President Ahmadinejad congratulated Pope Benedict XVI on the birth anniversary of Jesus Christ and the New Year in a message on Wednesday. He expressed hope that the New Year would be the year when cruelty and aggression are abolished. "I hope 2008 will be the year of peace and friendship, and that people's rights will be more respected and morality will be promoted in societies throughout the world."
Ahmadinejad also sent separate Christmas greeting messages to his counterparts in Christian countries. Peace, friendship, brotherhood, justice, and security will be established anywhere in the world that Jesus Christ's teachings are put into practice, he said.
Bavaria, home to companies including Allianz AG and Siemens AG, offers the highest degree of economic freedom of the country's 16 regions. In Bavaria, where 9 of the 30 companies in the benchmark DAX index are based, state interference through taxes, regulation or other "distorting" measures is lower than anywhere else in Germany.
Germany's leadership over the past year of the G8 industrialized nations saved hundreds of thousands of lives, aid activist Bob Geldof said in remarks published Wednesday. "There is not a shadow of doubt that Germany, under the leadership of Chancellor Merkel, saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and possibly even millions."
Kosovo – and the Balkans conflicts in general – have become a crucial issue for the Empire by its own choice. America went into the Balkans quagmire thinking it would be a good way to advance its global hegemony project. Instead, it is reliving the fate of every empire that had the misfortune of dabbling in the region.
Deluded by their worship of power, the imperialists have fatally misunderstood what – and who – they were dealing with. The reversal of their fortune in the Balkans over the course of 2007 certainly had a lot to do with the demonized and vilified Serbs refusing to be bullied any more. It is definitely 1999 no more. What comes next is anybody's guess.
(Also: Serbia to shun EU path)
Not good!...
Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a presumed suicide attack. The killing is likely to provoke an agonised response from her followers, especially from her loyal following in Sindh Province. Her party, the PPP, has the largest support in the country.
(Also: AP photos)
[WAR: I sure hope this isn't the first shoe to drop in a bigger operation - as in when Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated in Afghanistan 2 days before 9/11. "The timing of the assassination, 2 days before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, is considered significant by commentators who believe Osama bin Laden ordered the assassination and ensure he would have their protection and cooperation in Afghanistan. ... The Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (has) also been mentioned as a possible organizers or assisters of the assassins."
Is this the diversion hit, or a mission accomplished? Will Pakistan become a failed state with loose nukes? What will India's reaction be? Will its forces now be on hair-trigger alert? Will the neocons twist reality and blame Iran?! . . .]
Isayas Gabriel remembers when tens of thousands of his fellow soldiers were cut down during Ethiopia's last war with Eritrea, a 2 1/2 year bloodbath over a seemingly insignificant border town called Badme.
Seven years after the war's official end, he is among the many watching as the countries appear to be gearing up for Round 2 - a conflict that would have implications far beyond the Horn of Africa, which the West has long feared could become a safe haven for Islamic extremists.
"You cannot separate the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict from what is happening in Somalia, Sudan and even the Middle East. This is not just a small, low-key conflict. It's a large-scale military confrontation."
China hopes its middle class will expand to more than half of its total population by 2020. A bigger middle class will also challenge the government to provide greater social security and services and better education systems.
"A growing middle-income population will ensure that more people will benefit from reform so that our reform will be endorsed and supported by more people. If this structure of income distribution is put in place, it will have a far-reaching impact on economic, social and political development in China."
A top Jewish community leader in Iran on Wednesday described the recent immigration of 40 Iranian Jews to Israel as a "misinformation campaign" and insisted that Jews living in the Islamic Republic were not endangered by the hard-line policies of President Ahmadinejad.
Iran's Jewish community of about 25,000 people is protected by the country's constitution and remains the largest in the Muslim Middle East. Synagogues, Jewish schools and stores operate openly.
"We are one of the oldest communities in Iran. We are free to practice our religion. Anti-Semitism is a Western phenomenon but Jews have never been in danger in Iran."
Iran's Shiite government has historically had frosty relations with the Taliban, which is the main insurgent force fighting against NATO and Afghan national forces. The Taliban and al Qaeda insurgents are composed of Sunni Muslims, who have traditionally been antagonistic towards Iran's Shiite Muslims.
Although the new National Intelligence Estimate makes it more difficult to carry out his agenda in Iran, Bush is trying to publicly undermine its conclusions. "I have said Iran is dangerous," he declared, "and the NIE estimate doesn't do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world - quite the contrary."
In spite of the unanimous conclusion in the NIE and ElBaradei's informed judgment, we cannot trust Bush-Cheney to abandon their imperial designs on Iran. Bush will probably provoke a military confrontation with Iran, then invoke the language in the 2002 Congressional authorization for the use of military force in Iraq that says, "The President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States."
The NIE's critics are complaining that it falsely weakens the Bush administration's campaign against Iran. Trusting that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons is suicidal, warn the neoconservatives.
Former head of the CIA's clandestine service Jose Rodriguez claims he can take the White House down over a torture cover-up scandal. He said he may testify before the House Intelligence Committee if he is granted immunity from prosecution.
All Americans are now imprisoned in a world of lies and deception created by the Bush Regime and the two complicit parties of Congress, by federal judges too timid or ignorant to recognize a rogue regime running roughshod over the Constitution, by a bought-and-paid-for media that serves as propagandists for a regime of war criminals, and by a public who have forsaken their Founding Fathers.
Americans are also imprisoned by fear, a false fear created by the hoax of "terrorism." It has turned out that headline terrorist events since 9/11 have been orchestrated by the US government.
Raising doubts among Americans about the government is not a strong point of the corporate media. Americans live in a world of propaganda designed to secure their acquiescence, while portraying Americans (and Israelis) as the salt of the earth who are threatened by Muslims who hate their "freedom and democracy." Clearly, Americans face no greater threat than the government in Washington.
Critics of the Bush administration assert that America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other actions, overt and covert, in the larger war on terror, constitute an attempt by President Bush to create an American empire in the classic meaning of that term. These critics claim that the U.S. military has seized foreign countries, and that Bush has used the government's power to compel obedience from weaker nation-states, in the manner of past imperial powers.
Yet it is the US Supreme Court that could in the months ahead make the most stunning declarations of US authority over the sovereignty of other countries. In a list of cases now before the court, petitioners are calling on the justices to extend the judicial power of the US into the territory and affairs of other nation-states. Should the court take these breathtaking steps, there will be few limits remaining to the reach of the court's jurisdiction. It would then be up to future presidents and congresses to cope with the consequences of the court's imperial ambitions.
The subprime mortgage problem has now yielded a full-blown credit squeeze on Wall Street with securities firms' stock prices at fire-sale levels. The new fire-sale buyers are the so-called sovereign wealth funds, and China's are the most prominent.
The outgoing year was a troublesome and even an extreme period for the global economy. Economic shocks that occurred during the year 2007 – the US mortgage crisis, the growing oil prices – may develop into the financial and credit crisis caused by the declining economy of the US.
This year's housing bust is shaping up to be one of historic proportions. Sales and construction have sunk to levels not seen since the 1990 savings and loan crisis, while foreclosures and price drops are the largest since the Great Depression — and expected to get worse next year.
Now the country faces a vicious cycle: As house prices fall, homeowners lose equity in their homes, which makes it more difficult or impossible for them to sell or refinance. Many are not able to refinance their adjustable-rate loans when the starter interest rates expire and reset to reflect higher market rates, and so they are faced with sharply higher mortgage payments they cannot afford to pay.
As homes are sold under pressure, prices drop further and cast a pall over entire neighborhoods, driving down the value of homes of even creditworthy Americans and undermining their biggest source of wealth and security.
US home prices fell by more than 6% in October from their October 2006 levels, according to a closely followed home price index, recording the biggest annual decline since the index began in 1987. The report, released Wednesday, underscored the deep and protracted character of the US housing slump and presaged further social and financial convulsions.
It is estimated that global banks and other financial institutions have thus far written off $105 billion in mortgage-backed investments that have collapsed as a result of the bursting of the US housing bubble. The ultimate toll could be far higher, threatening the solvency of major Wall Street firms as well as major banks in Europe.
The combination of financial crisis, credit tightening and spreading economic distress in the general population points in the direction of a severe recession, not only in the US, but internationally.
As millions of US households struggle with unmanageable mortgage payments, falling home values and foreclosure, Wall Street executives are awarding themselves record year-end bonuses. Major US banks are reporting billions of dollars in write-offs from bad investments and double-digit losses in stock value. Nevertheless, among the 4 largest investment firms - Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns - bonuses amount to nearly $30 billion.
Indeed, these are extraordinary times. Such figures epitomize the deepening social divide between the parasitic upper crust and the mass of the US population. This grotesque concentration of wealth has real consequences for the dynamics of economic life. The rising cost of housing, energy, basic foods and gasoline have pushed the poorest families into desperate situations, strained emergency food banks and charities, and compounded the trend toward recession.
Young people, and even adults, often wonder how all the varieties or "races" of people could come from the same human ancestors. Well, in principle, that's no different than asking how children with different color hair can come from the same parents who both have black hair.
Moon highlights Saturn and Regulus
Comet 8P/Tuttle is approaching Earth for a 25 million mile close encounter on New Year's Day. Until now, the comet has been a target for telescopes only, but "tonight I was able to see Comet 8P/Tuttle with the naked eye and averted vision."
(Also: Sky map)
