Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
Pope Benedict XVI interrupted his catechesis on the Church Fathers this morning to address the theme of Christian Unity at the weekly general audience. He highlighted the special significance of this week of prayer for Christian Unity, which began 100 years ago.
(Also: Full text of address)
Pope Benedict XVI today said the media were too often used irresponsibly to spread "violence and vulgarity" and impose "distorted models" of social and family life. He urged the world's communicators instead to adopt what he called "info-ethics". He said the media often sought to create reality rather than report it, with agendas dictated by "the dominant interests" of the day.
Falling share prices, panic in the stock markets: Investors have lost a lot of money this week, but analysts say the German economy will emerge largely unscathed from the turbulence, provided it doesn't drag on.
Investors have been acting like lemmings. One sells, the others follow suit. On Monday alone, that wiped $91 billion off the value of Germany's top 30 companies. On one single day. Since then everyone has been calling this a crisis. But many economists are saying the crisis is virtual and has no bearing on the real German economy, at least not yet.
The recent stock market turmoil and fears of a US recession have many Germans worried about the future. But people should rather look on the bright side, one of Germany's leading business managers told Deutsche Welle.
Only few media today recorded Tuesday's celebration of the 45th anniversary of the Elysée-Treaty, which back in 1963 laid the foundations for the closest and most impactful bilateral relationship within the EU in the post-war period. On the highest political level, the latest news on the current temperature in the bilateral relationship has been rather devastating.
Only a week ago, the French Prime Minister Fillon and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, demonstrated impressively, that France and Germany are definetely not looking in the same direction regarding important EMU issues, and worse, don't even seem to talk to each other about this confidentially.
Embattled Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi is to risk a confidence vote in the Senate tonight despite calls for him to resign. He had been advised by President Napolitano to avoid the vote, which the PM is in danger of losing. Prodi held crisis talks with Napolitano after the crucial desertion of a small party in his coalition.
No, not a Polish joke...
Several Polish air force commanders were feared killed on Wednesday when their military plane with 19 people aboard crashed on the way back from a conference on aviation safety.
A simmering political crisis was threatening to boil over today, as bitter feuds erupted within the Serbian government coalition over the country's future course amid the growing pressure of Kosovo's looming independence and presidential elections.
Ethnic Albanian leaders and Western capitals have agreed on a date for Kosovo to declare independence from Serbia, the province's prime minister said. He said the date had been coordinated with both Washington and Brussels and would be revealed shortly. "It will be a good surprise, made fast in the coming days. The date is coordinated, and it will be made public very soon."
The creation of a new nation far away is threatening to rekindle conflict in the Caucasus. The Serbian province of Kosovo is widely expected to declare independence in the coming weeks. If the West recognises Kosovo, some Russian politicians say they could respond by offering recognition to allies in other "frozen conflicts", particularly the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. "If the Western powers recognise Kosovo, it will set an example for unrecognised republics elsewhere."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that the country would not soften its stance in major international disputes, slamming the Western position on Kosovo, NATO activities and the behavior of the British Council as outside international law.
In decidedly sharp comments, he lashed out repeatedly at the European Union, saying "a reorganization of the entire European architecture" was one of the country's key foreign policy objectives for 2008. He accused the 27-member union of promoting the illegitimate interests of individual nations under the guise of solidarity. "This interpretation of solidarity differs from the Union treaties."
A chilling report prepared by a group of top military commanders from the US and its NATO allies declares that the alliance must be prepared to launch a preemptive nuclear first strike because of "asymmetric threats and global challenges" posed to the West. The report presents a grim picture of the 21st century, portraying the major Western powers as under siege from real and potential enemies as well as objective changes in the global situation.
While the passages on the prospects of a preemptive nuclear strike name no specific targets, there is little doubt that the immediate "opponent" in the mind of its authors is Iran. "As a nuclear power, Iran could become immune to international sanctions. Furthermore, it would dominate the region, which possesses the world's largest oil and gas reserves."
This last question is clearly the principal concern among the ruling elite in both the US and Europe—that the major powers would face a direct challenge to their control over strategic energy supplies now dominated by the multinational oil companies.
It is the drive by US imperialism to offset its economic decline in relation to rivals in Europe and Asia by exploiting its military superiority to seize hold of vital natural resources and markets that poses the threat of a world conflagration. It is in this context that the recommendations of the former defense chiefs in relation to nuclear first strikes and wars of aggression assume their full menacing significance for the future of mankind.
"The West has now out-Orwelled Orwell: The West must nuke other countries in order to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction! Who, what is threatening the West's values and way of life? Political fanaticism, religious fundamentalism, and the imminent spread of nuclear weapons, answer the 5 asylum escapees.
By political fanaticism, do they mean the neoconservatives who believe that the future of humanity depends on the US establishing its hegemony over the world? By religious fundamentalism, do they mean "rapture evangelicals" agitating for Armageddon or Christian and Israeli Zionists demanding a nuclear attack on Iran? By spread of nuclear weapons, do they mean Israel's undeclared and illegal possession of several hundred nuclear weapons?
No. The paranoid military leaders see all the fanaticism, religious and otherwise, and all the threats to humanity as residing outside Western civilization (Israel is inside). The "increasingly brutal world," of which the leaders warn, is "over there."
Shas is ratcheting up the pressure on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, escalating threats to quit the government in the event Israel and the Palestinians discuss Jerusalem as a subject for peace negotiations. Party chairman Eli Yishai met with Olmert in Jerusalem, demanding the premier divulge details on the overall goal of negotiations in general, and the status of Jerusalem in particular. He made clear that Shas will resign from the coalition the moment Israel pursues a policy which entails concessions that the religious party views as "red lines," with a special emphasis placed on Jerusalem.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has survived constitutional crises and three assassination attempts, but the more prosaic challenge of supplying flour to his people could be his government's undoing.
As an election scheduled for Feb. 18 approaches, the voters' main grievance appears to be a severe shortage of wheat flour, which is used to make roti, the round flatbread that's a staple food for Pakistanis.
The prices of goods ranging from tomatoes to milk also have soared; a sudden shortage of electricity and gas has forced factories to cut their hours and households to endure several hours a day without power; and the combination of higher prices, shortages and political unrest are fueling a sense of crisis.
Iran received a 6th batch of nuclear fuel from Russia today for the Islamic state's first atomic power plant, leaving just 2 more to complete the total consignment. Iran has so far received about 66 tonnes of nuclear fuel out of an expected total of 82 tonnes.
NATO's Secretary-General urges Persian Gulf Arab states to take security measures to address concerns over "Iran's nuclear program." Political pundits believe his remarks are in lines with White House's warmongering policies toward the Islamic Republic.
A report issued by the Government Accountability Office said that sanctions of the type Washington is pushing would be worthless. Although relatively little has been published in the establishment press about the GAO report, which was released to the press on January 15, it merits careful attention.
The military now says it was mistaken when it said it had no aircraft deployed over Erath County on the date that dozens reported seeing UFOs near Stephenville, about 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth. Ten F-16s from the 457th Fighter Squadron were performing training operations between 6 and 8 p.m. on Jan. 8 in the Brownwood military operating area, which includes Erath County.
"We want America to know that [the Giuliani campaign] is lying to America and to the American pubic," said Jim Riches, a deputy chief in the New York Fire Department, "telling all of Florida that the New York City Fire Department backs him, when that's another lie.
Giuliani has campaigned strongly on his leadership during the attacks on New York, claiming he is the best suited to prevent an "Islamic terrorist war against us." But the firefighters were quick to question that courage. "Yeah, the decision he made was, which direction he was going to run. And he ran north, and that's all he did."
In his usual form, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter told a packed crowd to stop whining about corporate media and become their own intelligence operatives. We the people have the same resources and tools that intelligence networks rely heavily on; it's called "Google."
In his hilarious analogy, the American people like baby birds wait each night in front of their television sets for the corporate news bird to land in their living room and lovingly puke down our necks with that day's regurgitated news. Suggesting that as our own intelligence operatives we can't allow CNN, FOX, NBC, and ABC to edit and cherry pick information, but ask questions and find the answers ourselves.
Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the awesome amounts of cooling water they need to operate.
Utility officials say such shutdowns probably wouldn't result in blackouts. But they could lead to shockingly higher electric bills for millions of Southerners, because the region's utilities may be forced to buy expensive replacement power from other energy companies.
Stocks across Europe and Asia have rebounded, following strong gains for US stocks on Wednesday. The rebound came on hopes of a rescue plan for US bond insurers that could prevent a new wave of asset writedowns. The plan would bail out bond insurers, which lie at the heart of the financial system, guaranteeing about $2 trillion of assets.
"It would be logical that US and European banks would coordinate with regulators in the US to help bail out these insurers. If these guys would fail, it would be much more catastrophic for banks' balance sheets and we would see another round of writedowns."
The nastier reality now appears to be that Europe and Asia face their own hard landings as synchronised bubbles burst across the globe in property, commodities and overheated stock markets, all victims of US-led credit implosion.
But the European Central Bank's president yesterday appeared in no mood to change tack or to follow the dramatic three-quarter point cut in rates by the Federal Reserve. He insisted that the ECB must remain "credible in guaranteeing price stability," an implicit criticism of US actions.
Decades of stagnant wages have left the American worker hamstrung and unable to continue to account for 25% of global consumption. Tightening credit and lack of personal savings have only added to his problems. The American consumer is overworked, underpaid, and tapped-out.
That means that aggregate demand will fall dramatically across the world triggering increases in unemployment, decreases in capital expansion, and widespread slowdown in business activity.
These are the beginnings of a deflationary spiral that will wipe out trillions of dollars of market capitalization in the real estate, equities and bond markets. Even gold and oil will retreat significantly. The present crisis is not the result of normal market forces, but price fixing at the Federal Reserve and the financial engineering of the main investment banks.
With the enormous debt at all levels, intertwined throughout various corporations and governments, with a senseless war for strategic oil control costing billions of dollars daily and creating overwhelming negative response to the American way, the world could be in for a long haul where major restructuring of the global markets might take decades to work out.
Pessimistic? For sure, but the market collapse has been foreseen as a possible/probable event by alternate media for some time, while all the local financial advisors still run the tired and true mantra of "holding on" and "riding it out". Be prepared for a long ride.
Russia's Minister for Finance released a sensational statement Wednesday. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he offered to mitigate the world credit crisis with the help of Russia's reserves. Kudrin stated that Russia was an "island of stability in the sea of the world crisis." "Our country managed to achieve economic stability and to save considerable gold and currency reserves which play the role of an air bag for the national economy."
In theory, Russia could invest a part of its gold and currency reserves into US treasury bonds. It could support the US's liquidity and stop the dollar reduction. Russia's current gold and currency reserves make up not more than $500 billion. Unfortunately, this money will not save the US. No one knows when the US crisis is going to end and what major global corporations have on their minds.
Let us scotch one foolish and dangerous notion already gaining acceptance. Those who accuse the Fed of acting out of panic in slashing rates 75 basis points on Wednesday do not grasp the seriousness of the situation. The move was imperative to prevent a grave financial crisis spiralling into disaster. The threat of a melt-down in the $2.4 trillion market for US municipal bonds had suddenly moved from possible to imminent. No monetary authority could ignore such risks.
"Central banks have lost control," said George Soros to the chastened elites in Davos. Not yet, perhaps, but the banks have certainly come a little too close to losing control. Both the European Central Bank and the Bank of England may yet do so, trapped by their inflation orthodoxies and mandates.
Popular financial expert Jim "Mad Money" Kramer has called for the Federal Reserve to be investigated in light of recent wild interest rate cuts, insinuating that the Fed is following a different agenda to the interests of the American people as the economy teeters on the brink of a recession. "I think the institution has been behind almost every boom and bust that we've had for many many years. And its really starting to [be the] time to look to see what this institution is all about."
And how much will he make on it?...
The billionaire investor famous for "breaking" the Bank of England in the 1990s has warned that Britain is heading for a recession. George Soros also warned that the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency was drawing to an end, thanks in part to the financial crisis on Wall Street.
The rhetoric surrounding President Bush's economic stimulus package, as boastfully "bi-partisan" as it is (we are, after all, in an election year), indicates a complete lack of comprehension of the difference between this "national" economy and the "people's" economy, and the extent of the gap between the two.
The national economy, as measured by large scale figures simply does not represent individual citizens' economic circumstances. That's why debate over whether we are in a recession or not misses the point of everyday financial realities for most of the population.
French bank Societe Generale disclosed one of the biggest alleged frauds in financial history on Thursday, adding to a wave of gloom surrounding world markets battered by credit market losses. France's 2nd-biggest listed bank said it had uncovered an "exceptional fraud" by one of its traders.
A source at SocGen said the trader was "not one of its stars" and was relatively young. SocGen said the trader had been handling plain vanilla futures contracts on European stock market indices, betting on broad share market movements.
Ford Motor Co. said today its loss narrrowed to $2.8 billion in the fourth quarter and $2.7 billion for the year amid continued weakness in North America. Ford President and CEO said the company's operations are improving but the outlook for US sales in 2008 is grim. He said the company will be adjusting production and making further cost reductions in North America, including a new round of buyouts for its 54,000 US hourly workers.
Oil supplies are tight, geopolitical tensions remain high, and oil companies still need higher prices to bring badly needed and more costly oil to the market. The prospect of an oil-price collapse, like the one that followed the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, is a remote one in the minds of energy investors who bet on historically high prices.
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"The Great Altar of Pergamon is in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin. It was this altar, believed dedicated to Zeus, that John of Patmos referred to as 'Satan's Throne' in Rev 2:12-13. ... It can be seen alongside other monumental structures such as ... the Ishtar Gate from Babylon. ... [which] was the 8th gate to the inner city of Babylon. It was constructed in about 575 BC by order of King Nebuchadnezzar II on the north side of the city."
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