Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
On the one hand we see Jesus fully man[!]: He even shares temptation with us. On the other hand, we contemplate the Son of God: He divinizes our humanity[?]. In this way we can say that these 2 Sundays act as pillars upon which rest the whole edifice of Lent right up to Easter, and, indeed, the whole structure of Christian life, which essentially consists in the paschal dynamism -- from death to life.
B16's Q&A session with Roman clergy (part 6)
The demands on Germany's Afghanistan mission are increasing. But the current parliamentary mandate does not allow for more troops to be sent. Berlin is considering creative solutions, including outsourcing parts of the mission or withdrawing from the anti-terror effort.
The German government is considering exiting the US-led anti-terror operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and has already sent out feelers in Washington about the issue. Government sources in Berlin say that Washington is expected to demand greater German role in southern Afghanistan in exchange for any KSK pullout.
[Europress] [Russopress]
President Sarkozy is pushing to create an elite European defence force consisting of forces from the 6 largest EU member states: France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy and Poland.
Plans for increased defence cooperation among EU member states are seen as controversial in NATO circles. In the past they have drawn fire especially from the US. EU member states already have a mechanism for joint procurement in the area of defence.
After Kosovo declared independence, the Holy See particularly urged Serbian and Kosovar leaders to be prudent and avoid violence. "In this moment, the Holy See feels first of all the responsibility of its moral and spiritual mission, which also regards peace and good order in relations between nations, and therefore invites all, especially the political officials of Serbia and Kosovo, to be prudent and moderate, and asks for a decided and real commitment to avoid extremist reactions and violence, in such a way that there can now be created the premises of a future of respect, reconciliation and collaboration."
Serbia's prime minister said the US has "humiliated" the EU and "forced [it] to discard its basic principles. Europe bowed its head before America, and it will be held responsible for all the consequences that will arise from Kosovo's independence. It is Europe that has been humiliated, not Serbia."
In this context, EU foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels today and will try to produce a common reaction to the declaration of independence. The ministers are expected to hold long and heated debates and to agree to "take note" of the creation of the Republic of Kosovo, leaving it to individual member states whether or not they recognise the new state.
But member states are far from being unanimous on the issue, where every word of a possible EU position is seen as sensitive. At the moment, 4 countries are not expected to recognise Kosovo – Spain, Romania, Cyprus and Greece.
Yesterday's declaration of independence from Serbia by Kosovo's parliament brings the world a step closer to another war on European soil. The move has been prepared and encouraged by the US and the European powers in a deliberate attempt to stoke hostilities with Russia.
The unilateral move by Kosovo is expected to win the support of the US and the EU today, in the face of strenuous objections from both Serbia and Russia that this action is a flagrant breach of international law. There is no Security Council resolution authorising the independence of Kosovo from Serbia, so it is therefore illegal.
Kosovo has long been the focus of bitter conflict between the Serbian government and separatist forces from the territory's majority ethnic Albanians. These conflicts were utilised by the Western powers to facilitate the break up of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and thereby secure their domination of a region considered strategic in securing control of oil, gas and mineral deposits in territories previously dominated by the Soviet Union.
There are broader fears that developments in Kosovo will unleash separatist demands throughout Europe. Serbia's foreign minister warned of a precedent that would lead to "an uncontrolled cascade of secession".
What is being created is nothing more than a Western protectorate. It will be administered by the EU, but will act as a spearhead of a more general US-led offensive against Russia. In every respect, it represents a grave threat to the peoples of Europe and the entire world. Events prompted the Guardian's Simon Tisdall to warn of "a moment of great peril for Europe."
(And: Russia, Serbia move to annul)
The independent "republic" of Kosovo, added on to Albania and sections of bordering countries, such as Macedonia, is a component of what Kosovar militants refer to as "Greater Albania," a vision of mini-empire that they intend to realize by force. The US appears to have endorsed the concept, if not the full-scale implementation, of "Greater Albania."
From the Balkans to the site of ancient Babylon, our interventionist policies have set us up for confrontations with groups and nations that seek to stem US hegemony, principally Russia and Iran.
We are, it seems, presently engaged in a 2-front "civilizational" conflict: with the Slavic world, in central and eastern Europe, as well as in the rest of Russia's "near abroad"; and with Sunni insurgents and Shi'ite Iranians, i.e., a good deal of the Islamic world.
The Palestinian Authority, aided by international donors, will attempt to open official institutions in Jerusalem within weeks, WND has learned. While Israel has not officially approved the PA's presence in Jerusalem, Palestinian diplomatic sources said there is an unwritten agreement in which Prime Minister Olmert's office has agreed not to interrupt some PA activities in Jerusalem.
Israel is considering a large-scale incursion into the Gaza Strip during which it would present an ultimatum to the international community for the deployment of a multinational force as the only condition under which it would withdraw, defense officials have told The Jerusalem Post.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards today predicted Hezbollah would destroy Israel, after the murder of a top commander of Lebanon's Shiite militant group.
Plenty of writers and political analysts have described President Bush's "war on terror" campaign's historic miscalculations. Few have done so more lethally than Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA who held the unique distinction of directing the agency's Osama bin Laden unit, until he took early retirement in 2004.
Scheuer's latest book, "Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq," his 3rd in a kind of anti-neoconservative trilogy, is no exception. He believes the US should stop intervening in trouble spots around the world - even if this means watching hordes of innocents being slaughtered, women's rights being trampled and Middle Eastern oil going to other countries.
Furthermore, bin Laden's record from 1993 forward suggests, as Scheuer has long argued, that Bush completely misunderstands al Qaeda's aims. The group is not fighting America's democratic values, or even our pop culture exports. It is fighting America's policies throughout the Middle East. "The Islamists' indictment sheet against the US has been precise, limited, and consistent for more than a decade."
(And: Lessons of the Crusades)
Pakistan is set for national and provincial elections today. The results could present President Musharraf with renewed challenges to his rule. So what is the balance of political forces in Pakistan ahead of the polls?
Kofi Annan, chief mediator between Kenya's feuding parties, has asked a German politician (deputy foreign minister, secretly flown in) to explain the workings of Berlin's left-right coalition as a possible power-sharing model to break Kenya's political deadlock.
A 2nd big earthquake in less than 2 weeks brought down houses and left at least 60 people injured in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda on Thursday. The quake measured 5.5, the biggest since the 6.1 quake in the central African Great Lakes region on February 3.
"Eleven tremors were felt during the night in Bukavu, but seismic activity has been much bigger than that: in 24 hours, 200 aftershocks were registered."
[WAR: See the The Daily WAR (10-25) for comments about earthquakes in this area.]
President Putin met with Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Thursday. In Riyadh, they are strongly concerned about the large-scale cooperation of Russia and Iran, particularly the nuclear one. In Saudi Arabia, they are sure that Iran's policy will shatter the region in future and the helping hand of Moscow is needed to prevent it.
Riyadh elaborated a plan to save the region from the so-called Iranian threat, where it is to play the key role in tandem with Moscow. So, the Saudi guest endeavored to persuade the Kremlin that a stronger Iran would disbalance the Middle East. In return to winding up Russia's-Iranian contracts, Riyadh promised to buy Russia's weapons at large, replacing Iran as its partner in military and technical field.
Russia's foreign minister warns the West against using force to resolve Tehran's nuclear issue ahead of the new IAEA report's release. "I cannot imagine that anyone would like to resolve the problem over Iran's nuclear program by force. This is absolutely unacceptable."
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei said that God would punish Iranians if they do not support the country's disputed nuclear program. "The Iranian people openly announce that they will defend their rights... God will reprimand them if they do not do so."
The 68-year-old ayatollah, who has final say on all state matters, said Washington's claim that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon is false. "They know that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon, and they are just trying to block the Iranian nation from achieving advanced technology."
An Iranian ayatollah died suddenly of a heart attack during an impassioned speech lashing out at insults against the family of revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini. He had been responding to unprecedented ultra-conservative attacks against Hassan Khomeini.
Iran established its first oil products bourse Sunday in a free trade zone on the Persian Gulf Island of Kish, the country's oil ministry said. A statement posted on the ministry's Web site said 100 tons of polyethylene consignment was traded at the market's opening on the island, which houses the offices of about 100 Iranian and foreign oil companies.
Oil and petrochemical products will be traded in Iranian Rials, as well as all other hard currencies. Iran has already registered for another oil bourse, in which it has said it hopes to trade oil in Euros instead of dollars. A bourse official said that such an oil market would begin operating within the next year.
(And: "All major currencies of the world will be used in transactions in Iran's oil bourse.")
There are a lot of misconceptions about voting and elections – especially when it comes to voting for president. Americans do need to understand this about presidential elections: your vote doesn't count. The voters in don't vote for president. It doesn't matter what the ballot says. You actually vote for delegates. And in fact, in the primaries and caucuses, the political parties themselves select the delegates.
(And: Holy pundit)
(And: Don't forget Angry White Man)
The kind of people the next president appoints to top positions in national defense, intelligence, and foreign affairs is critical. Such officials usually emerge from among a presidential candidate's team of foreign policy advisors.
The leading Republican candidates have surrounded themselves with people likely to encourage the next president to follow down a similarly disastrous path.
Hillary Clinton's foreign policy advisors tend to be veterans of President Bill Clinton's administration, most notably former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger. Her most influential advisor is Richard Holbrooke.
Barack Obama's foreign policy advisers include mainstream strategic analysts who have worked with previous Democratic administrations, such as former national security advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Anthony Lake, former assistant secretary of state Susan Rice, and former navy secretary Richard Danzig.
(Uh-oh!: "I took drugs, had homo sex with Obama")
(And: McCain close to VP decision)
The president of the United States has far more power than any office in the history of humanity.
The current president claims the right to detain, torture and kill anyone on earth and to start wars and occupations in any nation of his choice. He claims the right to levy taxes on anything, prohibit anything, mandate anything, spy on anyone, and demand that all jurisdictions on the planet bend to his will.
While the laws of economics limit his actual power to alter reality, the pure destructive potential of the modern presidency is beyond unspeakable.
Most Americans want to keep the modern presidency, even as they argue passionately over which would-be tyrant should fill the spot. The differences between candidates are seldom significant and every year the major choices become worse.
Americans shouldn't look to the president for their self-respect, patriotism and cultural identity. The presidency in its current form is entirely too powerful and thus an inherently corrupting and inhumanely destructive thing.
The presidency as it supposedly should be, under the Constitution, is a relatively humble office overseeing the executive branch, 1 of 3 composing a radically restrained government with very limited enumerated powers. Today, the presidency overshadows the other branches, the states, and all Constitutional and statutory limits on its power.
Day after day, there is bad news from the banking sector in Europe and America. There is bad news from the housing markets all over the world. The drip, drip, drip of bad news has a cumulative effect. It undermines investors' confidence in the economy. This calls the stock market into question.
Panic selling does not hit a market without warning, smashing it into a meltdown that lasts for years. It hits after years of nagging doubts, followed by months of bad news in relentless sound bites, and then one unpredictable event that triggers a massive one-day sell-off, which is followed by more days of sell-offs.
Woe unto the investor who is caught fully invested in that initial sell-off. He will look in horror, paralyzed, denying the obvious. The market keeps going down, day after day.
Tout TV commentators interview fund managers, who deny that it's a meltdown, recommend "buying sector stocks," and say, "Buy on the dips." Dips? The market is collapsing.
Day after day, the Dow is up or down 100 points or more, sometimes 200, sometimes more. Why? These are clashes between fundamental views of the future of this stock market and the international economy.
The drip, drip, drip of bad economic news will eventually break the average mutual fund investor's will to resist this downward pressure. "Sell!" "To whom? At what price?"
In May 2006, Alan Greenspan noted: "The CDS (credit default swaps) is probably the most important instrument in finance. … What CDS did is lay-off all the risk of highly leveraged institutions – and that's what banks are, highly leveraged – on stable American and international institutions."
The CDS is economically similar to credit insurance. The CDS market has grown exponentially to current outstandings of around $50 trillion. The key issue is will the contracts protect the banks from the underlying credit risk being hedged. If the CDS contracts fail then "hedged" banks are exposed to losses on the underlying credit risk.
Over the last year, securitisation and the CDO (collateralised debt obligation) market have become dysfunctional. As the credit crisis deepens, the risk of actual defaults becomes real. Analysts expect the level of defaults to increase.
The CDS market is about to be tested. While there have been a few defaults, the market has not had to cope with a large number of defaults at the same time. CDS contracts may experience problems and may be found wanting.
For more than a year, food makers and other consumer products companies in the US have passed on much of the burden of rising commodity costs to American consumers.
But 2008 could be the year in which Americans start shunning branded products for less expensive private-label alternatives, industry experts warn. The next round of price increases "will actually start to impact consumer behavior in a profound way."
A primary school allowed a mother to take her child out of lessons to attend a summer festival because the family say they are pagans. The family visited the solstice festival that is held each year in Avebury, Wiltshire, near Stonehenge.
[WAR: Hey, if they let the neo/covert-pagans (Christians) off for their pagan-inspired holidays, then the old/overt-pagans should get equal treatment!]
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