Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
Pope Benedict XVI spoke to the members of the executive committee of the International Union of Superiors General, telling them that "when communities have chosen to return to the origins and live in a way more in keeping with the spirit of the founder," they see positive signs of renewal.
He explained to the religious superiors that returning to their roots "has helped give institutes a promising new ascetic, apostolic and missionary impulse" and that "It is along this road that we must continue, praying to the Lord to bring to full fruition the work He began."
B16's Q&A with Roman clergy (part 7)
B16's Q&A with Roman clergy (part 8)
The ice is melting in relations with the Russian Orthodox Church, and there is good will for cooperation, says the president of the Pontifical Council for Promotion Christian Unity.
"The situation has improved; it's no longer ice, the ice is melting. We are of the opinion that a personal encounter between the Pope and Patriarch Alexy II would be very helpful for the further development of our relations.
"The Moscow Patriarchate has never in principle excluded such an encounter, but it claims that some problems have to be resolved beforehand, i.e., the problem of what they call proselytism and uniatism.
"The Catholic Church recognizes that Russia has a longstanding Christian tradition and culture. We recognize all the sacraments, the episcopate and the priesthood of the Russian Orthodox Church.
"Therefore, it is not our policy or strategy to convert the Orthodox to the Catholic Church. We do not undertake missionary work in Russia as we do in the pagan regions of the world. We want to collaborate with the Russian Orthodox in missionary work and in evangelization."
In a letter to the faithful of his diocese, Bishop Sanchez said the Spanish bishops are not trying to meddle in politics, but they will not renounce their right to freely speak about political issues.
"We are interested in the issues of the world in which we live, to which we belong and in which we have our own responsibility and duties. As such, we offer, but never impose, criteria for discernment based on what we consider to the nature of things and proper reasoning, reinforced by the principles that are derived from the Gospel and that are developed in the Social Teaching of the Church."
Treasure hunters in Germany claim they have found hidden gold in an underground cavern that they are almost certain contains the Amber Room treasure, believed by some to have been stashed away by the Nazis in a secret mission in the dying days of WW2.
The discovery of an estimated 2 tonnes of gold was made at the weekend when electromagnetic pulse measurements located the man-made cavern 20 meters underground near the village of Deutschneudorf on Germany's border with the Czech Republic.
The Landesbanken have been among the financial institutions who have loaded up with subprime junk as though there was no tomorrow. There probably is not now. Frankfurter Allgemeine has a report about Bayerische Landesbank - Bavaria's state bank - where its CEO was forced out yesterday, after the bank reported losses of €2bn.
The article contains a lot of baroque Bavarian politics, but it is a good reflection of how this crisis has hit Germany public sector financial institutions.
[Europress] [Russopress]
Formal ratification of the EU treaty in Germany may be delayed, meaning the bloc's biggest member state would not sign off the treaty in time for it to come into force across all member states at the beginning of 2009 as planned.
According to a report in German daily Die Welt, politicians from the Left Party as well as Peter Gauweiler, a centre-right politician from the Christian Social Union, are examining the text of the EU treaty to see if they can bring a case before the country's constitutional court.
German MPs are widely expected to approve the treaty when it comes before parliament in May. However, the text then needs to be signed off by the country's president, Horst Kohler -- who hopes to be re-elected as president in May 2009, but now finds himself in an awkward position.
Tony Blair's hopes of becoming Europe's first president are running into mounting opposition across the EU, with Germany determined to stymie the former prime minister.
"There was surprise in Berlin when Blair's name came up so soon," said a European ambassador. Chancellor Merkel admires Blair and has "great personal sympathy for Tony", he added. "But more generally the German political elite would be puzzled by the idea of Tony Blair. His track record on EU matters is not so great. There is unease about a Briton at the top in that job. And then personally with Blair, there's the Iraq thing."
Formally, the post of president is to be decided by a qualified majority vote of EU countries, meaning that Germany, the EU's biggest and most powerful member, could be outvoted. But this is broadly seen as inconceivable. "You simply cannot impose a candidate against Germany's wishes," said the sources close to Merkel.
At last, say some European Union leaders, it is time for tough talk about the future of farming. German farmers from the plains of Schleswig-Holstein would "love to see no quotas", says an official. Yet the German government is resisting reform. This is said to be because the German farm minister is both ambitious and from Bavaria, a hilly place with lots of small farms.
The Vatican called for "prudence and moderation" after Kosovo's declaration of independence, while the Serbian Orthodox Church urged UN intervention to protect the Christian minority in the breakaway Serbian province. "We are all expecting something difficult and horrible," said the head of the Serbian Orthodox community in Kosovo.
Three days after Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia, the German government has formally recognized the Balkan state. Serbia has responded by announcing it is recalling its ambassador from Berlin.
Listening to Brussels, it sounds like the EU is one big happy family when it comes to Kosovo's declaration of independence. But nothing could be further from the truth. The EU, in other words, is hopelessly divided when it comes to Kosovo.
A majority of EU countries, one keeps hearing, is in favor of Kosovo independence. But a closer look reveals that the majority is far from overwhelming. Some 17 countries of the 27-member total are eager to recognize the new nation. But that leaves a large number of European countries who are either against Kosovo independence, or unsure.
The support of the US and the major European powers for Kosovo's unilateral secession from Serbia, in the face of fierce opposition from Serbia and Russia, as well as China, marks a turning point in international politics. The action was carried out without the sanction of the UN Security Council and in contravention of UN resolutions.
Control of the Balkans is of great strategic importance for both the US and the European powers, and the prerequisite for this control is the dissolution of Yugoslavia, which has now been completed with the secession of Kosovo.The European powers, and above all Germany, also regard their intervention in the Balkans as crucial for enhancing their weight in Europe.
Kosovo and the Balkans as a whole constitute an important access route to the Black Sea and the energy supplies of the Caspian Basin. There is currently a range of plans for competing gas and oil pipelines in which Kosovo plays an important role. Kosovo also has its own reserves of gold, lead, tin and brown coal.
(And: On January 10, Swiss-based Manas Petroleum Corporation broke the news. Gustavson Associates LLC's Resource Evaluation identified large prospects of oil and gas reserves in Albania, close to Kosovo. This development further underscores Kosovo's importance and the cost that's meant for Serbia.)
('99 flash-back: Political lessons of the Balkan War)
Kosovo's sovereignty is a fiction: real power lies with EU officials backed by Western firepower
Parallels between Kosovo in 2008 and Bosnia in 1908 are relevant, but not only because, whatever legal trickery the west uses to override UN security council resolution 1244 – which kept Kosovo in Serbia – the proclamation of the new state will have incalculable long-term consequences: on secessionist movements from Belgium to the Black Sea via Bosnia, on relations with China and Russia, and on the international system as a whole.
They are also relevant because the last thing the new state will be is independent. Instead, what has now emerged south of the Ibar river is a postmodern state, an entity that may be sovereign in name but is a US-EU protectorate in practice.
Kosovo is also home to the vast US military base Camp Bondsteel, near Urosevac – a mini-Guantánamo that is only one in an archipelago of new US bases in eastern Europe, the Balkans and central Asia.
This is why the Serbian prime minister specifically attacked Washington for the Kosovo proclamation, saying that it showed that the US was "ready to unscrupulously and violently jeopardise international order for the sake of its own military interests."
(And: Kosovo Serbs torch UN checkpoints ... UN police quit)
Kosovo "independence" and the Project for a "New Middle East"
Western public opinion has been misled. Unfolding events and realities on the ground in the former Yugoslavia have been carefully manipulated. Germany and the US have deep-seated geo-strategic interests in dividing Yugoslavia. Washington and Berlin have also been the first governments to recognize the secessionist states, which resulted from the breakup of the Yugoslav federation.
The declaration of independence of Kosovo is a means towards legitimizing the dissolution and breaking up of sovereign states on a global scale. Eurasia is the main target.
Kosovar "independence" is part of a neo-colonial program with underlying economic and geo-political interests. The objective is to instate a New World Order and establish hegemonic control over the global economy.
In this sense Kosovo provides a blueprint and a "dress-rehearsal" which can now be applied to restructuring the economies and borders of the Middle East, under the Project for a "New Middle East."
The restructuring model that is being applied in the former Yugoslavia is precisely what is intended for the Middle East — a process of balkanization and economic control.
(Already: Renegade Transnistria: "Kosovo is model")
(Already: Palestinian aide suggests Kosovo a model)
The US warned Russia not to encourage separatists in the Republic of Georgia by comparing their cause to Kosovo's.
The US is reviewing the feasibility of deploying a NATO force in the West Bank as a way to ease IDF security concerns and facilitate an Israeli withdrawal from the area within the coming years, defense officials have told The Jerusalem Post.
The plan, which is being spearheaded by US Special Envoy to the region Gen. James Jones, is being floated among European countries, which could be asked to contribute troops to a West Bank multinational force.
The next Middle East war may start over Sderot. To many Israelis, the daily rain of Qassam rockets is reason enough to go back into Gaza and eradicate the rocket-makers, the rocket launchers and the entire Hamas leadership that now runs Gaza.
Pakistani voters handed Islamist political parties a massive defeat Monday, virtually eliminating them from regional parliaments in an election that's likely to have a wide-ranging impact on efforts to rein in growing Taliban and al Qaida influence in Pakistan's North West Frontier province. "This is a sea-change. The people have rejected the much-hyped Islamic nation concept."
Int'l rogue country!...
In the predawn hours of Jan. 29, a CIA Predator aircraft flew in a slow arc above the Pakistani town of Mir Ali. The drone's operator, relying on information secretly passed to the CIA by local informants, clicked a computer mouse and sent the first of 2 Hellfire missiles hurtling toward a cluster of mud-brick buildings a few miles from the town center.
The missiles killed a senior al-Qaeda commander and a man who had repeatedly eluded the CIA's dragnet. It was the first successful strike against al-Qaeda's core leadership in 2 years, and it involved, US officials say, an unusual degree of autonomy by the CIA inside Pakistan.
Having requested the Pakistani government's official permission for such strikes on previous occasions, only to be put off or turned down, this time the CIA did not seek approval.
Officials say the incident was a model of how Washington acts with assistance from well-paid sympathizers inside the country, but without getting the government's formal permission beforehand.
President Bush delivered a veiled rebuke to China yesterday when he said that profit must come second to stopping the bloodshed in Sudan. He warned countries which are reluctant to impose sanctions on Sudanese leaders that "human suffering ought to pre-empt commercial interests".
This was a thinly-disguised reference to China, which has invested £8 billion in Sudan's oil industry in return for access to its 6 billion barrels of proven OIL reserves.
Bush had intended that threats of tougher sanctions could soon by backed up by a greater US military presence on African soil. But it emerged yesterday that his hopes of opening military bases to boost security and peacekeeping efforts across the continent have been quietly shelved. The proposal to move the US's Africa command, Africom, from its present base in Germany has been postponed because not enough countries offered to host the bases.
History to repeat?...
The Moon will turn an eerie shade of red for people in the western hemisphere tonight. Lunar eclipses have long been associated with superstitions and signs of ill omen, especially in battle. The defeat of the Persian king Darius III by Alexander the Great in the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC was foretold by soothsayers when the Moon turned blood-red a few days earlier.
Target practice by light of eclipsed moon?...
An attempt to blast a crippled US spy satellite out of the sky using a Navy heat-seeking missile - possibly tonight - would be the first real-world use of this piece of the Pentagon's missile defense network.
The attempted shootdown, already approved by President Bush, is seen by some as blurring the lines between defending against a weapon like a long-range missile and targeting satellites in orbit.
The government issued notices to aviators and mariners to remain clear of a section of the Pacific beginning at 10:30PM EST tonight, indicating the first window of opportunity to launch an SM-3 missile from a Navy cruiser, the USS Lake Erie, in an effort to hit the wayward satellite.
(And: This would center the missile strike on the darkness of tonight's lunar eclipse and possibly render reentering debris visible from the western parts of North America.)
A most frightening report is circulating in the Kremlin today that states that the ongoing swarm of earthquakes occurring near the giant US Naval Base in San Diego, California, and the giant 7.6 magnitude earthquake hitting in Indonesia today, are 'direct consequences' of the United States effort to 'bend' our Earth's atmosphere in an effort to destroy one of their spy satellites.
According to these reports from the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics in Siberia, and where Russian and Chinese scientists monitor the activities of the US High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Alaska, the American's intend upon their becoming the first Nation in the World to use the abilities of the potentially catastrophic quantum particle beam accelerators now being developed, but never tested, in 'real-time' experiments.
The exact 'plan' of the US, these reports state, is to use what is termed as a 'triangulation' of quantum particle beams originating from their HARRP facility in Alaska, their vast Naval Base in California, and their secretive Indian Ocean base on the Diego Garcia atoll, to 'alter the space-time continuum' of our Earth's electro plasma sheathing in order to 'lift' the magnetosphere into the orbit of their orbiting spy satellite so that it will cease its space orbiting and be destroyed.
It is also interesting to note that the exact timing of this quantum weapons test, by the Americans, is coinciding with tonight's total lunar eclipse, and which these reports state the US is dependent upon in their belief that the 'pull' being exerted upon our Earth from the Moon during this eclipse will 'mitigate' any potentially catastrophic effects that may occur.
Real space target of US?...
Iran on Sunday said a probe it sent into space on the back of rocket whose launch caused international concern was sending data back to earth from an altitude of up to 155 miles.
Kavoshgar (Explorer) was launched earlier this month on what Iran touted as its first rocket to be sent into space on a mission to prepare for the launch of its first home-produced Iranian satellite [Omid ("Hope")] later this year -- and will be put into orbit at a "altitude of 400 miles above the Earth.
The head of the IAEA will most probably present the Board of Governors with his special report on Iran's nuclear program on Friday.
(And: IAEA "to declare Iran clean")
Propaganda Poop!...
A group of exiled Iranians who worked in Iran's secretive nuclear world say Iran closed a nuclear warhead production facility in 2003, as the US intelligence report says, but opened soon after another, more advanced facility in a different location.
Iran is no threat to the Persian Gulf region, the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates said in Tehran. "Claims by aliens that Iran is a threat to the region are vague as regional states share a lot of historic and contemporary common grounds."
Ahmadinejad said that "interference by aliens" would have no effect on bilateral ties between Tehran and Abu Dhabi and both countries could play a significant role in safeguarding regional security.
In yet another verbal attack against Israel, President Ahmadinejad called the Jewish state a "filthy bacteria" whose sole purpose was to oppress the other nations of the region.
"The world powers established this filthy bacteria, the Zionist regime, which is lashing out at the nations in the region like a wild beast. [Israel] won support [from the other nations] which created it as a scarecrow, so as to keep the people of this area under control."
When Barack Obama got going, the Israel lobby thought he was a green no-account. They all went to Hillary, the big Jews did, and the neocons went to Rudy and McCain. Obama was always low on the Haaretz Who-loves-Israel ratings. Which is to say, Obama rose without the active support of the lobby.
Now the lobby is freaking out and trying to claim him after all. These guys really don't know whether to shit or shine their shoes right now. It's too late to embrace Obama and really make a difference. And if they follow Joe to McCain, they could get swamped in the fall.
Mayor Bloomberg charged that "fraud" was behind the unofficial results in the New York Democratic presidential primary that produced 0 votes for Barack Obama in some districts.
The idea of an "independent" Bloomberg-Obama ticket has now been floated. In a piece by Armstrong Williams, there appears the following report under the title "Obama the Independent?":
"The word on the street is that the Obama camp and New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg have already met and devised an incredible plan if Clintion wins the nominee. Mayor Bloomberg would give nearly $1 billion to Obama's campaign after which Obama would bolt form the Democratic Party and run as an independent candidate with kingmaker Bloomberg as his running mate."
The pollster-operative for Bloomberg's election campaigns has described scenarios in which the US government could be put under fascist control, without the leaders of such a coup winning the 2008 Presidential elections.
In his just-released book, Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two-Party System, Douglas Schoen proposes that a 3rd-party candidate could use electoral votes short of a majority to "make a deal where cabinet positions would be shared and policy positions melded" with 1 of the 2 parties.
"An independent candidate could just win a few states, but still "prevent either of the 2 major parties from receiving the needed 270 [electoral] votes... Again, the independent could bargain with one of the parties to create a coalition... As in the first scenario, there would be a sharing of cabinet positions and a melding of political philosophies. Either scenario could result in America's first-ever coalition, power-sharing government... In a deadlocked election, if no side was willing to offer concessions, the Electoral College could meet and choose a candidate that was not one of the original 3 candidates."
John McCain is no peacekeeper or peace seeker. McCain boasts that he supported "the surge," seeing the need for more "boots on the ground" in Iraq. During President Clinton's air war over Bosnia, McCain faulted the president for his unwillingness to put American "boots on the ground" in that war. No one knows for sure just where on earth Sen. McBootsonthebrain does not want American "boots on the ground."
Gen. Patton knew war, too. As WW2 was winding down, he was itching for a war with Russia. I loved the way that was portrayed in the movie, "Patton." "I'll have us a war with sons o' bitches in no time, and I'll make it look like they started it!"
(And: McCain vs. Taft?)
Oil futures shot higher Tuesday, closing above $100 for the first time as investors bet that crude prices will keep climbing despite evidence of plentiful supplies and falling demand. At the pump, gas prices rose further above $3 a gallon.
The fact that there was no overriding reason for such a price spike could be a bad omen for consumers already bearing the burdens of high heating costs and falling real estate values.
Stocks today fell in Europe, after a sell-off in Asia sparked by a spike in oil prices and the news that a top buyout firm was having trouble refinancing debt.
As municipal bond auctions continue to fail — and to produce very odd interest rates when they succeed — it is becoming clear that the auction-rate market is in crisis and chaos, and many securities may never have a successful auction again.
If they continue, the auction failures could lead to the selling of billions of dollars in municipal bonds. That, in turn, could push up the rates that cities and states must pay to borrow money.
NYU Professor Roubini's scenarios have been dire enough to make the flesh creep. But his thinking deserves to be taken seriously. Now he states that there is "a rising probability of a 'catastrophic' financial and economic outcome".
The characteristics of this scenario are, he argues: "A vicious circle where a deep recession makes the financial losses more severe and where, in turn, large and growing financial losses and a financial meltdown make the recession even more severe."
"Total losses in the financial system will add up to more than $1,000bn and the economic recession will become deeper more protracted and severe." This, he suggests, is the "nightmare scenario" keeping Bernanke and colleagues at the US Federal Reserve awake.
Can the Fed head this danger off? In a subsequent piece, Prof Roubini gives 8 reasons why it cannot.
Despite the gloating over America's troubles, the euro area looks increasingly fragile
There are few who truly believe any longer that Europe's economies can shrug off bad news from elsewhere. The facts suggest that Europe is not weathering the global financial storms well.
Much will depend on whether traditionally thrifty German consumers, who were least affected by rising house prices and who shun credit, can make up for weaker demand elsewhere in the region. The signs so far are not encouraging.
(And: ECB chief Trichet knows he better watch it or the German haus fraus will give him the business end of a rolling pin. Forget about guns and revolution, the women of Germany will take down the EU single handedly with their kitchen implements.
We see Germany going back to the Deutsche mark much sooner than anyone thinks as Trichet flees from their wrath. Merkel is one of them, and she just may join them if the ECB starts to lower rates to protect its weaker members, which we all know is where Trichet is headed despite all of his phony bologna propaganda. Bean him once for us Angela!)
Grain farmers will need to harvest record crops every year to meet increasing global food demand and avoid famine, the CEO of Potash Corp. said. People and livestock are consuming more grain than ever, draining world inventories and increasing the likelihood of shortages, he said.
Global grain stockpiles fell to about 53 days of supply last year, the lowest level since record-keeping began in 1960, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
An archbishop's outburst highlights a broader crisis in his church
"Anglicanism, it seems, is coming apart. It is ceasing to be, it is disintegrating..." Those cheery words, uttered 2 weeks ago by an American bishop drew cries of approval from traditionalists across the world who have little sympathy with the efforts of Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to hold together the 80m-strong worldwide Anglican Communion.
The American prelate went on to predict that out of the fall of the "Elizabethan settlement" (the 16th-century bargain between the Tudor monarchs and England's national church) something truer to Christianity's roots would emerge.
(Op-ed: Church & State: Sever them)
Not paying attention...
The 5th day of this month in Scripture
"After 40 days [255th day of the flood] Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the Earth. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the Earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark." (Gen 8:6-9)
Today in Scripture
"He waited 7 more days [262nd day of the flood] and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the Earth." (Gen 8:10,11)
[WAR: Since there's a total lunar eclipse tonight, could it be possible that Noah also saw an eclipse that night -- right after the dove returned in the evening? Just wonderin'...]
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