Bible, fitting the book on to a gold-coated silicon chip smaller than a pinhead. Scientists at Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology, were able to pack the 308,428 words of what Christians refer to as the Old Testament on to a 0.5mm square of silicon by etching its surface with particle beams.
"I don't celebrate the pagan holiday known as Christmas, so no need to buy gifts."
[WAR: Be sure and check this one!]
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