Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
B16's Q&A session with Roman clergy (part 2)
Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg was today elected the president of the German episcopal conference. Robert Zollitsch was born in 1938 in Filipovo, in what was then Yugoslavia. In 1946, after the expulsion of Germans from the area following WW2, his family moved within the Diocese of Freiburg.
The diplomatic tension coupled with a battle of words between Erdoğan and Merkel is the last thing toward offering solutions to the integration problem of almost 2.5 million Turks in Germany.
[Europress] [Russopress]
During a speech at the Saint-Louis of France cultural center in Rome, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, said that the de-Christianization of Europe is dramatic and accelerated, but it is not irreversible.
The dramatic changes in the world today are forcing "believers and non-believers, optimists and pessimists to ask essential questions about what the future holds. The precariousness of the world, the violence of our societies and Islam, today the second largest religion in the world," have led "many Catholics to make efforts to recover their identity."
Abortion is playing an important early role in Italy's election campaign. The front-runner, Silvio Berlusconi, has endorsed a universal moratorium, and a prominent journalist on Tuesday announced that he would run on an anti-abortion ticket.
Berlusconi told the weekly Tempi magazine that he believed the UN should recognize as a human right the right to life from "conception until natural death" - using the same terminology the Vatican uses to express its opposition to abortion.
Serbia intends to pronounce any declaration of independence by Kosovo annulled even before any declaration has been made, its PM has said. He said that Serbia would "in advance cancel out the... creation of a fictitious state."
A unilateral declaration of independence by Serbia's Kosovo province would violate international law and damage security in Europe, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday. He said the US and European countries did not understand the potential consequences of independence for Kosovo. "It would undermine the basics of security in Europe, it would undermine the basics of the United Nations charter. ... They do not understand that it would inevitably result in a chain reaction in many parts of the world, including Europe and elsewhere."
Russia has threatened to target the Ukraine with nuclear warheads if the former Soviet republic joins NATO and accepts the deployment of US anti-missile defences on its territory.
Israel's Housing Minister said on Tuesday that 1,100 new apartments will be built in 2 Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. "There is no delay, limitation, or suspension of the construction of Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem."
Palestinians yesterday tried to burn down Joseph's Tomb according to Palestinian security officials speaking to WND. It marks the 2nd time the Palestinians attempted to burn down the tomb, located near Nablus, the biblical city of Shechem.
The Torah describes how Jacob purchased a land plot in Shechem, which was given as an inheritance to his sons and was used to re-inter Joseph, whose bones were taken out of Egypt during the Jewish exodus. Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, are also said to be buried at the site.
[WAR: So how close are we to seeing flames spread from Joseph's tomb to his house -- which is Ephraim (UK/NZ/AU) and Manasseh (US)? "Seek YAHWEH and live, or he will sweep through the house of Joseph like a fire; it will devour, and Bethel will have no one to quench it." (Amos 5:6).]
Tom Harb, secretary general of the pro-democracy World Council of the Cedars Revolution, says the danger of losing Lebanon is imminent.
"Hezbollah will try to take over the Lebanese government by summer unless the pro-democracy majority proceeds and elects a president with a simple majority. If Hezbollah takes over they will move south, fully supporting Hamas in Gaza for a move on the West Bank."
Desperate for troops, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is trying to scare Europeans with the threat of "international terrorism," but Europeans know that the best way to bring terrorism to Europe is to send troops to fight Muslims for the Americans.
If the US now needs foreign troops to save its bacon in these 2 lost wars, it should demand them from Israel. Israel is why the US is at war in the Middle East. Let Israel supply the troops.
The neocons who dominated the Bush regime and took America to illegal wars are allied with the extreme right-wing government of Israel. The goal of neoconservatism is to remove all obstacles to Israeli territorial expansion. The Zionist aim is to grab the entirely of the West Bank and southern Lebanon, with more to follow later.
Gates stated that his warning of the destruction of NATO was not explicitly directed against any individual member of the alliance, but that he was addressing all members. There is no doubt, however, that his comments were directed in particular towards Germany.
The arrogant manner in which the head of the Pentagon calls for Europeans, and especially the Germans, to contribute to spilling more blood in Afghanistan is quite remarkable.
The fact that he could make such an aggressive speech, and threaten a split within NATO, is bound up with the fact that he is well aware of the cowardice of the European governments—especially in Germany.
Germany's grand coalition government in Berlin is reacting to the increasing pressure from the US by gradually adapting and expanding its military missions abroad, while trying to conceal these decisions from the general population.
(And: NATO at twilight)
(Op-ed: Gates, NATO and Afghanistan)
Serious rifts are coming to the surface among the NATO allies. The Afghanistan situation is lost, from a military standpoint, and any idea that a new "surge" of NATO forces can bring stability to the country and the region is pure folly.
Furthermore, it could bring down the German government, along with other European governments, that are already facing massive public pressure for their failure to deal with the onrushing global financial collapse, which has devastated the conditions of life for a majority of citizens—and could not survive the popular blowback from increased military deployments and casualties.
Some US military specialists have observed that, if the Bush Administration adopts the insane plan coming out of the American Enterprise Institute "Afghan Planning Group," the one likely outcome will be the final demise of NATO.
A hard-core faction of British, American, and Continental European neocon wanna-be imperialists, is determined to keep NATO going, under the guise of "out-of-area" peacekeeping missions, which have thinly concealed a new round of imperial "mandate" occupations—as in Afghanistan and the Balkans.
Below the surface, this faction has been building up a NATO encirclement of Russia and China, in anticipation of a future confrontation. However, as a military force, NATO is broken.
All the pressure in the world is not going to move the other NATO states to wage global asymmetric war, in the midst of the biggest financial and economic crash in modern history.
So, NATO now faces an existential crisis, and the prospects are growing, by the day, that NATO will die a not-so-quiet death at the gates of Kabul.
Most Europeans regard the Afghan conflict as: wrong and immoral; America's war; all about oil; probably lost. To many Europeans, the NATO alliance was created to deter the once real threat of Soviet aggression, not to supply foot soldiers for George Bush's wars in the Muslim World.
What angry Sec. Gates fails to see is that by pushing NATO into a distant Asian war without political purpose or seeming end, he is endangering the very alliance that is the bedrock of US power in Europe.
By pushing NATO towards a bridge too far, the Bush Administration may end up fatally undermining NATO and encouraging anti-American forces in Europe. In fact, it's becoming evident that the cash-strapped US needs the EU more than the EU needs the US.
Meanwhile, the war is ominously spreading into neighboring Pakistan, stretching beleaguered US and NATO forces ever thinner. A primary reason for Gates' recent request for Islamabad to "invite" US troops to begin assaults against pro-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen inside Pakistan is due to their growing attacks on US/NATO supply lines to Afghanistan.
Over 70% of US/NATO supplies come in by truck through Pakistan's tribal belt known as FATA, including all of their oil and gas. Attacks by pro-Taliban tribesmen against these vulnerable supply lines are jeopardizing western military operations inside Afghanistan.
Cutting off invader's supply lines is a time-honored Pashtun military tactic. They used it against Alexander the Great, the British, and Soviets, and are at it again.
Pakistani authorities searched for the country's abducted ambassador to Afghanistan and 2 kidnapped nuclear experts on Tuesday as insecurity mounted ahead of crucial elections next week.
A Sudanese presidential political advisor has said that the UN Security Council is responsible for the bloodshed in Chad because of its resolution to support the regime of Chad President Idris Debi.
Iran's defense expenditure per capita remains among the lowest in the Middle East region despite having the 2nd-highest population behind Egypt.
Zbigniew Brzezinski stated "Some people with good reason fear an Iranian-US military clash before Bush leaves office in 12 months time." Brzezinski's fear is that the Iraqi war instead of winding down could be enlarged before Bush's departure.
"War is inherently dynamic. There maybe some collisions, flashes, provocations, a clash with Iran, perhaps some terrorist act in the US, which can credibly be blamed on the Iranians. Al Qaeda has stated not long ago that such a collision between America and Iran will be very much in its strategic interest."
Generally speaking, Iranians like Americans — not just American products, which remain very popular, but Americans. That is not entirely new: Iranians on an individual level have long expressed a desire to restore relations between the countries. But the sentiment seems much more out in the open now.
The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday the loading of nuclear-tipped missiles on a B-52 bomber at a US air base last August was an unprecedented and significant security failure. "While historically there have been nuclear weapons accidents, with varying degrees of severity, no breach of nuclear procedures of this magnitude has ever occurred."
John McCain was not born in the United States of America but rather born in Panama to US Citizens while his father served in the Navy which appear to eliminate him from serving as President.
Elected to end the war, Democrats have surrendered to Bush on Iraq and betrayed the peace movement for their own political ends.
Barack Obama swept Tuesday's 3 Democratic presidential primaries. The results, spelling the 8th defeat for Clinton out of the 8 primaries and caucuses held so far this month, have increased doubts about the viability of her candidacy.
The primaries demonstrated the way in which the Democratic Party establishment is split between the candidates. The reality is that Obama is himself backed not only by substantial sections of the Democratic Party establishment, but also by powerful interests within America's financial elite.
Within these circles, Obama's candidacy is seen as an opportunity to effect a shift in foreign policy aimed at shoring up US imperialist interests threatened by the disastrous results of the policies of the Bush administration, particularly in the Middle East.
The evident fear is that, should Clinton fail to pull ahead decisively in the upcoming primaries and also refuse to bow out, the convention could become the scene of bitter public in-fighting, potentially convincing millions more Americans of the undemocratic character of the entire political system based on the domination of a financial elite represented by two big business parties.
Barack Obama can be politically destroyed by scandal on a moment's notice. Both the Guardian and the Independent published detailed stories on Obama's ties to jailed political fixer and slumlord Antoin "Tony'' Rezko, one of the earliest political and financial backers of the Illinois Senator's meteoric rise to political prominence.
These revelations represent just the tip of the iceberg, according to US intelligence sources, who confirm that the Rezko trial will be full of surprises.
Don't imagine for a moment that a changing of the guard in Washington will keep the neocon foxes out of the proverbial hen-house.
They're already crawling all over the DLC, and they'll find their way into a Democratic White House via the interstices between pure politics and policy wonkery. If the Republicans manage to overcome the odds, and McCain winds up in the White House, the neocons will be back – and with a vengeance.
Like vampires risen from the dead each night, these creatures who shun the light and feast on pain and suffering, are refreshed and ready to take wing again. What they seek is what makes them feel alive and energizes them to want more, and that is war.
They are the War Party, and they are Democrats and Republicans. They are columnists and publishers and academics, as well as politicians and publicists. They don't have much of a mass base: they prefer to work in the shadows, manipulating rather than inspiring.
Venezuela's state oil company said that it has stopped selling crude to Exxon Mobil Corp. in response to the US oil company's drive to use the courts to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets.
In the current credit crunch, the behaviour of inter-bank rates is proving deadly to a new generation of traders. The difference between inter-bank rates and central bank rates or government bond rates has increased sharply. This is making inter-bank and corporate borrowings expensive contributing to problems in the credit markets.
This difference is the "swap spread" also known as the Treasury Eurodollar ("TED") spread - the margin between inter-bank rates and government bond rates of the same maturity.
Swap spreads will continue to be under pressure and remain volatile until the underlying credit risk conditions in the bank market change. The outlook for bank credit remains uncertain.
Regulators and central banks have few policy tools to directly influence the market driven swap spread. Cuts in central bank rates and pumping liquidity via money market operations into the system has little if any impact on the swap spread.
Righting the record...
The Spanish Inquisition, which began in 1481, cannot be understood without recognizing the significance of this epic 771-year struggle between Christians and Muslims over the Spanish peninsula.
It was widely feared that Jews were again encouraging Muslim leaders to attempt the recapture of al-Andalus, as they had its original capture 8 centuries before. ("It remains a fact that the Jews, either directly or through their coreligionists in Africa, encouraged the Mohammedans to conquer Spain." - The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906). Vol XI, 485.)
Despite its reputation as one of the most vicious and lethal institutions in human history, the Spanish Inquisition was one of the most humane and decent of its time, and one could even argue the most reasonable, considering the circumstances.
In light of its nightmarish reputation, it will surely surprise those who believe that millions of people died in the Spanish Inquisition to learn that throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, less than 3 people per year were sentenced to death by the Inquisition throughout the Spanish Empire.
Secular historians given access to the Vatican's archives in 1998 discovered that of the 44,674 individuals tried between 1540 and 1700, only 804 were recorded as being relictus culiae saeculari.
The 763-page report indicates that only 1% of the 125,000 trials recorded over the entire inquisition ultimately resulted in execution by the secular authority, which means that throughout its infamous 345-year history, the dread Spanish Inquisition was less than one-fourteenth as deadly on an annual basis as children's bicycles.
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